PENAL COLONY NINE (Velvetglove)

(BOOK NINE: THE END)

 

EXTRACT

 

SEVEN MONTHS LATER

 

Kayla was sitting with Mick Pawson watching him shear a new prisoner's hair. The woman sobbed as one side of her dirty blonde locks was buzzed away by Mick's clippers.

"What d' you reckon?" Mick asked. "Both sides?"

Kayla studied the woman a moment. Aside from her distressed expression, she was kind of cute; brown eyes, good teeth, even features.

"I think shave that side and the back too." Kayla said. "But leave her left side long. That way her hair can be plaited into a short leash."

The woman blinked up at her. It was quite obvious she hated Kayla. They'd only known each other 48 hours but that was plenty. Kayla had a knack of finding a prisoner's weaknesses super quickly. The woman's wet eyes were full of disgust that she now made every single decision for her.

Mick chuckled. "Your wish is my command, K."

For a minute or so, his clippers savaged the back of the prisoner's head, shaving her neck all the way up to the crown at the top, sending strands of long hair floating down to the grimy floor of his salon. The woman yowled when she saw it all lying around her feet.

"Nice." Kayla said, patting the woman's knee. "Don't worry. I'm sure your husband will still find you attractive."

"Any more?" Mick asked, holding up a mirror so that both women could admire the mess he'd made of the back and top of her head. Parts were hairless, other areas dotted with red pinpricks and stubble, and everything was uneven.

"Nooo." The woman wept when she saw it.

Kayla laughed. It was so funny when these new prisoners got all worked up about such a little thing. Mick's parlor was rather different to the hairdressing salons they were used to.

She gathered the woman's long hair on the other side into a loose pigtail and stared at it. She couldn't decide if a leash would be flattering or not. Mick passed over an elastic band. She used it to secure the clump of hair together above the prisoner's ear.

"We'll leave it like that for now. I rather like it."

He laughed and turned off his black clippers. "What else? Any tattoos?"

The woman stared up at them both in horror.

Kayla arched her own immaculately plucked eyebrow and smirked as Mick unsheathed his tattoo gun.

"Oh yes, of course!" She ran her varnished fingernail along the woman's creased forehead. "Several tats."

Her fingers counted out space for 14 letters above the woman's eyebrows.

"Let's start with ... Kayla's New Bitch."

 

***

 

Damian looked out of the window and smiled down at the view. He remembered the previous time he'd taken this flight, seeing the green rectangle of Verteneuf nestling in the turquoise sea. But this was his third visit and he knew what to expect. It got better each time.

The plane was now only a few hundred feet from the ground and he could make out individual buildings and even naked people on the beach and in the sea. There appeared to be several gangbangs going on.

"Excited to be back?"

Hazel Whiting was sat alongside him in 9B.

"More than." She winked.

Damian hadn't met Hazel until they boarded the flight. But he knew all about her and her dislike of the Montagus.

After they landed, a young woman in smart white Bermuda shorts greeted them. She was topless.

"Major Parks? Ms. Whiting?"

The well-trained female reached out to take both their suitcases. As usual, there was a line of taxis waiting, pulled by human ponies.

"I've taken the liberty of reserving the Johnstons for you, sir."

Damian nodded curtly. The Johnston quartet had pulled him around on his previous visit and he'd had cause to complain. He surveyed them.

The foursome looked completely different now: the parents were muscled like weight-lifters despite being in their mid-40s; the younger couple were lithe and deeply tanned.

He walked round the cart, smacking each bare rump in turn. Their various piercings and accessories chimed like bells.

"Let's go." He said, without even acknowledging that he remembered them.

When they arrived at the South Beach Pleasure Dome, who should be there to greet them at the entrance but the Deputy Warden herself.

"Welcome back!"

"Sadie, it's great to be back."

"I hope you remember these two."

Sadie was standing between two bellhops named Greg and Alison. They made a handsome couple.

"Can't say I do." Damian frowned. "Should I?"

He watched them blush. The one called Alison was topless in a white tennis skirt and open, Roman-style sandals. Her breasts were just as he remembered them; high and perky but full, with nipples like raspberries.

Sadie smiled. "No reason at all."

The bellhops bustled forward and took both suitcases from the female porter.

"Keep this cart on standby." Damian said, sneering at the perspiring Johnstons. "And you can jog back to the airstrip," he told the porter. She curtseyed gratefully.

Sadie was a large and unfit woman, sweating in the sun in a large and unflattering dress.

"Cocktail?"

Hazel led the way into the hotel and Damian followed.

Yes, it was good to be back.

 

END OF EXTRACT