“Two years,” Grace said, not volunteering anything more than that. It seemed long enough to her, although it was certainly better than ten years, or what she might have gotten with another verdict.

“That's nothin’, kid, you'll do that in a minute. So,” she grinned, and Grace could see that all her teeth along the sides were missing. “So, you're a virgin, huh?” Grace glanced at her nervously at the question. “I mean this is your first time, right?” She really was a fish, and the idea amused the older girl. This was her third time at Dwight, and she was twenty-three years old. She'd been very busy.

“Yes,” Grace answered softly.

“What'd you do? Burglary, grand theft auto, dealin’ drugs? That's me. I been doin’ cocaine since I was nine. I started dealin’ in New York when I was eleven. I spent some time in a youth facility there, what a shit place that was. I been there four times. Then I moved out here.” She had spent a lifetime in institutions. “Dwight's not bad.” She talked about it like a hotel she was going back to. “They got some good girls there, some gangs too, all that Aryan Sisterhood shit. You gotta watch out for them, and some pissed-off black girls who hateem. You stay out of their hair and you won't have no problem.”

“What about you?” Grace looked at her cautiously, but with interest. She was a phenomenon that three months ago Grace would never even have dreamed of. “What do you do when you're there?” Five years was an eternity to spend in prison. There had to be something to do there. Grace wanted to go to school. She'd already heard that there were courses you could take, other than beauty school and learning to make brooms and license plates, which was somewhat less useful. If there was any chance at all, Grace wanted to take correspondence courses from a local college.

“I don't know what I'll do,” the other girl said. “Just hang out, I guess. I ain't got nothin’ to do. I got a girlfriend who's been there since June. We were pretty tight before I got busted.”

“That's nice for you.” It would be nice to have a friend there.

“Yeah, ain't it just.” The other girl laughed, and finally introduced herself and said her name was Angela Fontino. Introductions were rare in prison. “It sure makes the time roll along when you got a cute little piece of ass in your cell, waiting for you to come home from your job in the laundry.” Those were the stories that Grace had heard, and which she dreaded. She nodded at the other girl, and didn't pursue the conversation further, but Angela was clearly amused by Grace's shyness. She loved teasing the little baby fishes. She'd been in and out of enough correctional facilities over the years that she had become very versatile about her sex life. There were even times when she actually preferred it this way.

“Sounds pretty raw to you, hey kid?” Angela grinned, showing her missing teeth in all their glory. “You get used to anything. Wait a while, by the end of two years you may even figure you like girls better.” There was nothing Grace could say to her, she didn't want to encourage her, or insult her. And then Angela laughed out loud, as she tried to rub her wrists where they were deeply chafed by her handcuffs. “Oh my God, maybe you really are a virgin, huh, baby? You ever even had a guy? If not, you may never even have to shake your little ass at one, maybe you just stick to this for good. It ain't bad at all,” she smiled, and Grace felt her stomach turn over. It reminded her of the afternoons when she'd come home and knew what was in store for her that night. She would have done anything not to come home, but she knew she had to take care of her mother, and then she knew what would happen. It was as inevitable as the setting sun. There had been no escaping it. She felt the same way now. Would she be raped by them? Or just used, as she had been by her father? And how would she ever fight them? If there were ten or twelve of them, or even two, what chance would she have? Her heart quailed as she thought of it, and the promises she had made to Molly and David that she would be strong and survive it. She'd do everything she could, but what if it was just too unbearable … what if … she stared hopelessly at the floor as they left the highway and drove up to the gates of Dwight Correctional Center. The other inmates were hooting and jeering and stamping their feet, and Grace just sat there, staring straight ahead, trying not to think of what Angela had told her.

“Okay, baby. We're home.” Angela grinned at her. “I don't know where they're gonna put you, but I'll catch up with you after a while. I'll introduce you to some of the girls. They're gonna love you.” She winked at Grace, and Grace could feel her skin crawl.

But two minutes later, they were all being shepherded from the bus, and Grace could hardly walk when she stood up, her legs were so stiff from sitting there and being shackled.

What she saw in front of her, as they got out of the bus, was a dismal-looking building, a watchtower, and a seemingly endless barbed-wire fence, behind which was a sea of faceless women in what looked like blue cotton pajamas. It was some kind of a uniform, Grace knew, but she didn't have time to look any further, they were immediately shoved inside, down a long hallway, and through endless gates and heavy doors, clanking their chains, and hobbling in their leg irons, their wrists still burning from the handcuffs.

“Welcome back to Paradise,” one of the women said sarcastically as three huge black female guards growled at them, as they shoved them toward the next gate without further greeting. “Thank you, I'm thrilled to be back, nice to see you …” she went on, and a few of the women laughed.

“It's always like this when you get here,” a black woman said to Grace under her breath, “they treat you like shit for the first couple of days, but then they leave you alone most of the time. They just want you to know who's boss.”

“Yeah. Me,” a huge black girl said, “they touch my big black ass, and I'm callin’ the NAACP, the National Guard, and the President. I know my rights. I don't give a shit if I'm no convict or not, they ain't layin’ a hand on me.” She was over six feet, and probably close to two hundred pounds, and Grace couldn't imagine anyone pushing her around, but she smiled anyway at the look on the girl's face as she said it.

“Don't pay no attention to her, girl,” the other black girl said. It surprised Grace that many of them seemed so friendly. Yet there was still an aura of menace. The guards were armed, there were signs everywhere warning of danger or penalties or punishments, for escaping, or assaulting a guard, or breaking the rules. And the prisoners coming in with her looked like a rough group, particularly in what was left of their street clothes. Grace was wearing a clean pair of jeans and a pale blue sweater Molly had bought her as a gift. She just hoped the authorities would let her keep it.

“Okay, girls.” A shrill whistle blew, and six female guards in uniform, wearing guns, lined up at the front of the room, looking like coaches on a ladies’ wrestling team, “Strip. Everything you have on in a pile on the floor at your feet. Down to bare-ass nothing, please.” The whistle blew again to stop them from talking, and the woman with the whistle introduced herself as Sergeant Freeman. Half of the guards were black, the others white, which was fairly representative of the mix of the prison population.

Grace carefully took her sweater off, and folded it on the floor at her feet. One of the officers had un-cuffed them, and now she was going around removing the circlet of steel around their waists that the chains were attached to, and the leg irons so they could remove their jeans. It was a great relief to have the leg irons off, and Grace slipped out of her shoes. She was surprised when the whistle blew again, and they told them all to take everything out of their hair, any rubber bands or bobby pins. They were to let their hair loose, and as she slipped the rubber band off her long ponytail, her dark auburn hair fell in a silken sheet well past her shoulders.

“Nice hair,” a woman behind her murmured, and Grace did not turn around to see her. It made her uncomfortable knowing the woman was watching her as she took the rest of her clothes off. And in a few minutes, all their clothes were in little piles on the floor, along with their jewelry, their glasses, their hair accessories. They were stripped entirely naked, as six guards walked among them, examining them, telling them to stand with their legs apart, their arms high, and their mouths open. Hands riffled through her hair to see if there was anything hidden there, and their hands were rough as they tugged at the long hair and moved her head from side to side. They shoved a stick in her mouth and moved it around, gagging her, and they had her cough and jump up and down, to see if anything fell out of anywhere. And then one by one, they had them stand in line, and get on a table with stirrups. Sterile instruments were used, and a huge flashlight to see if anything had been concealed in their vaginas. And as Grace stood in line, she couldn't believe that she had to do that. But there was no arguing with them, no discussion about what they would or wouldn't do. Ope scared girl tried to refuse and they told her that if she didn't cooperate, they'd tie her down, it was all the same to them, and then they'd throw her in the hole for thirty days, in the dark, buck naked.

“Welcome to Fairyland,” one of the familiars said. “Nice here, huh?”

“Ah, stop bitching, Valentine, you'll get your turn.”

“Shove it, Hartman.” The two were old friends.

“I'd love to. Wanna look when it's my turn?”

Grace's heart was pounding as she got on the table, but the exam was medical, and no worse than most of what she'd been through, it was just humiliating going through it with an audience, and half a dozen of the other women seemed to be eyeing her with interest.