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In a place like this, romance isn't a factor. You fuck because you're horny. You press close to another warm body at night because you're lonely. You fall in love because you're bored.
---
After the third parole hearing he makes his move. He knows the outcome, but it's something to do. It's over quick – searing pain in his wrist, groin, as the flesh is wrenched from his grasp. Left alone in darkness for the hundredth time.
---
He wakes up with that cloudy marble fixed on him, studying him like an insect under a microscope.
"I'm not good enough to fuck?" he asks through cracked lips. His voice is barely audible, creaks like a barn door.
The gaze softens. The marble becomes an eye. "Baby, you're good enough to love. You're good enough to worship." A seductive purr with all the right feeling behind it, a message on an answering machine being played in real time. It says don't get it twisted. It says know your place.
He opens his mouth obediently, and the tab on his tongue takes him away.