Chapter 11.

          "Dammit." I could hear his voice as soon as I opened the cell door. His voice sounded strained, sounded annoyed and agitated all at the same time.

It made me want to stop in my tracks.

"You didn't fuck him did you?" He spat out the word fuck as if he couldn't quite handle it coming from his lips. Why was he acting this way? I had told him already what had happened, I wouldn't lie to him, why did he think I would?

I turned around and shut the cell door behind me again.

"Are you an idiot?" My words came out harsher than intended. "Do I look like I'm lying to you?" Aaron didn't reply, he just kept his eyes on me. I hated it when he did that because I couldn't keep my bearings, I bet he knew it too. "What's it to you anyway if I did? We fucked once, you have no right to be jealous."

"I'm not fucking jealous." He snapped. His eyes looked a stormy grey and they ignited the fire within me some more. "Just go."

"Typical." I rolled my eyes. "We're done, we've had our moment and there's nothing more to it, okay? So I can do whatever the hell I please." I didn't know where the hell I was getting this confidence from but I felt powerful, I felt empowered as a woman. I loved this side of me.

"Do it." He said. "Do it."

"I will." I gave him a firm look before opening the cell door wide. "Your cell is cleaned now, inmate." I let the name fall off my lips and I heard him growl angrily at the name. I didn't pay him any more attention. I left his room, my chin held high but my heart a little sunken.

Aaron

I was fucking livid.

I couldn't help the anger shoot through every part of me. I revelled in the feelings because I hadn't felt for years in this place, not a single emotion. I hadn't wanted to, hadn't had the space in my crowded mind to feel.

But that girl, that fucking girl made every hair on my body stand to attention, made every nerve ending alive.

Of course I was angry, why wouldn't I be? I was jealous, too jealous to show her I didn't care at all.

I jumped up on to my bunk and laid my body with my front against the wall. I counted the lines in the walls, hoping my anger would evaporate as quickly as it came. I tried so hard to count the lines, the dents, the tally charts, anything but think of Chloe.

It was harder than I thought it would be. She was on every single part of me, our time together in the stock room playing on my mind like a video.

What if she did fuck that man she met last night? What if she preferred him to me?

I was just getting angry again. So angry I could punch something and I didn't want to do that.

She didn't owe me anything, so why did I feel so fucking angry when I thought about her with someone else?

Before I could think some more, my cell door was opening again. A part of me played a scene in my mind where Chloe would come in to the room, kiss me and tell me I was the only man she wanted to fuck.

To my dismay, Jeff entered the room.

"What's up dickhead?" His greeting agitated me further. "Are you sulking?"

"No."

"I think you are. What's wrong?" He seemed genuinely concerned and I didn't know whether that angered me more or made me feel like somebody cared.

Yeah, as if.

"Nothing." Was my one word response.

"Well, I'll be on the bottom bunk if you want to talk."

His statement was left in the air as I didn't reply. I didn't know how to reply. I was scared that if I opened my mouth I'd tell him everything, tell him everything about how stupid I am being pining after a woman I couldn't have, a woman who didn't want me back.

But that was the old me, the old me would have done something like that, trusted to easily. I wasn't like that now, I vowed I wouldn't trust another soul again, especially a woman.

So why was I trying to bed a woman who could make me do just that?

My head was a mess. It was the normal for me to be like this, but not in this sense.

"I'm still here." Jeff's voice was heard from below my bunk.

"Shut up, Jeff." I snapped. He sighed before I could hear the bunk squeaking. Soon, he was pulling me in to my back and his face was beside me, right in my personal bubble. "Have you ever heard of personal space?" I snapped again.

"No." He said, he was lying. "Your eyes look sad." I rolled my eyes and pushed him away at his words.

"Fuck off, seriously."

"They do." He argued. "You're mean but you've never been...emotional."

"You need to get your eyes sorted." I scoffed. Emotional. I had started to feel again but I wasn't fucking emotional.

Jeff was good at reading people but he wasn't that good.

"When I was a young boy, I liked to bottle up my emotions and that caused me to have some very bad episodes. You don't want to get over loaded with them, pal, you'll need to get them out some how." I listened to his words. "Is it about the girl?"

"There is no girl." God, I wished there wasn't.

"The guard?"

"I don't know who you're on about." Jeff laughed but he wasn't full of humour.

"You underestimate me." He stated. "Too much."

"Just leave it okay?" I said. "I don't want to talk to you anymore." And I turned my back to him.

He didn't speak but I could still feel him behind me. I was so close to telling him to fuck off before I punched his face in but before I could speak, he opened his mouth.

"Do you want to go to the gym?" He asked. I thought about it for a minute and I felt as if him saying this was a way in telling me he was there for me.

I didn't know whether that was true or whether I was making myself believe it.

Anyhow, I took support in his words and I turned around and jumped off the bunk.

I could almost hear Jeff's smile.

"You'll have to show me how you do those ab curls." Jeff said as he followed me out of the cell. "I want to gain some muscle."

I usually would have said something horrible to Jeff, but this time I only replied with the word "sure."

I seem to forget that people here were also lonely too and missing their families. I guess it didn't hurt to be a little bit empathetic now and again.

Chloe wouldn't want me to be mean all of the time.

Jeff and I got to the gym and I started to teach him how to get muscle just like I had done. I never used to have a body like this but I was proud of how much I had achieved in prison.

"What weight should I start off with?" Jeff asked as he looked to the different weights on their rack.

"Judging by those arms I'd say 1kg." I joked. Jeff narrowed his eyes my way but it didn't stop the laugh escaping his mouth.

Jeff was such a lanky man with absolutely no muscle and a greasy head. However, he had kind eyes and I didn't want them to be taken advantage of by others.

"Why are you like this?" He asked. "I hate you."

"I hate you too." I smiled.

Jeff picked up a 4kg weight to start off with. He struggled even with that but I kept him going. My words of encouragement shocked even me. I had never been encouraging, never been one to engage with anybody like this.

When I was young, I was extremely shy. No body would have ever believed it. I wasn't shy now, I just hated everybody.

Well, almost everybody.

The thought of chloe reached my brain again. I didn't let her go from my thoughts, instead, I sat and I let myself think about her.

Maybe this was what I needed. I needed time to think, to feel, to get back in tune with my body and mind. I had felt so distant from it for so long.

I thought about Chloe with another man and I let myself be over come with jealousy. I let myself feel the anger this time, I let it consume me.

Why couldn't I tell Chloe that I did care? Why couldn't I tell her that I was infact jealous? I wanted her, I have since I caught eyes on her. I thought having her once would let me live, let me sleep at night but infact, I just wanted more.

More and more and more until I didn't want to keep going anymore. I want her until I don't. Because she was making me go insane.

I wanted her because she made me feel.

"Sorry, Jeff, I have to go a second." I didn't let him reply before I was running out of the gym and down the corridor in hopes I would find Chloe alone.

Maybe I needed to tell her. Maybe this was what I needed to be able to sleep again.

I looked in every room I was able to go in. I searched almost every corridor of the block I was in. I wasn't allowed any further than that. I wanted to punch something when I couldn't find her, I needed her to be here before I became a pussy and didn't go through with it.

And just as if she knew I was thinking of her, I saw her. She looked so small in a place like this, too innocent, too naive to be meddling with people like me.

But she was something I needed in a place like this. She didn't see it, she didn't even know but she brought something to my life that I didn't even realise I wanted, needed, had to have.

"Chloe." I wanted to shout her name, but I knew I didn't want to get her in to trouble. Instead, I said her name lowly, but I knew she'd hear it.

Her head whipped around and her big eyes landed on mine. I had shivers just by that look she gave.

"Are you okay?" She asked. She wasn't mad anymore, it was a shame, seeing her made had turned me on. It was weird but I kind of liked it.

And no matter what, she was still as caring as ever. That was also different for me.

I looked around the corridor and no one was in sight. I took her gently by the elbow, trying to not look suspicious and I took her to an empty room.

I pushed her inside and shut the door behind me. I knew this room didn't have a camera as it was one of the shower cubical rooms.

I shut the door behind me.

She looked to me with wide eyes. Before she could open her mouth to have a go at me again, I took her body in my hands and I brought her close to my own.

"I've got to be honest." I started. "I am jealous. I've wanted you since the first day I saw you, I've only had you once and I feel like I want to fuck you again. I think about somebody else making you feel the way I did that morning and I don't like it. I want to wrap my hand around the neck of the man who thought he could have you."

"Aaron-"

"I mean it. Of course I fucking care, I'm not that cold hearted."

"You're not cold hearted at all." She replied. I didn't know who she was looking at but her words sparked a bit of passion within me.

So I did what I knew best. I took her face in to my hands, kissed her harshly against the lips and proceeded to unbutton her blouse.

She didn't stop me this time, she wanted it just as much as I did.

I'd never put her job in danger, I'd never put her in danger.

Maybe she knew that too.