Orange Is the New Black

clear that I was not her future boo, Crazy Eyes quickly lost interest in me. The companionable walks stopped, and the cubicle drop-bys ceased. She still greeted me, but in a disinterested way. I felt that I had navigated the situation with as much grace as I had available, and no hideous repercussions to my tacit rejection seemed forthcoming. I breathed a little easier, hoping Crazy Eyes would spread the word to the other committed lesbians that I was not “like that,” even though in some other lifetime I had been.
    F OR THE first time in many years I was living a completely chemical-free existence—right down to going off birth control pills. My body was returning to its actual organic state. And after almost three months of enforced celibacy, I was feeling very warm under the collar. If you had spit on me, I might have sizzled.
    Larry was clearly feeling the pressure of our separation too. His hello kisses in the visiting room grew more ardent, and he wanted to play footsie under the card tables. My own yearnings for footsie were severely tempered by my fear of the guards. I understood on a visceral level, as he did not, that they really could end a visit and take all my visiting privileges away. This point was demonstrated to Larry one day when Gay Pornstar (aka Officer Rotmensen) materialized during visiting hours. Gay Pornstar was a strutting sadist with a flattop hairdo, close-set eyes, and a bristling mustache who resembled nothing so much as a Village People tribute-band reject. He had come into the visiting room to see his little buddy, Officer Jesus-Is-My-Homeboy, who was filling in for the regular visitation CO andboring two prisoners who were helpers in the visiting room with predictions about the Rapture.
    As I entered the visiting room, I kissed Larry hello, and then he stole another kiss as we sat down at our assigned table.
    Seeing this, Gay Pornstar bellowed across the room, pointing, “
Hey!!!
One more time and you’re
outta
here!!!” Every head turned to stare silently.
    Larry was rattled. “What the hell is wrong with that guy?” He tried to grab my knee under the table.
    “That’s just what they’re like, darling
—don’t touch me!
He’s
not
fucking around!”
    It killed me to snap at him like that, when all I wanted was for him to touch me, but Larry didn’t understand that pushing boundaries in prison can have dire consequences. These men had the power not only to end our visits but to lock me up in solitary on a whim; my word against theirs would count for little.
    Afterward, still traumatized, I asked Elena, one of the prisoners who worked in the visiting room, what the hell had happened. “Oh, the little guy was watching you, and he was turning red,” she said, “so Rotmensen got pissed off when he saw that his buddy was embarrassed seeing you kiss.”
    The next week the regular CO was back on duty. “I heard you were out of line last week,” she said, patting me down before allowing me in to see Larry. “I’ll be watching you.”
    In such a harsh, corrupt, and contradictory environment, one walks a delicate balance between the prison’s demands and your own softness and sense of your own humanity. Sometimes at a visit with Larry I would be overwhelmed, suddenly overcome with sadness about my life at that moment. Could our relationship weather this insanity? Larry had been steadfast for all those years waiting for me to go to prison; now that I was here, could we make it through the real test? Our minutes in the visiting room were so precious, we could never bear to discuss anything difficult or negative. We wanted every second in that room to be sweet and perfect.
    Different women had different ways of dealing with prison’simpact on their relationships. On a sleepy weekend afternoon I stood by the microwave with my friend Rosemarie. She was in the midst of an elaborate cooking project, making gooey cheese and chicken enchiladas, and I was “helping.” Although I could be counted on to chop an onion (tricky with a butter knife), mainly my help took the form of indulging her passion for talking about our future weddings. Rosemarie was engaged to a sweet, quiet guy who visited her faithfully every week, and she was obsessed with wedding planning. She had subscriptions to all the bridal rags, which piled up in her cubicle, and she loved to dream and scheme about her Big Day.
    She also wanted to plan for my Big Day—Larry and I had been engaged for almost two years.