Simile

Like a rotting kitten carcass under the bed? Or like a scabbed-over pussy? Or shit-filled entrails? A baggie of testicles, scrotum, penis, fingers, and eyeballs? A turkey-and-cabbage fart?

Mark's eyes opened from sleep, his nostrils twitching, and looked down at the odor assaulting his brain through his nose. Jack sat bare-chested on the toilet, his government-issued pants around his ankles, his short, fat cock like a dog's red rocket in his cum-covered hand. He looked up at Mark and smiled, the freckles on his face disappearing in a bevy of lines around his eyes and on his bloated cheeks.

"Good morning, roomie!"

"What the fuck, dude?" Mark sat up, letting his legs dangle over the side of his bunk. "You got fucking issues." He shook his head and laughed to keep from gagging. "Something crawled up in you and died-"

"What do you mean?"

"The smell-"

"Oh, this is mild compared to-"

"Compared to what? An Auschwitz oven?" Mark pointed to the man's crotch. "I don't need to be seeing that again-"

"Sorry." Jack's cock dropped from his hand, which he wiped on the side of his leg, and drooped, shrinking, between his gelatinous thighs. "I just come better when I'm shitting-"

"Whatever-"

"Who's Danny?"

"Huh?"

"Your sleep is very, um, boisterous-"

"Really? How do you mean?"

"You toss and turn all night-"

"What the fuck? Did you watch me sleep all fucking night?"

"No. You were right above me, you know." Jack shook his head with a laugh, then continued in his forced casual tone, as if he were discussing a new college course with a professor, his pinky held out from his teacup as he sipped his Earl Grey: "You kept saying the name Danny. And you pop your elbows - or maybe it's your knees - every five minutes or so. It's really very disturbing-"

"That's really very disturbing." Mark again pointed to the man's crotch. And was disturbed himself that he'd gotten so used to the smell of the man's bowel movement so quickly.

Jack stood up, pulled up his pants, and buttoned and zipped them.

"Aren't you gonna wipe?"

"Don't have to; I shit clean-"

"Yeah, right-"

"Ah, it doesn't matter, roomie, we shower every day any way-"

Mark yawned, then 1-2 snapped his fists forward, his elbows' crackling echoing in the cell. "What the fuck are you in here for anyway?"

Jack cleared his throat. Then looked Mark straight in the eyes without blinking, like a cat on patrol for a mouse. "I had the audacity to invite an 8 year-old boy to my house for lunch."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Mark narrowed his eyes and stared into Jack's widened eyes until the latter's slowly closed to a blink, like a coffin closing on a hated corpse. "Bullshit," he finally said. "There ain't no fucking way you got put in jail for inviting a kid to your house for lunch. What was he, a friend of your son's?"

"I don't have any children."

"A nephew-"

"No." Jack turned around to the small table in the corner and fingered the closed pages of one of the books lying there. "He was just a boy I met-"

"Where?"

"On the playground." Jack sighed. "He was a beautiful boy, who looked not much unlike yourself. A really sweet, innocent boy. I could tell right away that he needed someone older who could-"

"You were gonna fuck him, weren't you?"

"I don't fuck, roomie, I love, I guide, I teach, I instruct, I turn boys into the men the world needs. I make boys feel as special as every boy should feel-"

Mark looked at the toilet and espied the skinny black turd circling the bowl. If he looked long enough, it seemed to move, like a venomous, hungry snake raising its head to strike. He could smell its stench once more. "Dude," he said, "you're fucking sick-"

Jack turned around, smiling. "Roomie, you aren't so different from me."

"I ain't nothing like you-"

Jack shrugged. "We'll see."