Please don’t let her look in the glove compartment . . . please don’t let her look in the glove compartment . . .

       The female cop shone the flashlight into my face, blinding me. I fumbled around to the glove compartment, opening it just a sliver, and delicately putting two fingers inside, trying only to take out what I needed and nothing more . . .

       The cop rapped the flashlight against the door. “Hurry up!” she shouted.

       I was startled, and my hand spasmed. The glove compartment flew open, and all manner of things fell out. I reached to cover things up with my hands, but the beam of the flashlight was faster, and it fell on the small plastic baggie that had made its way to the floor of the car.

       “I suppose you’re going to tell me that’s oregano?”

       I didn’t say a word.

       The cop sneered. “Get out of the car.”

       I climbed out. The cop reached into the car and took out my registration, as well as the baggie of marijuana, which she waved in my face.

       She then examined my wallet.

       “Jack Conroy,” she said. “Freshman at Georgia Tech. Well, well, well. You’re in my town now, and we don’t much like you druggie liberal college boys coming through our communities. Am I gonna find any more drugs in this car?”

       “No, ma’am,” I said truthfully. The irony – the really painful irony – was that the drugs weren’t even mine. I had been visiting my cousin in Macon and was bringing the half-ounce bag back to Atlanta as a favor.

       “No? Well, maybe I’ll just take a look in this trunk here. Are you gonna make a run for it if I do that, college boy?”

       The policewoman moved close to me. She had a full two inches on me, who have never been a particularly big guy (I’m five-seven and of a slight build), and she was pretty in a way, with curly red hair and large breasts straining her blue uniform shirt, but I was too nervous to have anything approaching a sexual response.

       “No, officer, ma’am, I won’t make a run for it.”

       “Imagine you might, though. Turn around and put your hands on the car roof.”

       I did as I was told. The policewoman moved behind me and frisked me. Her hands moved over my chest, lingering over my hips and buttocks, carefully probing my legs.

       “All right. Wrists behind your back.”

       “Ma’am?”

       “Do it before I lose patience with you, college boy!”  Her voice was sharp and frightening. Immediately I crossed my wrists behind me. Then I heard a jangle, and felt cold metal click on my wrists.

       Cuffed!

       Whistling, the cop strolled over to the trunk of the car while I leaned my chest against the car and my cheek against the shut window, tugging lightly on my chained wrists. I squeezed my eyes shut and heard the trunk opening. It seemed like hours, soundless hours then, and then there was the clomp-clomp of her boots as she returned to my side.

       “Look what we got here.”

       I opened my eyes.

       Dangling between her fingers was another baggie. A larger baggie. Filled with a white powder. And in her other hands were a set of hypodermic needles.

       “We really don’t like junkies in this town, boy.”  The policewoman was grinning from ear to ear.

       I felt as if there was a snowstorm in my stomach. “But I’ve never seen that before! It wasn’t in the trunk! I never – I never –”

       The cop put a finger to my lips and shushed me. And she leaned close to me, and whispered in my ear, softly, huskily, as if she was talking dirty to me:

       “I think you’d better come with me.”

 ***

        “It looks pretty bad for you, Jack. As a matter of fact, I can’t think of a thing to do that will get you out of prison time.”

       These were just about the last words that I needed to hear. I had been up all night, confined to a cold cell, after an hour of questioning by the female cop who had brought me in, in which I protested, in tears after a few minutes, that yes, it was my marijuana, but no, I didn’t know anything about the heroin in the trunk of my car, that I had never seen it before, that I had never even used heroin, and that I had no explanation whatsoever for its presence in my car. All of which was true, but which didn’t seem to go over well with the questioning officer, who had yelled, laughed, and blown smoke in my face, until announcing that she was through with me. As she led me to my cell, she had provided me with an interesting narrative about what I could expect in the state pen. It involved very swiftly becoming the wife to whatever Neanderthal I ended up in a cell with, being shared with his friends in the showers, branded as a prang, and eventually knifed to death in one of the routine gang wars that spared nobody. So the prospect of prison time held very little appeal at that moment.

       The words were spoken by Dr. Amanda Nussbaum, J. D., M.D., a famous surgeon and high-powered attorney who, as a favor to her good friend my mother, had flown in to give me legal counsel. She sat across the conference room table, an expression of pity crossing her full, red lips. She was a tall, elegant woman just on the south side of forty, with long straight blonde hair, a splendidly curvy figure, ivory skin, and long, tapered fingers. She was wearing a perfectly tailored gray pinstripe suit with a lighter blue-gray blouse, a knee-length skirt, and Italian leather pumps. I had nursed a crush on her from my adolescence, but all such thoughts were absolutely banished from my mind now that I faced . . . what did I face?

       “At least ten years,” Dr. Nussbaum said in reply to my unanswered question. “Possibly more, depending on the judge’s mood.”

       I moaned and buried my head in my hands. I hadn’t eaten, slept, or had a drink of water in nine hours, and was on the verge of a total nervous collapse. Every time I thought about my predicament, I felt worse, and if I tried not to think about it, I . . . failed.

       “I can’t go to prison. I wouldn’t last! There’s no chance the charges won’t stick?”

       “I really can’t imagine it, Jack. You shouldn’t have admitted to the marijuana, you know. But even so, I wouldn’t attempt to defend it in open court by choice. It’d be suicide.”

       “You’re right about one thing though, Jack. You wouldn’t last in prison.”  She snapped her fingers. “I’d give you two months, tops. You wouldn’t leave alive.”

       “She must have planted it.”  I held my palms, fingers outstretched, in front of my eyes. I was so strung out that I imagined I could see the veins working under the skin. “The cop . . . Officer Mustaine? . . . she planted the smack in my car.”

       Dr. Nussbaum sighed.

       “Why would she do that, Jack? Be serious.”

       I stared at her, the beauty of her features prompting a swell of memory, delicate as cotton puffs, in my mind, and giving way to a sickening wave of disappointment.

       “You don’t believe me.”

       She reached out and took my hands between hers, and looked directly into my face, sadness in her aristocratic features.

       “How does it look, Jack? How does it look?”

       I was content for a minute, just letting the cool pressure of her hands on mine be the only sensation I could feel. And for a moment he had a weird wave of longing: if I could just be held by somebody like this, taken care of, I’d be all right. I’d be glad to have everything taken away. Just to be taken care of.

       But then her hands were gone, and that strange feeling of peace was gone, and there was only nausea and physical discomfort and terror, terror, terror.

       “There may be options, though I couldn’t really say what. But sit tight and let me get back to you.”

       I retreated to my cell, paced it for an hour, and finally collapsed on my skinny bed, exhaustion over coming nervousness and sending me to sleep.

***

       The sound of a nightstick rapping against the bars of my cell replaced the clock’s tick, and then woke me up.

       “Lawyer’s on the phone, college boy,” the arresting officer said. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up, though. Some witnesses that swear you tried to sell them heroin are going to come forward any minute, I have a feeling. That you tried to sell them heroin on a playground. You are not leaving my state and my system, except in a pine box, with Property of Billy Joe tattooed on your ass.”

       Groggily, I only had time to file this in the back of my head before I had stumbled to the phone. She kept a close distance as I spoke.

       “Jack?”  Dr. Nussbaum’s voice was bright, unnaturally bright. “I’ve got some good news, if you’re willing to make some concessions.”

       “Anything!” I whispered desperately. “Just get me out of here!”

       “Well, you’re going to have to do some time; there’s no way around that. I’ve pulled a few strings, though, and if you waive the trial, and sign a confession, I can get you on a different track than standard imprisonment.”

       That didn’t sound too bad. Drug treatment? Some sort of work-community service-group home thing? Whatever it was, it had to be better than what I had been hearing.

       “You got it. Bring me the papers and I’ll sign them today. What’s the track?”

       Dr. Nussbaum paused before answering that, and her voice was weirdly chipper.

       “You’d be in the women’s prison.”

 ***

        The woman who stood before me had the face of a bulldog on the body of a giantess.

       She was over six feet tall; high-heeled boots of shining black leather added at least two inches more. She was wearing a black military-style uniform – a tailored coat with lapels on the shoulders and shining brass buttons that went from the bottom of the jacket all the way up to the throat, and a knee-length black skirt, which terminated over the tips of the boots. Her hair was dark, curly, and abundant, done in an elaborate hairdo atop her head, and her dark eyes flashed greedily above heavy cheeks and a painted mouth.

       She was a little over forty years old, and a large woman, not just tall but big – probably about two hundred and fifty, two hundred and seventy-five pounds, causing the uniform to bulge around not only her monstrously voluptuous breasts, but her heavy belly and broad hips. When she moved, it was as if she was filling the room.

       In her hands – encased in black leather gloves – she held a curious instrument, resembling a nightstick but a bit more slender, and much longer, the length of a long sword. With one hand, she gripped the handle; with the other, she caressed the tip, softly and delicately running her palm up and down the end of it.

       Dr. Nussbaum smiled brightly. “I’ve brought him, Madame Wardeness. And he’s signed all the papers.”

       But the wardeness’s eyes were on me. “Very good,” she said, her voice slurring a little, as if she had been drinking. “Have you informed him of the details of our arrangement?”

       “No, Madame Wardeness. I thought I would leave that to you; I imagine you might enjoy it.”

       “I certainly plan to.”  The whole time she had been speaking, she had been walking towards me, very slowly, never taking her eyes off me. Her pace had been so hypnotically slow, I suddenly realized she was standing only a few inches from me, her massive chest jutting at my face, and her greedy, sparkling eyes staring down at me with a strange delight in them.

       “Hello, Jack,” she said. “Remember me?”

       My voice trembled as I spoke. “Miss Moosewood,” I said. “Gym class, freshman year of high school.”

       Miss Moosewood had only taught gym for a year, but she speedily gained a reputation. She worked the girls in her class like sweatshop laborers, putting them through an impossible set of paces every period and sometimes reducing them to tears with her mocking and abuse, but the boys she pretty much left alone.

       Except for me. For some reason, Miss Moosewood had taken an interest in me, setting me to endless laps, hand-burning sessions with the climbing rope, and countless push-ups. I had been a very scrawny, skinny teenager, and she would never let me forget it. I was a sissy, a weakling; a girl could beat me up. She was going to make me into a man. But it wasn’t working, she reminded me; I was a pathetic wimp, a ridiculous excuse for a man. I might as well, she told me, put on a skirt and call myself Sally.

       Rumors circulated, naturally: about her profession, that she had been a cop, a marine drill sergeant, or a professional wrestler; of course, there was also the recurrent question of her sexuality. Almost everyone concluded that she was a raging bull dyke, though nobody ever knew for sure, least of all me, who detected in her special attentions something quite different from normal sexual attraction of any kind.

       In any event, she left after two years of torment for me and various of the slighter and prettier girls, and nobody ever saw her again.

       Except for me. At this moment.

       I heard Dr. Nussbaum’s voice behind me, though I didn’t look back; my neck felt as if it was locked in a vise.

       “Jack, I’ll speak with you later,” she said. “Good luck.”

       I thought I detected a shadow of a laugh in her last two words. And then the door closed, and I was alone with Miss Moosewood.

       And the maid, of course, I suddenly remembered, and glanced over at her. Miss Moosewood did too.

       “Jenny,” she said. “Go to the supply room and get the package we prepared yesterday.”

       “Yes, Madame Wardeness,” Jenny said in a small voice and left as well.

       “Well, well, well. Jack Conroy. Been a few years, hasn’t it?”

       I nodded.

       “I wonder if you missed me.”  She began walking again, slowly moving in a circle around me, keeping the diameter narrow so I was always within an arm’s length of her, the force field of her solid physical presence never forgotten. “I’ll bet you thought of me from time to time. I certainly thought of you, Jack. I wondered if you were still a sissy wimp, and I see that you are.”  She clucked her tongue. “And now I see that you’re a criminal, as well. Shame on you, Jack, shame on you. Heroin? In this state? I hear you had ten pounds. That was a mistake, Jack, a really bad mistake.”

       “It wasn’t mine,” I said, shaking inwardly with nervousness and confusion. “That fucking cop planted it on me!”

       Her arm whipped out like a cobra striking, so fast I didn’t see it until her hand was around my arm.

       And once it was there, it was more like a boa constrictor. I buckled in her iron grip.

       She yanked me to the left; I stumbled and went down on my knees. She pulled me up, her grip not weakening for an instant. It was as if my arm was on fire.

       “Now you listen to me, honey, and you listen good.”  She held me near to her; her face was just inches away from mine and her features filled my vision: her red lips, dark hair, and furious eyes. “Here’s the deal.

       “Jack Conroy, legally, is in limbo. When you signed those papers, he went legally into a witness protection program whose information is kept secret from all but the highest levels. Unless the head of the FBI takes an interest in you, no inquiry will ever uncover him.

       “If you check the records, you’ll see that it wasn’t Jack Conroy who entered my prison today. It was Jackie Conroy, a young woman found guilty of all manner of crimes – arson, burglary, assault. Jackie Conroy was, on paper at least, found guilty and sentenced to thirty years here, in Bibb County’s State Penitentiary for Women. Maximum Security.”

       I was in shock. So I just stood there and listened as she spoke, a smile gradually filling her face. That smile was an evil thing to behold. And all the while, her grip on my arm never slackened. For all the heavy flesh I could see on her body, she had to have muscles of steel.

       “Now, Jackie Conroy was very unfortunate to be moved into this prison. You see, I have a special relationship with governor of this state. You have no idea just how special that relationship is. So, as far as the state of Georgia is concerned, everything will always be fine here. There’s nobody to complain to, nobody to report to.

       “In other words, Jack – or should I say Jackie? – you’re in hell, and I’m Satan, and your soul is wriggling like a little worm on the end of my pitchfork.”