What The Hell Just Happened?

I peer through the one-way window into the darkened dorm; all the lambs, done with the showers and the john and the general milling about before lights out, are tucked snug into their bunks, some already shaking with either unnatural lust or natural homesickness. Stupid-heads. Their daddies should have taken them In Hand long ago, taught them the evils of self-pollution would only lead them where are they are right now: sleeping in a room with forty-nine others in the confines of the Department of Juvenile Corrections – juvie, as they call it with forced bravado and gutless contempt. My daddy and I pray for them sometimes because Daddy says they deserve it and he used to be a Preacher so he knows.

“Okay, lambs are bedded down,” I remark to my partner in the booth. “We’re clear if you want to break now.”

Regs require two guards be present on the floor at all times but my partner doesn’t bat an eyelash; rank has its perks, and one of those perks is the ability to dismiss inconvenient underlings with no questions asked. “Gotcha, Sarge,” he drawls, dropping his feet off the desk and lumbering out of the chair. “Be back in thirty.”

I pull a bill out of my wallet. “Take an hour. Drinks on me.”

He pockets the cash without looking. “Yer the best, Sarge.” And he’s gone.

I glance back into the dorm. None of the lambs have moved from their beds yet, but they will soon. They’re slaves to their lusts, because they’ve never been taken In Hand, they were never taught to ignore their sin-sticks; daddies should be the ones to decide when a lamb has been good enough for pleasuring. It’s not really their fault they’re wild and ignorant, of course; all blame lies with their daddies for not teaching them, like my daddy taught me. I’m everything they’re not. “Thank you, Daddy,” I whisper aloud.

My own sin-stick shifts in my pants, but I ignore the pulse and pull out my new camera. Sleek, modern, bulky with tons of buttons and shutters, nothing like the tiny spy model Daddy gave me when I started as a night guard here in juvie twenty-six-and-three-quarter years ago. He commanded me to take pictures of all the lost lambs doing their nasty, sinful acts so he could look at them and pray for their souls while he pleasured my mouth, and that camera has lasted ‘til now. I wish I could still use it, because it’s like an old friend after all this time, but Daddy is mad at me and he won’t say why and I figure maybe the pictures are grainy or bad in other ways so maybe a new camera will take better pictures and Daddy won’t be mad anymore.

Holding the camera tight in my hand, I let myself into the dorm, the creaky metal door announcing my presence like a royal herald’s horn. Instant silence in the room. Instant tension. My sin-stick throbs in my underwear, but if I touch myself Daddy will know and he’ll be even more mad at me and he won’t ever give me permission to pleasure myself again. Daddy is very stubborn; the last few months of his angry silence and my lack of pleasuring are proof.

Wait, I’m sorry, Daddy! Wrong of me to call you stubborn! I smack the back of my hand in penance, almost fumbling the camera to the floor like a clumsy stupid-head. I set a slow, measured pace through the dorm, my heels clicking sharply on the cement floor. The lambs lay quiet and still in their bunks as I pass. They want me to hurry up and leave so they can crawl into each other’s bunks. Consensual, non-consensual, nothing truly matters to them so long as they can pleasure their sin-sticks. We’re supposed to prevent them, to punish them for their nasty deeds, but their hormones are like a raging river and our disapproval nothing more than a dam of popsicle sticks, so we let them do as they please. Some of the guards laugh when they stumble across rutting lambs, some roll their eyes in lazy disgust, some watch with their own sin-sticks throbbing in their uniform pants, though they know better than to touch. Me, I just take pictures for my daddy.

And sometimes, like tonight, I like to give the lambs a surprise.

The latest boy to arrive lies in a bunk at the very end of the room, almost in the corner. He’s a repeat, very likely even a chronic who’ll spend his life incarcerated for one bad thing or another. A real stupid-head, and the most lost of lambs anywhere. He had a chance to straighten up his life when his stepDaddy tried to take him In Hand, but was he grateful? Did he accept his pleasuring, knowing his stepDaddy was only trying to make his life better? Oh no he did not. Instead he waited until his stepDaddy left the room then tried to rape his own brother! Disgusting! Luckily for the poor brother a Uniform was at the front door because the stupid-head lamb had stolen some beer and then dropped his wallet on the floor when he fled the scene. Talk about your dumb criminals; if the boy wasn’t a juvenile the newspapers would have sold lots of papers with the story. The most awful part was he snitched out his stepDaddy, and now that righteous, misunderstood man is locked up downtown, awaiting his own trial for rape, sexual abuse and sodomy. All first degree felonies, meaning he’s going away for a long, long time. The whole disgusting business is a travesty of justice, honestly, and really piddles me off to consider. But the stupid-head’s gonna pay for his low-down ways tonight, I guarantee you, and Daddy’s gonna love the pictures so much he’ll pleasure my mouth and bottom while we pray for the lambs and not be mad at me anymore.

Please, God, let him pleasure my mouth and bottom and not be mad at me anymore!

The lamb watches me approach, his carefully controlled unease making my sin-stick shift in my pants again. He’s been in custody for two weeks, though they had him upstairs in solitary until today. Scuttlebutt says he’s been popular with lawyers and Detectives and Uniforms, and why not? They all love a snitch while he’s snitching, but when the bird is all sung out what do they do? They drop them back into gen-pop, that’s what they do, and pretend they don’t know what fate awaits snitches in there. The stupid-head lamb knows too, I could see it in his eyes when they brought him down, though he was all swagger and “I’m back, Sarge, did ya miss me?” He even had the nerve to wink! When he was here before he was always a ringleader, always the first one to roll over a new boy. He claimed he was only having sex with guys because of the lack of – um, you know the word, starts with P and ends with Y but isn’t PersonalitY! – but he was a liar liar pants on fire, anybody with eyes could tell! He was obsessed over the tall, muscular pretty boy with the tiny peanut, Daddy said his clear and deplorable lust oozed out of the pictures, and he always prayed extra hard for both their souls afterward, prayed so hard I couldn’t walk right for days! But Daddy also said the stupid-head lamb’s cockiness would get him into real trouble someday, and, as usual, Daddy was right. He’ll be tickled pink to bear witness through my pictures.

“Heya, Sarge,” he says, all bluff and bluster. “Got your camera? You want me to break in a new boy tonight?”

“You reek,” I grunt. “Need a shower. Let’s go.”

“As many showers as you’ve made me take it’s a wonder I ain’t shriveled down into a prune,” he gripes, but I can hear the tremble in his voice. As he stands I notice his sin-stick (he calls it his “dong” – so childish!) isn’t pooching out his drawers in anticipation like before, in fact there’s almost no lump there at all, but I’m sure he’s just nervy. He can’t possibly be imagining himself to be the sacrificial lamb tonight, not a fake-alpha he-man like him. He’s a real stupid-head, and I can’t wait to document his surprise.

The soles of his cheap flip-flops shuffling along the floor in front of me, he aims for showers, a rictus grin on his face. As we pass through the orderly row of stilled bunks I point to other lambs at random. “You. And you. You.”

“So who’s it gonna be tonight, Sarge?” he whispers over his shoulder. “The butterball blond in 10-B looks ripe, huh?”

“You. And you.”

“Jeez,” the stupid-head lamb exhales, so I pop him on the back of the skull with my knuckles. He yelps and mutters another expletive, a non-blasphemous one this time. “You goin’ for a cast of thousands, Sarge?”

“However many we need,” I snap, then regret opening my mouth; never let ‘em truck past your stoic professionalism, juvie-guard lesson 101. Pointing at the butterball blond, who does indeed appear ripe (for shame, Sarge!), “You. Let’s go.”

I herd my young charges down the hall, everybody (except possibly the butterball blond, who only arrived into custody yesterday) wondering who’s going to be sacrificed to the mob and hoping not themselves. No whispers, no moans, only the occasional whimper making my sin-stick throb. When we reach the locker-room the lambs strip down without my needing to command them, and I’m amused to notice almost half already float some state of arousal. Not the stupid-head brother-raper lamb though. Too bad, I wanted to take pictures of his deflation when he realized my plan.

“The inmate who talks about what happens here,” I say in a clear, firm voice, “either to another inmate or especially to anybody outside this room, can count on being in the middle themselves one night very soon. Affirmative?”

“Affirmative, Sarge.” “Yes, Sarge.” “I won’t snitch, Sarge, I swear.”

“Who’d believe us anyway, Sarge?” the brother-raper comments. “The whole department crows about what a fine, upstanding and decorated officer you are.”

Breathe, Sarge. Don’t let him truck past your stoic professionalism. So I inhale and raise the camera, take the first shot of his cocky grin and flaccid “dong”.

“Cheese!” he sasses, but through clenched teeth.

I take another shot. Daddy’s gonna love these pictures, they’re sure to wake him up. “Inside, boys. And don’t splash my camera.”

Six showerheads, thirteen lambs. Lucky number for all but one of them. They crowd together under the lukewarm sprays, soaping themselves and splashing each other like normal, but in dead silence; all you can hear is hissing water. My sin-stick twitches into full-on tumescence, and only the niggling and unworthy wish that Daddy would wake up from his long nap and take a shower himself keeps my sinful libido under control; he stinks, and though I’ve washed him and washed him the funk is getting worse and he’s looking awful nasty.

“So who’s it gonna be, Sarge?” the brother-raper lamb inquires, standing by himself in the center of room. “Who you want me to break in?” I don’t know how he thinks he’ll break anyone in with the limp state of his stupid-head “dong”. Not that it matters.

I can’t help the smile on my lips. “On your knees, punk.”

“Wait, what?” A click of my finger documents the shock on his face, and for a minute I wish I had a movie camera to film the slow drain of color. “What?”

“You heard me. You’re gonna show all your peers what happens to brother-rapers in punitive institutions.” And another click as the other lambs begin closing in. This is awesome! Daddy’s gonna love me again, hooray!

An expression akin to despair weighs down the lamb’s soon-to-busy mouth. “Only for a minute,” he says, almost pleads. To who? Himself? God doesn’t listen to the prayers of boys who refuse to be taken In Hand, Daddy taught me as much my very first lesson. “Only for a minute,” he repeats, sinking to his knees on the wet tile.

Click! Click! Click! as the other lambs surround him, and I wonder who’ll go first. Likely the butterball blond, he’s way too excited to wait. Although I’d never tell the brother-raper, he’d been correct when he said the blond looks ripe, maybe next time I’ll put him in the middle, Daddy would pray for him so –

“Stop!” a voice bellows, and my head spins around in shock, wondering who would dare rebel against me. People are pouring into the shower room, Uniforms and Suits, my trusted coworkers and friends, but I’ve never seen them like this, all grim and gray and heedless of the wet spray. “Back off, Sarge, back the fuck off!”

A man I recognize at The Lieutenant himself, the Director of our facility, smacks me in the chest and yanks the camera from my hands while the other intruders throw towels and sheets over my gobsmacked lambs. “I didn’t wanna believe this shit, Sarge,” the looey growls, shoving me to the floor and not caring about my perfectly-pressed uniform pants. “But the boy was right. You’re disgusting and you’re going away for a long, long time. You have the right to --” He rolls me over and slaps cuffs on my stunned wrists while I throw back my head and wail:

“Daddy! Oh Daddy! What the aytch-eee-double-hockey-sticks just happened?”