Chapter 14: Shower-Talk
The curse of prison plumbing was its fickle nature, a diva whose moods dictated the lives of every man in A-block. For three days, a persistent, rattling cold had seeped from every showerhead, turning the communal wash into a teeth-chattering trial of endurance that left skin goosefleshed and tempers frayed. So when the first shout of “Hot water!” echoed down the tier just after the afternoon headcount, it triggered a stampede.
The shower room was a cathedral of concrete and bad decisions, all hard angles and echoing noise. High, narrow windows barred with rusting iron let in slants of dusty afternoon light that cut through the thick, billowing steam. The air was a soup of cheap, government-issued soap, mildew, and male sweat, the soundscape a chaotic symphony of pounding water, the slap of wet feet on tile, and the booming voices of fifty men trying to be heard over the din.
It was packed. Shoulder to shoulder, back to chest, a forest of scarred, tattooed, and weathered flesh. Nudity held no mystery here; it was a indifferent fact, like the color of the walls. Men faced each other, soaped up, shouted conversations, completely unabashed. It was one of the few equalizers.
Dominic guided Angel into the fray, a broad hand on his back. He claimed a showerhead near the far wall, a marginally less crowded spot where the tiles were a little less grim. “Here, baby.”
Angel slipped out of his flip-flops and placed them neatly against the wall, then shed his towel with the unselfconsciousness of a child at a beach. His paleness was a stark contrast to the sea of olive, tan, and darker skin around him. The claiming bite on the left side of his neck was a lurid, permanent brand of ownership, the scars silvered and pronounced against his throat.
Dominic hung both their towels on a dry pipe nearby and stepped under the spray, pulling Angel in with him. The water was gloriously, almost dangerously hot, beating down on Dominic’s broad shoulders and running in rivulets through the dense ink that covered his back—a faded Madonna, snarling tigers, winding roses that had blurred with time. He tipped his head back, grunting in appreciation as the heat worked into his muscles.
Angel stood chest to chest with him, his head just below Dominic’s chin, letting the water sluice over his own shoulders. His white hair, loose from its pigtails and darkened to a slick platinum by the water, clung to his neck and back. He sighed, a contented little sound, and rubbed his cheek against Dominic’s sternum like a cat.
“Warm, Daddy,” he murmured.
“Mhm. Don’t waste it. Turn around.”
Obediently, Angel pivoted, his back now to Dominic’s front, facing the crowded room. The move put his slight frame on display for anyone who cared to look, but Dominic’s looming presence at his back was a clearer barrier than any wall. His hands, big and rough-skinned, began to work a bar of the harsh, grey soap into Angel’s hair.
The talk around them was a constant, ribald stream.
“—told the screw if he wanted it back, he could reach for it, but I couldn’t promise his fingers’d come back with it—”
“—odds on the Tigers are shit, Alvarez, you’re gonna lose your last pack of smokes—”
“—smells like a goddamn omega whorehouse in here, all this sweet soap—”
That last comment came from a hulking man with a spiderweb tattoo on his elbow, two showers down. He was grinning, looking directly at their station. It wasn’t a threat. It was just shit-talk, the standard currency.
Silas, a mountain of scar tissue and faded nautical stars turning pale under the spray a few feet away, didn’t even turn his head. “Watch your mouth, Webber. You’re inhaling steam, not perfume.”
Webber chuckled, holding up placating, soapy hands. “Easy, Crusher. Just an observation.”
Dominic ignored them, his focus entirely on massaging Angel’s scalp. His fingers were unexpectedly gentle, working in slow circles. Angel’s eyes drifted shut, a low hum of pleasure vibrating in his throat. This was routine, domestic in its own utterly bizarre way.
“Tilt your head back, sweetheart. Close your eyes.”
Angel complied, and Dominic gently rinsed the suds away, careful to keep the stinging soap from his eyes. The white curls, clean now, streamed like milk down Angel’s back.
Next came the washcloth. Dominic soaped it thoroughly, his motions methodical. He started on Angel’s neck and shoulders, wiping away the grime of the day, moving down the knobs of his spine. He washed Angel’s back, the tapered waist, the swell of his hips. Then, his hands, still holding the cloth, moved around Angel’s sides to his front.
There was no hesitation, no sexual charge to the act. It was clinical, parental. Dominic washed the toned plane of Angel’s stomach, the soft underside of his chest. He cupped one of Angel’s breasts, soaping it with the cloth, his thumb brushing over the nipple almost incidentally before moving to the other. Angel stayed still, pliant, his breathing even. He leaned back slightly into Dominic’s solid warmth.
From the adjacent shower, Spark was vigorously scrubbing his own spiky blond hair into a lather. He glanced over, a wicked grin spreading across his face. “You gonna do his nails while you’re at it, Reap? Maybe a facial? I hear the mud from the rec yard works wonders.”
Dominic didn’t pause. “He’d probably try to eat the mud, Spark. You know how he is with textures.”
Angel giggled, a soft, watery sound. “I would not.”
“You ate paste in GED class last week,” Rafael stated coolly from under a showerhead diagonal to them. He was washing with a quiet, efficient economy of motion, like a soldier in a foxhole.
“It was salty!” Angel protested, his voice carrying over the water.
“It was paste, kid,” Matteo ‘Brick’ Santori rumbled. The new addition to their table had integrated seamlessly, a silent, watchful force. He stood like a monument under the spray, letting the water hit his shaved head and run down the carved marble of his torso.
Dominic rinsed Angel’s chest, then shifted his attention lower. He soaped the cloth again. His left arm banded across Angel’s stomach, holding him steady, as his right hand worked between Angel’s thighs with the same detached thoroughness. He washed the crease where leg met torso, the soft, hairless mound, the folds of his vagina. Angel shifted his feet slightly to give better access, utterly relaxed, his head lolling back against Dominic’s shoulder. It was a level of trust so absolute it was dizzying to witness.
It was also, in this environment, fundamentally absurd.
Webber, the spiderweb guy, watched the process with a look of bewildered amusement. He elbowed his neighbor, a wiry man with a perpetual squint. “Goddamn. Reaper’s over there detailing his boy like a classic car. Ain’t that a sight.”
The squinting man snorted. “You jealous? Wish someone’d wash your nasty ass?”
“Fuck you. I’m just sayin’. In twenty-five years inside, I seen a lot of things.” Webber raised his voice, just enough to be heard clearly over the ambient noise. His tone was teasing, not confrontational. “But I do believe that makes you the only man in this shithole, Reaper, who’s touched a pair of tits and a cunt in the last decade. Maybe two!”
The comment landed. A burst of laughter rolled through the shower room, a deep, rumbling wave of genuine amusement. It wasn’t directed as an insult at Angel or even at Dominic; it was the sheer, blunt truth of the statement, delivered at top volume in this most masculine of spaces, that was hilarious. Even Silas’s battered face cracked into something resembling a smile. Spark whooped, slapping his thigh. Brick let out a short, sharp “ha.” Rafael’s mouth quirked, the ghost of a smile.
Dominic, finished with his task, rinsed the cloth and then Angel off thoroughly. He finally looked over at Webber, his expression dry. The laughter slowly died down, men watching to see if the Reaper would react.
“You keeping a tally, Webber?” Dominic asked, his voice a low rumble that cut through the steam. He reached for the shampoo again, this time for himself. “Pathetic way to spend your time.”
“Just an observation, like Crusher said!” Webber grinned, clearly pleased his joke had hit. “A public service announcement. Gives the rest of us poor bastards something to dream about.”
Angel, now clean, turned within the circle of Dominic’s arms, facing him again. He was smiling, a sweet, dimpled thing, completely unbothered by the commentary or the laughter. He took the shampoo bottle from Dominic’s hands. “My turn, Daddy,” he announced.
The laughter had subsided into chuckles and shaking heads. The moment passed, absorbed back into the steam and the noise. Angel, standing on his tiptoes, began to diligently wash Dominic’s hair, his small fingers scrubbing at the coarse black strands. The contrast was jarringly tender: the convicted familial murderer, meticulously shampooing the former mafia boss’s hair, while a gallery of psychopaths and sociopaths washed themselves around them.
“You get all the soap out last time,” Angel chided gently, working a lather. “You left a little spot behind your left ear. I felt it when I hugged you goodnight.”
“Did you now?” Dominic murmured, his eyes closed against the suds.
“Mhm. It was crunchy.”
“Terrible oversight on my part.”
“I fixed it,” Angel said, supremely satisfied. He guided Dominic under the spray to rinse.
As Dominic rinsed, Angel soaped up the washcloth and started on his chest, trying to mimic Dominic’s thoroughness. He was less efficient, his movements more like gentle petting than washing, tracing over the old bullet wound scar just below Dominic’s collarbone, the faded dagger over his heart.
Spark, rinsing off nearby, watched them, his expression softening from its usual manic gleam into something more contemplative. “You know, for a kid who offed his folks for fun, you’re a hell of a nursemaid, Angelface.”
Angel didn’t flinch at the blunt reference. He simply nodded, continuing to wash Dominic’s shoulders. “I like taking care of Daddy. He takes care of me.” He said it as if it were the simplest, most obvious equation in the world.
“Symbiosis,” Rafael stated, wringing out his washcloth. “A mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“Sounds fancy,” Spark said. “I just call it weird. But sweet-weird. Like strawberries with pepper.”
Angel beamed at him. “That sounds good. Can we try that?”
“With what strawberries, kid? Your precious jelly cups?” Spark laughed. “Forget it. Reap’d have my balls if I got you hoarding contraband fruit.”
“Language,” Dominic said without opening his eyes, as Angel started working on his arms.
“What? Balls? They’re swinging right here in the breeze, Reap, we’re all adults—oh, right. Except the kid. Sorry, kid.”
“I know what balls are, Spark,” Angel said cheerfully, rinsing the cloth. “I don’t have any. It’s more efficient, I think. Fewer things to get hurt.”
A fresh round of chuckles moved through their immediate vicinity. The comment, delivered with Angel’s trademark serene innocence about his own anomalous biology, was pure comedic gold in the showers.
“Can’t argue with that logic,” Brick mused, his first contribution in minutes.
Dominic finally took the cloth from Angel’s hands. “Alright, baby. I’m clean enough to satisfy even your standards. Finish up.”
They traded places under the spray for a final rinse. Angel turned his face up into the hot water, sighing with pleasure, the streams catching on his long eyelashes. As they stepped out and reached for their towels, the dynamic shifted. The protective bubble of the water was gone. Dominic wrapped Angel in a towel, rubbing his arms briskley through the rough fabric before securing it around him. He then haphazardly dried himself.
The mood in the room was shifting, the camaraderie of the hot water beginning to evaporate with the steam. Men were finishing up, their laughter turning gruffer, eyes beginning to track each other with the familiar, guarded calculus of the yard.