Finding Happiness in Los Angeles

by Oliver Markus Malloy

  I couldn't face the idea that I had been wasting years of my life in the heroin scene in Fort Myers, with girls who were just using me and who were never gonna be what I wanted them to be.

  So I started making plans with Nicole. Maybe it would actually work out this time. Maybe she was The One. We talked all day every day for a few weeks. Her release date was approaching. Just a few more days, and she would finally be free!

  Inmates in LCJ are allowed to have two visits per week, but only on a video screen. Basically it's like video chatting on Skype, except that the visitor has to go to a special video-visit building, a few hundred feet away from the actual jail building.

  I showed up for my video-visit with Nicole, but the officer told me I wasn't on the list of scheduled visits today. He told me Nicole had cancelled my visit and instead had someone else visit her a few hours ago.

  Nicole didn't call me anymore after that. A few days later she was released. She didn't call me to pick her up, or to even let me know that she was out, or that it was over between us, or what had happened. Nothing.

  As I found out later, she had secretly been talking to Natalie, a lesbian girl who had a crush on Nicole. Nicole had mentioned Natalie once or twice during our conversations. She said Natalie was her best friend from high school. Natalie was also a drug addict, but she had been in jail and then spent months in a rehab program, and now she had been clean for a few months.

  Nicole had told me that after she was going to come live with me, she wouldn't talk to any of her old addict friends anymore, because she knew that if she wanted to stay clean, she had to cut all other addicts out of her life. Except Natalie. She said since Natalie was clean, she was ok. I wasn't so sure. I told Nicole that when two clean addicts are in a relationship together, or spend a lot of time together, they make each other relapse sooner or later.

  "No, you don't know Natalie. She is very strong," Nicole said. "She's not gonna relapse. And she's gonna help me stay clean."

  I didn't want to argue with Nicole while she was in jail. I figured we'd cross that bridge when we get to it. Once she's out, I could still tell her that hanging out with Natalie was not a good idea. Especially if Natalie was a lesbian who had a crush on Nicole. That was only gonna make things complicated again.

  Well, I was right. Once Nicole got out of jail, she had Natalie pick her up, and disappeared.

  A few weeks later, Nicole texted me out of the blue and wrote that she was sorry she had run off like that, and that she missed me.

  By now Lucy had been released from jail again as well, and Lucy and Nicole were sharing a motel room with a drug dealer. Maybe Blizard. Or maybe the next random thug. Who knows.

  Nicole asked me if I could come see her, because she needed to talk to me. "And can u bring a copy of ur book? I never got to finish it."

  When I got to her motel room, Lucy opened the door. Awkward. Lucy and I looked at each other for a second, then looked away. Neither one of us said anything. Lucy stepped away from the door and continued to straighten her hair in front of the mirror. Nicole was sitting on the bed, preparing some heroin. She was about to shoot up.

  "Hey shithead," I said, half kidding, and sat down next to Nicole. She gave me a sad, guilty look and hugged me. She looked so tired and unhappy. And she was skinnier than I had ever seen her.

  "So, what the fuck happened?" I asked her.

  "What do you mean?" she replied.

  "What the fuck do you think I mean? You just disappeared! You were dating Natalie behind my back the whole time while you were in jail. You're no better than Lucy!" I said angrily.

  Lucy scoffed in the corner, still straightening her hair.

  "I know. I was so stupid. I don't wanna talk about it," Nicole said without looking at me. She was focused on the heroin lying on the nightstand next to the bed.

  Lucy was done straightening her hair. She was all made up and looked really pretty. She had gained some weight in jail, as they always do. But it looked cute on her. Her boobs were bigger than I remembered them.

  She sat down on the bed with us and grabbed the book. It was the first time she got to see it. "Where's the part about me?" she asked. I showed her where she made the first appearance in the book and she started reading.

  Nicole said: "That's my copy. You can read it, but don't take it."

  Then Nicole looked at me with big sad eyes: "Can I come home with you? I don't want to be here anymore. This is killing me. And Lucy has a date."

  That meant Lucy was about to fuck some guy from Backpage. And I guess he only had money for one girl, not two.

  "Sure," I said. "Let's go."

  Lucy looked up from the book and scoffed again. She gave me a dirty look and said: "Have fun fucking my aunt, Oliver."

  "Yeah, yeah, look who's talking," I replied. "Have fun fucking some lowlife."

  We both still had feelings for each other, but neither one of us was ready to admit it. To be honest, I would have preferred to take Lucy home with me.

  Nicole and I got in the car and headed south, towards Bonita Springs. She grabbed my arm really tight with both hands and pressed her face against my shoulder. "I missed you so much. Thanks for picking me up. I love you." Then she just held on to me like that for a while, as we were driving.

  We stopped at Burger King and grabbed something to go. She couldn't wait to eat til we got home and stuffed a handful of French fries in her mouth. She hadn't eaten in days she said, and she was starving.

  Once we got home, we had sex. I kept thinking about Lucy, and that's what made me cum. Afterwards, we were just lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, while she was cuddled up next to me.

  "So, are you gonna tell me what happened?" I asked again.

  Nicole told me she had made plans to move in with Natalie. Nicole had been acting like she was in love with her, even though she wasn't a lesbian, and Natalie had offered Nicole that she would take care of her. She was making good money as a line cook in a diner.

  They lived together for a week or two, until they both relapsed. Gee, who could have seen that coming?

  A few weeks later, Natalie and Nicole got into a huge fight over money, when their addiction became so expensive that Natalie could no longer afford to pay for both their drugs. She encouraged Nicole to work as an escort on Backpage. So within a matter of a few weeks, Natalie went from Nicole's girlfriend to Nicole's pimp.

  Eventually Nicole realized that Natalie was just using her to feed her own habit, so Nicole left and ended up living in a motel room with Lucy and Blizzard. He was feeding them drugs and pimping them out. At first Darlene had been staying with them as well, but now she wasn't. Nicole wasn't sure what had happened to her. Maybe Darlene had found some guy who offered to take care of her.

  The next day Nicole asked me to drive her back to the motel so she could get more drugs. I knew arguing with her would have been pointless. I just dropped her off and went home.

  Haley was still in jail, but she was also going to be released soon. When she called me, I told her what had happened to Nicole after she got out. Haley laughed: "Seriously Oliver, when are you gonna learn? All these bitches promise you the moon, and as soon as they get out, they go right back to the same old shit. You need someone who is ready to be clean and sober for real. Someone like me."

  "Every one of you keeps saying the same thing," I replied. "Veronica told me she was different from Alice. Lucy told me she was different from Veronica. Nicole told me she was different from Lucy. And now you're telling me you're different from Nicole. I'll believe it when I see it," I said.

  A few days later, Haley was released from jail. Her grandparents picked her up. She went to live with them in Port Charlotte, about half an hour north of Fort Myers.

  The distance was good for her. She had no car, and no way to get to Palm Beach Boulevard. So she couldn't get any drugs. She was doing good. I told her, if she could stay sober for at least a month, I'd be happy to take her out on a real date, but I wasn't going to waste my time wi
th another zombie in active addiction.

  Rather than NO MO HO, I was now talking to more drug addicted girls than ever before. Things were getting worse, not better.

  Did you ever notice that when someone says they'll quit something, they end up doing it more? Some people say they'll go on a diet, but then they binge on all the food in their fridge, because tomorrow the fast starts, so let's eat all our food today! No sense letting it go to waste!

  A lot of drug addicts do the same thing. When they say they'll quit, they start binging "one last time."

  And I guess I was doing the same thing. I was binging. I knew my life couldn't go on like this. I couldn't keep spending all my time with drug addicts, because it wasn't getting me any closer to what I really wanted: a wife. Someone I could share my life with. Someone who shares my interests and gets my sense of humor. Someone who loves to travel as much as I do. Someone who appreciates that I love her, and who loves me back. Not someone who just wants to use me, but someone who actually cares about me as a person.

  But Mrs. Perfect wasn't just gonna fall in my lap. Finding someone like that was gonna take a lot of strength and effort. Especially for an introvert like me. I would have to change my whole life and go on real dates, not just answer the phone when a drug addict calls and offers me some quick sex.

  I just didn't feel like I had it in me. Not right now. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. But not today. Today I'll just distract myself with another drug addict. Today I'll just have some more easy pussy, and then maybe tomorrow I'll start looking for a wife. Or maybe next week. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

  JASMINE AND ANITA

  "In vengeance and in love women are more savage than men."

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Remember Jasmine? Veronica had cheated on me with her. She even got Jasmine's name tattooed on her wrist. Then Veronica cheated on Jasmine with me. Jasmine also cheated on her best friend Abby with Abby's drug dealer boyfriend Wigger. And then I found Lucy in my guest bedroom, cheating on me with Jasmine.

  Yeah, that Jasmine.

  She had also gotten arrested around the same time as Lucy and Nicole. Now she was out, too. She messaged me on Facebook: "R u back from Germany yet?"

  We chatted for a few minutes and made some small talk. Then she asked me if I could come get her. She was stranded in Lehigh Acres. I guess a drug dealer had picked her up from jail too, used her for a few days, and then kicked her to the curb.

  If I had any brains at all, I would have just blocked her. But no, I told her I'd come get her. Did I think she was gonna be The One? No. But the thought of having Jasmine stay with me, and getting to fuck her, and Veronica finding out about it, got me all excited. I guess I still wasn't over my revenge-fuck phase.

  She texted me directions, and I found her standing in the middle of some crappy street in Lehigh. She looked like she had been walking through the blistering Florida heat for a while. She was all sweaty.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "Nothing. This motherfucker kept trying to have sex with me," she said. She obviously didn't want to talk about it. It was just another typical, shitty Tuesday in her life.

  We were driving back to my place in Bonita Springs, when my phone rang. It was Cassidy. She was the girl who had called me from jail last December, to tell me that she had intercepted a love letter that Veronica had written to Wendy the freckle-faced gnome in jail. Remember that call? After I hung up, I had wanted to tell Lucy about it, and found Lucy in my guestroom bed with Jasmine.

  Now I had Jasmine in my car, and Cassidy was calling me. I picked up. Cassidy was crying. She said some guy she was staying with had kicked her out, and now she had nowhere to go. "Can you please come get me? I have no one else to ask," she sobbed.

  I told Jasmine about the call: "What do you think? Should I pick her up?"

  "Yeah, you should," Jasmine said. "I know what it's like to have no where to go."

  No kidding. I had not even completed my rescue mission for Jasmine yet, and now I was on a rescue mission for Cassidy. And this was now the second time I was rescuing Cassidy from some other guy's house. Always that need to be the knight in shining armor. Sir Oliver, the White Knight of Codependency. But I didn't realize it at the time. It just felt good to be needed.

  Jasmine and I picked up Cassidy. Of course they knew each other from jail and gave each other a hug.

  "You know what the most fucked up part is?" Cassidy asked. "Today is my birthday! That asshole kicked me out on my birthday!"

  I had a feeling she wasn't telling us the whole story. I'm sure if we had asked the guy about what happened today, he would have a completely different story, in which Cassidy would not be the innocent victim, but a typical, lying, stealing, cheating drug addict. He had probably found out today that she was fucking someone else behind his back.

  "Aww, that sucks," I replied. "Well, your birthday isn't over yet, so let's celebrate a little. Let's go out to eat."

  I took Jasmine and Cassidy to Chen's Buffet. Nothing fancy, but they enjoyed it. They both looked like they hadn't eaten in a while.

  "Can we get a bottle of Vodka for dessert?" Cassidy asked with a smirk. "To celebrate!"

  "Oh, YES YES YESSS!" Jasmine laughed. "Let's get wasted!"

  On the way home, we picked up a large bottle of Vodka. After we got home they both took showers. Then we sat on the couch to watch a movie, but nobody was paying any attention to it. They were drinking the whole bottle, while sharing stories about jail, laughing at Veronica, and making fun of me for believing Veronica's lies. I laughed along, even though the jokes weren't nearly as funny to me. Maybe because I wasn't drunk. Or maybe because it was just too soon.

  Eventually Cassidy passed out on my couch. Jasmine and I talked for a little while longer. Then she gave me a good night kiss and said she was going to bed. Like she lived here. Well, she did know the place. She had fucked Lucy in my guest room.

  I turned off the lights and TV, and headed to bed too. I found Jasmine in my bed, sleeping. She hadn't gone to my guest room. She went to sleep in my bed. And just like that, she was living with me.

  Cassidy left the next day, because Jasmine let her know it was time to go. But Jasmine stayed. We went out to eat the next day, and went to the beach. Jasmine didn't seem to be doing a lot of drugs right now. She just drank a lot. She wanted to get drinks in one of the many bars in Fort Myers Beach.

  Later that night, she was all drunk and in a good mood again. We were about to watch some TV in bed, when she asked me: "You wanna see me twerk?" She had told me that she used to be a stripper. In the same club as Darlene, I think.

  "Sure," I smiled.

  She was just wearing panties and one of my T-shirts. She put her hands against the bedroom wall, to keep her balance, and then she began to twerk her ass. She was a pro at it. A true professional.

  "Nice!" I laughed.

  "Watch this," she said. She pulled her panties off, climbed on my bed, and while on her knees, she pointed her ass and her pussy at me, and twerked again. It's a whole different experience when a girl twerks on your bed with her panties off.

  She looked over her shoulder while twerking on all fours, and asked: "Wanna fuck me?"

  "Yeah," I said with a laugh. I took my shorts off, got behind her, and fucked her doggy style. All that twerking had made me super horny. After a while she told me to lie on my back. She got on top of me, reverse cowgirl, and twerked until I came inside her.

  "It's ok. I can't get pregnant," she said while climbing off my lap.

  After that we just acted like a couple. We never explicitly said we were a couple, but we lived together, did stuff together, and had sex every night.

  She had a very nice stripper body and beautiful long brown hair. She was very pretty as long as she didn't smile. She had these really big gums. When she smiled, you barely noticed her teeth, because there was so much gums. That's why she always smiled with her mouth closed in her Facebook selfies.

  She got a job as a w
aitress at one of the bars in Fort Myers Beach. I drove her to work, and picked her up after her shift.

  Sometimes George came over, and the three of us watched a movie together. Jasmine would lie in my arms and fall asleep. I liked that feeling.

  One day she told me she didn't want to come right home after work. She said she had met this new girl at work, and they wanted to get drunk at the beach after their shifts ended.

  She asked me to come pick her up two hours later. So I waited for her call, like I'm a fucking cab.

  About three hours later, I think it was around 11 pm, she texted me: "Come get me."

  I drove all the way to Fort Myers Beach. Takes about 30 to 45 minutes from Bonita Springs. I pulled into the parking lot and texted her: "I'm outside."