Scenes of Prison
25. “You're my Soulmate. I Love You."
I f you don’t know inmates, you might imagine them to be pretty unsavory. You might conjure up an image of rough and dirty men who would fit in well in a Halloween fright house attraction. A few are like that, but most are not, and some are downright handsome and charming. A few could even be mistaken for princes, as in Prince Charming. I met one of these men one day when he was led into our Disciplinary Segregation Unit in handcuffs. Right behind him followed another inmate, whose name was Horace.
Horace could be mistaken for a troll who might live under a bridge. Short, unshaven, dirty hair, long, dirty fingernails. Horace was no Prince Charming.
Why were they brought to our Segregation Unit?
For investigation, we were told.
Once inmates are settled into their Segregation cells, inmates in neighboring cells gather at their doors and call out to them hoping to learn the details of the events that brought them to Segregation. It was something to do. It was drama which would serve to break up an otherwise tedious day. For staff, we only needed to be nearby to listen in, and we would learn all the details, so on this day, that’s what I did. I soon learned that a third person was involved, a young woman I’ll name Lucy.
Here’s what happened.
Lucy was a secretary who worked in the front offices. Young, pretty, and painfully thin, she apparently had fallen hard for Prince Charming. He was her soulmate, and she loved him. The facts, as they emerged from the doorway conversations, were as follows.
Head-over-heels in love, Lucy agreed to meet her Prince Charming in a mop closet in a secluded hallway. Some sort of romantic/physical/sexual activity was expected to occur. Horace would act as a lookout making sure they wouldn’t be disturbed. The meeting occurred, and the couple were alone and enjoying each other’s company.
After a period of time, Horace, who was outside the closet and becoming increasingly impatient, opened the door without warning.
“Okay” he said to the startled couple. “That’s enough. Now it’s my turn.”
Prince Charming gathered himself and left without a word, and he closed the door behind him as he left. Now, he would be the lookout.
Just that fast, Lucy now found herself undressed, in a mop closet, with a dirty, scroungy, mean little man intending to rape her while her Prince Charming served as a lookout to ensure the crime would not be interrupted.
When Horace had satisfied himself, he left Lucy alone in the mop closet, and he and Prince Charming cleared out of the area.
I never saw Lucy again. When she left the mop closet, she apparently kept right on going. She left the prison and her job, and she never returned.
The investigation into the mop closet assault never got anywhere. Prince Charming and Horace never had to face their accuser. She was gone, and she would not be returning to testify against them.
After a few days, Prince Charming and Horace were returned to their normal housing units, and life returned to what it had been before the mop closet incident, but it would never be the same again for Lucy. I’ve often thought of her over the years, and I grieved for the physical and emotional suffering her trauma had left with her.
Some time after Lucy’s ordeal, our Legislature passed a new criminal statute. Prison inmates were afforded a status similar to minors in matters of sexual contact with staff. Inmates’ actions contributing to consensual sexual acts were not considered. If a consensual sexual act occurred between a staff member and an inmate, the staff member was guilty of a sexual assault. A felony. Period. Lucy, had the statute been in place at the time of the mop closet assault, would have been guilty herself of a sexual assault on Prince Charming. If the same incident happened today, she would have been arrested, charged with a felony, and faced trial in our local district court regardless of what had happened with Horace. There’s a good chance she would have been sentenced to a term of imprisonment.
Discussion
- What are the laws in your state regarding consensual sexual contact between inmates and staff?
- Have you ever had your trust in another person crushed as did Lucy in this chapter?
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