"Yeah, of course I want to see you again," I replied. "How about tomorrow?"
"Yeah, I would really like that," she said with a smile.
The next night Veronica was staying at the Budget Inn on 41, near Lee Memorial Hospital. It was pretty late at night when we met up. We both felt so comfortable around each other, as if we had known each other for a long time. While she was shooting up heroin right in front of me, she told me that she wished she could quit drugs. She told me her grandparents were about to come down from Boston in a few days, to try to get her into a rehab program. She told me about some sort of rapid detox. She hoped it would help her. While I was waiting for her to finish shooting up, I was lying on the bed naked, masturbating.
Then she smoked some crack and finally sat down next to me. She started kissing me while moving her hand between my legs. Then she slowly kissed her way down my stomach to my dick and started sucking it. I got on top of her and she wrapped her long legs around me, and pushed me deeper inside of her. Having sex with her was the happiest I had been in a long time.
After I came inside of her, she smiled and kissed me again. We talked for a while, and then we had sex a second time. Afterwards she washed up and said that she felt really comfortable around me. "I usually have a hard time making conversation with guys, but you are really easy to talk to," she said. "I like being around you."
I was going to leave, but she said: "Please don't go yet. Will you lie down next to me for a while?"
"Sure," I said. I really liked this girl. She was so sweet.
We lay down in bed and she snuggled up next to me. I had my arm around her, her head was resting on my shoulder, and one of her legs was lying across mine, with her foot between my feet. For some reason it felt like we were supposed to meet, and we were supposed to lie here together. She fell asleep in my arms. I never wanted this moment to end.
In her sleep, she put one of hands up to her mouth, and started to suck her thumb like a little girl. Like so many times before, one little word, one little gesture, told me volumes. And somehow her sucking her thumb told me that she had been sexually abused ever since she was a little girl. Sucking her thumb reminded her of the last time in her life when the world was still ok. It comforted her and made her feel safe, because it took her back to a time in her life, before she had been molested.
Young children are totally helpless. They depend on their parents to protect them from the harsh reality of the real world. Parents are supposed to create a protective bubble around their children. A safe, warm and friendly world of unconditional love. A non-threatening fantasy world of talking puppets, unicorns, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. When parents fail their child, and allow their child to be exposed to the rancid real world too soon, it does a lot of damage to the kid's psyche. A 4 year old girl is not supposed to know what it feels like to have a man touch her in a sexual way.
When that sort of thing happens to a young girl, the world is no longer a safe place for her. Especially if the man who molested her is her own father or some other close family member. If she can't even depend on her own parents, her protectors, to keep her from harm, how can she ever trust complete strangers not to hurt her?
Suddenly her protective bubble bursts, and she is exposed to the fact that the world is a scary, dangerous, dark place, at a time when her young mind is simply not able to cope with that reality yet.
Early childhood abuse or abandonment is so traumatic for a young child, it causes lifelong problems. It leads to trust issues, and that leads to relationship problems, because how can you love someone if you can't even trust them not to hurt you or abandon you? If your own mother or father didn't love you enough not to hurt you or abandon you, how can you trust complete strangers not to do the same or worse to you?
And that inability to love or bond with another human being often leads to depression, feelings of worthlessness, low self-esteem, and ultimately to drug abuse. I believe, in a nutshell, that most drug addicts are addicts, because they were abused or abandoned as children. They didn't get enough love as a child, consequently were incapable of forming meaningful relationships with other people, felt unloved and unlovable, lonely and miserable, and they started using drugs as a substitute for love.
They felt miserable, lonely and unhappy every day of their lives, even if they didn't realize it, because they didn't know anything else, so feeling miserable just felt normal. And then, when someone happened to offer them some drugs, they felt carefree and happy for the first time in their lives. For a few minutes, all their worries, all their fears and anxiety was forgotten.
If someone had offered me drugs when all that stuff with my abusive father happened, I would be a drug addict today. I was just lucky that there were no drugs around me when I was a young, impressionable child, going through difficult times.
And today, as a grown up, I know better than to start using drugs. I know I would like the way they'd make me feel. I know I would want to do them again and again to forget about my feelings and worries for a little while. And that's why I'm not even going to try them. I don't want to know how good they could make me feel, because I know I wouldn't be able to stop.
I read a study in which psychologists interviewed about 250 prostitutes in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and a few other major cities. They found that almost all of these girls had been sexually abused in their childhood. And almost all of them suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In fact, their level of PTSD was worse than that found among Vietnam veterans. Crazy, huh?
The study found that most of these girls had been trough very traumatic events in their lives and suffered severe emotional distress, so they ended up using drugs to self-medicate. They tried to make themselves feel better, and drugs made them feel better for a little while. I guess I was doing the same thing when I had sex with a bunch of girls after my divorce from Donna and after losing Alice. For a few minutes, while I had sex, I wasn't thinking about how unhappy I was. Just like Patty, when she kept raping me every day, while she was staying with me in Florida after Rocky's death.
Anyway, once the girls got addicted to drugs, they resorted to prostitution as the only means to make enough money to support their habit. The study showed that in almost every case, drug use lead to prostitution.
But occasionaly it was the other way around. Some girls thought prostitution would be a great way to make some quick cash. But once they started having sex for money, they realized that it's not easy at all, to have strangers touch you and use you. Walking into a room with a complete stranger, and being naked and totally vulnerable is a very traumatic experience. The study found that prostitution itself causes PTSD as well, because it's very scary to walk into a room and not know if the next guy is going to rape you, kill you, arrest you or just treat you like shit.
Drugs lead to prostitution, and prostitution leads to drugs. Those two go hand in hand. It's a vicious cycle, that's almost impossible to escape once you get caught up in it.
After meeting Alice and her friends, and then meeting a bunch of girls in Florida, and their friends, I have seen prostitution from the girls' point of view. And I have learned that no matter what girls write in their Backpage escort ads about how much they enjoy what they do, the truth is, they hate what they do. It makes them miserable. It makes them feel like garbage. And they can only do it if they get high before they walk into a room with the next guy.
And that's why today I'm against prostitution. Not because I'm trying to tell girls what they can or cannot do with their bodies, but because I know how much the girls who do it suffer.
Anyway, let's get back to Veronica:
When she snuggled up next to me and started sucking her thumb, I knew what that meant. She was regressing back to the last time in her life when she felt safe and carefree. I had seen it before. Alice used to like drawing in coloring books for little kids. So did Haley. Alice's friend Kat was obsessed with Hello Kitty childrens' toys. Every girl I knew who had been sexually abused as
a young child, held on to childlike traits, from a time before she was abused, because it reminded her of a more innocent time in her life. Even my ex-wife Donna liked to watch children's TV shows, because she didn't like the grown up world she lived in.
While holding Veronica in my arms that night at the Budget Inn, I just wanted to hug her tight and protect her from the world. I just wanted to hold her forever. I fell in love with her that night. She seemed so sad, so lonely, so vulnerable and fragile. I felt like we were kindred spirits. I felt like we had met for a reason, and I was exactly what she needed in her life, and she was exactly what I needed in mine. But I didn't tell her any of that. I figured she'd think I'm crazy. I figured I was just one more guy among many other guys she had sex with.
The next night I saw her again. She said she was really dope sick, and she asked me if I could give her a ride to go get some drugs. I really didn't want to, but I was in love with her, so I said yes anyway. People do really stupid things when they're in love. She asked me to take her to a little blue house on Broadway.
She told me to park the car in the driveway and turn the headlights off. It was dark, but I could see a bunch of thuggish niggers hanging out in front of the house. She walked over to two of them and they began to argue. Something wasn't right.
Meanwhile another one walked up to my car and knocked on the driver side window. I rolled it down. Don't ask me why. He leaned into the car and asked: "You party?" That's thug speak for "Do you take drugs?" I said no. I shoulda said yes. That probably woulda made me look less like a cop or a snitch or whatever this nigger thought I was. "Lemme see your driver's license," he demanded.
"Hell no," I said.
"Gimme your license," he insisted.
"No fucking way," I said. Man, this shit was not cool. I wanted to get the hell out of here. I could tell that something bad was about to happen.
He looked to where Veronica was arguing with those 2 other niggers and yelled over to her: "Yo bitch, who dis nigga in da car?"
Suddenly she quickly walked back to my car, while those two niggers were following her. They were lifting the fronts of their shirts up and I could see that they had guns tucked into their belts.
Veronica was scared. Not a good sign. She wasn't even all the way in the car yet, when she yelled at me: "Go! Go! GO! GOOO! This is not a game! GOOOO!!!"
I backed the car out of the driveway as quickly as I could. I almost hit a passing car in the street. "Watch OUT!" Veronica screamed. "Oh my God, we gotta get outta here!"
My heart was pounding. This whole thing scared the shit out of me. Those two niggers with guns were almost at the car now.
I was about to floor the gas pedal and speed away, when Veronica yelled: "We gotta pick her up! We can't leave her here!" She was pointing at a girl with black hair who was standing in the driveway of the neighboring house.
"I can't stop right next door! They're gonna get us!" I yelled back. I wasn't sure who or why they were gonna get us, but I knew I didn't want to be gotten. They didn't look like happy campers.
"STOP THE CAR! WE CAN'T LEAVE HER HERE!" Veronica screamed.
So I stopped in front of the next driveway. The black-haired girl jumped in the backseat. Those two niggers were only a few feet away from the car. They had the guns in their hands now. What the fuck was going on here?!
Some nigger climbed into my car right behind the girl with black hair.
Holy fucking fuck. We're dead, I thought.
"GO! GOOO!" Veronica screamed. We took off.
The black guy in my car apparently was not with the guys who were chasing us. I guess he was friends with Veronica or the other girl.
"Those guys think I'm a CI," Veronica said.
"What's a CI?"
"A criminal informant. A snitch," she explained.
"Why do they think that?" I asked.
"Because there's an article in the newspaper about me being a snitch," she replied.
Oh, terrific! I had barely known this girl for what? Two days? And she already almost got me killed. I was totally stressed out. My heart was pounding like crazy. Veronica and the two people on my backseat were freaked out, too. They started smoking crack and passed the pipe around to each other. The whole car was filling up with smoke.
"Can you at least open a window?" I asked.
We were going to drop the black guy off somewhere. He didn't have his own crackpipe and asked if he could "borrow" Veronica's. She said no. He got more and more agitated. By the time we got to where he wanted to be dropped off, I was so stressed out, I hit a parked car while backing into the parking spot next to it. As soon as he got out of the car, we left. So I almost got killed and had a hit and run accident in one night. Thanks Veronica. Nice to meet you.
We met a few more times after that, but she was a typical drug addict, with all the typical drug addict traits. She was totally unreliable and unpredictable. If we made plans to get together, I never knew if she was actually going to show up. Sometimes she did, sometimes she didn't, without any explanation or apology.
I was still seeing Haley and Crystal as well, because Veronica was obviously seeing other people, too.
One morning I woke up at 8 am, because someone was knocking on my door. Nobody ever comes knocking on my door unannounced, because I live in a gated community with security and video surveillance. So people never just show up at my door. But someone was forcefully knocking on my door now.
I opened the door in my underwear. It was Veronica.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked. "You can't just show up here like that. What if I had company? What if I had another girl over? How the hell am I gonna explain who you are and why you just show up here like that?"
She started to cry: "Please don't be mad at me. I didn't know where else to go. I'm in sooo much pain. I need help. Can I please stay with you for a while?"
Veronica couldn't even stand up straight. She was hunched over in pain, holding on to the wall next to the door with one hand. I let her in. "What happened? What's wrong?" I asked. I was really worried about her. She looked terrible. He had scabs all over her face. Crack addicts like to pick their face when they smoke crack.
She put one of her arms around my neck and hobbled towards my bedroom, while using me as a crutch. "It's my leg," she said, still crying. "It's hurts sooo bad. I can't take it anymore!"
I helped her lie down in my bed. She told me she thought she had pulled a muscle, or torn a ligament, or maybe broken a bone or something. She wasn't sure how it happened, or why she was in so much pain. I ran the water in the bathtub. I figured maybe a hot bath would help her feel better.
She needed my help to use the toilet, to get undressed, and to get into the tub. Once she was in the hot water, she felt a little bit better for a little while. She told me she needed to tell me something. She had a warrant. So now this was the second time in my life I was aiding and abetting a wanted fugitive. Great. I was really moving on up in the world. She begged me not to call the cops on her, and said that she would leave if I didn't want her in my house. I felt so bad for her. She was a crying, helpless little pile of misery.
After she got out of the tub, she was in too much pain to put her clothes back on, so she got back into bed naked. She asked me to look at the back of her right leg between her butt and her knee. She asked me if it looked swollen or red. No, it looked like her other leg. I couldn't see anything unusual.
I gave her some Ibuprofen and some over-the-counter sleeping pills. I thought maybe some sleep would help her feel better. I lay down next to her, and she fell asleep in my arms again. The next morning she was still in terrible pain. I brought her breakfast in bed. She fell asleep again afterwards. Later in the day she asked me to get her drugs. I told her I wouldn't do that.
She said she couldn't take the pain without drugs and asked me to bring her to a drug dealer's house. She spent the night there. The next day she asked me to come pick her up again. This went on for a couple of days. She kept leaving to ge
t drugs and then came back to me, because my place was now her safe haven.
Sex and Crime: Oliver's Strange Journey Page 30