004. Pecking Order Sorting (3)
Her index finger coiled around my tongue, tracing a slow path along the roof of my mouth.
"Mmph... mmn..."
"How is it? Feels good here too, right?"
"Yeaaah..."
"What's this? You've gone completely mushy, haven't you?"
I couldn't have denied it if I'd tried. Suyeon looked down at me with a mocking grin.
She was right. All I knew was that white-noise weightlessness in my head, rolling on and on... that I'd already soaked myself with everything that had spilled out of me... that even now it was still gushing free... Every bit of it came through unmistakably, through the fabric of my pants pressed against my thigh. The roof of my mouth—and even my tongue—had turned every bit as insanely sensitive as my chest had been while it was being ravished.
What on earth was this body? Why did it feel everything more keenly than any other woman's? Suyeon had said so herself—that I seemed to have a body made for feeling. But. Thinking had become too much of a bother, too exhausting. Right now just felt too good... I wanted to stay like this, mouth ravished by Suyeon, and run from the reality of what I was—remade into a woman and locked away in this prison. So all I did was...
"More... please, give me more..."
Pinned beneath Suyeon, all I could do was beg.
But then...
Click, clack.
The sound of dress shoes rang out from beyond the cell bars. Neither of us had registered that anyone was coming—not with Suyeon still pinning me down, ravishing the inside of my mouth. At some point the footsteps had stopped dead in front of our cell, yet Suyeon showed no intention whatsoever of withdrawing her finger. If anything, she kept teasing my palate with maddening persistence... I clamped my lips shut, forcing down every moan that threatened to escape—until my lip split and blood began to seep.
"Mmgh... hnngh... s-stop, please..."
"Why would I?"
Suyeon, oddly enough, wasn't startled in the slightest. She simply drew close to my ear and whispered. But... I... panicked. My neck creaked as I turned to look—and the figure stepping out of the shadows was the female guard who had escorted me ever since the transport bus. She was glaring this way. To be precise, at Suyeon.
"Inmate 03. What do you think you're doing this time?"
"Doing what?"
"Didn't I tell you not to jump your fellow inmates?"
"Well... yeah, you did."
Suyeon just scratched her head and answered, cool as anything. But... jumped a fellow inmate? As I tilted my head in puzzlement, Suyeon lifted her hand from my wrist, straightened her back, and pointed at me.
"Can you blame me? This one used to be a man—a death row inmate at that, right?"
"And?"
"You know the situation at our facility. Death row inmates who used to be men..."
Suyeon let the sentence die, swallowing the rest. What was that? What had she been about to say?
"But it's the middle of the night and your moaning is carrying all the way out here. Show a little restraint, would you?"
"Why should I?"
"Or would you rather be dragged off to the Torture Room again?"
"Tch... fine."
At the mention of that word—Torture Room—Suyeon shuddered visibly, then backed off without a word of protest. What on earth was the Torture Room?... Come to think of it, this place was stuffed to the brim with things I didn't know. I still barely understood anything about this prison. Unable to hold my curiosity, I looked up at the guard and opened my mouth.
"U-um... excuse me... Officer..."
"What is it?"
At my call, she pulled her gaze off Suyeon and turned it on me.
"A man like me was... what's going to become of me here?"
It was a question loaded with more meanings than I could count. But... the guard seemed to grasp every one of them, as if she'd answered it a hundred times before.
"You'll find out soon enough... Inmate 23..."
What? Something about the way she said it—so deliberately weighted—left me feeling less curious than tense, as though something were bound to go off at any moment. I'd braced myself for a turbulent road ahead, but... it was real...? Ugh... no way... That not even the guard would tell me... I simply stared blankly at Suyeon.
"What?"
"Um... what exactly did the officer mean just now...?"
"Dunno... you'll find out soon enough?"
"Huh...?"
Even Suyeon would only give me the same line. An ominous premonition was curling through me... What on earth could it be?
The guard looked back and forth between the two of us, then spoke.
"That's enough of that. Go to sleep."
"Got it. I was turning in anyway."
Suyeon answered with all the enthusiasm of someone waving off a fly, and only then rose off me. At last, it felt like I could breathe again. The guard... appeared to have already melted away somewhere. I planted my hands on the floor and tried to push myself up...
"Nnngh... wh-what..."
My whole body refused to obey. Suyeon gazed down at my whimpering form and said:
"You think you can move after coming undone like that?"
"Nnngh... that's your fault, Suyeon..."
"Weren't you the one who picked the fight first?"
"Th-that wasn't picking a fight, it's just..."
"To someone who only likes women, that actually stings a little."
"It's not about liking anyone—your lust is just plain twisted, that's..."
"There you go again?"
With Suyeon glaring down at me like she might pounce all over again, I tucked my tail between my legs at once. By now our relationship had completely overturned... no, overturned wasn't the word. Had I merely labored under the illusion that we'd been equals from the start, only to be devoured?... Honestly, I'd said something true, and yet I couldn't make sense of it. A woman taking another woman was perverted taste, plain and simple. And yet... whatever. Until Suyeon had jumped me, I hadn't even been able to comprehend the notion of one woman taking another... which makes what I've become a bit of a joke, but still...
"Heyyy. You're thinking something weird again, aren't you?"
"Hnnh... n-no, I'm not..."
Somehow she'd seen straight through me, and I clapped a hand over my mouth on reflex, but...
"Haa... forget it... Let's just sleep..."
"Okaaay..."
Thankfully, it seemed to pass without incident. Then again... with the guard liable to come back around, she probably couldn't pounce on me again anyway. And that thing... the Torture Room, was it? What on earth was it? And she'd said I'd learn soon enough, hadn't she... Dread seemed to be pooling in my chest when Suyeon suddenly tugged off my pants, went to the little closet, took out a fresh pair, and dressed me in them.
Huh?
Suyeon scooped me up where I lay still—one arm curling around my waist, the other gathering up my heels.
Wait—what?
It happened so fast, so matter-of-factly, that I could only gawk.
And then...
"Wh-what are you... P-put me down, hurry..."
"You're the one who said you couldn't move. I'm carrying you to your sleeping bag, that's all."
"But this is basically..."
Princess-carried in Suyeon's arms...
"What is there to be embarrassed about?"
"I used to be a man, that's what..."
"Ugh, what... you're still going on about that?"
"Yes... because I was, without a doubt, a man."
And though I couldn't quite bring myself to say it aloud... the years I'd spent as a fat, ugly man kept overlaying themselves on the present. Someone actually holding me in their arms had been beyond imagining. Ah, of course... my chest had been groped, fingers had been pushed inside me and then into my mouth... and considering that watching all of it was what excited Suyeon... let's not go comparing ourselves to her, shall we...
Suyeon set me down in my sleeping bag,
"Hup."
then flopped straight down into the one beside mine. Without missing a beat, she rolled over and turned her back to me...
"Zzzz..."
"Huh? She's just falling asleep like that?"
Did she care about me or not...? Some strange feeling seemed to be blooming in my chest... Well. Probably just my imagination...? I shut my eyes too, determined to sleep, but...
One hour... Two hours... Three hours...
"Ugh... it's already morning..."
The sun had climbed, and morning light was spilling through the window frame into our cell.
Then—
Clank.
A sound came from the cell door. As if the lock that had held it shut all night had quietly come undone...
"Wh-what? The cell door just opened?"
And there was Suyeon beside me, arching into a long stretch as she sat up.
"Hnnnngh...!"
"Sleep well...?"
"Wh-what? What's wrong with your face?"
"Because I didn't sleep. At all."
My dark circles probably hung all the way down to my chin... I prodded at my face—soft to the touch... no, wait... it was also gaunt, hollowed clean out...
"Shall we go get breakfast, then?"
"Yes. Sounds good."
My stomach was growling anyway. And there was one thing I'd been wondering about...
"Um..."
I pointed at the cell door. Suyeon followed my fingertip with her eyes.
"What about it?"
"The door just... opened on its own..."
"So?"
"Are we allowed to just... walk out?"
"Yep. It only closes at bedtime. The rest of the day is Free Time."
"What?"
"Hah. Everyone's wide-eyed when they first get here."
"Of course they are. We're death row inmates—is that really allowed?"
I was utterly flabbergasted. I'd always pictured prisons that held death row inmates as places where freedom was strangled down to the last inch... but...
"Well, this place is very different from your average facility."
"Different how?"
"I told you yesterday, didn't I? You'll find out soon."
"Okay..."
"Shall we head out, then?"
Before my questions could settle, Suyeon sprang to her feet... grabbed my hand, and pulled me upright. And then...
"Follow me."
"Okay..."
All I could do was trail along wherever Suyeon led. Wound tight as a wire...