I lay back down, stretch and smile, my hands behind my head, glorying in the sunshine streaming in through the window, ignoring my burning throat. Echoes of reality try to crash into my happy daydream, the flat concrete ceiling bulging in through my happy erotic fuzz, but I force them away. There’ll be plenty of time for harsh realities later. For now, I am alone, safe and warm in the cocoon of my own memory. This is mine.

I can remember her entering my room as I lay there, soaking up the rays from the window, letting the sunlight play across my naked form, glassy where our mingled juices have dried against my skin. An image of her licking me clean make my rebel jerk half-hard. Her eyes catch the movement and amusement blinks back at me.

“You’re awake.”

----------

The necklace was a fine thing – one of my better finds, all soft and delicate curves, surely mass-produced but one of a kind all the same, white gold and silver chain delicate as a butterfly’s wing. And there’s the thing. Fuck.

She couldn’t have. I know that. But she did. I had no idea at the time. Nor did I know about the money, or the cheques. I couldn’t have known. How could I? So wrapped up in her body, her mind elsewhere, conniving, and scheming. How was I to know?

----------

Lola’s love and light chase me as I descend into my own personal hell, crushed beneath the thousands of tons of concrete and steel that stand between me and anything I had ever known as life.

Why did I waste so much time not living, when I was free?

----------

That is what drove me to start caring about my appeal. I had hoped, and hope was good. But now I cared. I had a reason to get out. I realised that, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I had a real mission in life, aside from self-gratification. I was going to win my appeal, get out of here, hunt down the killers, and bring them to justice. In my mind, I knew what kind of justice I wanted. None of this fanfare-shrouded self-aggrandisement court case noise. No. I wanted to watch them suffer, like they had made those poor lovers suffer. I wanted to watch them bleed.

----------