Just a quick note, to let my son’s readers know that this article caused quite a stir at his prison. He was called into the Lieutenant’s office and warned never to write about a staff member again or he would be severely punished. So I guess that the pen is mightier than the sword.
REBOUND EDITOR
I hate it when relationships go weird. I’m not talking about romantic relationships but the type between acquaintances and friends. One minute everything is sunshine, and then someone gets skin cancer and blames it on the luminescence of your friendship. See, weird.
For the last 10 months we have had a new C.O. – teacher in the education department trying to settle into her new career. My boss befriended her and because of that I came into contact with this new, young, curvy, pretty woman on many occasions. We spoke off and on and when she learned I was a horror writer she insisted on reading my stories. My boss, because she knew she could trust me, asked me to keep an eye on the new woman and help her out if she needed information or an extra hand. No big deal. I admit freely that I had a school-boy crush (even if I’m seven years older than her, I’m still her ward.)
Of course, prison being of the same intellectual and emotional maturity level as a middle school, my friends started teasing me. I can only assume these playful accusations reached her ears. Really those sort of rumors and suppositions are nothing for anyone to worry about, but she suddenly stopped talking to me in anything but yes and no answers, often interrupting me to ask, “Do you have anything important to say?” and other snotty things. When I asked her if I had done something to offend her she always said no, then dismissed me.
So I asked my boss.
“I have no idea,” she said. “Though one time she thought you were staring at her boobs.”
“For the love of God!” I groaned. “The woman had stapled her blouse shut!”
“What?” my boss asked.
So I tell her about the incident. I was typing, sitting down in a computer chair, when she came over to talk to me. Now she’s not a short woman, so from my vantage my eyes are at chest height on her. Under any other circumstance my eyes would have raised to meet hers, but before I could, something shiny reflected off her blouse. Shiny things draw the eye, its how humans are designed. So I looked…and then not believing what I saw I looked again. I guess earlier that day one of her center buttons had popped off…so she stapled her blouse closed. It was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen. Of course she does one of those, “My eyes are up here” statements, I blush and explain myself. We laugh and it’s dropped. Or so I thought.
To this day, my boss said that is the only thing she can think of, that soured the nice working relationship I had with the new woman. (I actually apologized explicitly for that incident one evening and she just laughed). So to me that seems like a lame explanation, especially since most of her curves are waist down and she wears skin-tight pants to flaunt it every day. There is no way she isn’t aware that every inmate watches when she walks. But she doesn’t seem to care about that.
Over the last few months, it’s gotten worse. On two separate occasions, when my boss is off, she has pulled me aside to discuss inappropriate books that she found on the library shelves. Both times these books were lewdly titled but had she read them she would have quickly figured out they weren’t inappropriate (by the BOP standards) at all. I admit that the last time I did lose my temper and asked her if she was judging appropriateness on her own moral beliefs and that I would like to see written criteria for her selections that had been signed off by the warden. Yeah, probably not the best move. But it was effective as that was three months ago and no more books have been removed. (Arguing with a writer about censorship is not a good idea unless you are really prepared). Instead she started treating the librarians like crap and routinely searching our shelves for hidden contraband and finding nothing.
After that, my boss pretty much told me to avoid the new woman at all costs and to “For the love of God” not speak to her more than yes and no.
And yet, insanely, my crush didn’t go away!
I couldn’t help but want to show her my new stories and to hear her critiques. I wanted to share a joke and a laugh like we used to. Part of my mind kept looking at the other like it had just admitted it liked to play with pointy things…in the dark…during a tornado. (What can I say; I’m a glutton for punishment).
This week the news broke that the new woman is going to be off for two weeks to get married to a C.O. in the Education Department. Total blindside.
Insanely, this news depressed me! I had no daydreams of ever marrying this woman (okay a tryst might have been tossed around for like a day before I came to my senses) so to feel depressed that someone had married my arch-enemy made no sense even to me.
Then, after a really bad day, it dawned on me. She had appeared the same month I had signed by divorce papers and began doing some of the things I’d only ever trusted my wife with reading & critiquing unfinished writing. Unconsciously, I had started a rebound relationship involving the one thing more intimate to me than sex. My writing.
Until this I’d never understood the whole rebound relationship phenomenon. I guess it’s just an unconscious way of filling the void you most want filled.
Which has me wonder, why do I want an editor and not a wife? Am I subconsciously telling myself that my writing is subpar? Or maybe it’s just that celibacy has gotten to my brain and I’m going nuts.
Hmm…
It’s kind of concerning to me when the latter seems far more possible than the former in my case.
I wonder if any studies have been done on the psychological damage forced celibacy causes on the adult male brain? Finally the connection between nerds and role-playing games is becoming clear…
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