The first night I came back to my module, I saw her. Officer Lauren Caldwell. Blonde, petite, and carrying herself with a kind of rigid authority that said she wasn't here to play around. But beneath that badge, I saw something else--the way her eyes lingered on me just a second too long, how she glanced away when I met her gaze.
I had been locked up for four years, sentenced to twelve, most of my time spent in solitary confinement and they were finally letting me back on the mainline again.
The night I stepped back in the module, I noticed her.
And I knew.
She was watching me.
I didn't do much at first. Just observed. I was patient. I knew the game. These wome--these wives--they always carry that guilt, that hesitation, but also that curiosity. And I could tell, she was curious.
For months, I played it smooth. Every night when she worked the module, I made sure to be somewhere in her line of sight. I watched the way her fingers subconsciously toyed with that wedding ring. She tried to keep a distance, tried to act professional, but the way she never checked me the way she checked the others? That was her first mistake.
The second mistake was letting me get to close--real close.
I'd make small comments. "You work too hard, officer." Or when she brought my tray, I'd let my fingers graze hers. "You always bring my food personally? What I got a soft spot in your heart?" She'd roll her eyes, shake her head, but never shut it down. She just turned a blind eye, pretending she didn't feel it. But I knew she did.
Her home life? That was my in. I'd hear her talking on the phone, her voice low but sharp, the way her body stiffened before she hung up. It didn't take much to put the pieces together. A woman like her? Married for twenty years? Kids at home? And a rich husband who could keep his dick in his pants? I had been learning all about her over time.
She was holding on, but barely.
Then one night, six months in, I caught her at just the right moment. She had that look --lips tight, eyes distant, something sitting heavy on her mind.
"Rough night?" I asked when she passed my cell.
She hesitated.
"Something like that."
"Yeah?" I leaned on the bars. "You know, you don't have to act like you don't like me."
That made her nervous. I saw it in the way she clenched her hands, in the way her eyes flickered down--just for a second--before she forced herself to look at my face.