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Today was the kind of day where your sneakers stuck to the tarmac, where the stench of melted rubber stunk up the air as the soles melted right down through the holes in unlaundered socks to blistering sweaty heels.
Today was the kind of day where Franky preferred the relative sanctuary of H2's common area, where there was no AC, but also very little sunlight and where the gloom afforded a certain illusion of coolness against the oppressiveness of outside.
"Bloody hell, it's gonna be another scorcher, eh Franks?" Boomer exclaims, turning from the TV forecast; and Franky nods her ascent at the obvious and turns another page in the book rested against her exposed knee, legs languidly crossed against the table, eyes never flicking for more than a second in any direction other than the text in front of her.
The heat makes the guards sloppy and the women crazy. Friends turn against friends, accusing each other of the most trivial shit, a stolen shampoo bottle that had been emptied weeks ago, a double helping of potatoes at lunch. And the junkies are ten times worse. Jacs always lets them sweat it out that little bit longer when the temperature rises. When Wentworth runs dry, as many as half a dozen women are carried, cajoled or simply dragged like helpless children down to the slot every day; limbs and heads lolling around, half pleading with the screws for a fix, a rollie, anything they can curl their shaky fingers around, half desperate to finally be locked away from the unrelenting temptation of hope.
These times were good for business. Were good for Franky and the sideshow she'd been building up away from Jacs's ring of smack heads and bull-headed crims. Franky's stretch was pretty tame compared to most of that circle, but she doesn't need a rap sheet longer than her left arm to get the women circling her for a sniff of something. She has smarts and a smile that can work wonders on any pretty young thing that needed a helping hand, any pinned old pisshead that's too far gone to care about loyalty to one pusher or another. When you needed a fix you might check your shoulder, but ultimately the craving always outweighed the risk of getting caught.
Today was not a day for lording it up on the basketball court, showing off in front of Kim and the fresh meat, showing Jacs what a young pair of legs could do while the women move around the perimeter wall, elephants in tar. Within five minutes she'd be sweating buckets and her Converse would be ripped to shreds and she couldn't have that. She fucking loves these shoes and she was gonna damn well walk out of here in the same pair that had walked her right in. It would have cost a bloody fortune to save up for new ones in here. And getting something like that brought in from the outside would have cost her no end of favours. Because even if Mac or Johno or Carlos or Kat had been able to make a special delivery, stuff like that always costs you. And a pair of sneaks would mean no end of favours she simply isn't prepared to repay. In prison, nobody gave you anything without getting something in return. That would have been a gift. And nobody got gifts in prison.
oooOOOooo
Erica Davidson is unlike any teacher Franky has ever had in the brief stint where she actually attended school. For starters, she's a far cry from the brow beaten old bats that were obsessed with getting her glued to her seat or sending her out of the classroom. Honestly, was it any wonder she had no idea if she was coming or going in that place? Erica Davidson, however, is a different kettle of fish entirely. She doesn't look like a teacher, doesn't dress like one from her killer pumps to her figure hugging skirts, always showing just the right amount of leg to remain acceptable in the bounds of a correctional facility.
Franky had her pegged as a show pony. Not that there's anything wrong with that. She could appreciate a nice view as much as any of the pervier screws in here, and if that meant sacrificing a couple hours here and there to sit in Education with a few losers and some books then so be it. Not like her time was particularly precious in here.
But Erica Davidson apparently has other ideas. Because in less than a week she's started using words like "HSC" and Franky's name in the same sentence, and Franky can smell her perfume and recognise the click of her heels from down the corridor.
oooOOOooo
Erica Davidson wasn't, strictly speaking, a teacher at all. She was a lawyer. But whenever Franky referred to this, which was frequently in the beginning, she stressed that she was the Prison Advocate. Whatever that meant. So Franky went and looked it up one day and found that it basically meant Erica Davidson's job was about making this hellhole a little bit more bearable for the women stuck inside.
When Franky relays this definition, Erica laughs in a light lilting way which makes Franky picture her on the veranda of some swanky restaurant, laughing that same laugh to a table full of men in cufflinks and women in crisp white linen.
oooOOOooo
When Franky began her tutoring sessions with Erica Davidson, she expected they'd get some alone time, a little one-on-one where she could run her mouth and sneak sly glances at Erica's shapely arse or perfect tits. As it turned out, there were usually three or four of them in those early sessions. Some kid called Shannon who'd be out in a couple months and a few slower, older women, the kind resigned to spending out their days shooting the breeze and folding sheets. The kind who thought an education might make their convos sound a little more informed.
At first, Franky is annoyed that she'll be sharing Erica Davidson with this bunch of no-hopers, but as the weeks wear on she begins to see the advantages. For one, Erica has a habit of perching on the edge of one of the tables as she addresses them, and it's nearly always Franky's. Franky has subsequently become well acquainted with not only the precise way Erica's body curves down from the waist, through that arse and into her thighs, but the array of skirts, dresses and pants she likes to wear depending on her mood. All of them made of textures and fabrics that Franky can feel slipping between her fingers as she tutors Miss Davidson on the subtle art of fucking against a cell wall, or a library shelf, or an office doorway, hell- on the office desk. Papers flying everywhere, books falling, Erica Davidson saying her name over and over again, laughing her little laugh against the shell of Franky's ear.
oooOOOooo
They've managed to lose the other two for their Wednesday study session. Franky's working on her critical analysis essay of Cat's Eye and frantically thumbing through the pages in search of that particular passage about weight and expectations and shit... She knows it's nearish the beginning and why didn't she use those tiny fluorescent post-it's Erica gave her/them all... oh yeah because someone nicked them within about 10 minutes of entering H block and...
Two fingers press firmly down on her knuckle, two fingers with a perfect french manicure at the end of them. Franky knows about nails and shit. Knows all about what you can and can't work with. Erica Davidson's are definitely good to go. And she's staring at these fingers, which are no longer pressing, but haven't been retracted either, and if she tries hard enough - which really requires no trying at all - she can feel them clutching her hip, or snaking their way between her legs or feel her mouth closing around them, sucking on them really hard...
And as Franky tracks her eyes upwards she catches Erica Davidson looking at Franky looking at her fingers and there's no doubt about it, with the blush that creeps against her cheeks, that she can read her mind in that instant.
"Your, uh, tapping," she offers.
"Sorry," Franky drawls, buoyed by this revelation. That Erica Davidson knows. She fucking knows.
And with that, Erica Davidson straightens up and glides around the side of the table so she can lean that perfectly manicured hand against the desk, and Franky doesn't even attempt not to look at that hint of cleavage on display.
"Well, I think it was bothering some of the women," she murmurs, gesturing to a couple of girls sitting at the computers against the wall, backs turned and apparently otherwise engaged.
Franky smirks and looks down at her pencil, licking her lips very deliberately before meeting that gaze again.
"Does it bother you?"
And now Erica Davidson has the good grace to look away, throwing a secret smile that only a blank corner of the room will catch. When she looks back again it’s still tugging at the corners of her mouth and she sweeps it away with the back of her hand, fussing some loose hairs flitting around her shoulders.
The smile is replaced with a contented sigh and Franky involuntarily stores the sound in her memory bank of noises - real and imagined - that Erica Davidson would make under her expert guidance.
She pulls over one of the plastic chairs from the next table and sits an inch into Franky's personal space, all under the guise of administering some qualified support to Wentworth's prisoner educational programme.
"How are you getting on with this?" she asks, gesturing to the flyleaf papers scattered with Franky's scrawl.
"Yeah, good, good. "
"You've left this one blank."
"Oh, well..."
She trails that finger, that potentially dirty but oh so succulent finger, down the list of study questions before reciting: "Is the past history, or does it stay with us forever?"
She looks up at Franky, who has to tear her gaze away from her hands and concentrate on that expectant face, lips slightly parted, eyebrows prompting some earth-shattering response.
"Well?" The smile is smooth as honey and Franky twists around so she can make the most of it.
"Well, what do you think? I'm just the prisoner here. You're the one preaching rehabilitation. Is my crime stuck with me now? Is that all I'll be?"
Franky's teasing and testing, smirking her smirk, dying to make Erica Davidson squirm again.
"I think... the question's in the context of the text, Franky."
"Yeah, but where's the fun in that? I mean, you get me reading all this shit and then I'm not supposed to think of it in my own context. Why's that?"
"No, I can see what you mean," Erica concedes easily, leaning her hand on her chin, right into that shared space between them. "Most people have the luxury of reading in an environment that isn't...so...isn't..."
"Prison?"
The blush is back and Franky mentally ticks off another personal victory, two blushes in one session. But something about this one feels a little more hollow than the first. Maybe she doesn't want to chalk up points at the expense of Erica Davidson. Maybe she doesn't want to embarrass her.
oooOOOooo
One time Erica Davidson is bent over Charley's desk, helping her find n or whatever, and her navy pencil skirt is stretched against the two very fine globes of her arse. Franky's hands are sticky from gripping her pen for so long that she just folds them up and flat out stares at that rear end as it bobs and beckons towards her each time Erica shifts from one bended leg to another.
And when Erica straightens herself up and turns a 180 around to the next table, Franky's table, with a smile and a "Finished?" Franky shows her the pink tip of her tongue and says,
"If I wasn't before, I sure as hell am now."
And Erica just quirks her lips and collects Franky's papers and starts sashaying around the room with her head crooked over them, sucking on her pen like some jailbait with a popsicle.
oooOOOooo
They've started Wuthering Heights now and Franky doesn't really rate Brontë in the way she does Margaret Atwood, but still.
She's decided if she's going to do this English Literature thing and pass her HSC then she's damn-well going to be the best at it. She'd rather get an Erica Davidson smile and those eyes any day of the week than the comforting hand-pat-pat shoulder that losers like Old Sal get as they stumble and mumble their way through Wilfred Owen. And besides, when she gets really bored she replaces Heathcliff's name with her own and Catherine becomes Erica and suddenly the book takes on a whole new level of interesting.
And Franky's discovered something else too. She's a quick reader, not a page scanner, but a word devourer. Sure, she can let herself get lost amongst the sentences at night, when she and Kim aren't rolling around and the rest are tucked up out of sight. But during the day, with heavy boots always a kick away and dogs and lags sniffing around for some mischief, she's learnt how to get the words in her head with one eye, the other trained for trouble.
oooOOOooo
"No, I think it's perfect the way it is. I mean, you've outlined your argument well, your reasoning is sound. Great work."
"Sound reasoning now, eh? Go tell that to the judge."
Erica is appraising Franky's essay and Franky is fighting against every finely attuned nerve-ending not to show Erica how much she's hanging off her every word, like some pathetic puppy.
It's not that she's not confident in herself because God knows she has bags of the stuff, and knows that what she's written is streets ahead of what the other girls are currently coming up with. But there's an unfamiliar edge to her arousal that's started to make her feel almost queasy, like a fresh mewling newborn, all pink-skinned and raw. Franky's not sure she likes it.
The fight to reign in this newer, weaker, self isn't helped when Erica swings one slim footed leg over the other and remarks, "So... I think at this stage you'd probably benefit from some more of these one-to-one's."
"Yeah? Is that 'cos I'm just that good or the rest are just sucking?"
Erica huffs out a sigh in exasperation and half-heartedly rolls her eyes.
"You're doing very well," she assures Franky with one of her secret one-to-one smiles. "And I'm impressed with how everyone's taken to the new programme. We just learn at different paces, that's all."
"Does that mean," Franky leans forward, jutting her chin out to catch Erica's eyes, "That I'm ahead of the rest?"
Erica shakes her head of loose curls and makes a show of packing together her papers.
"Well, you're the top of the class, if that's what you're asking."
"Wow," Franky murmurs, raising her eyebrows in mock surprise, "That must feel good for you. First bite of the cherry and you land a catch like me."
Erica stops shuffling for a second and just stares with her lips parted in bemusement.
Their eyes meet and Franky can only chuckle at the unguarded ambivalence writ large across her face. It's a measure that she's winning, after all.
Within two beats Erica's composed herself enough to give her other laugh, the nervous, little one, "I think now you're just fishing for compliments."
"Ha. Good one. But yeah, I guess this does make me the best, eh?"
"Mm, I guess it does," Erica concedes with a smile, eyes trained on the table top and the smattering of books that she's very deliberately collecting into a pile.
"Say it, then," Franky jerks her head forward.
There's something that's shifted in this conversation, as Franky's pulse starts nagging against her hands and a redness starts creeping against Erica's chest, pimpling the skin as it spreads.
"What?" Erica's tucking her little pile of books under her arm, rising with a very deliberate steadiness.
Franky tilts her head so she can take in the extra dimension of Erica. The roundness and softness that you can't see head on.
"Say, I'm the best you've ever had."
It's with these little innuendos that Franky likes to lay her traps for Erica. Because she's fast learning that Erica is like a blindfolded victim walking willingly into a minefield. At any moment she can remove the blindfold and see exactly where her exit should be.
Which is why Erica Davidson, prison advocate with a double degree in law and social work, is well-versed in how and when to take her leave of overly-familiar prisoners.
Always smile (non threatening and unthreatened), always maintain eye contact (remain the one in control) walk don't run (don't give any reason for further provocation) and record and report inappropriate behaviour as soon as possible (minimise the risk of repeated incidents).
But Erica Davidson doesn't do any of these things. Erica Davidson takes her little pile of books and smiles her little smile at Franky, nods to the guard slinking his way around the edge of the room and, with one eyebrow quirked, offers a very quiet but very distinct, "That remains to be seen," before clicking her heels off down the hallway.
oooOOOooo
Franky's swinging on her chair, arse perched as close to the edge of the seat as humanly possible without sliding straight onto her knees. The chair and its cheap plastic is slick from the heat and Franky can already feel the sweat seeping through her cut-down trackies, clinging to her calves, her exposed arms prickling with a fine film of moisture.
Erica Davidson is a vision in cool cotton and a pale green shirt. They're taking a break, enforced the moment Franky shoved her books away and collapsed her head onto her forearms with a groan.
Erica's indulging her today, laughing at Franky's semi-funny semi-lewd jokes, not bristling or giving an inch when Franky nudges her elbow for a response or when their naked knees brush under the table.
Erica Davidson is working Franky like a pro and it's exhausting and infuriating yet delicious all at the same time.
Franky's muttering about how it's way too hot to read, and suggests Erica take her somewhere with air conditioning and a bar. Erica's laugh tinkles like glass and Franky has to suck in a gulp of air while she's cocooned by both arms, the side of her face flush against the table.
Erica's tapping Franky's books, talking about Cat's Eye and how Margaret Atwood's basically a full-on feminist and probably the most important science fiction writer ever, but refuses to accept any of these labels and then goes on about how she travelled around in the backwoods of Canada as a child - which Franky had already learnt about while studying Cat's Eye - but she likes the way Erica's voice sounds and how Erica's breath travels across the stagnant air until Franky can feel it whispering against the crown of her head.
When Erica pauses Franky raises her head enough to sneak a single-eyed glance over her forearm and she can see her in profile, backlit by the window, reinforced glass and all, looking too serene for a woman who spends her days behind barbed wire sharing the air with a bunch of criminals.
When she catches Franky looking she smiles benevolently down and Frank struggles to right herself, drunk and lethargic and so desperately aching to reach out and smother that smile with her teeth and her tongue.
"Well," Erica nods to the open book, "As you've got on with this one so well, you should try The HandMaid's Tale. I think you'd find it very interesting."
"Interesting," Franky slurs, stretching over to finger the dog-eared pages.
"I'm pretty sure they'd have it here. It's something of a modern classic."
"Modern classic?" Franky echoes, testing the syllables on her tongue, as if her mouth hasn't yet moved around these particular words in this very particular way.
"Mm."
"That's a, uh... a nice oxymoron," Franky grins wide because she knows what's coming next.
When she's rewarded with one of Erica Davidson's impressed smiles, it's a smile as radiant as sunshine after the rain, stars in the bright night sky and a thousand other shitty pop song clichés. Her eyes sparkling with something between pride and flirtation. It's a smile that always makes Franky's grin that much wider.
"That's very true, Franky," she replies, and all Franky can hear is that smile. She could creep inside Erica Davidson’s brain and curl herself up in that smile and die.
She knows that the library carries The Handmaid's Tale because she's already checked. She also checked to see if they carry Alias Grace because that's supposedly about a chick who's imprisoned for murder and becomes something of a celebrity. Franky reckons she can relate to that. But, for whatever reason, Wentworth don't carry Alias Grace.
oooOOOooo
The Handmaid's Tale turns out to be some pretty fucked up shit. Franky devours it in two days flat, refusing all distractions, even when Kim comes knocking on her cell door in her underwear, mouth twitching hopefully.
When Franky finally turns over the last page her cell is glowing a dusty orange with the rising sun. She closes the book and then immediately opens it to the front, to the flyleaf and the royal blue ink that stains the page with "E. Davidson". The writing is familiar, but with a precision not evident in Erica's slanting script that Franky's become acquainted with in recent months. But then, people always take care when marking their territory, always that little bit more formal and careful about showing the world what belongs to them and what you can and can't take with you.
oooOOOooo
She holds out the book. "Here."
Erica gives a slight shake of her head, lips twitching into a confused smile.
Franky frowns because Erica isn't one for playing dumb and the screw isn't even looking, so what's the point?
"It's yours," Franky nods, moving nearer.
And maybe it's the slight hint of panic she can hear creeping into her own voice, because she really isn't a pussy with shit like this, but Erica's acting like she can't even remember giving her the damn book and Franky's brittle-glass resolve is in danger of shattering.
She shrugs one shoulder and pushes the book further towards Erica, so that the corners are brushing against the silk of her shirt and the screw's radar must have pinged because he's craning his neck to see why an inmate's within touching distance of the hottest women with a pass to this side of the bars he's seen in a long-arse time.
Franky keeps her head still, but flicks here eyes in his direction and forces the lump of whatever's building in her throat back down.
"It's your book," she repeats, frown deepening.
And Erica doesn't step back. Doesn't take the book or push it away. She curls her fingers, cool and slender, with her perfectly polished nails, around Franky's wrist, squeezing for a breath of a second and says, "No, Franky. It's yours."
oooOOOooo
Franky's cell has a row of shelves that are stuffed with books now. She's traded a few favours on the outside to get them brought in. She's also borrowed a few as part of the education programme that'll be staying on that shelf for a few years more. They're coated in plastic, hardbacked and scribbled in, Wentworth Correctional Centre stamped sporadically across the pages. Some of these books have done time in multiple prisons, libraries and schools. All of them bear the scars. But only one book has Erica's name in it. Only one book has been read and re-read, spine cracked with pages fingered and dog-eared by just two pairs of eager hands. And when she's read all of the books on her shelf, Franky takes this one down and opens the cover up. She traces the curves and loops of that name that's been given to her and lets her chest ache for the faintest of seconds. Her book.
Her gift.