Title: Shy Oyster

Genre: Angst (Pre-Slash)

Rating: R

Summary: Andy has always had trouble with intimacy. Life in prison didn't help things much.

Disclaimer: I don't own a god damned thing. The lines in italics are stolen directly from the screenplay, as written by Frank Darabont. Everything else belongs to Stephen King I suppose, with a bit of leeway thrown in for all the folks at Castle Rock and Columbia that contributed to the film adaptation. Unlike Red, I ain't making no 20, and this is for entertainment purposes only.

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My name is Andy. I used to be a Dufresne, and I was a bad husband. It sounds so simple to say it now, but coming to that conclusion took me half a lifetime: half a lifetime of self analysis and pity. However, whatever mistakes I've made, I've paid for them and then some. In 1947, I was sentenced to two life sentences in Shawshank Prison for killing my wife and her lover while they slept in each others arms. Whilst at trial, the prosecutor made a statement about how my supposed crime may have been better understood if there had been two less bullets fired into their helpless bodies. At the time I was too shocked to comprehend much of what was going on around me, but now that I think on it, I can't help but wonder if that man had ever stepped within fifty feet of his own wife in bed with a golf pro, and if he'd ever heard her screaming her head off in ecstasy as another man screwed her into oblivion. I may have been drunk the night I went to confront my wife, but I sure as hell wasn't deaf. I didn't need to see. Her choked words in the haze of her passion had been more than enough to break me. "Oh Glenn, oh god...that's sooo good...you're
the best...the best I ever had..." I remember standing outside the lodge, tears streaming down my face, shoulders slumped and trying to hold back the sobs I knew were forthcoming. I was a pathetic sight to behold, I'm sure. A cold blooded killer. Two less bullets. I often wonder what kind of time they'd have dealt me if Elmo Blatch had stopped at six.

Prison was worse than any hell they could have sent me to. At least, it was at first.

I can recall how it felt when they fucked me in the back of the laundry rooms, forcefully ripping the clothes from my body and beating me into a mass of blue and black when I didn't comply. Of course, that was every time. Red always told me to keep fighting. He said that if I didn't, it would only be that much easier to let them get at me. He told me to grow eyes in the back of my head the first day I spoke to him. I tried. God knows I tried, but I was somehow never able to evade the Sisters when they came looking for me. Fighting them off was hard too. There were three of them, and one of me, and prisons don't usually leave items lying around that can be used as weapons. Bad politics I guess. I was sure the first time would be the worst, but it retrospect, the first time was a walk in the park compared to how it was near the end.

I remember the first time I came when they raped me.

I remember how dirty I felt. Granted, I always felt dirty when they touched me. But it was worse then. I'd responded to their grubby hands on me, and even though my brain and my heart were shouting no! simultaneously, my body wouldn't listen. They laughed when I came. Told me that they knew I would like it all along. It was worse after that. They came for me more often, and beat me harder than they had before. I remember the look on Red's face when I'd step into the yard with a fresh cocktail of bruises on my face. That look of disappointment he always wore. I shudder to think how disgusted he would look if he'd seen me curled up in a ball on the storage room floor weeping like a little girl. I know that if I had seen that disgust on his face that I would have fallen. Red was my friend, and I trusted him to stand by me. If he'd have seen me then, I would have lost him, and in doing so, lost myself.

I'd lie in my bunk at night, trying to sleep. At first, my lonely nights were filled with memories of my wife. God she was lovely. I remember the day I married her, and how I felt like the luckiest man on the planet. I remember how she smiled at me, how her eyes danced with happiness. I remember making love to her for the first time in a hayfield near Buxton, and how it was the most beautiful thing, sharing with her what I hadn't shared with anyone else. I remember fumbling around in the afternoon sunshine, trying to get my hands to do just the right thing to get her to moan and make those pretty sounds she made when I touched her just right. I remember that fleeting moment of paradise when I came inside her, before collapsing clumsily atop her, nearly crushing her with my weight. I had flushed a deep scarlet and apologized, but she's simply smiled, smoothed my hair back and kissed my temple. "It's alright, Andy," she had said with a giggle.

Things were perfect for awhile. I'd come home from work and she'd greet me with that dazzling smile of hers. Our house was always immaculate, and the food she prepared was always good. She'd kiss me sweetly and ask about my day. Later, I'd fumble around some more in an effort to please her. I'd started to dream about coming home to a new family. I'd have visions of little babies crawling around on our new carpets… but something happened to change it all. I've always been a quiet person. I was reserved in school. Everyone used to wonder how I'd secured myself such a grand position at the bank before I'd hit thirty. I can't recall having much of a social life when I was a child. Others boys would romp around in the woods and play war. I would sit in my room and read science clippings from the magazines and newspapers, and play chess with myself. I preferred solitude over the hustle and bustle of society. My gorgeous wife was a social butterfly. I loved her. I guess I just didn't know how to show it, that's all. And so, I'm justified in telling myself that I caused her death. I didn't pull the trigger, but I did drive her into Glenn Quentin's arms, and that's almost worse.

I used to enjoy the solitude I forced upon myself. Now I have it in leaps and bounds.

The Sisters left me alone after Captain Hadley took away Boggs' ability to walk in 1949. That year saw plenty of changes come about in my life at Shawshank. They took me out of the laundry and put me up in the library. I wasn't raped again. I guess they figure they needed to keep their pet safe. I couldn't provide financial planning and service as an accountant if I was up in the infirmary all the time. But even though I wasn't being attacked anymore, I still thought about it. My dreams were a bizarre mixture of images. I'd sometimes start out dreaming of my wife, but those dreams were usually interrupted with harsh memories of Boggs Diamond's cock tearing me apart from the inside out. I'd wake up trembling and whimpering, with sticky cheeks from where the tears had dried. On the worst nights, I'd wake up to verbal abuse from the guys bunking next to me, telling me to shut the fuck up. My body would quake then, and I'd have to bite my hand to keep from crying out. Once or twice, over the roar of blood in my ears, I could hear Red. His voice would soothe me, tell me to sleep easy. I'd wake in the morning ashamed with the knowledge that I'd needed him to comfort me, and I usually wasn't able to meet his eyes for a day or two. The nightmares became less vivid with the passage of time, but they still haunted me. It has haunted me for years, and still does to this day. Even in the bright tropical sunshine, with the white sand between by toes, my head can't escape those dark days in the back of the prison laundry. I've been here for six months or so, maybe longer. Zihuatanejo. It's beautiful here. The ocean is footsteps away, and the sun is always bright, bathing everyone in its warm glow. I'm not as pale as I used to be. I've put on weight, and my business is near up and running. I have my hotel and my boat. That's all I really wanted, wasn't it? My name is Andrew "Andy" Brooks. It's 1967, and it's been twenty years since the trial that stole my freedom from me.

Señor Covas wants me to marry his daughter. I'm a wealthy American businessman after all, and Ria Covas is one of the loviest women I've ever seen. Her skin is smooth and baby soft, the colour of nicely burnt almond and her hair is black with sun-ripened highlights. She's a sweet young woman with a soft voice and gentle disposition. I know she would feel wonderful in my arms, soft and pliant. But I've seen the way she looks at Esteban, my boatman, and I know I can't marry her.

I'm being selfish when I place all the blame on her lustful looks at the young man who will be taking my guests out on the water. I know that when I try to touch her, I'll start trembling like a virgin, and I won't be able to stop. I know because I've tried. This is how I know of her gentle spirit, for a more spiteful woman may have made such delicate information known to the entire town. Not Ria. Her lovely dark eyes look at me with love and understanding, and her smile is as radiant as it was the day I met her, without a hint of malice. I've given her a job in the hotel as receptionist. I'll pay her well for it too, so that she and Esteban can be happy together, and Señor Covas will be satisfied that his daughter's economic needs are met.

Then I won't feel so guilty.

It's the guilt that keeps me up at night now. Staving off the nightmares is a priority, but the guilt eats at me in a way I can't begin to describe. I'm a dirty man, and I dream dirty dreams. I'm damaged goods. When the sun is out, it's almost not so bad. I can keep myself occupied during the day. There's plenty of work to do. But at night, when there's nothing but the soft sound of the waves lapping up the beach, that's when it hurts the most. That's when I could use a pair of arms to hold me and tell me it's safe. I try and tell myself that it's not Red I want, that the reasons I gave him for wanting him here are the only reasons I have: that I only really need a man who knows how to get things. The truth is I need my friend. I need my rock.

I hope he gets here soon.

xxxx