Free BOUNDLESS (Mama's Story) by Lexie Ray

Christ’s sake.”
    “I think I’m going to go to sleep,” I said coldly. I thought I’d exorcised all the accusations of me being an alcoholic with the announcement that I was going to attend the meeting tomorrow. Why couldn’t I escape it?
    Then again, that strange little voice inside me said, why was I seriously considering sex with Tama in order to get my fix? I wanted nothing to do with her. Was I really thinking about giving it up for some of that disgusting booze?
    The next morning, I walked with Marlee to breakfast. She found Cheryl and had me sit next to her. Cheryl seemed to understand the situation and escorted me to and from commissary. At lunch, I found a couple of girls from GED class. That took care of me until that tricky time in between class and dinner. A girl from class walked back to my cell with me, talking about A Message to Jasmine I hadn’t gotten the chance to pick it up again since yesterday, which irritated me. I couldn’t very well read with a chatty inmate keeping me company.
    Marlee, however, was waiting for me in the cell.
    “Perfect timing,” she said, smiling in a way that told me that the reason it was perfect was because she’d planned on being here. “You ready to go to the meeting?”
    “Oh, girl, I didn’t know you was in AA, too,” the GED inmate said, patting my shoulder. “That’s good. We can all walk together.”
    There was quite a crowd gathering in the common area, pulling chairs out from the tables and setting them in rows in front of a podium. I was immediately twitchy as people started greeting one another. It was like a sisterhood I’d never belong to. I didn’t want to be here at all.
    “Don’t chicken out on me now,” Marlee teased lightly, elbowing me a bit. “You’re here. It’s going to be fine.”
    “And I don’t have to talk,” I reminded my cellmate.
    “No, just listen,” she said. “Unless you decide you want to talk. Then you talk. Play it by ear, Wanda. Open yourself to it. Don’t judge it before you even know what it’s about.”
    It was about a bunch of people who thought they had problems with liquor. My only problem with liquor was that I didn’t have any at my disposal. I wondered how that would go over with the attendees. I probably wouldn’t be too popular. I might even lose some of my security detail. And then Tama would sink her claws into me and I might get that buzz I’d been promised.
    What the hell. I scratched at my scalp irritably, running my fingers through my hair. This was ridiculous. Not half a year ago, I was running a highly successful nightclub. Now I was in prison, trying to figure out how to avoid the advances of some inmate.
    Life was a bitch. That much I understood.
    “Okay, everybody, let’s get started,” an inmate at the podium said. “I’m Karla, an alcoholic.”
    “Hi, Karla,” everyone said in unison. I winced. It was going to be one of those meetings.
    “Let’s start out with introductions. Will everyone new here raise their hands?”
    Marlee snagged my wrist and raised my arm for me. I scowled at her. I thought she said I didn’t have to participate. All I had to do was listen.
    “Hello, there,” Karla said. “Will you introduce yourself?”
    “This is my cellmate, Wanda,” Marlee said quickly.
    “Hi, Wanda,” everyone intoned. It was creepy.
    “I asked her to come and told her all she had to do was listen, if she wasn’t comfortable sharing,” Marlee said.
    “You’re welcome here, Wanda,” Karla said. “We’re all familiar with the AA preamble. I won’t bore us with it in its entirety, but Wanda and anyone else who needs a refresher should know that the only requirement of being a part of this group is the desire to stop drinking.”
    “Help me, Higher Power,” someone said.
    “Amen.”
    “We’re all alcoholics here,” Karla continued. “We want to stay sober, and help one another stay sober.”
    “We sure do!”
    “Amen!”
    This was beginning to feel like an