First Time Read online

  First Time

  By JL Merrow

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2019 JL Merrow

  ISBN 9781634863506

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  * * * *

  First Time

  By JL Merrow

  When I meet her in the B wing corridor not long before bang-up, I can tell straight off it’s her first time in prison. She’s standing there hugging herself with that rabbit-in-the-headlights look, that whole this can’t be happening to me thing going on.

  “I can’t believe it. How could anyone think I’d do such a thing?” she says when she sees me looking at her, and her bottom lip quivers. I want to kiss it still. She’s small and pretty, her hair a mass of blonde curls she hides her big, brown eyes behind.

  “First time inside?” I ask her. I don’t soften my voice much.

  She nods. “They said I stole—I didn’t, honestly. You’ve got to believe me.”

  “Going to appeal?”

  She looks like she’s going to cry. “Yes…I think so…I don’t even know. And how…They said I can’t even phone people from here. Not until I’ve filled in a form with all the numbers on it. But they haven’t given me the form, and all the numbers were in my phone anyway…”

  “You can write,” I tell her. “Write to someone on the outside, and they can send you in a list of numbers. Don’t write anything you don’t want the screws reading, ‘cos they read it all. Even stuff you send to your solicitor ain’t safe, not all the time, so be careful, all right? Where’s your pad?”

  “You mean, my…cell?” She says the word like it hurts her as she points down the hall.

  “Hey, you’re only two doors down from me. I’m Mel,” I add.

  “Ella.” She bites her lip. “The woman I’m in with—she scares me. She’s so strange, and she keeps staring. Someone told me she’s called Mad Addy.”

  “Nah, Addy’s all right. She ain’t mad. Just not all there. Shouldn’t even be in here, just there’s no one on the outside who gives a shit.”

  Ella shivers, and hugs herself, looking up at me through her hair. “Can…can I ask to be moved?”

  “You don’t wanna do that. Take ‘em months to sort it out, and that’s if they don’t lose the form. Nah, you hang on here a minute.” I look at the clock. Still half an hour before bang-up. Plenty of time. I walk down the hall to Addy’s cell. She’s in there—probably hasn’t even twigged the door’s open. “Hey, Addy. You’re moving. Get your stuff.”

  She stares at me, ‘cos, well, Addy.

  “I’ll help you,” I tell her, and I start bundling her stuff up. I’m careful taking her kitten pictures off the walls ‘cos they’re all she’s got, poor cow. “Got a bar of chocolate waiting for you in your new room,” I add, and that gets her on her feet and picking up the rest of her gear.

  Riz sees me bringing Addy into our pad. She comes on over from down the hall where she’s been chatting up some tart who’s in for extortion. “Oi, what’s goin’ on?”

  “Got you a new roomie,” I tell her. Addy smiles, looking a bit nervous.

  Riz sighs. “You owe me, you slag. Come on, Addy. You can have my bunk.” I grin. Riz never liked having the bottom bunk. Addy sits on the bunk, wide-eyed and smiling like it’s something special. When I toss her the chocolate she probably thinks it’s Christmas.

  It don’t take me long to pack up my stuff. No point keeping much inside ‘cos some tea-leaf’ll only come in and nick it. They’re a bunch of bloody criminals in here.

  I chuck half my stash of cigarettes at Riz on the way out. She blows me a kiss and gives me the finger.

  Luckily, it’s Colly on duty today. She’s one of the decent screws, which means she’s only a bitch if she don’t like your face. She likes my face just fine, so we’re gold. “I’ve swapped bunks with Mad Addy,” I tell her after I’ve dumped my stuff in Ella’s pad. “That all right?”

  Ella’s hovering at my shoulder. Colly gives her the eye then smirks at me. “Whatever. Long as you keep the noise down.”

  “What did she mean?” Ella asks on the way back to her pad. My pad too, now. “About keeping the noise down?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I tell her. “Screws. They fuck with your head. Come on, there’s still ten minutes of sosh left. Might as well make the most of it.”

  “Sosh?” Ella pauses, about to push the cell door open.

  “Association time. Before they lock us up in the cells for the night.”

  “Oh. No, I think I’ll stay in here, anyway. It feels safer in here. Thank you.” And she gives me a shy smile as she goes inside, sits on the bottom bunk, and hugs herself.

  Later, though, when we’re banged up and the light’s faded from the sky outside our window, I can hear the mattress below me creaking as Ella shifts, restless. “Mel?” she says, soft as moonlight. “Are you awake?”

  Girl like her in the bunk below me? Course I’m awake. “Can’t sleep?” I ask her.

  “I’m so cold,” she says. And yeah, the prison blankets are as thin as they are stained, but I know she don’t just mean the chill coming off these bare brick walls. I remember my first night inside, sick with worry and fear. Course, I never let on to anyone. The life I’ve lived, you learn not to let anyone see you vulnerable. But Ella’s not like me.

  “I could bunk in with you,” I say. “It’d be warmer together. If you want.”

  “Would you?” she says, her voice small as a mouse.

  In answer, I just slip down off my bunk and slide between her sheets. She’s warm, so warm, and so tiny there’s plenty of room for both of us.

  I slide my arm around her and pull her close, my chest against her back, my nose sinking into her sweet, herbal-scented cloud of hair. It’s the nicest thing I’ve smelt in months. “Better?” I ask her after a minute.

  “Yes. Thanks,” she says softly, and drifts off to sleep in my arms.

  I lie awake a long while. It’d be so easy to take her breast in my hand, cup it through the thin material of her t-shirt. So easy to pull our clothes aside and press myself against her, skin on skin. My nipples harden at the thought. There’s an ache inside me, a need, and I know she could satisfy it.

  Instead, I just breathe in deep of her, and listen to the sounds of the night. Snoring from old Jean next door. The footsteps of the screws, checking we’re all locked up tight, and a short conversation I can’t quite make out that ends in a laugh.

  When I wake up in the morning, I’m almost surprised to find I’ve slept at all. Ella’s still in my arms, but it’s her stirring that’s woken me. She turns and smiles at me, the
n bites her lip again. “I can’t believe I slept so well. Thank you,” she says before she leans in and kisses me softly on the lips.

  I want her so bad I could cry. Me, Mel, who never cries. She’s all that’s fresh and clean and perfect. She don’t belong in here, where everything’s grimy and worn and a little bit crap.

  I just smile back and say, “Any time” and ruffle her blonde curls before getting up.

  The first few days in a new prison can be rough. Everyone testing your limits, finding out if you’re a sheep or a wolf. No one gives Ella any hassle, though. They all know she’s with me.

  Course, what that means and what they think it means are two different things. Riz looks at the dark circles under my eyes and nudges Jean and laughs, but she’d never guess they’re there because Ella and me lie in each other’s arms every night chaste as a pair of dried-up old nuns.

  And no, it’s not what I’d planned. Course it’s fucking not. But there’s just something about Ella that stops me making a move. It’s like…Well. Reminds me of when it’s first snowed—which happened about once every ten years where I grew up in the South of England. Everything’s pure and white and perfect, and you almost don’t want to go out and play because making footprints in it would spoil it. Then again, there’s always some bastard who’ll come along and piss in it. But like I said, everyone knows Ella’s with me, so at least I don’t have to worry on that score.

  Ella’s been with me a week (not that I’m counting) before she asks about it. “You’re not what I expected,” she says, tracing the curve of my bicep with one dainty little finger. She’s seen me doing pull-ups on the bunk—well, she couldn’t miss it, could she, not when we’re banged up together. Push-ups and sit-ups on the floor, too. I like the way I look, like how I can hold my own in a fight against anyone. I don’t mind working hard to keep it.

  “What do you mean?” I ask her.

  “Well…You never…” and instead of finishing that sentence she takes my hand in her little one and places it on her breast.

  I can’t breathe. “You want me to?” I ask her, and my voice don’t sound right but it’ll have to do.

  Her eyes are black as pitch in the near-darkness. Big, wide pools I could dive straight into and never come up for air. “Yes,” she says, and it’s like a dam inside me bursts.

  I close my eyes for a moment as I squeeze her breast, and I wrap my leg around her body, pressing my cunt against her hip, hard as I can. Then I push her t-shirt up, fingers fumbling. “Jesus, do you have to wear ‘em so bloody tight?” I mutter, quiet so no one’ll hear it but her, and Ella giggles under her breath. She’s got her hands under my tank top, her little fingers stroking me, their touch soft as silk.

  I slide down her body, find her tit with my mouth. Her nipple’s hard, and it tastes like salted caramel. I suckle on it, and she gasps and arches beneath me. My hand’s shaking as I slip it into her knickers and find her hot and wet, just waiting for me. Her little pussy sucks in one finger, then another, like it’s half starved.

  Maybe it is. God knows I’ve been dying of hunger here.

  “More,” she breathes out.

  I stroke my thumb over her clit, and she whimpers, her fist stuffed in her mouth. I let her nipple fall from my lips. “Like that?”

  “Yes. God. More.” She grabs my head and pushes me back down on her breast. Her other hand’s found my tit and she plays with my nipple as I fuck her with my fingers. Then I rub her juices all over my thumb and work on her clit again. Ella’s hand on me loses all control, grabbing and squeezing my tit hard, the pressure just edging pain. Fuck, it’s good.

  She whimpers again, and her whole body trembles as she comes, her pussy clenching on my fingers inside her like a heart beating. I stroke her through it, her chest heaving as she tries not to make a sound.

  My girl.

  I hold her beautiful, sweaty body in my arms, and I don’t even care that I haven’t come. Just being inside her, watching her fall apart, that’s enough for me.

  Not for Ella. “Can I…?” She nods down the bed, and I’m not sure exactly what she means but I’m pretty sure I’m okay with whatever, so I nod, too. Ella slithers down my body and pulls at my kecks until I lift up my hips for her to ease them off.

  I scramble up to half-sitting and open my legs wide to give her more room. The bed creaks, and we both freeze, then shake together with quiet, breathy laughter. Half a second later her mouth is on my cunt, and she’s licking me, and I’m not sure I know where the fuck I am or even who I am, but it’s good, it’s all so fucking good. My jaw’s clenched to stop any sound coming out, and the sheets are bunched in my hands. Waves of pleasure spread through my body, and it’s like I’m free, really free, for once in this fucking awful life. All I can feel is Ella’s tongue on my clit, first flat, stroking me from lips to hood, then pointed, darting, and when she does that it’s almost too much to bear. I want to groan out loud with the white hot intensity of it. Fuck, I want to scream.

  Instead, I shake and I sweat and I come like I’ve never come before.

  When I’ve stopped shuddering, Ella comes back up to kiss me, her lips warm and her tongue sweet with my taste.

  That night, I sleep like the fucking dead.

  * * * *

  After that night, I teach Ella all the tricks, and I don’t mean just in bed, neither. I might not have learned much in school, but I’ll tell you this: there’s no one inside who knows the system better than I do. I walk her through buying toiletries and tinned fruit and stuff on canteen, and I tell her how you get a newspaper subscription so you don’t forget there’s still a world outside these walls; which of the screws will “lose” your forms rather than bother dealing with them; how to sweet-talk ‘em at the library so you can get help appealing against your sentence.

  She’s a quick learner. Too bloody quick for my liking. It’s way too soon she comes back, eyes bright, saying she’s found the loophole that should get her out of here even with that dozy bastard she’s got representing her through Legal Aid.

  When the day of Ella’s appeal comes, she holds my hands like she never wants to let them go. We both know this could be it. If she gets out, she won’t be coming back.

  “I’ll visit you,” she says, eyes wide and earnest.

  “Don’t,” I tell her. “You don’t belong here. Go live your life outside, forget all about this place.”

  Written down in black and white, it looks bloody heroic, doesn’t it? Self-sacrificing. It’s not.

  Believe me, it’s not. I’m a realist. Always have been. And the rest of what I am…Well, that’s no good for a girl like her. Not that she’d let me tell her that.

  “I’ll never forget you,” she says. “You saved my life, my sanity. I couldn’t have made it through this without you.”

  I’m a jaded old lag, cynical as they come. But the memory of her warms me long after her scent’s faded from my sheets.

  * * * *

  Six months later, I get transferred to a D-category prison just outside Bristol for the last year of my sentence. It’s a bloody holiday camp after Cadwell. We get keys to our own cells, we can wear what we want, and I’ll be able to apply for home visits after a month. Well, if I had a home to visit, I could.

  I’ve been there barely a week when Ella arrives.

  She’s not come to see me, mind. Nor anyone else. She’s moving her stuff into the next wing along when I catch sight of her down the hall. My heart stops for a moment, then beats double-time as I stand and stare at her.

  She’s still got that wide-eyed innocent look about her. Her gaze is darting all around the place, fearful as a new-born fawn, and she’s hanging onto Cas, the biggest, butchest bulldyke in the place. Just as Ella’s saying, “I can’t believe it. How could anyone think I’d do such a thing?” and that bottom lip starts to tremble, her gaze meets mine.

  There’s a tiny flash of colour in her face, then she gives the tiniest of shrugs, defiance in her gaze even as her lips quirk up in a smile.


  I can’t help it. I laugh. I laugh so bloody hard I nearly piss myself. Fuck me, I think, she played me good and proper, back in Cadwell. First time anyone’s managed that since I’m buggered if I know when.

  I take a step forward, and then another. Cas may look hard, with her shorn head and her muscular swagger, but she’s a pussycat underneath. All mouth and no fucking trousers. What Ella really wants, for however long she’ll be inside this time, is a woman with balls.

  Someone like me.

  From the way her smile broadens as I approach, I reckon Ella agrees.

  THE END

  ABOUT J.L. MERROW

  J.L. Merrow is that rare beast, an English person who refuses to drink tea. She read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, where she learned many things, chief amongst which was that she never wanted to see the inside of a lab ever again. Her one regret is that she never mastered the ability of punting one-handed whilst holding a glass of champagne.

  She writes across genres, with a preference for contemporary gay romance and the paranormal, and is frequently accused of humour. Find her online at jlmerrow.com.

  ABOUT JMS BOOKS LLC

  JMS Books LLC is a small queer press with competitive royalty rates publishing LGBT romance, erotic romance, and young adult fiction. Visit jms-books.com for our latest releases and submission guidelines!

 

 

  JL Merrow, First Time

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