Indigo walked down the hallway in jeans and his white undershirt. He walked quickly and reluctantly, like he had somewhere to be but was afraid to go there. His journey brought him to one particular stainless steel door. He pressed the key tightly into his palm.
What was he doing? He was a guard, not a caretaker. The broken arm shouldn’t
bother him, nor should the damage done by Jeremias’s angry fists. He’d seen beatings before.
Why should this girl be different?
The teeth of the key left bite-marks in his shaking hands, and he looked at the door
for moments longer before he unlocked it. The little snake lifted her head in curiosity like she had not been asleep, and maybe she hadn’t. She blinked and pinched her eyebrows together. Even Indigo had to admit; he was strange company for the middle of the night in a
room that looked too much like a prison cell to be anything else.
The groundcrawler sat up and swung her legs off the twin-sized cot that passed as a bed. She was ready, ready to get up, ready to attack.
What do you want? She snapped with her eyes. Indigo shook his head and held out a condom.
“I have an offer for you.”
That little snake looked at the small shiny package for longer than Indigo wanted to
hold it out, but still he held his offering, and still she stared.
Indigo watched her face closely for any sign of change. Her eyes were wide, as
always, but they didn’t change. But her chin seemed to bob up and down in a slow, imperceptible nod. Finally she nodded, curtly and certainly. Indigo nodded back.
“Good.” And together they unceremoniously pulled off their pants and their underwear. They kept their shirts on and their voices low. Although it wouldn’t have mattered anyway; those walls were meant to keep in any sound no matter how piercing and painful. Indigo hoped that these sounds would not be painful. With just as little
ceremony, he rolled the condom on his erect penis, and looked at the snake expectantly.
She nodded, and it began. There was just as little prelude as there was ceremony. It was not long before Indigo was on top of the groundcrawler and then, in her.
Naja watched and felt, almost impassively. It hurt a little at first, but then it felt good.
He waited for her to orgasm, then withdrew, tied the condom, and threw it into the trashcan where they had thrown her tooth earlier that day.
Without invitation, he laid down next to this…snake. They were both breathing
heavy and neither looked at the other as they laid, almost touching, on the twin-sized excuse for a bed. Their breathing had quieted when Indigo finally looked at her.
“Do you ever talk?” he asked. She looked back at him. Their noses were barely
inches apart.
“I don’t talk to guards,” she answered, her voice soft and smooth. Indigo raised his eyebrows.
“Am I not a guard?”
“Not right now,” she smirked with a small, soft laugh. Indigo let the silence hang before he turned back and asked another question.
“What’s your name?” The snake sighed.
“Just my genus and species: Naja sumatrana. People call me Naja.” Indigo watched her closely.
“But not guards.” Naja gave him a long cold hard look.
“Guards aren’t people.”
Indigo didn’t answer. He closed his eyes and breathed deep. Naja looked up at the
ceiling, wondering, but not really caring, how he took that comment. He finally turned back to her, with his body, not just with his head, and slid his fingers up her jawbone. He looked into her sharp brown eyes.
“Well, Naja,” he started softly, “snake or not, you’re quite something.” Naja pulled
herself closer and looked back at his eyes.
“What does that mean, Indigo?” He pulled back, surprised that she knew his name, but he looked back into her eyes and they pulled him forward.
“It means, Naja, that, guard or not, I regard you very highly.” Their eyes shared one solid, heavy-breathing moment. She didn’t expect what was coming, but she knew. He pulled her neck closer to him and their lips met. And Naja shared with this human guard a moment only her cheek had shared with a thin pair of lips, somewhere, buried deep in days when magnolia trees didn’t bring a knot to her throat.
But this moment was heavier, more alive. This moment belonged in reality and would not be disappointed because it would never, could never exist outside of this room.
Nihilistic Porcupine 