Wish #12
Request 2:
Pairing/Character(s): Anyone, but I have a soft spot for B/K and Tim/Sean
Keyword/Prompt Phrase: How to do make porn movie and be happy (and rich)
Canon/AU/Either: Either
Special Requests: What if the inmates of Oz – instead of working at the call center and the publishing house – had started making and selling porn movies?
Story/Art/Either: Story</p>
A/N: I very nearly dropped a very similar prompt for this Magi (Alvarez/O'Reily; Sometimes he wonders if they're really porn actors.), but then thought naaaah, that's too weird, who's gonna want that? and put it on the side to try to write myself eventually, maybe. When I saw the list of prompts…I pounced on this, I had to, it was too hysterical to find something so similar. My grovelling apologies to anyone who wanted to see this awesome prompt turn into a nice Beecher/Keller porny thing – it’s not that. It’s not even what I had in mind when I started writing it, actually, and it’s not even that porny. But I think I’ve more or less managed to make it fit in canon (to about the same level of belief the ageing pills storyline inspired in me, anyway), so I’m rather proud of it, and I really hope my Wisher enjoys it.
To make things clearer: this is set (squished, more like) during the first half of the very last episode of the series. There’s a few OCs, because most of the guys are dead already (thanks, Fontana!), and Tina is really Pinkerton, but I couldn’t find her canon first name, or imagine the other Gays (or herself, for that matter) calling her by her last.
A Pit of Alligators
"You have got to be kidding me," Tim says, staring.
"McManus", Torquemada insists, unruffled by Tim's all-but-gawking disbelief, "sex is one of the most lucrative industries out there; I don't see why it couldn't be the same in here. It doesn't even have to be hardcore pornography if that's what the problem is, there's a real niche for quality male erotica just begging to filled. Pun not intended."
"Quality male erotica?" repeats Tim, just to make sure he heard this right and it isn't some bizarre dream brought by sleepless nights, overworking, and that bad Chinese take-out Sean had brought him after his shift the night before, when it became obvious Tim was going to spend the night on paperwork again. (The leftovers of he had fished out of his garbage can in the morning and inhaled with all the grace and dignity of a ravenous, mangy stray dog. Thankfully, there had been nobody around to notice, but now he thinks maybe they'd gone bad – well, worse. They'd been so sour it was hard to tell.)
"I'm talking artistic shots, both in terms of film and photography. There's really not enough of those out there, and the demand is huge, from quite an eclectic audience."
Tim snorts disbelievingly. "Really," he all but drawls.
"Absolutely," answers Torquemada, completely undeterred by Tim's clear lack of enthusiasm. "It goes from the average homosexual couple to the picture-perfect heterosexual housewife with the busy husband, the lonely asexuals to the orgy-prone, experimenting university students. I've done my research, McManus."
The bastard actually looks amused. Tim, however, is too busy battling a sudden, unwanted image of his ex-wife watching (and enjoying) gay porn shot in Em City to manage a proper answer.
"From the acting to the filming, editing and distribution, everything will of course be done by inmates, so it'll be entirely and truly made in Oz; in fact, I intend that to be our branding," Torquemada is elaborating, giving Tim a growing headache. "We can also have an amateurish section – give interested inmates cameras and have them film themselves or each other. People love candid, enthusiastic amateur videos – they're endearing, don't you think?"
No, thinks Tim wildly, I don't think. This has to be real: not even him would conjure Torquemada in his dreams, let alone Torquemada asking permission to start a porn industry in Em City.
"I don't suppose you can think of a few people open to the idea?" Torquemada continues, ignoring the face Tim has to be making.
"If I–!" Tim splutters, then starts again, more calmly: "Any new business has to be approved by the warden. Go bug Querns with this." Because even Querns can't possibly–
"Oh," says Torquemada, "he already approved it. I thought you knew. He told me to talk over the details with you, since he wants the production team to be restricted to Em City residents, at least at first."
Tim might actually be gaping. Right now, he doesn't care. He's going to murder Querns. Going to fucking strangle him with his own tie – with anyone's tie. With anything he can get his hands on. He's going to strangle him and gut him and hang him by his fucking intestines–
He takes a deep breath to stop his line of thought. Releases it. Takes another.
Why oh why did Querns sign off on this? Oh, right. Lucrative. Making a fool out of him and his project is probably just a bonus, no matter what the man's fucking said about it. Dear fucking god, there's nothing he can do anyway, is there?
Torquemada is waiting patiently, watching him like Tim is a particularly interesting and entertaining bug.
"Oh for–" Tim nearly explodes, "you know what? Fine. Make damn sure you get everyone's consent, and I don't care what you do. Just don't give me details, and don't ask if I have suggestions." And when Torquemada opens his mouth, he bites out "Now out. Get out."
He needs a drink, he thinks, slumping in his chair as Torquemada saunters out, a self-satisfied smile on his lips. A really, really strong one. And a friendly ear.
*
Sean tries, he really does. He's a good friend – he's an excellent friend. But Tim's expression (a drunken mix of territorial rage, despair, and pure, undiluted heterosexual disgust), well, it's just too much.
"Some friend you are," Tim half-growls, half-slurs. He's slumped all over Sean's couch, pizza crumbs covering his shirt, clutching the nearly empty cheap bottle of scotch he came in with (then entirely new in its crisp paper bag) to his chest like a disgruntled old drunkard.
Sean heaves himself back on his armchair and tries vainly to stop laughing. "Oh come-on," he hiccups, "you've got to admit it's funny. I mean, it's hysterical. It's the most fucked up thing–"
"Okay, okay," interrupts Tim, "I get it."
"It's probably even going to work," Sean continues.
"This is probably my fault, you know, karma or whatever," Tim slurs, apparently not hearing him, "I thought, with Devlin on the out and all, maybe things were finally looking up! And then this. Wait, what did you say?"
Sean shrugs, reaching for another beer. "That it was probably gonna work?" He opens it and takes a long, hard swig.
Tim goggles at him. "Why?" he whines.
Sean cracks up again at the look on his face. "Why," he snickers, and nearly spills what's left of his beer. "You're kidding me, right? You know how much those guys like to show their dicks?"
*
"So, you guys want to take pictures of my dick?" Chris asks, amused bordering on incredulous. "And sell them?"
"Basically," Masters nods. "But like I said, you'll be paid generously. Alonzo's made proper contracts and everything."
"Okay," Chris answers magnanimously, having been asked vastly stranger things in his life and certainly not against making money so easily. "But I got a condition."
"Sure," Masters agrees easily. "What?"
"I want you to smuggle a copy of every single one of them to my boyfriend, without him noticing where it comes from. One picture per day."
"Beecher?" Masters asks curiously. "Isn't he mad at you at the moment?"
Chris has to resist the urge to bash the man's head in just for saying Toby's name. "Only at the moment," he smiles instead – knows it's all devious and way too sharp but can't be bothered to control it. "He loves me. It'll just be a surprise apology. I like surprising him," he adds, silky smooth. He really does. "So don't tell him, eh?"
Masters nods eagerly. "Alright, I'm sure it's not a problem at all. Sweetheart," he adds, apparently impressed, "you've got one lucky boyfriend."
Yes, Chris thinks, I do. And he'd better fucking start remembering that.
*
Alonzo lays the cameras on Tony's bed next to the printed contracts and a small silk make-up bag hiding vials of D-tabs. Tony already knows how to shoot, having previously dabbled in porn photography before, and has already set off with one while Alonzo gives Fiona, Kiki and her a crash course. It's not complicated, but Fiona makes him repeat while Kiki rolls her eyes. Tina ignores them thanks to years of practice: they're always bitch-fighting.
She figures she's fucked enough nightclub photographers in her outside life to know how to work these things. She's more interested in videos than photography though, but those ones don't look that complicated either. Less buttons, even. Point, film, and try not to move too much, right? Easy-peasy.
And filming straight men wanking for her? Oh, this is going to be so much fun.
"I'll take the homeboys," Tina announces before anyone else can, snatching a camera, a vial of tabs and a small pile of contracts. "Being I'm the right color and all," she winks, and saunters off, gleefully hopeful to get a few yeses, what with Em City's being broke and helplessly, desperately clean.
*
"I need someone," Torquemada says without preamble a couple of days later, as he enters Tim's office like he owns it, "good with computers, creatively inclined, and serious. I already have a lot of photos and no one to edit them properly."
"Why are you coming to me for?" asks Tim, annoyed at the intrusion, "Go ask around who's interested."
"I have," is the sad answer, accompanied by a dramatic sigh as Torquemada sits in the guest chair completely uninvited. "I haven't found anyone. Which is why I'm asking you: as the head of this unit, I'm sure you can think of someone sufficiently qualified."
"What, you want them to have a degree or something?" Tim snarks.
"Oh, it's not really necessary," answers Torquemada imperturbably, "though I suppose it would be a bonus."
McManus stares. Why did he get this annoying guy in Em City again? Can starting a porn industry be really considered a form of redemption? "What happened with the Latinos," he asks instead, "I know I saw them typing on laptops in the classroom yesterday."
Torquemada huffs. "They thought making crude, wonky digital drawings on erotic photos was particularly funny. Thankfully, I had a back-up copy of all of those. I gave them videos to burn on DVDs instead – if they doodle over the disks or the cases it'll just look like it's part of the branding. So now I need someone who can edit photos, and who can do so without defacing them."
"Right," says Tim, smirking a bit. "And this is my problem because…?"
"The warden assured me you would help in any way you could, like you have with the other businesses," is Torquemada's silky answer.
Fucking Querns, Tim thinks, nearly snapping his pencil in half.
*
"Take Alvarez," Gloria tells him when Tim complains at her in the break room, "it's been so quiet recently I have too many people working in the infirmary. They have nothing to do and end up loitering about or causing trouble."
"Why Alvarez?" asks Tim, looking a bit dumbfounded.
"It's restricted to Em City, isn't it?" she asks, to make sure.
"Yes, so why Alvarez?" he insists, "Why not O'Reily?"
"I think O'Reily has enough on his plate at the moment without you changing his affectation, don't you think?" she answers, knowing that even though Tim hates him, he's not cruel enough to assign Ryan to do something he himself so clearly despise with Cyril's second execution date approaching so fast.
And God, she still doesn't know how to feel about that.
"Right," Tim says, "there's no one else from Em City working in the infirmary, uh? Shit. I feel sorry for Alvarez."
He leaves rubbing his forehead, and she goes back to her files. She can't think about Cyril's execution, about Ryan's completely unreasonable faith that God has saved his brother just because he prayed – about her own wish to get away from all this and her inability to do so. So she thinks about Oz's newest business for a while.
It is rather insane, and she understands how Tim can be so upset about what his project is becoming. But she also understands how Querns could have given the go ahead too, because if there's one thing that can keep these guys occupied instead of trying to kill each other, it's definitely pornography.
Personally, she's not against the idea. Anything to spend less time patching up violent men.
She does feel a little bit bad for Miguel Alvarez though. He'd been a decent orderly, once he stopped stealing.
*
Alvarez is fuming when he leaves Tim's office for his new affectation, all wounded, raging heterosexual pride. It'd be nearly endearing, if Sean was still affected by such things. Tim had looked so incredibly apologetic too, like he was sending Alvarez to be stoned to death instead of editing pictures. Sean has to resist the urge to roll his eyes again (he's seen more naked men and live gay porn in his entire career than he's ever wanted to, and you don't see him twitching at the mere mention of it), as he leads Alvarez to Em City's classroom, where Torquemada is fluttering with impatience next to the same kind of state-of-the-art laptop he'd set up for the others Latinos the day before.
Alvarez has been keeping a steady stream of vehement whispered Spanish since they left the office, and it's starting to sound more like whining than swear words.
"Come on kid," Sean says to break him out of it, "it won't be so bad. It's not like you're one of the actors."
Alvarez apparently manages to choke on his own breath at just the thought. "It's Torquemada," he growls when he's recovered.
"So, tell him he's not your type if he tries to make another pass at you," Sean answers, because he'd have to be blind to not see the strange dance, and an idiot to not guess that's what Alvarez is the most pissed off about. And he's neither, thank you.
"He doesn't fucking get it," Alvarez snarls darkly.
Sean stops him: he can recognize simmering danger when he sees it. "Look," he says, blocking Alvarez's way and looking at him seriously, "I'll tell him to tone it down before he gets himself hurt. Don't do anything stupid."
"I don't need–" Alvarez starts indignantly, but Sean cuts him off firmly:
"It's my job to make sure you guys don't kill each other – or annoy each other to death. I don't need your permission to do it. I'll talk to Torquemada, and if he continues to stir up trouble with you I'll signal it to McManus. And hopefully, you'll make my job easier by keeping squeaky clean. Got it?"
Alvarez only nods, but he looks a bit mollified under that frown. Sean takes it as a good sign, and stirs him towards the classroom stairs.
"I can't believe I have to do this," Alvarez whines again after three more seconds of silence.
"Well," Sean shrugs, "it's just porn. Don't tell me you've never looked at porn before."
"Not gay porn," Alvarez insists in a growl, apparently needing to make it extremely clear.
"Look at it this way," Sean points out in answer as they near the door, "the faster you go, the less you see, and the soonest it's over. A couple of clicks, and you get a nice paycheck."
Alvarez only responds with something that sounds like uuurgh. But he does go through the door without causing more trouble for Sean. That's something.
*
Torquemada points at the program and the already-opened folder of files (Miguel doesn't get close enough to sit in the offered chair with the creepy freak leaning over it, so he has to do it with wide gestures without blocking the screen), and explains Miguel's to turn all those to black and white because it's artistic.
Miguel snorts. Ain't nothing turning pictures of a bunch of guys waving their dicks artistic.
"You'll see chulo," the freak fucking coos, "it's a real goldmine we got there."
Then he makes some kind of disgusting fucking kissy face at Miguel and thankfully leaves.
Miguel sits in the chair and stares at the screen. Seven hundred and eighty-two files, the window says. Horrified isn't a strong enough word for how he feels. In fact, he's sure this is what the deepest circle of Hell must be like.
He takes a deep breath and opens the first picture. It's Keller looking intensely at the camera, which is okay in itself, but makes Miguel wary of the ones after, because from what he knows of the guy, the rest of the shoot can't possibly be that tame. He's right to worry: the following picture is Keller looking smug while holding his dick, and the one after that a close-up of said dick. Miguel groans and grimaces, but he does his job still.
The one after that is Keller bent over and spreading his asscheeks, leering at the camera over his shoulder.
Miguel makes a sudden noise of utter disgust, recoiling and nearly tripping backwards on his knocked-down chair. A second later, his brain catches up and he lunges for the mouse, attacks the little x with the little arrow-thingy-or-whatever-the-fuck-it's-called, and finally manages to close the window. He's very, very tempted to delete the photo, but knowing Keller (and the fucking drag queen), he'd only end up with worse on his screen if he did that. In fact, he thinks, eyeing the mass of files left to edit, there may already be worse just waiting for him to click on.
Porn editing, or (his only other option, fucking McManus' said) toilet cleaning? Which is worse, that's the question. He takes a deep breath, rights his chair, sits down, parks his elbows next to the keyboard, slumps his face in his hands and tries not to tear his hair out. There has to be a way to turn all those things to black and white (and isn't that a riot? No fucking way in hell is that shot of Keller gonna be anything even remotely resembling artistic even in black and white) automatically, without Miguel having to look at each fucking one of them and loose what's left of his mind. It's not only disgusting, but boring, repetitive work, and surely some computer genius out there must have figured out something.
It's called batch-editing, his research reveals a little while later, and it will actually work with what he has because Torquemada actually splurged on the fucking expensive, pro software most of the instructions he found are aimed for. (Apparently, there's a lot of fuckers with money to burn out there, who don't know how to use what they've bought either. Miguel wonders how many of them got this specific fucking complicated thing to make their porn look artistic.) He shrugs, braces himself, follows the instructions to the letter – and it works, the photos opening, turning black and white and closing themselves too fast for Miguel to see what exactly they are.
His victorious shout of delighted, sheer triumph is heard through the entire squad.
*
Antonio is drawing a particularly hairy dick on the DVD he's just burnt, with the kind of application that should probably only be seen in prestigious art schools. Chico snorts. It's like the 800th doodled dick so far since the insane porn thing started, and Antonio's applying himself so much he's only burnt four DVDs so far today.
He's been ganking the others' burnt ones to draw on though, and since Diego's are tagged with freaky eyes (Chico's not sure he wants to ask why) and Amado's with spiky monsters he swears are cats ("Pussy cats, see? Pussies? Fuck you, it's funny."), there are now freaky eyes and spiky monsters sporting huge, detailed hairy hard-ons on those things. For some reason, Torquemada'd seemed amused when he checked on them earlier, pleased by the artwork, as he'd said, even though he'd completely freaked out when they'd done it on the naked pictures they'd first been assigned to. (Then again, they had accidentally saved quite a few of them all doodled on – they hadn't meant to, but they'd been high, and it had probably been some kind of coping mechanism anyway.)
Chico just marks his DVDs with an X. The others call him boring, but he's not about to admit to them everything he tries to draw ends up wonky. Computer drawings are one thing, but markers leave no excuses: if they find out he can't even draw a dick straight, he'll never hear the end of it. Antonio's been taking it upon himself to decorate them all anyway.
"You know," Diego drawls, "when I landed here I thought I'd be peddling tits, not dicks."
They all crack up. It probably helps they're all high again. Coping mechanisms and all.
"What I can't believe," Amado says when they've more-or-less recovered, "is how many of these we have to make. I mean, come on, there's that many fuckers out there willing to pay good money to see cons wanking off?"
Chico shrugs. "We get paid," he says, "who cares?" And at least now they don't actually have to see any of this shit: it's insert disk, select movie file, burn to disk, eject. Easy. Far better deal than what Miguel's gotten too, judging by the horrified faces he's been making.
Plus, they get bonus D-tabs when they're done.
*
"I don't understand why he doesn't trust us with all the post-production work," Kiki says, frowning even as she lovingly strokes a particularly delicious photo of the blue-eyed sociopathic hunk that is Chris Keller. They'd gotten the prints this morning, not even touched by the Aryans. It helps to have Alonzo's connections.
"That's because they work faster," Fiona laughs, carefully arranging a DVD in its case so the title she's just artfully penned on is perfectly diagonal – she doesn't like things straight. She stares at the artwork for a moment, trying to figure out what the spiky thing with the huge cock could possibly be.
"Faster?" asks Kiki with a leering smile, clearly not thinking in terms of production rendering.
Fiona giggles. "It's Alonzo's reasoning. And I have to admit, he's got a point. He says we would, ah, appreciate the action so much we'd take forever, but since straight boys hate it, they go as fast as humanly possible just to stop having to look at it. He says it offends their delicate male sensibilities."
Kiki snorts indelicately. "Men," she says, with feeling.
Fiona smiles in response. "I just wish they would extend this to inmates in the infirmary," she sighs sadly a minute later, as she pens down an address on a bubbled envelop in her prettiest handwriting. "Poor Jaz is going to be sent away soon and I won't have any pictures of him."
"Hoyt?" Kiki asks, looking up from Keller's photo in interest. "Oooh, you need to tell Alonzo. That is one gorgeous piece of meat we cannot miss preserving for posterity."
"You think the warden would agree?" Fiona wonders.
Kiki shrugs. "You won't know unless you ask Alonzo," she decides.
Fiona balances precariously on her chair to peer out of their cell: Alonzo is making yet another unsuccessful pass at Miguel Alvarez. She sighs. As much as she admires him, he has no tact whatsoever when it comes to straight men. They need to be cajoled, not hit into with a sledgehammer. Still, she thinks to herself, she will tell him about Jaz the first chance she has. If anyone can convince the warden to let her see her gorgeous boy, it's still Alonzo Torquemada. She turns back to Kiki to tell her that–
Kiki is still admiring Keller's picture. One of her hands has even started to creep into her shorts.
"You know," Fiona says, drier than her usual tones, "Alonzo has a point. Stop fingering that photo and put it in the envelop! It should be in Tobias Beecher's room already."
*
Toby doesn't notice the little white envelop under his pillow until he's laying down for the night, but when his hand accidentally encounters it, he shoots out of bed like he's been burnt.
His podmate snorts in his sleep and rolls over.
Cautiously, Toby removes his pillow to investigate what the hell's underneath it – and then he stares at it a little, before deciding it looks harmless enough (too flat and too small even for a child's hand) and picks it up to peer inside.
At first he has no idea what he's looking at, besides the fact it's obviously a black and white photo. He takes it out–
And hisses a breath.
Chris is looking back at him, like he used to, those darkened eyes full of promises to keep them both up all night in the most pleasant ways possible.
Fucking hell, is all he can think.
*
"Oh yeah," Kenaniah says, feverishly stroking in his dick, "oooh fuck yeah–"
He's thinking of his girl – the fag in front of him looks vaguely like her if he squints, same coloring and same built, even same shade of lipstick, except Juliana's got hair–
Oh yeah, he's almost there. Except–
"Why d'you stop?" the fag asks, sounding a mixture of shocked and crestfallen.
"You just zoomed in on my dick," Kenaniah states, staring, "you have any idea how weird that is?"
"Well," the fag (was it Tina? Mina? Kinkerton? Dinkerton? Something like that anyway) says seriously, "it's a very impressive dick, Ken. I'm sure all your fans'd like to see it closer."
Well, he thinks, smug and flattered, yeah, it is. He's glad to see it's finally getting the recognition it deserves. Even if it is from fags.
To think, they're even paying him in them new, sweet D-tabs to do this. It's so much better than Poet's newborn credit card scamming scheme.
*
Fiona all but squishes Alonzo when he announces that in light of the profits made and the peace their efforts has brought, the warden has not only approved their request to open up the industry to all of Oz, but is also going to allow them to film with Jaz Hoyt, who despite his current location and imminent transfer, has been very eager to participate.
"Oh thank you," she coos, kissing his cheek, "thank you." Then she's off like a perfumed, sparkly shot to their cell to redo her make-up and put on something sexier so they can go right now.
Kiki laughs with Alonzo and Tony. Tina's off filming again – apparently she's having a lot of success bribing desperately dry homeboys with D-tabs. Kiki's slightly jealous: the Aryans have been less than cooperative, though she's managed to convince quite a few Bikers that wanking for the camera was a manly thing to do. She hasn't dared try for any of the Irish yet, but she really wants to, because they tend to be all handsome fucks.
"I better go get my cameras ready," Tony says, grinning. He's doubling up as a cameraman too now – says it's easier to get the guys to pose for photos first, to reassure them, and then film them. Fiona's turned out to be absolute rubbish with a camera, so she usually goes with him to inspire and lend a hand, as she says (and for a lot more than that whenever she can cajole and seduce whoever it is they've picked that day – which actually happens pretty often, because it's Fiona).
Kiki's left alone at the table with Alonzo, and she takes the opportunity to ask: "So, how are things with Miguelito?" Sue her, she's a gossip – and she'd really like to see Miguel Alvarez star in one of their movies. (She also happens to think it's particularly entertaining to see the great Alonzo Torquemada pin after him like a lovesick kindergartener.)
Alonzo sighs despondently. "McManus has denied my request to become his new podmate, even though he's moved Guerra with Amado Menendez yesterday, with Torres being officially transferred to Unit B, and Miguel is alone in that pod now." Another sigh. "He wasn't particularly open to my offer to bribe him either – in fact he actually warned me to stay away from Miguel for anything non-work-related, can you believe that? Murphy already told me something to that effect last week, it's unbelievable. It's like they seem to think I'm some kind of monster."
He looks so very ticked off. Kiki abruptly remembers what brought him here, and she makes a compassionate (and hopefully neutral) sound.
"I suppose I should try a different approach," Alonzo sighs again, apparently having taken it as calming.
There's a small silence. Fiona still hasn't returned; from the corner of her eyes Kiki can see Tony has changed and is putting on deodorant in his and Alonzo's cell.
"Hoyt really has a nice dick," she says, for a subject change.
Alonzo grins. Score, she thinks.
"And Fiona loves riding it. I mean, who wouldn't, right? It'll be glorious."
"I sure hope so," Alonzo answers, "she's getting really popular with our customers."
Kiki's not jealous, not at all. Well, maybe a little: Fiona's always so…Fiona.
"You know who else has a very nice dick?" she continues to distract herself as well. "O'Reily. Nice face too," she adds, because, well, she really does think he's probably the most good-looking guy in the joint. God, how she'd love to film him.
"O'Reily?" Alonzo asks, "the one with the kid brother scheduled to be executed?"
"Yeah," she continues, purposely not thinking of poor, handsome not-so-little Cyril because she doesn't like depressing thoughts. "I've seen him naked a few times, and he's not beefy or anything, not muscly like his brother, but he's got a really nice dick. And those legs, I'm actually jealous. I bet he's limber too. And," she continues, fanning herself while Torquemada stares, "he's one of very few guys in here you'd want to make come just to see their face, you know? I mean, he's pretty. He'd look gorgeous coming." It's her turn to sigh now. "It's a shame he'd never be interested. I mean, short of it saving his brother or something, he'd never let a guy touch him, much less let anyone film him doing so."
"Really," Alonzo states more than asks, and there's something interested and dark in his one working eye that Kiki doesn't dare ponder too much. Shit, she thinks, though she has to admit, at least to herself, that a part of her is also a bit intrigued by what he's obviously already plotting.
Hopefully, she's distracted him from Miguel Alvarez though. Maybe it'll stall mayhem and destruction for a while – that's always a good thing.
*
Tim would rip out what little is left of his hair by the roots, if it was long enough, he thinks. He's that frustrated.
Mayhem and destruction – that's what Em City's becoming. It's Querns' fault somehow – he's sure it's Querns' fault. Or Torquemada, with that fucking insane porn industry.
There's a precarious pile of papers on his desk, all signed contracts from what seems like half of Oz. He hasn't looked at all the names – he doesn't want to fucking know, just in case whoever's on his way to becoming the next porn star starts starring in his nightmares. Torquemada's thoughtfully offered to let him see the tapes and photos as well, as proof of the legitimacy of his business. Tim had wanted to throw the smug bastard out on his ass.
Sean's still cackling at him every time he complains. Pete even joins him when she's around, though she doesn't really cackle. Even Gloria's cracked a smile or two at him. The only one who commiserates is Ray – he's suggested talking to Querns, but Querns seems to find it all absolutely hilarious, and has only pointed out no one's died since the whole thing started.
Tim gnashes his teeth. Yeah, he thinks, but only yet, and only because Torquemada's getting everyone high. But hey, since when does Querns care about drugs?
Just in the past two days, Tim's seen the Latinos minus Alvarez have some kind of intense paper plane contest in the classroom, which ended with Antonio Guerrero jumping on a table to (as Sean explained it to him after he'd gotten Guerrero down and all of them back to their computers) make his fly better. Jimmy Nelson decided to eat a whole tube of toothpaste while sitting next to the railing, and then puked over it on the crowd below, nearly causing a miniature riot (that had been Joseph's shift – he really hadn't been happy to wrestle vomit-covered inmates away from a still puking Nelson). Michael Anderson spent an entire hour trying to do cartwheels in his pod, apparently not realizing if he kept hitting the bed it meant there really wasn't the space in there (it hadn't been particularly harmful to anybody, so it lasted until Jason got fed up and yelled at him he could try that in the cage, if he didn't fucking stop). And this morning, Chucky Pancamo and his fellows Italians started doing Sallycize workouts in the quad during the show's diffusion, joined by quite a few other inmates.
And that's not even counting the five camcorders circulating around the whole prison for guys to film themselves wanking with, or the gays cheerfully going around filming or photographing anyone who agrees to sign a contract.
Querns might call this quiet, but Tim's sure it's a recipe for impending doom.
Or maybe he just needs sleep. Between this, the complicated mess of Cyril O'Reily's approaching execution, worrying about Suzanne, worrying about Gloria, and worrying about Eleanor again thanks to Devlin possibly pending trial, he's been running himself ragged.
At least the Macbeth production next week will take his mind off things for a little while – it seems to be going well.