Venomously Yours,

10.Sordidly Yours

Have the balls, she said. Have the balls.

Those words circulated around his head as he watched the dinning hall on the balcony overhead.

Phoenix immediately found the menace, who told him the said words. She wasn't sitting alone this time but with Naomi and Cathy.

He had been worried about this alliance but so far no harm had been committed. Yet, he kept a personal watch over them just in case.

Nothing to do with the fact that watching over them was more like watching Valora. And watching her was just trying not to eye-fuck and/or staring daggers at her half of the time.

His knuckles tightened over the steel cold railing bar, when she flickered her hair from her shoulder, giving him a hard stare.

She was such a shrew. A shrew's stare which could be his undoing.

The yearn to run his tongue over the exposed side of her neck escalated in him.

Have the balls. That's going to now haunt him.

When they were stored in that room, the only thing keeping him from pouncing on her was the practiced control he reined for years.

Phoenix wanted to laugh at that pathetic excuse of control he had shown.

He could have walked away. Could have easily turned her and trapped that slithery snake into a corner but no, he didn't do it.

Because and when he says this, he is cursing himself like a bad sailor. God almighty, he loved it.

Caging him with those hands of hers who had done more harm than good, he felt wild from inside.

The iron-like will was slowly breaking and it was not doing any good for his mental state.

He had to keep reminding himself that these were all those thoughts surrounding him like a shark.

Wanting to distract himself, he looked over the other inmates. They were all quietly chewing and hush whisperer passed around them.

He wasn't unfamiliar with this.

His presence made this happen. He controlled all of them. Till they are under his thumb, this was how things were meant to be and he bloody liked it.

As a warden, he is to supervise and manage adult correctional facilities. Understanding the correctional administration, operations, and security procedures, maintain records and supervision of the inmates.

In all cruelty, the inmates he had come across here had done far worse things a person could imagine. Cut up people, smuggle and sell things you weren't supposed to, cut up family members as he gazed over the twins.

Yet Phoenix thought this was too soft on them.

The grueling routine done every single day. They were stuck in this non ending circle of habit. From wake up, roll call, work and eat to work again, roll call and back to sleep. And the cycle continues.

The chasm of doing things regularly was a concept unfamiliar with these prisoners. They did things out of habit. They were unaware of how the normal side of things worked.

Now that was being imposed on them, there were regular outbursts, a jailbreak only once but they caught the inmate before she could walk out of the entrance main hall.

Fighting and trying to unhand the guards and the warden were not an unusual case because Phoenix took care of that. At least after the second or the third time, depending on how he's feeling.