Chapter 7

Driving down the highway Cheryl let her mind go back to her law school days, her first years of law school, where her life began its journey toward her life's work, fulfilling a dream she'd had since she was a very mature 13, and a physical therapist had inquired what she to do when she grew up. Before her life took an unintended and life altering turn.

It had been a ploy to help a tired and hurting little girl get her mind away from the continuous agony of the mandatory treatments so she would be able to walk normally again. Cheryl remembered the surprise, when without hesitation she told the heavily muscled giant of a man, that she wanted to be an attorney. It was like a revelation, in that split second, Cheryl knew exactly what she would do, what classes to take so that she would have an easier time getting into a good pre-law program in college, and after that a decent law school.

It would appear that way back then fate was setting her on the path to her destiny and the other half of her soul.



Cheryl graduated from the university Suma Cum Laude, and immediately took her LSATs. She almost got a perfect score. As a result, the hard working student was offered full scholarship to some very prestigious law schools.

Because she was an orphan, and was a ward of the state, the state would cover the expenses that her scholarship didn't, as long as she remained in an in-state university. Her foster mothers had also set aside some money for Cheryl's education, and since there was still some left they offered to cover the cost of an off campus apartment, as they had for her last three years of college.

She took a job managing a small bookstore so she would have money for the incidentals. Cheryl went to Columbia in June after a short vacation with her mothers to Arizona, where they did the whole tourist bit. She was very aware of how much easier it was to find a nice place to live than it would be in July. After a careful search, Cheryl found herself a big old well-maintained Victorian house right next to the law school, and within walking distance of her job.

The only draw back was the cost was a little higher than she'd wanted to pay, but she didn't think much of her odds of finding some place as near perfect as that one. Since Cheryl had gone through a service she was already approved and after giving the woman real estate agent a check for a damage deposit and first and last months rent she got the keys from the agent.

Cheryl began moving herself in, one of the reasons she had gone through this particular agency was they handled all the incidental details of moving in, they got the utilities, phone, even cable turned on for her, so that all she had left to do was unpack her things and settle in.

Wanting roommates with similar interests Cheryl registered with the university and by the end of August, she had found three roommates to help her defray the cost of her new home.

Two of the new tenants were upper class undergrads that, like Cheryl, had grown tired of the noise and distractions of the dorm and needed some place with a reasonable cost. Both were very nice, quiet small town girls like herself and she was glad to welcome them.

The third new roommate was somewhat different, Cheryl was leery of her from the start, she wasn't sure if the slightly wild young woman would fit in but she let her own kind nature over ride her instincts and allowed the young Greek woman to move in.

The girls' name was Kelly Antropos, the only child of a Greek import/export billionaire, whose father never allowed his daughter to want for anything.

Rumor had it that the wild young woman would never have graduated college let alone be in law school if her father wasn't so generous with his checkbook. From the start the spoiled woman was trouble, she treated the two undergrads as if they were her personal servants.

She was constantly having them run her errands or doing her share of the household chores. Cheryl noticed and tried to talk to Kelly about it, but within a week, she was right back at it.

Cheryl then tried to talk to the two younger girls, but either they didn't care, or they were too afraid of the Greek woman's explosive temper to do anything about it. All she really succeeded in doing was make Kelly mad, and she burst into an impromptu lecture about how Cheryl should mind her own business.

Properly chastised Cheryl fell back to her usual defense, sticking her nose in her books, concentrate on her studies and ignore the entire thing in hopes that it would resolve itself. Her only worry was when it was going to be her turn. As it turned out Kelly Antropos wasn't interested in another servant.

From the very beginning, Cheryl had been up front and open about her sexuality, she made sure that all three of her housemates understood that she was gay so that there weren't any problems later on. Her reasoning was that she had gone through all the trouble and heartache of coming out she wasn't about to go back in.

It had been a little awkward at first and she had answered some strange and sometimes hilarious questions from the two younger roommates but after a while, they figured out that Cheryl wasn't very different from them except for whom she dated.

Everything went smoothly for the room mates and with the exception of a few clashes that are inevitable in this situation the only thing that really bothered the young blonde was Kelly's apparent attitude that because she was rich she could get away with anything. She seemed to believe that her having money made her somehow superior to everyone else, but since she and Cheryl seldom interacted things went rather smoothly.

Cheryl's days were pretty full between schoolwork and studies she barely had time to sleep, much less worry about her lack of a social life.

Kelly on the other hand breezed through using her wealth and clout whenever she ran into a rough spot. Even when an instructor was unimpressed, the administration was and they would step in and smooth over any ruffled academic feathers.

Most of her time Kelly spent partying and indulging her baser appetites, bedding a constant parade of bodies men and women in and out of her rooms.

There were some embarrassing moments when the wild woman and her latest partner didn't make it to her rooms and Cheryl or one of the others would walk into the living room or kitchen or wherever and find their promiscuous room mate and company sprawled out usually nude.

Cheryl as usual tried to ignore Kelly's rude and inconsiderate behavior and just passed it off as not her problem. Opting for peace and quiet instead of trying to solve the problem. It even worked, for a while.

Life was running pretty smoothly for Cheryl until the middle of her last year. When her roommates left for the Winter break, she had the house to herself. The young blonde spent Christmas Eve and Christmas with her foster mothers, but the rest of her time off from school, she spent putting in extra hours at her job for a little extra spending money and to help ease the pressure on her over her bills.

It was also a good time for Cheryl to actually go out and socialize more than once a month. After work and on some weekends she would go to a small local bar called "The Rose" that was a favorite gathering place for the younger gay community. Mostly college kids free from the close observation of home and able to expressing their sexuality for the first time.

Cheryl made many friends during her time in Columbia, and found some of her old friends as well. That particular long Winter break was a fairly good time for the normally quiet young woman. She was enjoying herself for a change, even dancing from time to time with one of the many women that approached her.

With her soft ethereal beauty and pleasant intelligent personality, she soon became quite popular actually finding she had more dinner, movie, and dancing date offers than she knew what to do with. Things were really beginning to look up for the one time "poor little orphan girl" and for the first time since moving to Columbia she was as close to being as happy as she had ever been. That all changed two days after Christmas, after stopping by The Rose for a couple of drinks and a few turns around the dance floor with friends Cheryl was surprised when she returned home to find Kelly's Jaguar sitting in the driveway and lights on in the living room. She walked in the front door hoping not to find her roommate having another fling in the front room, when an agitated Kelly met her in the front hallway.

"Where the hell have you been!?" the Greek woman growled

"I-I was at work." Cheryl stuttered stunned by her volatile roommate's sudden intense concern.

Cheryl hung her coat on the rack and walked past the obviously angry young woman, anxious to get to her rooms and away from Kelly. She also was a little perturbed by her roommate's insinuation that she should answer to the rich woman for her whereabouts like a child.

"Bullshit!" Kelly spat out, her dark brown eyes flashing with anger as she roughly grabbed the blonde's upper arm and spun her around. "I can smell the liquor from here you've been out whoring around, haven't you?"

"Like you have any room to talk." Cheryl snapped back confused and getting madder at the dark haired woman's suddenly possessive behavior.

Without warning, Kelly slapped the young blonde and threw her to the floor of the living room. Cheryl tried to get up to protest this uncalled for treatment but Kelly backhanded her and told the now bleeding woman to stay where she was.

Then Kelly informed her that from now on Cheryl was going to be her girlfriend and that she was going to stop her running around and acting like a whore.

The strong aggressive woman then helped Cheryl to her feet and pulled her into a vicious kiss that was more about dominance than affection. Then told Cheryl to go to bed they would talk more in the morning.

Already hurt and more than a little frightened of being hurt worse Cheryl quickly retreated to her third floor rooms locking the door and sitting up all night afraid to sleep in case Kelly might come upstairs and start again.

The next morning Cheryl came down stairs to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and bacon cooking. A subdued and contrite Kelly had made her breakfast, and when at Kelly's invitation she entered the dining room Cheryl found the table set with a vase full of beautiful flowers in the center of the table.

Kelly bade her to please sit at the table, and after she was seated, Kelly brought out a large serving tray. The young Greek woman had pulled out all the stops. Bacon, eggs, toast, coffee, freshly squeezed orange juice; Cheryl was grateful but leery of the other woman's' motives.

Kelly began by falling to her knees next to the stunned law student and took her hand, holding it while she begged Cheryl to forgive her for her appalling actions the night before.

She claimed that when she arrived and found that Cheryl wasn't home that she got worried and called the book store and when she learned that her room mate had left much earlier she became insane with worry, believing that something terrible had happened to Cheryl.

Then when Cheryl came home, and she learned that she was safe, and had merely been at a bar drinking, the combination of worry and concern had made her lose control. She swore that if the petite blonde would just give her a chance she would do everything in her power to prove that not only was she sorry and she would do whatever Cheryl needed to show that it would never happen again. Actually, Cheryl was touched by the young Greek's appeal.

"Come on Kelly get up." the compassionate blonde said softly "There's no need for this, I accept your apology and you're letting this fabulous meal get cold"

"I am sorry about it all Cheryl I really am." Kelly insisted as she rose to here feet and went to her chair next to Cheryl's "I swear on the gods of my ancestors that I will never again strike you. I care about you very much my dear and I hope that even though I behaved abominably last night that you are able to get past it and give us a chance at what could be a beautiful relationship."

"Kelly please," Cheryl said taking the dark eyed woman's hand "I am truly flattered by your offer and even without what went on last night there would be no chance of an 'us' ever happening. I am not the kind of person that will lead someone on or have a fling. I can't be with someone if I don't have deep feelings for her. It just isn't any good for the woman or me if I don't have that emotional bond with them. I'm just not that way"

Kelly was not about to give up that easily and she spent the rest of the day trying to convince Cheryl to become her lover. Several times, she would begin to lose her temper but true to her word, the frustrated Greek woman would go to another room and cool down for a while.

Only to return a few minutes later and begin her crusade all over again. Finally Cheryl grew tired of the constant attempts, sat Kelly down, and gave her a long itemized list of reasons why they would never be lovers. After that, she went up to her rooms to watch TV hoping that Kelly would understand and forget the entire ill-fated endeavor.

She just wanted to put the entire affair behind them and let things get back to normal. She shut and locked the door to her upstairs rooms and as she went to bed that night, she was sure that Kelly had finally given up her idea of being her girlfriend.

Cheryl couldn't have been more wrong, Kelly was a spoiled rich brat that had always gotten everything she wanted and right now she wanted the small golden haired beauty in her bed and she would let nothing stop her from having her way. Not even Cheryl herself.

Chapter 8

For the rest of the holiday Kelly continued to try to persuade Cheryl to try to build a relationship with her, but the small blonde steadfastly refused to even consider it. Cheryl soon became concerned over the dark eyed woman's obsessive behavior.

The more Cheryl turned her down the harder Kelly pushed her to be her girlfriend, and Cheryl was beginning to get the creepy feeling that the woman was coming into her room at night while she was asleep.

To her dismay, the night after New Years Cheryl woke suddenly in the middle of the night and found Kelly sitting in a chair next to her bed.

When Cheryl demanded she leave Kelly just stared at her as if she'd grown another head and said she was only watching over the woman she loved, as was her right.

The next day Cheryl moved all her belongings into the spare rooms in the finished basement. She figured she would be safe as the basement rooms were like a separate apartment. It had it's own bathroom and kitchen and it had its own outside entrance and could be closed off from the rest of the house, thus giving Kelly no chance to come into her rooms without breaking in.

When the two younger roommates returned at the end of Winter break, they were curious about the new living arrangements but were told by Kelly that their other normally outgoing and friendly roommate wanted the extra privacy.

She explained the locked inner door the same way, Kelly assured them that there was nothing unusual going on and began using them as her servants just as she had before.

Kelly changed tactics but still kept trying to pressure the pretty blonde into being with her while Cheryl continued to steadfastly refuse to consider it in any way. Everywhere Cheryl went eventually Kelly would show up, and if Cheryl happened to be sitting with friends or talking to another woman, Kelly would create an embarrassing scene calling the beleaguered young woman a cheap slut and a philandering whore and any other nasty name that came to mind.

Finally, Cheryl quit going out all together socially, hoping that would put an end to the Greek woman stalking her. The black haired seemingly psychotic beauty began showing up at Cheryl's job, her classes, even at her table in the law library.

Cheryl was a nervous wreck, never knowing where her stalker would show up next. She couldn't sleep or eat and she nearly jumped out of her skin every time someone said her name above a whisper, but still she stood her ground refusing to give in to Kelly's constant harassment.

Finally, in an effort to help the frightened young woman some of her friends got together and confronted the fiery tempered frustrated suitor, and told her, in no uncertain terms, that if she didn't stop harassing their friend they would be forced to take steps to stop her.

When Kelly tried to call their bluff, they threatened to call the authorities. While in truth it was a hollow threat, because none of them had actually seen the belligerent Greek woman bothering Cheryl, except for once or twice at the bar, and that really wasn't enough for the authorities to act on, but they knew Cheryl and they believed what she told them and how she looked. Besides there were actually few if any laws against what Kelly was doing (if Kelly had actually gone to her classes she would have known this). Even if there had been the local authorities were notoriously infamous for ignore any perceived domestic disputes between gays.

Kelly was livid, not only had the peasant refused her, but also Kelly was convinced that Cheryl had sent her barbaric friends to threaten and insult her. Kelly knew better than to create an incident that might get back to her father, so she quit trying to get the beautiful little blonde to be her lover.

After a couple of weeks passed without any contact from Kelly, Cheryl breathed a sigh of relief thinking the incident over and that her life could now continue as before.



Kelly was seething in fury at being spurned by the little green eyed blonde, and while it was true that she no longer wanted the woman as her lover, her Greek blood was boiling for revenge for the wrongs she perceived Cheryl to be guilty of.

Never before had anyone refused to give Kelly what she wanted and she was not about to let some American peasant be the first.

To top that the bitch was responsible for Kelly being threatened and insulted by even more of these barbaric Americans. It was more than the proud spoiled Geek heiress was willing to tolerate, so Kelly stopped pursuing Cheryl and turned all her energy and considerable wealth to seeing that the young American peasant was properly punished for her transgressions against an obvious superior such as herself.

Sometimes Kelly forgot that her great grandfather was once a peasant olive grower himself.

The next couple of months were a time of quiet and Cheryl was beginning once again to spend time doing things other than study, work and sleep, she actually began to go out with her friends and even went so far as date a few times nothing serious, just having food and fun with someone. Since Cheryl was not only a sweet and friendly young woman with a brilliant and outgoing personality, she was actually a very good dancer. It wasn't long before word got around the Rose and soon the one time wallflower had more date requests and perspective dance partners than she knew what to do with. She was finally letting herself have a good time and was meeting some very nice and interesting women.

Then one night as Cheryl was escorting a friend out to her car they were attacked by four young men wearing ski masks. Both women were severely beaten.

The woman friend was battered, bruised, and required several stitches to close some deep cuts but was released and allowed to go home after giving a statement to police.

Cheryl on the other hand had put herself between her friend and their attackers and so had received the brunt of the assault. Besides a multitude of deep bruises and cuts, many requiring stitches, the little blonde also suffered three broken ribs, her right arm broken in two places a fractured jaw and skull and a severe concussion.

Her injuries kept Cheryl in the hospital for nearly a week. The police took her statement as well as from a witness that had been passing by and had seen the assault in progress.

The young man had scared off the attackers and had called the police, he was the one that had heard the attackers yelling dyke and whore and fag and several other slurs that had police writing the attack off as another gay bashing. While they said they would investigate they actually wrote it off as a hazard those people faced for living their lifestyle in public and never really followed through.

If they had the might have been surprised at the person behind the attack and the reasons that were truly behind the beating outside the Rose.

Having gotten her money's worth out of the young thugs she had paid to give Cheryl a beating, Kelly then used the blonde victim's hospital stay to set the next phase of her plan into motion.

Kelly had decided that for Cheryl's crimes against her the young woman was not only to be punished she was to be destroyed, everything that the orphan had worked and sacrificed to gain the vindictive Greek woman was going to have taken from her including her future and her freedom.

Cheryl had been home from the hospital for two days and was getting ready for bed when her outside door burst open and her little apartment was suddenly full of men holding guns and yelling at her to lie down on the floor.

When she was slow to move because of her injuries one of the men grabbed the small blonde-haired woman and threw her on the floor. She cried out in pain when her broken ribs were jarred as she hit the hardwood floor.

The rest of the night was a blur as she barely remembered a man's voice reading her rights and asking if she understood, the injured and confused young woman nodded numbly as she watched the men tearing up her rooms, searching for some unknown prize.

The next thing she knew someone was leading her out of the house and loaded into a van and taken downtown to the central police station where she was finger printed, her picture taken and she was left sitting in a cold grey room that held a table and two other chairs.

She noticed a mirror on one wall and looking into it, Cheryl brushed her fingers through her hair trying to get it into some semblance of order when two big men wearing heavily wrinkled shirts and slacks entered the room. She sat there cold, tired, in intense pain and extremely frightened while they began yelling at her asking strange questions about drugs, dealers, suppliers, money laundering, connections, and dozens of other things Cheryl knew nothing about.



Frightened and crying hysterically Cheryl was at a loss what to do, as the men continued to badger her for answers.

Suddenly from somewhere all the knowledge she had picked up during her time in law school kicked in and she realized these men were trying to trick her into saying something to incriminate herself in some kind of drug charge.

She sat up straight wiped her eyes and demanded to know what charges had been brought against her.

When one of her interrogators told her the charges were yet to be determined, Cheryl demanded to see a lawyer and refused to cooperate further until she was adequately represented.

Eventually, due to her financial status, the innocent young law student was assigned an overworked public defender and once he arrived, the charges against her were revealed.

Cheryl found herself charged with two counts of possession of a controlled substance, a pound of marijuana, and an "eight ball" (one-eighth ounce) of cocaine one count of possession with intent to distribute and several misdemeanor charges.

Cheryl was beside herself, she told her lawyer the truth and naively refused to accept a plea bargain on the grounds that she was innocent and there was no way a jury could find an innocent woman like her guilty of such ludicrous charges.

She had no idea how that kind of thing got into her house let alone into her rooms. Her mind couldn't conceive of someone planting the evidence in an attempt to frame her. Cheryl had yet to learn how far a certain young and vindictive Greek heiress would go to get back at someone that spurned her romantic advances. Using the argument that since Cheryl was an orphan she had no permanent ties to the community, the prosecutor was able to convince the judge that it was possible that the pretty young blonde was a notorious drug dealer, who most likely had large amounts of ready cash hidden away, yet to be found. The judge agreed that Cheryl was a flight risk and ordered her held without bond. Leaving her to sit in the county jail until her trial date.

The papers went for the forgotten and embittered orphan turned vicious drug dealer angle, saying Cheryl had conned the system to use taxpayers to finance her way onto college campuses so she could sell drugs to innocent young students.

They ran front-page stories on how she was getting secretly rich by poisoning the bright young minds of the local students, and it wasn't long before the press stopped differentiating between college students and high school and junior high students.

Almost daily, there was a new story of the plague of drugs that was running rampant through the state and in every story; there was some mention of Cheryl.

Behind the sudden attention of the press and the constant mention of Cheryl in the papers were sudden large jumps in the bank accounts of certain reporters. Kelly also made large donations to the judge and the prosecutor's re-elections, being sure they understood there would be further donations if they proved themselves "hard" on drug dealers, going so far to "accidentally" mention the State of Missouri vs. Cheryl Killian.

She was heard to mention several times how horrible it was that her former roommate was a hardened drug dealer, how she was such a blot on the state because of her orphan status. That she used her status to get away with everything. The reporters ate it up and it was all finding its way into front-page stories. By the time Cheryl's case came to trial she had already been convicted in the papers.

Kelly had generously spread her money around so that by the time the trial began all she had to do was sit back in the gallery and enjoy her enemies' humiliation as she was subjected to a very public and closely detailed trial.



Cheryl couldn't believe it after all the friends she thought she'd made in her years in Columbia, not a single one of them testified on her behalf.

Some even got on the witness stand and lied about her including her two undergrad roommates. People she had never seen before got up and lied about buying drugs from her, all courtesy of Kelly Antropos. The only two people that Cheryl was sure would support her, her two foster mothers, and they were kept out of the courtroom because the prosecution had been sure to subpoena them so they were forced to stay out.

By the time the jury had returned with the verdict Cheryl knew she was already convicted and as the verdict was being read she simply stood there weeping silently, confused and hurt, not understanding why this was happening to her.

After the verdict came the sentencing and since her foster mothers were threatened with having their foster credentials pulled if they testified on Cheryl's behalf, so the young blonde refused to let them testify. This part went quickly and she was stunned when she heard the judge sentencing her to ten to twenty-five years at a maximum-security facility.

As the stunned young woman was being led handcuffed from the courtroom, she heard someone calling her name. When she looked in the direction of the voice Cheryl saw Kelly watching her with a self-satisfied smirk on her face, and when she was sure that she had the dejected young blonde's attention, she made a statement that would haunt Cheryl for a long time afterwards.

The dark eyes took on an evil gleam as the scorned Greek woman gave the dejected, lost young woman a pleased self-satisfied smirk, and told her:

"The next time you'll respect the wishes of your superiors."

Chapter 9

As she was leaving the guardroom, Paula picked up a paper bag that contained Brusard's civilian clothes and a pair of spit shined engineer boots.

The week before release, a prisoner is allowed to check out the clothing they were wearing when they entered the system. As a rule prisoners tend to lose a lot of weight while inside, and their old clothes are way too big to wear, when the discrepancy was too great they were allowed to go through a warehouse of clothes that is donated by Goodwill, Salvation Army, and various other charities.

They are allowed to find one pair of pants and a shirt, which are put aside and stored until the day of their release when the prisoner is given the civilian clothes to leave the facility.

As usual, Cam was different, instead of losing weight she had put on twenty pounds of well-sculpted muscle it looked really good on her, but it made the clothes she had worn into prison rip out at the seams. The only part of her old clothing that still fit was her high quality engineer boots. Cam had smiled when she saw her reliable old boots complete with the chains over the instep and around the back of the heel. She had spent hours sorting through the piles of clothes until she came up with a pair of faded boot cut jeans and a blue denim shirt that fit.

Usually the clothing was left stored until the prisoner was released, but the night before Paula had taken Cam's clothes to her house and washed them. Even adding a black T-shirt, she had picked up for the prisoner she had come to know and respect over the years. Another young woman that Cam and her friends had saved from some of the less desirable elements had wanted to do something for her tall black haired savior as a getting out present. So Paula had allowed the friendly young woman to shine Cam's beloved old boots. Even the guards were impressed by the spit-shine the young woman had put on Cam's old boots.

As the guard Captain made her way across the cell block heading for Cam's third tier cell she thought back to how much things had changed since the black haired beauty with the incredible cerulean eyes had entered the tiny enclosed world of CCC and how much things had improved, and Paula knew but couldn't prove that Camilla Brusard was responsible for most of them.



After her first couple of months, Cam had faced some of the toughest women in the prison many of them ended up so badly damaged that they had to be transferred to temporary nursing facilities. It wasn't long before a small group of like-minded prisoners had gravitated toward the quiet strength of the tall woman.

When the first attempt on Cam's life had failed, it came to Paula's attention that a powerful young Mexican woman sentenced to twenty-five to life for second-degree murder, had been an R.N. on the outside. She had refused to work in the infirmary, but after Cam ended up being hospitalized, Maria had suddenly changed her mind and requested to be assigned to the night shift in the infirmary.

Since it wasn't easy to get a qualified nurse to work in a prison hospital especially at night, so the doctor in charge jumped at the chance to have the former highly qualified R.N, added to the staff, he even had her re-certified as an R.N.

Maria used her position to watch over Cam, and any other of her friends that were too seriously injured to watch out for themselves. She was also able to help several young women that were being hurt by the system and other inmates. That was when Paula started watching whoever was spending time with Cam.

Paula was interested to find that as she watched the little group that none of them seemed to be close friends, but they seemed to tolerate each other well. Most of their time was spent at the free weight area in a corner of the yard. They were all constantly lifting or working out but very rarely acting together.

They always found someone from outside the group if they wanted to spar, and Paula had seen all of them in the makeshift ring at one time or another. All of them that is, except Cam, she never spared with any of them or anyone else, but she was constantly off to one side going through her forms of martial arts that she had mastered long before she entered CCC. It was clear to anyone that paid attention the stoic biker out classed them all.

Her obvious favorite was Tai Chi which she spent hours practicing the slow fluid precise movements of the discipline. Paula noticed that when the cell block had their scheduled shower times one or two of the group were usually close by, this caused her to check the statistics and found that there had been a dramatic drop in assaults since the women of Cam's little group started what Paula referred to as "shower patrol".

Knowing the way the administration worked Paula never informed anyone of her discovery, deciding to follow the advice of an oriental friend of hers who always told her if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Another thing that interested Paula was the way these women handled their love lives. It had been another revelation to Paula that all of the original group were openly lesbians before they had been sent to prison, and many pursued relationships inside the walls, except Cam, who for her first year had been celibate claiming that she was remaining loyal to an outside lover. Then she had been called to a conference with her lawyers and afterwards, she had been warned to keep close watch on the prisoner.

This made Paula recall the rumors she had heard about the shake up in Benton County that had been attributed to Cam's family, and their retaliation on those responsible for the woman's incarceration. It seems that someone had not done their homework about the three bikers that Cam called family and had underestimated the amount of pull they had with some highly placed individuals within the government. While none of them would ever even think of using these connections for themselves, apparently they would when it came to their beloved little girl; they were hard men and were capable of totally ruthless and merciless retribution when it came to their WC.

Suddenly the IRS, DEA, FBI, and several other federal "alphabet" agencies landed on Benton County with both feet. By the time the Feds were finished in Benton County, the judge had been thrown out of office for malfeasance, along with several of his fellow judges was under investigation on charges of bribery and criminal negligence. Two county commissioners, the county prosecutor, the Sheriff, four ADAs and six deputies all ended up behind bars. The public defender that had been in charge of Cam's defense was disbarred for incompetence.

To say the least it would be a long time before Benton County would recover from the vendetta.

That was nothing compared to what the three men did to Kreelcorp and its unfortunate owner D.C.Kreel. Following a trail that Kreel thought was covered, Cutter was able to gather conclusive evidence connecting Kreelcorp and its associates with the false charges that had put him in Federal prison while his surrogate daughter was being persecuted, something he would never forgive. Once he secured the evidence, Cutter instituted several lawsuits against Kreelcorp, all its officers and employees and ordering all its assets frozen, after which he demanded an independent audit which uncovered several major irregularities and ended up under investigation by the SEC.

Before they were finished Kreelcorp no longer existed, all its assets, real and other wise had been taken over by CCMC Inc. Then they went after the elusive D.C.Kreel, after exhaustive investigation Kreel was soon wanted on charges ranging robbery and stock fraud to first-degree murder. The only problem was nobody knew who D.C.Kreel was or even what the now fugitive executive looked like.

The few people that had ever seen D.C.Kreel in person mysteriously disappeared when the investigation began and DC was sure all bases were covered and it was safe but once again, DC underestimated the wealth power and determination of Cam's family.

Kreel mistakenly thought that because they were bikers, they couldn't be of any consequence, so there was nothing they could do to a person of D.C.Kreel's stature.

Imagine the surprised look on D.C.Kreel's face when the three bikers accompanied by agents from both the NSA and the FBI burst into the penthouse apartment in Atlanta, arrested the one time successful business owner, and wanted criminal.



The hardest part of the vendetta came after the arrest of D.C.Kreel.

The lawyers were sent to have an emergency conference with Cam at CCC to let her know the woman she loved and went to prison to protect, was in fact, the same person that paid to put her there and the person that paid for the attempts on her life and had ordered the attacks on her family.

When Cam found out that the first person she had ever loved enough to offer to commit her life to, the one she knew as Deb Stringer was actually D.C.Kreel and she had lied, distracted and manipulated the young woman to almost contributing to the destruction of her family, her reaction wasn't exactly what everyone anticipated. When the lawyers explained that they were there to warn her that the arrest of D.C.Kreel would soon be making the news so that she wasn't blind-sided by such bad news. What they got was no reaction what so ever.

Cam rose from her chair and shaking each man's hand, she thanked them for going to all the trouble to come to Chillicothe to inform her of Debra's arrest and identity. She also sent word to her family that she was fine and that she was happy they were able to stop the woman before she got a chance to do further damage to her family. The tall mysterious woman then left the room and walked back to her cell without saying a word to anyone. Then with the full permission of the warden and others within the Corrections Department Cam turned off her lights and retired to her cell.

They tried to send her food but Cam refused it, all she did was sit on her bunk and listen to her collection of old blues songs. Finally, after over a week just when the warden was about to have someone go into her cell, very late one night, Cam sent out a request to take a shower and to get some clean clothes, it was of course granted, the next morning she reported to roll call just as if nothing had happened.

She went about her normal routine and most thought she was just fine, but Paula could see the difference. She was harder more cynical and suspicious and when Cam smiled it was a cruel insincere smile that never reached her ice blue eyes.

There had been four attempts on the dark biker's life, the last of which turned into a riot that left a guard and eight prisoners dead and many others hurt Cam among them with a bullet wound in her shoulder. Through all that, Cam's sense of humor had survived but after she got the news of her lover's betrayal that last part of her disappeared as if it was crushed under the terrible weight of her broken heart. She had been in prison for only a year and she was already as cold, hard, humorless and emotionless a soul as any lifer inside the walls.

Life behind the walls pretty much went on as always, it was like the tides or the phases of the moon, those eternal cycles that stop for no one, the struggle of living from day to day was eternal and constant.

Older prisoners who had served their time were released or paroled and new younger prisoners took their place. Cam and her friends kept on trying to help the weaker prisoners whenever and wherever they could.

The occasional confrontations only served to enhance and further their reputation. Cam's detached methods of dealing with everyone, friend and foe alike was in many ways the reason why everyone feared her even more.

Paula had watched the tall cold-eyed woman closely knowing that when the dam holding back all those repressed emotions broke, all hell was going to break loose. Paula was one of the few people that knew the whole story of how Cam was betrayed and could see that the tall black haired woman's withdrawal as an elaborate defense mechanism to keep everyone away so no one would be able to hurt her like that again.

The older woman knew what she was doing because she had tried it herself one time and she knew from her own experience that it wouldn't work. Another change in Cam's behavior was that she was taking lovers now.

Before she'd learned of Deb's betrayal, the tall exceptionally beautiful inmate politely turned down every proposition that came her way, saying that she wasn't going to be unfaithful. Since the day she returned to general population, the cerulean-eyed beauty was often either going to or leaving one of the many hidden places that the prisoners used for their trysts, never with the same woman twice.

Once Cam had been with a woman, she would ignore her completely, the only women that were safe from the tall beauty's advances was the small group of women that hung around with her and their lovers. Paula remembered the wishful sighs and occasional brokenhearted tears that followed the hauntingly aloof woman everywhere she went.

On that day, nothing happened that would have given anyone a clue to just how special a day it would be. It started out just like every other day; the morning bell rang at 5:30 am just like every morning.

Cam was up and had knocked out her one hundred sit-ups and the same number of pushups just like every other day. She accompanied her cellblock to breakfast and had a pastry and several cups of prison coffee (that Cam claimed could be eaten with a fork). Then Cam returned to her cell to wait to be escorted along with several others to classes offered by the prison. Classes lasted until lunch then Cam went to the yard and began her work out, as did the rest of the women in the small group, they either worked out with the weights or honed their fighting skills by sparing.

Cam as usual was off to one side working on her Tai Chi routine just like every other day. Then something happened that would eventually be as important to the small prison community as the closing of Alcatraz.

It was a change that would touch the lives of every one on D-block some for the better...and some forever.


Continued in Part 4