Sex and Crime: Oliver's Strange Journey (47 page)

This went on for hours, like a broken
record. I couldn't take it anymore. She was relentless. Finally I
caved: "Alright, fine. But only tonight. And then don't even ask me
for drugs for at least a week, ok?"

"Ok," she promised. Then she grabbed a
prepaid pone that I had lying around and she started calling and
texting a bunch of dope boys. When addicts try to line up their
next hit, they furiously text and call, as if their life depended
on it. They have a singular focus, and they completely forget the
world around them. Then she asked me for some money and told me to
drive her to some little dead-end street in the hood off of Martin
Luther King Boulevard. She said she would buy some crack and
ecstasy pills. "They make me really horny. You should try some,"
she suggested with a smirk.

After Veronica picked up her drugs, she
asked me if we could pick up her friend Kim. She said the others
had dumped Kim by the side of the road in the hood somewhere, and
now she had nowhere to go.

I really didn't want to. I was sick and
tired of driving around all night. I hadn't been able to have any
alone time with Veronica in almost a year, ever since she went to
the hospital with the MRSA infection in her leg. I just wanted to
cuddle up in bed and make love to her. But we went and picked up
Kim anyway.

When we got back to my place, we sat in the
living room and watched some music videos on YouTube. I showed them
what they had been missing while they were in jail and rehab. First
and foremost: Gangnam Style by Psy.

Kim and Veronica were making calls on the
prepaid phone. Kim called her parents. They were really pissed at
her for leaving the program and wanted nothing to do with her.
Veronica called one of her roommates in rehab and asked if their
escape had been discovered yet. It had. They were both full of
nervous energy. It was getting later and later. By 4 am I decided
to go to bed. I figured Veronica would follow. But she didn't. I
was pissed.

At 6 am she walked past my bed to go to the
bathroom in the master bedroom. I woke up and gave her a dirty
look. She asked if I was mad at her. "Yeah, of course I am," I
said. "I can't believe you would rather sit in the living room with
Kim than come to bed. We haven't seen each other in forever!"

Of course she'd rather sit in the living
room and do drugs with Kim than come to bed. She's a drug
addict!

"I'm sorry. I'll come to bed in a few
minutes," she said. She went back in the living room, and by 8 am
she finally came back into the bedroom, and we had sex for the
first time in almost a year.

Then she said she would like to go to the
beach today. Sounds like a good idea, I thought. Wholesome. A
non-drug-related activity. Yayy! I got almost no sleep that night,
but I figured we could doze off at the beach.

"Ok, let's do that," I said with a smile.
Then we had sex again and fell back asleep.

When we woke up in the afternoon, Veronica
said: "Let's get some weed for the beach."

"What? I thought you said after last night
you wouldn't ask for any more drugs for at least a week," I
replied.

"Weed isn't like a real drug. It's not like
crack or heroin," she said. "Wouldn't you rather have me smoke some
weed than crack?"

"Yeah, I guess." I figured if smoking weed
keeps her happy, and away from crack, fine. It's definitely the
smaller of two evils.

I should have known better than to trust
her. She told me to drive her and Kim back to the same drug
dealer's house near Martin Luther King Boulevard where she had
bought crack last night. That should have tipped me off to the fact
that she really wasn't buying weed, but more crack. Let's blame my
stupidity on the fact that I didn't have enough sleep that
night.

Before we got there, Veronica had conned her
father into wiring her some money, by telling him on the phone that
she was still in rehab and that she needed money to buy some books
or something. He wired her $100. After she picked up her drugs, she
said she was too tired to go to the beach, and just wanted to go
back home and get some sleep. Of course. Figures.

On the ride home, she asked me to stop at a
fast food joint on 41, so she could use the bathroom. She and Kim
went into a single person bathroom together. I knew what that
meant. They were going to do drugs together. That's when it dawned
on me that they hadn't bought weed and ecstasy, but crack and
Ds.

Kim came out of the bathroom first. I was
pissed: "You two just shot up some Ds in the bathroom, didn't you?"
She tried to deny it at first, but her mind wasn't working right
because she was high, so she started tripping over her own
lies.

Then Veronica came out of the bathroom. We
all got back in the car. I gave Veronica a dirty look and told her
I knew she had lied to me and they did pills in the bathroom.

"No we didn't. I swear," she said.

Meanwhile Kim was nodding out on the
backseat. I had seen those droopy eyes and open mouth often enough
by now. I knew she was high on opiates.

"No, Kim just took a Xanax," Veronica
claimed.

"Bullshit. I've seen people on Xanax, and
I've seen people on Ds, and she's high on a D," I said angrily.

"No, it's just a very strong Xanax. It's a
new kind. Extra strong," Veronica said. She didn't make much sense
anymore, because she was starting to nod out, too.

When we got back to my place, we went back
to sleep for a while. When we woke up, we sat on the porch while
Veronica was smoking a cigarette. I told her I was really upset,
because she didn't keep her word about not doing any drugs for at
least a week.

"I just said that because I really wanted to
smoke crack. I'm a drug addict. I lie. What do you expect? I'll say
anything so you'll let me smoke crack," she said, like it was ok.
She obviously didn't even feel guilty about it.

We argued for a while, and she was getting
more and more agitated. She told me she was more fucked up in the
head than any other person I'd ever met, and that if I didn't stop
telling her not to smoke any more crack, she would kill
herself.

Then we agreed not to argue anymore for the
rest of the night. I assumed we were all gonna watch a movie in the
living room. Instead Veronica disappeared in the guest bedroom with
Kim. I was really pissed that this was Veronica's second night
home, and just like the first night, she didn't spend it in bed
with me, but doing drugs with Kim.

The next morning I woke up really early
around 6 am, because I had to use the bathroom. Then I decided to
get something to drink in the kitchen, before going back to bed. I
saw Veronica standing by the sink, crushing up a D with a spoon. I
just gave her a dirty look, but didn't say anything at first. She
looked back at me, didn't say anything either, and quickly tried to
flush the crushed up powder down the drain.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I finally
asked.

"I'm making Jello," she said.

"What the fuck are you talking about? We
don't have any Jello," I said.

"Yeah, it's Jello. Lime Jello," she
claimed.

"We don't have Lime Jello. That's a crushed
up pill. You haven't just been smoking crack. And those pills you
bought weren't ecstasy. You bought Ds! What the fuck is wrong with
you?" I said. I was so disgusted with her and her neverending lies.
I went back to bed.

At 10 am I woke up again. When I walked out
of my bedroom, I saw that the guest bedroom door was open. I could
see inside. Veronica and Kim were in bed together, making out.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" I yelled. "Get over here
right now! We need to talk!"

Veronica came into my bedroom and we closed
the door.

"That girl gotta get the fuck out of here
right NOW!" I yelled.

"Babe, it's not what it looks like. I was
just rubbing her back. She had a backache," Veronica claimed.
Lamest excuse ever.

"Please, spare me the bullshit," I said.
"She better get the FUCK out of here before I lose it!"

"It's really not what you think, but ok,
I'll tell her to leave," Veronica said. She went in the guest
bedroom and talked to Kim. A few minutes later she came back into
my bedroom. She said Kim would be gone by 4 pm. That's the soonest
she could get a ride. I said ok. I was relieved that Kim was gonna
be gone soon. Hopefully things with Veronica would get better, once
we were alone, and she'd actually focus on me for a change. Then
Veronica cuddled up next to me, told me she was sorry and that she
loved me. We had sex again and fell back asleep in each other's
arms afterwards.

I woke up around 4:30 pm. Veronica was still
sleeping. I went in the living room, and there was Kim, sitting on
the couch, watching TV.

"What the fuck are you still doing here? You
were supposed to be gone by 4 pm," I said.

She was acting all snooty and said: "Don't
talk to me like that."

"Get the fuck out," I demanded.

"I need to talk to Veronica first," she
replied, even snootier, while texting on the prepaid phone I had
let Veronica use earlier.

"No you don't. You need to get the fuck out
RIGHT NOW!" I yelled. "And give me back my phone."

"That's not your phone. That's Veronica's
phone," Kim said.

I approached her to grab the phone out of
her hands, but she jumped off the couch and ran around the table,
while yelling: "Don't touch me!" She looked like she was afraid I
was going to hit her.

All the yelling had woken Veronica up, and
she came into the living room. "What's going on?" she asked.

"He was trying to take the phone," Kim
said.

"What the fuck is she still doing here?" I
demanded to know.

"I gotta talk to you," Veronica replied. We
went back in my bedroom and closed the door. "Remember I told you a
while ago, I need a female friend? I can't relate to a guy the way
I relate to a girl. I'm sorry I was so in your face about it when
you found me in bed with Kim this morning. We'll be more discreet
from now on. We won't rub it in your face anymore, so you won't
know when we're having sex."

Did she just tell me she was going to be
fucking Kim behind my back from now on, like she was doing me a
favor? Yes she did! I was speechless. What the hell was going on in
her fucked up head? Did she really think I was going to be ok with
her having sex with someone else, and I would still want to be in a
relationship with her, and be the third wheel?

"Kim and I could both live with you, and
then you can still fuck me any time you want," she said. "Wouldn't
you rather do that, than break up with me and then you have to find
someone new and start a relationship with a new girl all over
again?"

She was suggesting the same type of sick
drug "relationship" she and many other crackwhores are used to. She
was going to date another crackwhore to have someone she could
relate to, and she was going to date me as her means of survival
and source of money for drugs.

This is how she had lived for the past few
years. She wasn't used to having a guy treat her like a person with
actual feelings. No wonder she thought she couldn't relate to a
guy. But didn't she realize I was different than those other guys
she was used to? She was used to being some guy's sex slave. And to
make herself feel better about that arrangement, she got herself
some crackwhore as her sex toy. She had no idea how to be in a
normal, monogamous relationship with a guy who actually respected
her and treated her as an equal.

"Are you fucking serious right now?" I
asked.

"Isn't it better you share me with Kim, than
not to have me in your life at all?" she asked.

"Uhmm, no. I'm not a dope boy. And you're
not just some whore to me. I'm not looking for some girl I can fuck
whenever I want. I don't just want to use you for sex. I actually
love you. I really care about you. I can't handle the thought of
sharing you with someone else. I want you all to myself," I
explained.

"If you're kicking Kim out, I'm leaving
too," she said.

"What? So you're gonna pick her over me?" I
asked.

'It's not that, but she's my friend, and I
can't just kick her out into the street and let her fend for
herself," Veronica replied.

"Kim is older than you! What the fuck are
you gonna do for her? Trick on Backpage? Suck dick to buy her
drugs?" I asked with a vicious tone in my voice.

"No, I'm never ever going back to that," she
claimed.

"Yeah, you are. If you leave now, you're
going be bouncing around from one cheap motel to the next again,
and you'll go back to fucking dope boys and tricking on Backpage
within a matter of days."

"No, I'm not," she said, while opening the
closet door.

"Yeah, you are."

"I don't want to leave," she claimed, while
opening the closet drawers to pack up her clothes. In her mind she
was already gone, already smoking crack in some motel room with
Kim. She was just going through the motions right now, pretending
that I was making her leave, when really she wanted to leave to get
high without me getting in her way all the time.