The guards weren’t all alike. Some had a bit of humanity in them and didn’t treat us badly – that is, by not beating us up, not humiliating us and not abusing us, they were already helping us a lot. Others, however, forced some boys to prostitute themselves.
There was one disgusting old screw: he had been a guard in an adult prison all his life, and after studying child psychology had asked for a transfer to a juvenile institution. He wielded a lot of power in our prison. Although he was only a warder, he rivalled the director, because he had links with people who organized a new activity which had arrived from abroad along with democracy, as a form of free life. These people made paedophile films and forced the boys to prostitute themselves, having sex with foreigners, people who arrived from Europe and the USA, people who had pots of money and hence, in the new democratic system, immense power.
Many boys were picked up at a particular time of day from the cells and came back the next day with bags full of food and all kinds of stuff, such as glossy magazines, colouring pencils and other things which nobody in jail could dream of possessing. Their cellmates were forbidden to touch them or mistreat them; they were untouchable, nobody dared to raise a finger against them, because everyone knew those boys were the old warder’s whores. They called him ‘Crocodile Zhena’, after a character in a Soviet cartoon. The whores they called by women’s names. Their bunk was usually down at the end, near the door, and they stayed there all the time.
Nobody talked to them, they were completely isolated, we all pretended they didn’t exist. We Siberians, in particular, thought they were infectious, so we avoided even more than the others any form of contact even with their possessions, or with anyone who had come into contact with them or their possessions.
Once a sixteen-year-old boy called ‘Fish’, one of the Little Thieves, decided he wanted to rape a whore, a fourteen-year-old boy whom everyone called ‘Marina’. Marina was regularly picked up from his cell, but one morning he had come back with whip-marks on his arms, and with his neck red as if someone had been throttling him. But he didn’t seem upset; he was happy: he ate fruit and read comic books. To cut a long story short, Fish went over to him and asked him for a piece of fruit. Marina gave him a piece, Fish sat down with him on the bunk, they got talking and eventually he persuaded him to give him a blow-job in front of the whole cell.
We Siberians were in a precarious situation at the time: we had just been in a fight and we had to keep quiet for a while, otherwise – from what the disciplinary unit guys had said – they would split us up and send us to different cells, where we had a serious chance of ending up in the shit. So, while Fish was plunging his genitals into Marina’s mouth in front of his whole escort and other idiots who had gone to enjoy the show, we sat on our bunks fuming with rage because we couldn’t even afford to give him a thrashing.
We could hear the Little Thieves’ shouts of encouragement:
‘Go on, pansy, eat it all!’
‘That’s the way, Fish, make him swallow the fish!’
‘Open that mouth wider and I’ll stick mine in too!’
We soon realized that a lot of people wanted the same treatment from Marina. Marina’s weak voice could be heard whispering in an obviously feminine tone which was disgusting to hear:
‘No, boys, I did it to him because I like him, but that’s enough…’
But there was no stopping the crowd now.
‘What are you talking about? Open your little mouth, darling! There’s a good girl, go on like that, or I’ll break that pansy nose of yours!’
‘Yeah, that’s the way, suck it hard! Then it’s our turn!’
You could hear the moans, and now and then the cries, of those who were reaching an orgasm. Marina coughed and spat. Others shouted at him cruelly:
‘No spitting, you queer! You’ve got to swallow, or I’ll smash your face in!’
That poor devil, Marina. He sounded pitiful; he was crying, and in a thin voice, like that of a seriously ill man who hasn’t got the strength to breathe, he begged:
‘Please, I can’t do any more, let me be! I’ll suck you all off later, but let me rest, please…’
‘Later’s no good, you queer! If you’re tired, lie down on the bunk, but face down!’ Fish wouldn’t let up.
One of our group was about to go and give him a beating, but we stopped him; we couldn’t afford to get into trouble again. We were forced to witness that disgusting scene. None of us looked, but we could hear it all perfectly well; we were only a few metres away from the scene of the rape. We heard them throw Marina onto the bunk, while someone said in an obviously proud voice:
‘Let me through! I’m going to be the first to fuck him in the arse!’
A moment later Marina gave a kind of cry, but then started sighing, just like a girl making love. The bunks moved; the movement passed from one bunk to another and reached ours like a gentle knocking; it made us wild with rage, that swaying; if only we could have, we’d have torn them to pieces, every one of them.
A voice said:
‘Come on, boys, let’s take turns at sticking it in his mouth, too, or he’ll relax too much, the queer!’ And everyone laughed and joked, and Marina again started begging, and promising to suck them all off later, and do anything else, if only they’d leave him in peace for a while. But no one was listening to him. Again there were moans, again the cries of boys coming in his mouth, again Marina coughing and spitting, coughing and spitting.
Then someone gave him the first slaps in the face, and he started screaming. They squeezed their hands round his neck and continued to rape him. Now and then they slackened their grip and he started coughing and spitting again, and also trying to say something, but he couldn’t, because he had a fit of coughing. Everyone was whooping with joy; they were pleased. Fish said to the others:
‘Well? How do you like my girl? She’s mine! Tonight she’s free to you, but from tomorrow you’ll have to pay me! Otherwise you’ll have to just wank yourselves off!’
This madness had begun at about nine in the evening, and it went on all night. The guards didn’t come even once to see what was going on. The rapists took turns: they would go away for a rest and then start all over again. They joked among themselves:
‘Hey, boys, are you sure he’s still alive?’
‘Well, the important thing is he’s still warm…’
‘He’s alive – just look at him sucking away!’
By about six in the morning the party was over.
Everyone was laughing and joking; Marina was lying on his bed, motionless; now and then you would hear him sob and whisper something in his girlish voice.
Three days later he was picked up again by the guards.
But first Fish had a good talk with him, to make sure he wouldn’t report him to the disciplinary unit.
‘Marina, if you talk I’ll kill you with my own hands… Keep quiet and behave yourself and no one will touch you again; no one will come and see you except me. Me or anyone who pays me. Understand? Without me, they’d fuck you in every hole, like the other night!’
Fish thought he’d been convincing, and as soon as Marina had left the cell he started arranging with his friends who would be the first to screw him when he got back.
A few hours later six men from the disciplinary unit arrived, with Crocodile Zhena himself. They called out by their surnames all the boys who had taken part in the rape. Panic spread among the Little Thieves. Someone said:
‘I didn’t do anything! I was there, but I didn’t do anything.’
We watched the scene with interest.