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 I owe a lot of people thanks for the encouragement they gave me while I
was writing this, but I'm especially indebted to my betas, Maverick and
Rustler. Thanks also to Riley Cannon, for numerous pep talks, and to K9,
for putting so much work into AdSeg, the 'zine in which this story
originally appeared. This takes place during the planning stages of
Operation Andy, shortly after Andy Schillinger is released from the Hole.
  
  Lessons by Actizera  

 Believe it or not, I enjoy doing laundry.

 After all, there are different ways of enjoying things. There's enjoyment
like you get from a well-mixed martini or a skillful blowjob, and I
certainly wouldn't go so far as to compare this to thatbut there's also a
more...cerebral...enjoyment that comes from a certain clarity of thought,
an opportunity to meditate on the things that motivate you and give you a
reason to live from day to day. So yeah, I actually like being in this
roomtruth be told, I look for excuses to be here whenever I can. I have
the freshest wardrobe in all of Em City, not that that's saying a whole
lot.

 In the Grand Tour of Tobias Beecher's Life, this little room would be a
major highlight, practically a sacred place. They ought to erect a goddamn
plaque to commemorate it. Right over there, across the room...that's the
exact spot where, just a few months ago, I put my guts on display, and
with such spectacular results. I can sit here and watch myself as I lay
them out, even today, and I force myself to do it again and again. I
rewind and replay it like a movie. I observe each gesture, listen to every
word. My recall of those minutes is flawless.

 I've perfected this routine almost to the point of ritualization. It
starts at the moment my senses are crowded by the sound and substance of
the room: the growling machinery, the rhythmic thumping and clicking and
sloshy churning, the hot, damp fragrance, the inexplicably weird cast to
the light. Then I'm turning and looking toward the table by the windows,
and there we are, the two of us, me and him, and I watch everything that
happens from beginning to end. I've watched it, relived it hundreds of
times, and yet I don't think I could ever get tired of it.

 Look at yourself. See? You're the one standing there looking so happy,
with that fantastically sappy expression lighting up your face. Now pay
attention, because you just might learn something.

 And I do. I watch it all, studying every nuance, searching for new
details, even though every one of them is already engraved permanently in
my memory; I know every twitch and murmur, backwards and forwards. Still,
I compulsively comb through them for some yet-unseen clue as to what was
really going on, something in Keller's face or demeanor that should have
given him away. Time after time, I come up empty. It can be more than a
little frustrating, so I try to comfort myself with the fact that, after
everything that had happened to me, I was still able to fall in love with
someone.

 No, not someone, as it turns out. Something. A hollow formation of flesh
shaped like a human being.

 I keep telling myself that there's no shame in falling for the con of a
genuine professional, someone whose sole purpose is just that: to gain
confidence, to take what he wants while exacting as much pain as possible
along the way. He is a walking dictionary definition of the word
"sociopath." Throughout history, how many otherwise intelligent people
have fallen prey to these...anomalies? These things that are born to look
like us but aren't like us at all?

 No, I should feel no shame. I'm almost certainly in good company, simply
the latest in a long line of victims who never really had a fighting
chanceno, there's no shame in it. Our only real fault, if you can call it
that, is our humanity.

 Live and learn, I think, as I rewind and begin to play it all over again.
Live and learn.

  *** 

 I sit on a washing machine, my back to the windows, keeping one eye on
the room reflected in the dryer doors, the other on my book. I don't get a
lot of reading done in here, but I like that it looks as if I do. My cane
rests across my lap, always ready in case I need it. Sometimes, I
entertain elaborate fantasy scenarios revolving around that cane. Aryans
storm the laundry room, but they're no match for cane-wielding Beecher!
What I lack in strength and numbers, I make up for in rage and cunning.
One by one they fall, until I'm surrounded by groaning, broken white
trash. All of Em City stands in awe. One person in particular shivers in
fearand more than a little blinding, knee-weakening lust...

 ...which segues nicely into one of my other favorite scenarios. Keller,
pants around his ankles, bent over "our" table, taking it like a trooper.
Working hard to prove what he's been trying to tell me ever since I limped
back into our pod. Good boy. It's drawing quite an audience, too, because
Keller...well, let's just say he puts on a good show. Hell, a great show.
He keeps sobbing something about me how much he loves me, and I just keep
fucking him that much harder. The crowd loves it.

 It's easy to become lost in these fantasies sometimes, which does have
the potential to be dangerous. One day I got a little too wrapped up in
that second scenario, and the next thing I knew my dick was in my hand and
I wasn't alone in the room. I didn't feel any particular need to explain
myself to Busmalis when he walked in, but it was an uncomfortable moment
nonetheless. And I realized that, next time, it could be someone else. And
they could be holding a shank.

 So here I sit, cane across my lap, half-staring at my book,
half-monitoring the activity outside the roomthe distorted, fish-eye
reflections of people passing by, the occasional hack checking up on
things, searching for illicit, non-laundry-related behavior. I catch a
glimpse of Andy Schillinger, fresh out of the Hole and no doubt looking
for a fix. In some ways, his presence here seems so fucked up; a face like
that belongs in high school detention, not a maximum security prison. Kids
that young simply should not be in Oz, although I thank God every day that
he is. If his father were anyone other than Vern Schillinger, the inside
of his ass would be so much ground chuck by now.

 Well. One way or another, I don't expect him to be in Oz for very much
longer.

 I've learned so much here.

  *** 

 There's nothing on earth you can't learn a lesson from, when you think
about it. You just need to keep your mind open to the possibilities. You
can learn from Keller the same way you can learn from observing the way
the parts of any machine operate to perform a function. If you were to
construct a diagram of a gun, take it apart and put it back together
again, you could study the principles behind the way metal components and
chemicals are able to move and interact to expel a bullet with lethal
force. Armed with that knowledge and a bit of intelligence, you could even
theoretically improve on that design.

 When you've gained intimate experience in dealing with someone like
Keller, here are the kinds of things you can come away with, if you're
able to endure the experience: How to use people effectively. How to
manipulate people's feelings. How to destroy a person without anyone ever
knowing that you are the guilty party, or even that you wanted that person
destroyed in the first place. It isn't magic, and it's not something
anyone is born knowing how to pull off. It's a simple matter of examining
what works and what doesn't, what people are liable to fall for, what
people need that you can provide them. Gauging a person's capacity for
pain, and then tricking them into giving you the power to exceed it.
Becoming the only thing that's holding someone up, so that, when you
extract yourself, it's enough to make them fall to their death.

 I've learned so much from him. But I'm not like him. I'll never be like
him.

  *** 

 I've been staring at the same page for twenty minutes or so now, lost in
my thoughts. I now know what I'll say to McManus, to the very letter. He
interacts with me though a filter of guilt that makes everything easy.
It's all going to be so simple, so perfect. Foolproof. I couldn't have
asked for anything more than the opportunity I now have before me.

 For the first time in I don't know how long, I prayed, and my prayers
were answered. God sent down Vern's heart on a silver platter and a knife
to carve it up with, and all that's left to do is to pick them up and get
down to business. What else but the hand of God Himself could have landed
one of Schillinger's kids right into the hands of the people who most want
to hurt him, could have guided McManus's thought process to a point where
that made actual sense?

 I hear myself laughing again, a high-pitched cackle of sheer joy, a sound
I've heard so many times since I first watched little Andy lope sullenly
into Em City. He's the walking embodiment of my potential to cause Vern
great pain, the greatest pain, and so the mere sight, the mere thought of
him is like heroin to me. No, no, it's better than that. I'm going to take
one of the few things in the world that Nazi purportedly cares about and
give him no choice but to destroy it, turn his own bullshit ideology
against him and leave him with nothing but the memory that he himself
decimated the ranks of the Schillinger Youth by fifty percent. Instead of
pictures, he'll be tearing up the real thing, and I'll be sitting there
smiling, enjoying every sweet second of it. No, this kind of victory will
be better than any drug. Better than anything.

 After all, figuring out how to fuck Vern successfully is a very tricky
proposition. Things like shitting in his facealthough fun at the time,
there's no denying thataren't going to do a whole lot in the long run
other than get me thrown in the Hole and eventually fuck with my parole.
No, now that I've got a little perspective, a little sanity under my belt,
I understand that it's important to play to one's strengths and to do it
in a way that leaves you seemingly blameless in the end. Plus, I've now
had a thorough education in that concept from a true master. I've seen how
it's done, and it's time for me to give it a shot, to put all that
hard-won knowledge to the test.

 An adrenaline thrill shoots straight through me to the tips of my fingers
and toes. I can't wait to tell Keller that he needs to pack up his things
and move out. I can imagine exactly the expression I'll see on his face,
the way his eyes will look. I sigh and lean back on my arms, then quickly
right myself. Every once in a while, I forget that they're still healing.

 I think of Keller, how he's going to react. It will look like pain. His
eyes will widen, then narrow, his lips will part, his face will go pallid
and white. He may even flinch, as if the pain is physical as well as
emotional. Is pain what it really is, though? Is a creature like him
capable of feeling pain with any more depth than an animal? Can his psyche
be damaged by the withholding of something like love, as he would
apparently have me believe? Or is it more a matter of a primal frustration
at being denied gratification, like a dog whimpering at the foot of the
dinner table?

 If his pain is false, he does an amazing job of simulating it. Then
again, he did an amazing job of simulating love. That kind of manipulation
is his stock in trade; I have to try hard to never forget that.

 The door swooshes open, and I know who it is even before I glance at the
reflection in the dryers. I'm not the only person in Em City who looks for
excuses to be in the laundry room.

 I'm not like him. There are oceans of difference between what I am and
what he is. Oceans.

  *** 

 I used to feel so tense whenever I had to be close to him. I didn't sleep
for almost a week after I came back to the pod from the infirmary. The
aching in my bones seemed to increase by an order of magnitude whenever he
was around. I hid it well, I think. The closer he came, though, the worse
it was. If I had to touch him, to push him away, that was the hardest
thing of all.

 It's slowly gotten easier. Sometimes it's even...fun. He has very little
shame when it comes to me; it seems he'll do anything, endure whatever I
throw at him. A couple of days ago I shoved him, in full view of everyone
in the common area. No particular reason, other than that he was standing
a little closer to me than I thought he really had a right to. It was the
downswing of one rotation in what has become a steady, predictable cycle:
I reject him, humiliate him, and he becomes cold toward me for a short
time. He has just enough self-respect left for that to last maybe a couple
of days at the very most.

 Then I throw him a bone or two. I let him sit next to me in the
cafeteria, for instance, or in front of the TV. I may respond when he asks
me a question. He's slowly lulled into believing he has a chance, and he
becomes increasingly bold. Sometimes I really believe that he can't help
himself, that he needs to be near meand that's what makes the next part so
satisfying. I wait for him to reach a certain level of optimism, and
that's when I pull the rug out from under him, and the cycle starts all
over again.

 I'm still trying to piece together his exact reasons for putting up with
it all. I must represent a challenge, a trophy to be won, something he'll
be able to point to and say "I conned him, broke him, reduced him to
nothing, and after all that he was still in love with me." I realize now
that he talked about his wives in a similar way a lot of the time,
although I can't be sure what was true and what was a lie. I'm still
figuring all that out, too.

 I know he's been talking to Sister Pete, and I've been surreptitiously
gathering information she probably doesn't even realize she's giving me. I
don't think it's even within the scope of her world view to imagine that
I'm up to anything. Poor Tobias, so mistreated, so abused, so betrayed, so
in need of her help and understanding... She's one of the few honestly
well-intentioned people in this hell hole, and I'm afraid it's going to
get her hurt someday. Good intentions don't get you anywhere good around
here. Things that mean something on the outsidecharity, honesty,
compassion, loveget twisted into cruel jokes with repercussions that make
a mockery of traditional moral logic. Most of these assholes come in here
understanding that already. Others learn the hard way. But we do learn.

 I'll survive this place with my soul intact. He never had one to begin
with.

  *** 

 Out of the corner of my eye, I see him dump an odd assortment of clothes
on top of the washer next to me. I know what Keller's clothes smell like
when they need to be washedthis is a guy who works out obsessively and
isn't shy about sweatingand this pathetic pile of shirts and shorts
doesn't even come close to qualifying.

 "Wow, Beecher, imagine finding you in here." Keller begins shoving each
article of clothing, one at a time, into the washerprobably to make it
seem like there's an actual load there. "Do you do your laundry like every
fucking day?"

 I pretend to finish the page I'm reading, then turn to the next one.
"Seems you're in here too, doesn't it?"

 "I forgot some shit from yesterday. That all right with you?" He's
glaring, but I don't look up from my book.

 "You're the one who brought it up. I couldn't care less what you do."

 "Right..." He stops what he's doing for a second, wanting me to look up
and see his smirk of disbelief. I don't oblige him.

 And now comes the long moment of charged silence during which Keller is
trying to decide what to do next. Should he ignore me, maybe find someone
else to talk to until his laundry is finished? That option gives him the
opportunity to have conversations that I can't help but overhear, and he
uses it to plant certain facts in my mind, to be funny and to say things
he thinks I'll regard as intelligent. On a more basic level, it exposes me
to the smooth growl of his voice over an extended period of time, and he
no doubt believes that has some sort of advantageous effect.

 Should he taunt me, needle me, try to get me to react to him in some way?
That's a more problematic option, but one he sometimes can't seem to
resist. More often than not it backfires on him, and I dismember him
verbally until he's an ashen-faced wreck, able to do nothing but stare and
wonder why this isn't working, why nothing he's trying is working at all.

 Or should he try the direct approach, the one I don't think he's ever had
to use on anyone but me? Should he lean close, try to touch me, tell me
that he knows I love himas if all he needs to do is say it enough times,
and then it will actually become true?

 Whatever approach he chooses, it makes no difference to me. If I can
manage to maintain the right frame of mind, I can learn something from
whatever he decides to do. He's always on, always operating, and I'm
nearly immune to it now. It's like a code I've cracked without his
knowledge, so he, oblivious, just continues to use it. Maybe his problem
is that he has no alternative code to fall back on.

 I turn to the next page, even though I haven't read a word since he
entered the room. What I really want to do is laugh, out loud, in his
face. Does he have any idea how pathetically transparent it is of him to
be in here with me again? He's leaning back against the washer next to
mine, arms folded tightly across his chest. Out of the corner of my eye, I
can see that his head is turned toward me. His stare is like something
physical, a strong, clumsy hand roaming my body.

 "So...you're going to punch me in the stomach, huh? I bet you're real
broken up about that."

 "You want out, Keller? I could always punch O'Reily instead."

 "Nah, nah, it's no problem. I can take a punch. I can take a hell of a
lot more than that." He pauses, then leans closer. "But I guess I don't
need to tell you that, right?"

 "Whatever. Do it or don't do it. I already told you I don't need your
help."

 "Hey, listen to me." He pushes off the washer and stands up straight to
face me. "I want to fuck Schillinger just as bad as you do."

 Now I just can't stop myself. The laughter that's been building deep in
my chest completely escapes my control. My shoulders shake as I start
giggling so hard I can hardly catch my breath to speak. "No, Keller... No,
you really, really don't."

 I glance up at him for the first time since he walked into the room. He
looks confused and a little worried, like maybe he expects me to break out
in a nursery rhyme or something.

 "You know what? You know what really sucked about lying in that hospital
bed all that time? I mean, beyond just the obviousthe excruciating pain,
the memory of betrayal, besides all that? Everyone who worked there
thought I was..." A fit of giggles stops me for a second, and I wipe tears
of laughter from my face before I continue. "Everyone thought I was some
goddamn Nazi. They all fucking hated me. And can you really blame them?
With that fucking swastika tattooed on my ass? Can you blame them for not
believing that I never wanted it there? Because, when you think about it,
what kind of pussy bitch just lies there and lets something like that get
branded so neatly on his ass unless he's asking for it?"

 "Toby..." Keller's all serious, but I'm still choking and coughing with
laughter. My arms and legs are throbbing now, too.

 "What? You got another idea how we can take care of it, Keller? Maybe
fill it in'?" I clutch my sides and nearly fall off the washer. That's got
to be the funniest thought I've had all day. "You know, the more I think
about it, the more I think maybe I should have taken you up on that
generous offer. It would have saved me a hell of a lot of grief on the
hospital, at least. Of course, I don't want a reminder of you branded on
my ass for the rest of my life any more than I want a reminder of that
fuck."

 My laughter is slowly starting to subside, at about the same rate that
the pain in my arms and legs is building. I guess it must be
psychological; I can't think of any physiological reason why I would be in
so much pain right now. I stretch my arms out carefully in front of me and
begin massaging the left one, the worse of the twothe one where he broke
the bone cleanly across the midshaft. He makes no effort to give me any
room at all; he just stands there, still staring.

 "Toby, look at me."

 "Fuck off, Keller." I mutter the words without any real conviction. This
is all part of it, all part of the act. I don't let him see anything I
don't want him to see. When he moves a little closer, I force myself not
to lean away. It isn't easy. I know he'll get as close as I'm willing to
let him; if I just sit here, pliant and docile, he'll keep going until
we're...until...

 First, he'll probably try to get me to kiss him. Yeah...he's going to try
to kiss me, because no one else is here in the room to see it. If there
were someone else here, he would probably settle for simply trying to
touch mesomewhere, anywhere. Usually it's my hair he tries to touch,
although I don't really know why. I can feel what he wants right now. He
wants to run his hand though my hair and then pull me close to him and
kiss me, because it's all he can think about, right? Kissing me again? The
fucking cunt, fucking conniving piece of shit...

 "Toby..."

 ...because he's a real pro, and that's what someone in his supposedly
desperate situation might be likely to do. Oh, he's so in love with me, so
desperately in love, he just can't help himself. So he'll come close,
closer, even closer, even though I just told him to fuck off and now I'm
sitting here rubbing my arm in the place where he snapped it in half. What
balls. What a pro.

 Does he think I haven't learned anything?

 Maybe I need to show him how wrong he is.

 His hand is hovering in the air in front of me, trembling just a little,
the tips of his fingers twitching. Nice touch. I move my own hand, the one
massaging my arm, and cover his with it.

 His skin is so soft. Why does that always surprise me? What do I expect
the skin of Chris Keller to feel like, exactly? It's warm and soft, just
like always, and when my hand touches his, the trembling stops. I can tell
he's holding his breath.

 "Right...here." I guide his hand to my arm until his fingers are just
brushing against it. "Right in half. Snap. Remember? Remember the sound it
made?"

 I'm all too aware of the fact that my whole body is shaking like the
temperature in the room has dropped below zero. There's nothing I can do
about it. Remembered fear, pain, horror, betrayalhaving him touch me there
is almost too much to take. I'm only human.

 I never loved you. Not for a second.

 I hold his hand, try to use it to keep mine steady. I move it closer,
make him touch more of my skin. I squeeze his hand gently.

 Let's see what you got.

 "Does it make you hot to think about it, Keller...? Chris?"

 He doesn't seem to understand the question, or maybe he didn't even hear
me. He releases the breath he's been holding and stares hard at my hand on
his hand on my arm. The look on his face is beautiful. Priceless.

 "The way it felt, the way it sounded...my bones snapping in your hands?
The culmination of all your hard work?"

 His hand starts to move on its own. His fingers curl and begin to trace
some pattern I can't see, something that maybe makes sense to him. He
keeps getting closer, and now instead of warm laundry fumes I smell him, a
smell I could never forget or mistake for anything else, as long as I
live. The smell of the first time a man gave me a hard-on, of strong hands
comforting me after a nightmare, of a stubbly cheek against my neck in the
gym, in our pod at night, in my dreams. The smell of someone I looked
forward to waking up to in the morning, of someone to talk to and play
cards with and sit close to in the cafeteria, someone who wanted nothing
more than to be with me, to look out for me and have me look out for him.

 Liar. Lying cunt.

 Looking at his face right now, though, I can almost believe...

 Then don't look.

 I look down at his hand again. His hands. He's touching me with both
hands now, and I hadn't even noticedone forming a warm curve cradling the
back of my arm, the other caressing my skin, gently but without
hesitation. I didn't give him permission to do this, not this. But his
fingers move along the curve of my bicep and I feel it between my legs,
where all the blood and sensation in my body is gathering and
concentrating. He's so close I can feel his breath against my face.

 "Toby," he says, in a half-whisper, half-purr that wraps around me like a
blanket. "I could make you forget all about the pain. Just let me...let me
touch you. I could make you feel so good..."

 That mouth, that voice, the way it shapes the air between us to form the
word "good"...I do want that. Who could ever be strong enough or hollow
enough inside not to want that? I want everything he's offering and more,
and it would be so easy...so easy...to give in and let him do all the
things I think about when I wake up hard in the middle of the night. I
want it. Am I really doing myself any favors by denying myself something
that I want?

 He's a professional. He knows what he's doing.

 But... what would it hurt? What difference could it possibly make? If he
touched me, put his arms around me, went down on his knees and sucked me
off right here, right nowif I let him do that, what would have changed?
Nothing, really. Nothing. And oh God...if I can just remember...who I am,
who he is, what he is...it will be okay. Nothing will have changed.
Nothing will change unless I let it, unless I make it...

 "Toby, kiss me..."

 He's so close I can taste what it would be like to kiss him, to let him
kiss me. All I'd need to do is look up, tilt my head up to him, and we'd
be there, right there again, except this time...

 What? This time what?

 This time, maybe he really does love me.

 "I love you, Toby."

 He says it at almost exactly the same time as I think it, and the effect
is like lightning striking.

  *** 

 I remember getting to a point in law school where I was convinced I was
pretty hot shit. Frankly, It didn't take all that long for me to reach
that point. I'd always been smart, and I had finally arrived in a place
where that meant somethingmeant everything. Sure, Harvard Law was teeming
with people just like me, but I found myself more than able to hold my
own. Probably for the first time in my life, I got really cocky. At the
very least, watching The Paper Chase twenty times or so should have given
me ample warning that, sooner or later, I was going to get taken down a
few pegs. In spectacular fashion.

 That lesson came one day in Complex Litigation seminar. I'd worked for
weeks putting together what I believed to be a brilliantly inspired,
air-tight, multimillion-dollar class-action suit against a medical
equipment manufacturer, and I was anxious to present it to the class and
accept the well-deserved adoration of the other students and the
professor, Mr. Baxter.

 I have to admit, I never saw it coming. I strutted up there in front of
everyone and began to make my case, assuming an absolute certainty of
victory. Baxter sat in the front row, his fingers steepled thoughtfully
beneath his bearded chin, not taking a single note about anything I was
saying. I imagined him as being won over to the point of speechlessness.

 Finally, he raised his hand and proceeded to ask what I saw as a totally
innocuous question. No, not even innocuousit was a question that seemed
almost specifically designed to make me look good. I answered it easily
and continued, but before I was able to get much further he raised his
hand again. And then again. I was able to answer each question without any
difficulty, but, in hindsight, I realize it was at that point that the
alarm bells in my head should have begun to sound. They didn't.

 When I had finished presenting my case, there was a brief pause, after
which the slaughter began. He started subtly, summarizing both my
arguments and my answers to the questions he had posed. Then, point by
point, he proceeded to dismantle every bit of it, using almost nothing but
my own words against me. By the time he was finished, my entire case lay
in ashes at my feet. I stood there shaking and sweating, and the other
students in the class were clearly horrified, correctly assuming that they
were next.

 That night, halfway into a bottle of vodka, Baxter's destruction of my
case played over and over in my mind, the subtleties of it becoming more
and more apparent each time. The questions he asked had been perfect in
every wayeach one had played into my ego, my pride in the work I had done,
and at the same time had lured me into dangerous twists of logic that had
wound slowly around my argument until, at the end, the life and truth had
been utterly strangled from it. He had used my own mind against me, and I
had remained utterly oblivious up until the very end. All this he had
managed to accomplish without any time to prepare his attack beforehand. I
spent the rest of the night in a state of drunken, almost tearful awe. To
be able to do something like that would require an elemental change in my
thinking, something more than just an accumulation of knowledge and
forensic tactics. I realized how pathetically unprepared for an actual
courtroom I really was, how inadequate my education up to that point had
been. Now I've seen what a real lawyer can do, I thought. I need to be
able to do that.

 Until Oz, it was probably the most painful lesson I ever learned.

  *** 

 The unbelievable genius of Chris Keller nearly lays me flat. The degree
of expert manipulation involved in pulling off something like this,
something like what he just almost did to me... My God, who have I been
kidding? I'm an amateur compared to him. I lean back and stare at him like
I'm seeing him for the first time.

 To look at Keller, you would never guess. Jesus. And that's all part of
it, part of his singular brilliancecoming off to the world like some
none-too-bright pile of muscle, all self-important swagger and
over-the-top flirting and bad grammar and brilliant, boyish grin. Of
course, that's not exactly what he looks like right now. His appearance,
his expression, his posturethey're finely tuned and appropriate for the
situation, as always. Sad and contrite but hopeful, blurred around the
edges with a dazed air, like he's lost in the moment, in the possibility
of finally being able to touch me. But Chris Keller is never really lost
in anything. You'd think I would have figured that out by now. He's no
less in control now than he was that other day in this same room, when he
sat there swaying drunkenly on the folding table and whispered that he
loved me.

 It probably goes beyond some skill one can easily acquire; it must come
from a lifetime of near-constant practice. He's a perfectly calibrated,
ultrasensitive instrument for the detection of human need and emotion; I
imagine it's how he's survived as long as he has and accumulated three
devoted ex-wives along the way, among other things. By now, it must come
as naturally to him as breathing. Experience like that is going to be
almost impossible to match, let alone compete with and overcome.

 When he touches my face, I tighten my jaw against the unexpected
sensation. He cups the angle of my jaw in the palm of his hand and his
thumb swipes gently across my cheek, and then he's reaching around the
back of my neck to pull me to him. But I'm back in control now, able to
observe his actions without drowning in his influence. As he leans in, I
use my cane to shove his arm off me and my other hand to push him away. I
expect him to stumble backwards; instead, he just sways away and then
sways back toward me. My lack of arm strength is infuriating.

 "Get away from me, Keller. You've had your fun."

 His expression darkens, his eyes come back into focus. He doesn't seem to
know what to do with his hands now; clenching them into fists, he folds
them across his chest.

 I hop down off the washer and take a few limping steps away. The air
seems cooler and easier to breathe the farther I get from him. "All I
wanted to do was give you one last opportunity to admire your handiwork
before I told you the good news. You're going to be moving to a new pod,
so you might want to start packing up your shit now."

 He had already been getting angry to begin with, so it robs me of some of
my funsome, but not all. The effect is a little like I just punched him in
the gut. He's obviously reeling from this sudden 180-degree change in
fortune; within just a few seconds, he's gone from almost kissing me again
to having me shove him away and tell him he's moving out. I watch him
carefully, drinking it all in and trying to savor every nuanceevery twitch
of muscle, every breath, every minute change in posture.

 He's getting even angrier than I had expected, although I know it
shouldn't surprise me. I almost never let him get as close to me as he
just did, and I certainly never invite him to touch me. There's a nervous
twinge deep in my gut as he crosses the distance between us and gets in my
face, but I force myself to stare right back at him without flinching.

 "Go ahead, Toby, if that's what you need to do. I got no doubt you'll
pull it off, either, cause I bet you can work McManus better than anyone.
But you know what I know how to do?" His lips curl into a smug little
smirk. "I know how to read you. And you love me."

 It's not easy to keep myself from plowing my fist into that smirking
face. I'll get to do that soon enough. Instead, I just laugh, and it
almost sounds authentic. "Think what you want, Keller. Now, if you'll get
out of my way, my laundry's done."

 His smile gets even bigger, and his eyes sparkle. "Your laundry's been
done for a while now. Guess you were kind of distracted."

 "Fuck you." I push him away from me without thinking, even at the same
time as I'm realizing it's exactly how he wanted me to react. My face
burns with hot frustration, and I turn away to get my clothes from the
dryer, my humiliation compounded by the fact that my hands are still
remembering the solidity of his body and are itching to feel it again.

  *** 

 I leave him there, sitting on the washer where I had sat, leaning back on
his arms, watching me. Always watching me. Probably still smirking, too,
although I'm not about to check on that. I wonder which part of the past
half-hour or so he'll remember most vividlythe part where I first held his
hand, that first contact? The part where he first realized he had free
rein to touch me, to take my arm in his hand and run his fingers along my
skin, without my doing anything to stop him? The part where he decided he
was going to try to kiss me and believed that this time I wouldn't be able
to resist? Or maybe he's simply going to bask in the overall satisfaction
of having played me almost flawlessly, of having read my every thought and
impulse as easily as if I had been broadcasting them out loud. Does he
still derive a significant amount of satisfaction from his ability to do
that, or has it been his primary means of interacting with people for so
long that he barely notices?

 I'm already carefully reviewing his actions and mine; when I can, I'll
lie down in our pod and consider them and their implications much more
thoroughly. I know that I'll never reach Keller-level proficiency in the
art of human manipulation; in fact, it's starting to seem doubtful that
I'll even develop the kind of immunity to his tactics that I once thought
possible. Still, there's a lesson to be learned from what just happened
between the two of us, if I can muster the patience to find it.

 A jerky, black blur of motion across the room catches my eye, and for a
moment Keller recedes entirely from my mind. Andy Schillinger is on the
prowl for tits again, and the sight of him sharpens my focus on the
ultimate goal. I stop to study his face as he crosses the room, but
there's not much there to see. His expression is seemingly devoid of
intelligence or emotion of any kind, and he takes little notice of me or
anyone else as he makes his way around the common area. I try to recognize
Vern in the blankness of that face, those eyes, but it's a different kind
of blankness. Vern's lack of affect is cold, reptilian, and entirely
without morality; Andy's is more like...

 ...that of a dog that's been kicked one too many times, maybe?

 I'm not about to feel pity for a Vern-in-training, some shitbag junior
Nazi who murdered a black man just for the fun of it. It seems clear that
the Schillinger family cruelty has taken early root in this kid, but I
have yet to see any intelligence or idealism there to provide an
infrastructure for it. In other words, he's probably ripe for the picking.

 I'll start off nice and slow, the way I've learned works best. He'll see
me here and there, and I'll become the one friendly face, an oasis in a
sea of hostility. He'll slowly learn to trust that impression...and then
he'll come to depend on its reality. I'll show him that I'm the one person
in this place who really cares what happens to him, and when he wakes up
in the middle of the night in the throes of a nightmare or needing a fix,
I'm the one who'll be there to soothe him. In the very beginning, he'll
probably merely tolerate it when I touch him; soon enough, though, that
tolerance will turn to acceptance and then, subtly, to desire. He probably
won't even notice the change when it overtakes him, but one night he'll be
torn from sleep by a nightmare and find himself wishing I were down there
holding him. And I will be, up until the very end.

 I limp my way around the guys gathered in front of the TV, cutting across
the room and into Andy's path. I don't know exactly what I'll do once I
reach him, but I feel infused with fresh determination to get the ball
rolling. There he is, here I am, and there's no time like the present. He
seems to be heading for the stairwell, having learned quickly the best
place to find drugs if you're in the market for them. He may not be any
rocket scientist, but he has a junkie's instinct for rooting out
opportunities to score.

 When I'm close enough, I stop him with a hand on his shoulder; he shrugs
it off and meets my eyes with a feral glare. I withdraw my hand, giving
him room without actually stepping away, and make my face and my posture
project nothing but warm understanding. He needs to be careful, I tell
him. I know what he's doing, what he's looking forbut so do the hacks, and
they're going to be making a close study of his every movement for a
while. He needs to watch his back.

 He seems to experience an internal conflict between wanting to tell me to
fuck off and wondering whether he should consider my advice. Then he
glances over my shoulder, and I turn to see Murphy helpfully illustrating
my point with a frank, warning stare directed at the two of us. Perfect.
Andy looks back at me, this time with an expression filled with confusion
and suspicion but much less hostility. I smile slightly and tell him that
I know what it's like to get thrown in the Hole, and I'm pretty sure he
doesn't want to be back there again anytime soon. People like us ought to
look out for each other, I say, shrugging to show him it's really no big
deal. Who the hell else is going to bother to do it?

 With that, I turn and slowly walk away, leaving the idea of "people like
us" hanging in the air for him to think about. When I reach my pod, I look
back to see Andy shuffling reluctantly toward an empty chair in front of
the television, and the warm thrill of satisfaction I experience at the
sight catches me by surprise. I grin and then break into joyous laughter
as I think of all the pleasure that lies before me, now that I know how to
reach out and take it. Yes, there are plenty of different kinds of
enjoyment to be had in life, if you only have the patience, creativity,
and intelligence to appreciate them. Make use of them. Take them and twist
them to your will; make them serve you, rather than you becoming a slave
to them.

 I shift my focus and watch Keller as he strolls slowly back from the
laundry room. No matter what knowledge I come away from this place with,
it will never take control of me. It will never turn me into a monster.
Not like him.

 But never let it be said that Tobias Beecher isn't a truly gifted
student.

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