That Damn Phone Psychic

I sit on a chair in my cell, feeling ridiculous, wearing a ratty blond wig. I scratched my head at the lice it probably gave me. I know better than to take it off. The last time I did, my cellmate beat the crap out of me. All because of that phone psychic, that damn phone psychic. I shift my weight in my chair, my butt still hurt from being raped by my cellmate. He thinks the blond wig, at least a little bit, makes me look like a woman, and it seems to help him pretend, though I don’t understand why I had to squeal like a pig while he did it.

Maybe if I tell you my story it will help me to feel better. My name is Rick O’Brian. I used to steal cars and sell drugs for a living but not anymore, nowadays my room and board is provided by the state. I was caught and sentenced to five years in the Franklyn N Furder Denton Correctional Center. At first, I thought I was safe from harm. On my very first day I struck a bargain with my new roommate. In exchange for him protecting me from the other prisoners, my family would pay his mom’s electric bill. A fair exchange, or so I thought, until my wife lost her job and my dad refused to help me. After a couple of weeks his mom got a shut off notice from the power company and she in turn called the psychics to find out when we were going to pay her bill, and that was my undoing.

Whomever it was she spoke with on the psychic hotline told her my family was never going to pay her bill and I knew it when I made the deal. That was a lie. I was convinced they would help me, my wife certainly wanted to, but she got laid off. Then the bastard told her that I deserved to wear a dress. Sure enough, since my wife was unable to pay her bill, the lady got her electricity shut off, and I looked like a liar to a very angry and very large hard timer in prison. There was no reasoning with the man, all he knew was his mother was sitting in a dark apartment with spoiled food in her fridge.

First, he beat the tar out of me, and then he had his way with me. I never had sex with another man before that and he wasn’t very attractive at all. That and he had poor hygiene. When he was finished, I was given this ratty wig and a stained sundress to wear. I tried to fight back again but only got my nose broken for that. Now I have a daily quota of six cigarettes to get for him. In addition to the cigarettes I must get I am required to clean the cell and wash his clothes. In the morning, I must get his coffee for him.

Of course, I could take a sharpened spoon or fork and jab it into his neck, but I only have five years to serve, there is no need to turn it into thirty years as well as be a target for his friends. His friends, he loves to rent me out to his friends. He gets cigarettes from them for my sexual services; this is on top of the other cigarettes I must get for him by renting myself out. It appears that the next five years will be life changing. All of this because of that damn phone psychic. Why did he have to do that to me? This wouldn’t be happening if not for that guy. I never called the psychics myself I always considered it to be a crock.

Ironically, I’ve made a friend or two in here. The guy across from our cell also has to wear a dress. His story was his wife thought he was cheating on her and he wasn’t. She called the psychics also and the man she spoke with told her the best thing she could do to stop his cheating was to put hair remover in his shampoo to make his hair fall out, and put salt peter in his coffee to make him impotent, that way he couldn’t cheat. His hair fell out in clumps and he couldn’t attain a hard on. He found out what she did and in a blind rage, he beat her badly. Now he also must serve five years for assault with intent. I wonder if they both spoke with the same guy.

He has it a bit worse than I do. My cellmate just smells bad, his cellmate has the crabs, which is why his nickname is crabby. I will survive these next five years, but I can’t speak to what my life will be like when I get out.

Perhaps when I get out of this place I will sell this story to a horror magazine. Most horror magazines deal with stories of vampires and zombies and serial killers. This horror I’m living is quite real. I just wish there was some way to track down that damn phone psychic. I’d make him very sorry for all of this. I just hope the dress doesn’t become a lifelong habit. I told my wife what became of me and she filed for a divorce, again at the suggestion of a phone psychic.

You know what the worst of all this is? The worst of it is the phone psychic got paid to turn me into a divorced beeyoch. If this happened to someone else I’d laugh, but it didn’t, it happened to me. I have to stop writing now; I’ve got to go earn my new friend his cigarettes.

THE END

Ray Prew claims to have been a telephone psychic in his previous life.

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