Two-Year Stretch

Just great, Luke thought. It was getting a bit complicated.

But this was when real complication set in. Gomez, the fingered drug dealer, who led a gang of Hispanics, decided he was interested in Luke's services and interested enough to dispute that with Hakeem.

The essential problem was that, when Luke learned that Gomez was interested in him, he regretted he had attached himself to Hakeem. If Luke could gain more direct evidence that Gomez was the inside receiver of the drugs, that would pin this all down. If he could play Gomez like he did Bib Mike, this would be a slam dunk—he could make sure of the connection between the guard, Clyde, and the inmate, Gomez.

Gomez had been nosing around Luke for a couple of days, and Luke did what he could to signal interest. They were about to settle the arrangement in that shadowed corner of the exercise yard one afternoon when Hakeem came upon them. Before Luke—or Gomez—knew what was happening, Hakeem had decked Gomez, had him down on the ground, and was choking him—with every evidence that he wasn't going to stop until Gomez was dead.

"Hakeem. Stop. Please," Luke cried out throwing himself on Hakeem's back.

"He was going to fuck you," Hakeem declared. "Everyone knows I'm your man."

"Yes, Hakeem, but let him loose, and let's talk about this."

Hakeem left Gomez on the ground, still stunned and fighting for breath. Hakeem stood, placed a foot on Gomez' sternum, and turned to listen to Luke's insistent whispers.

"Please, Hakeem. It's you I want to be with. But you are getting out in a couple of days and I'll be longer. Think. I have to have a protector. First it was Big Mike. And then you. But I need one for the short time I'm still in prison. You want me alive to come out of the prison to you, don't you? It's just for a short time. I need someone like Gomez to protect me. He needn't know it's just for a week or so."

"Well, OK, I see that," Hakeem said reluctantly. "But you'll come with me now."

"Yes, but leave me to talk to Gomez for a moment."

When Hakeem was released from the prison, the pledge was made to Gomez. Servicing him expertly twice a day when Hakeem was out of prison pulled Luke as closely into Gomez' gang and comfort zone as easily and quickly as he had merged into Big Mike's world. The connection between Gomez and Clyde was made, but there was another elusive person in the chain that Luke couldn't reach.

On his last night in Gomez' cell, after Luke had knelt between the Colombian's thighs and worked the man's cock hard with his mouth and then pressed on Gomez' chest to make him lay back on the bed, Luke turned and sat in Gomez' lap, skewering himself on Gomez' cock, and rising and falling as Gomez held his slim waist between his beefy hands and made guttural sounds of deep pleasure.

Afterward, as they lay stretched out against each other, Luke whispered, "I'm worried about you."

"How so?" Gomez asked.

"I know you're receiving drugs through the guards to supply the inmates. That's cool; that's not what's bothering me. I'm worried you're not protected enough. And if you're not protected, I'm not either. There is someone. Someone higher than the guards, I know." Luke was too smart to reveal to Gomez that he knew the specific guard who supplied Gomez. "I don't think it's safe for you not to know who it is. You do know who it is, don't you and are just keeping that to yourself?"

"No, Chickee, I don't know. I think if I knew I'd be a dead man. It's best that I do not know."

Gomez was all South American macho. To acknowledge that he feared anyone—especially an unknown someone—convinced Luke that the Hispanic didn't know the missing link.

So, who did? Luke wondered. Most likely Clyde. Luke had to find a way to be alone with Clyde—to give Clyde the time of his life and somehow to wheedle a name out of him.

But that wasn't to be. The next morning Luke was summoned to the warden's office.

* * * *

"I was surprised you hadn't asked to see me," Warden Wilson said when Luke was brought to him. "I suppose you haven't been able to find anything useful."

"Other than one missing link," Luke answered, "I think I have the information you need. The drugs are coming in through seven of the guards, under the direction of a guard named Clyde—I don't know his last name. And they are going to a Colombian-national inmate named Gomez for distribution in the cellblocks. I think, though, that there is a connection higher than the guards. But, what do you mean I hadn't asked to see you? Mrs. Taylor wasn't here for regular contact. I finally got into see her replacement and asked to see you but you were off in Phoenix?"

"In Phoenix? What do you mean?"

"The temporary psychologist. He said you were at a conference in Phoenix and so I couldn't see you. He wanted me to tell him what I wanted to see you about, but I had been told not to talk about it to anyone but Mrs. Taylor."

"Dr. Crawford? He told you I wasn't here?"

The warden and Luke looked into each other's faces for the longest moment before the warden spoke again. "And not telling him what you wanted to see me about was probably what has saved your life," the warden said. Both of them now knew who the missing link in the chain was.

Later that day, as Luke—now Logan again—walked out of the prison and saw the two cars waiting for him, he knew that what Hakeem told him about news of releases traveling quickly beyond the prison walls had been true.

He tried his best not to make eye contact with Jan, his newspaper compatriot and his lover before he had started his abbreviated two-year stretch, as he walked by the first car. When he reached the second car, he opened the passenger door and slid into the passenger seat. The driver pulled Logan into his chest for a possessive kiss.

When they came up for air, Logan said in a low, guttural voice, "I was afraid that Hakeem would be here for me too, and there'd be trouble."

"I took care of Hakeem," the occupant of the second car said. "He won't be bothering you." A mean look from him was also keeping a frustrated Jan from leaving his car.

"I've missed you big time, Big Mike," Logan whispered. "Take me someplace nearby and fuck the stuffing out of me just like you did in prison."

Big Mike laughed and put the car in gear.