Sex and Crime: Oliver's Strange Journey

by Oliver Markus

  "Well that was kinda awkward," Lucy said and laughed.

  Veronica had asked me to come right back to her apartment after I dropped Lucy off. On our way to the Super 8, Veronica texted me: "I want to fuck Lucy too."

  I just shook my head in disbelief. What the hell was wrong with that girl?

  When Lucy and I arrived at the motel, I parked the car and we talked for a while. She played around with her phone, checked her make-up, fidgeted around with her purse, and smoked a cigarette. But she wouldn't get out of the car. When you're on drugs, and you're stuck in your own head, time just flies by.

  "I'm not sure if you realize this," I said, "but we've been sitting here in the parking lot for about half an hour now. What do you wanna do? Do you want me to come up to your room? Or do you want to come home with me to Bonita Springs? Or what's going on?"

  Then Lucy gave me a mischievous look and asked me to take her to Yogurt Mountain at the Edison Mall.

  She showed me her favorite toppings and we had a little competition, to see who could conjure up the most delicious yogurt creation. Then she said she wanted to eat it outside, by the little fountain.

  While we sat on the bench, she spoonfed me some of her yogurt. We had a lot of fun, talked and laughed.

  Then Veronica called me: "Where the hell are you? You've been gone for over an hour. It doesn't take that long to drop Lucy off at the Super 8."

  I told her we were at Yogurt Mountain. Lucy was giggling in the background. Veronica got really upset and hung up on me.

  "I love our little date," Lucy said. "Do you think you could ever have a moment like this with Veronica?"

  "Probably not," I replied.

  She was satisfied, and asked me to take her back to the Super 8.

  When I got back to Veronica's apartment, she was livid: "What the FUCK were you doing with Lucy at Yogurt Mountain? This shit gotta STOP RIGHT NOW! I don't want you hanging out with her anymore! I'm putting a stop to this right NOW! You're MY man!"

  "Are you kidding me?" I yelled back. "All you have been doing these past few days is tell me you want to fuck this person and that person. You kept making out with some of them right in front of me, and left me messages that you were going to fuck them, and I shouldn't flip out about it. And you've been fucking all these other guys behind my back. And now you're gonna act like I'm doing something wrong when I hang out with Lucy? I wouldn't even know her at all, if you acted like a decent human being and not like such a total slut. You gotta make up your mind if we're boyfriend and girlfriend or not. I'm sick of this crazy shit with you. You can't have it both ways. You can't have your cake and eat it too."

  After a few minutes, she calmed down and told me some dope boy called Norbert was going to come over in a little while. She said she needed to talk to him about a business deal. He was going to front her some drugs, and she would sell them for a profit.

  When Norbert got there, she told me she'd have to talk to him in the bedroom.

  "No fucking way!" I said.

  "It's not what you think. I just gotta talk to him. Don't worry, I'll leave the bedroom door open."

  You couldn't really see the bedroom door from the living room couch, so I got up every few minutes and walked around the corner into the dining area, to peek through the open door. I pretended to do something at the dining room table for a minute, and then returned to the couch. I did that a few times. I felt like an idiot. Then suddenly I saw that the bedroom door was locked.

  "What the FUCK?" I yelled and rattled on the door knob. Veronica opened. "I fucking had it with this shit. I'm outta here. Have a nice life," I said angrily.

  "No, don't leave! Norbert is going right now," she said.

  After Norbert left, Veronica and I started fighting with each other. We were both yelling.

  "What the fuck are you doing with some nigger in your bedroom?"

  "I only called him to make you jealous, because I was so jealous about you spending all that time with Lucy. I just wanted to piss you off," she replied.

  "Well, you did a good job," I said and left.

  The next morning she texted me at 8 am: "I'm sorry. Will you please come back? I don't want to fight."

  I replied that I was gonna head over to her place right now. But she already fell back asleep and didn't see my response. When I got to her apartment, Anita opened the door.

  "Where's Veronica?"

  Anita just pointed at Veronica's closed bedroom door with a stoic look on her face. She didn't say anything.

  I opened the door, and found Veronica and Norbert naked in bed together. They were both sleeping. Obviously she had called him back after I left last night. They did drugs together, had sex, and then passed out.

  I flipped the fuck out! First I was speechless. Then I started screaming at them at the top of my lungs. But they were in a coma-like sleep. Nothing was going to wake them up right now.

  This is the kind of situation where people get killed. There are dozens of movies, books, and sad country songs about a guy walking in on his girl, in bed with some other guy, and going on a shooting rampage, killing them both in the heat of passion.

  For a minute there, I seriously thought about bashing their heads in with a blunt object. But then I figured they weren't worth it. I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life in prison for killing some nigger dope boy and a lowlife piece of shit whore.

  But I had to let my aggression out somehow, so I kicked the door while storming out of the bedroom. I destroyyyed that door.

  I was beside myself with hatred for Veronica. I was going to lose my mind. I felt like Veronica purposely looked for ways to inflict emotional pain on other people. She was a monster. It was as if she was actually trying as hard as she could to be the worst person on the planet. Every time I thought she couldn't stoop any lower, and the things she did to hurt me couldn't get any worse, she found a new way to hurt me even more.

  On the drive home, I called Veronica's probation officer and told him that she had been doing drugs the whole time, and that the only reason she had been passing her mandatory drug tests was because she hid a little 5 Hour Energy bottle with someone else's clean pee inside her vagina. He thanked me for the heads up and told me he would call her in for a drug test right now.

  When Veronica showed up at his office later that day, he told her that he knew she was hiding a bottle of clean pee, and that if she used it, she'd be tampering with evidence and she'd be committing a new felony. Instead of peeing, she ran away. Usually it takes a week or so for the probation violation paperwork to go through, but he issued her warrants the very same day. Veronica was going to be back in jail soon. Karma is a bitch!

  BACK TO JAIL

  "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Later that day, Veronica texted me: "Why did u do that? I love u! I thought we were going to have a baby together. Why would u send me back to jail?"

  I texted back: "Don't gimme that love bullshit. U fuck everything that has a pulse. U don't give a fuck about anyone but yourself. What the fuck did u think was gonna happen when I find u in bed with some nigger? U r lucky I didn't kill u, u cunt."

  I never call a girl a cunt. I really don't curse a lot, unless I'm very upset. Unfortunately being very upset was the new normal, whenever I was around Veronica.

  The first time I had told Patty about Veronica, Patty had made snide remarks: "Oh, you found yourself another drug addict to replace Alice. Nice. I guess you like to torture yourself."

  "Veronica is different," I defended her. "She really wants to get clean. When she gets out of jail, she's going to the Salation Army rehab program. And after that she's going to live with me, and get her old job back as a medical insurance biller at her stepdad's doctor's office just down the street from my apartment."

  "No she won't," Patty replied. "I'm a drug counselor, remember
? I've been dealing with these people for years. They're all the same. They are broken. And you can't fix them. Their brains don't work like your or my brain. They have criminals minds. You can never ever trust them. They always lie. They always try to con you. Even if she gets a job, she'll only use the time away from you to cheat on you. You will never be happy with her. Loving a drug addict is like hugging someone who has no arms. They can never hug you back. And Veronica will never love you back the way you love her. She can't. She's in love with her drugs."

  At the time, I thought Patty was just being mean, because she was jealous that I'd rather be with Alice or Veronica, than with her.

  But now it was like everything Veronica had done, since Patty told me that stuff, was an attempt to prove Patty right. It was a horrible feeling to love Veronica, and never be able to trust her for even a second. It was a given, that she would never do the right thing, whenever she was faced with any kind of decision. I got used to the fact that she would betray me every chance she got. How sad is it that that was normal to me?

  Actually finding Veronica in bed with someone else, seeing it with my own eyes, really drove it home. I was wounded to the core when I kicked that bedroom door and stormed out. I felt like I had reached the lowest point of my life.

  In a way, it almost felt like a good thing. Things could only get better from this point on, I told myself. Nothing and nobody could ever hurt me worse than this. I had been to the abyss, and survived. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. From now on, I was never going to allow another person to hurt me like this and get away with it. I promised myself if anyone hurt me, I would not forgive them, and I would not give them a second chance to hurt me again. Instead, I would punish them. My vengeance would be swift and fierce.

  All that sounded really impressive in my head. But then I forgave Veronica anyway. I know, I know, it was stupid. But the heart wants what the heart wants, as George always said, whenever I defied all common sense and forgave Veronica yet again.

  We talked on the phone and she cried so much, it melted my heart.

  "Do you still wanna have a baby with me?" I asked.

  "Yes, of course," she cried. "I love you."

  "I love you, too. How about we do what we planned to do in case you run away from the Salvation Army? You can come hide at my place until you're pregnant and showing, and then we hire a lawyer and get you house arrest instead of jail time," I suggested.

  I picked her up at her apartment a little while later. She packed her clothes and grabbed her little chihuahua, Venus. Veronica had named her dog after the goddess of love, because she had a heart-shaped spot on her forehead.

  On our way to my apartment, Veronica asked me to stop at Warren's house, to get drugs. She disappeared in there for about half an hour. I was really uncomfortable, and when she got out, I asked her if she had sex with him. "No, of course not! I don't have sex with Warren," she replied with an indignant tone of voice, as if I had just accused her of the craziest thing ever. For my sanity's sake, I chose to believe her. But a few weeks later, Anita told me that Veronica had sex with Warren all the time.

  When we got home, Veronica shot up some Ds and smoked crack. Then we made love.

  The next morning, Veronica's phone was ringing off the hook. It was her mother Rachel: "Where the hell is Venus? I want Venus back right now!"

  Venus was Veronica's chihuahua, but because she spent so much time in jail over the past 2 years, her mother had been taking care of the dog. A week or two after Veronica got out of jail, and she and Rachel hung out together at her new apartment on Brantley Road, her mother gave her the dog back. But now that Veronica had a warrant, and she was about to go back to jail, Rachel wanted Venus back.

  Veronica told some of her so-called friends, that she was hiding in Port Charlotte. She told her mother the same story. She didn't want anyone to know she was staying with me, so the police wouldn't find her here. But at the same time she was taking pictures of me cuddling with Venus on my couch, and texted them to her mother, to show her that Venus was ok. She was too high to realize that she was giving away her location.

  Then Rachel called me and asked: "Do you know where Venus is? I don't care where Veronica is. I don't give a shit if she is with you or anyone else. She can go fuck a truckload of Haitians for all I care. I just want Venus back!"

  I pretended not to know: "I have no idea where that stupid dog is. I found Veronica in bed with some guy, and I haven't talked to her since. I want nothing to do with her anymore. She's dead to me. The last I heard was that she's hiding in Port Charlotte somewhere."

  Of course Rachel knew I was lying, because Veronica had just texted her pictures of me and Venus five minutes ago. But I didn't know that yet.

  Rachel continued to call Veronica's phone. They kept arguing. Veronica told Rachel she would meet her at Starbucks at the Coconut Point Mall, and give her the dog.

  Then Veronica hung up and told me: "Venus is my dog! I have all the vet papers to prove she's my dog! I don't want to give her back. My mother is a crazy drunk. Venus is so much better off here with you and me."

  "Well, if she's your dog, then don't give her back," I said. "You don't have to give her back, if you don't want to."

  "I have to. My mom is psycho. She's not gonna stop. She's gonna keep causing problems for me. She's gonna make my life miserable, until I give her Venus," Veronica replied.

  "It's up to you, sweetie. Whatever you want to do," I said.

  She called her mother back and told her she would meet her at Starbucks with Venus. Then she changed her mind again. Then she smoked some crack. Then she argued with her mother again. This went on for hours.

  Then she finally told me to call her mother and tell her that I would meet her at the McDonald's on 41 near San Carlos Park.

  "If I call her and say that, your mom will know you're staying with me," I said.

  "Well, I've been sending her pictures of you and Venus all day long," Veronica replied.

  "What?!? Now she knows you're here and not in Port Charlotte. Why would you do that?"

  "I don't know. I wasn't really thinking about it. I just wanted to send her some pictures to show her that Venus is ok."

  "Geez! Great. Now she's probably gonna call the cops on you."

  "Nah, my mom is crazy, but she's not gonna do that."

  I called Rachel and said: "When I was staying at Veronica's place, I brought my Xbox. I left it there. I told her I want it back. She said that she'll give me my Xbox back, if I do her a favor and meet up with you and give you Venus. I just met up with Veronica, and she gave me the dog. So now I have Venus. Do you want me to meet you at the McDonald's in San Carlos?"

  Rachel was startled. This did not go as she had planned. Then she said: "You want to meet me alone? Without Veronica? Uhhm... no... I don't trust you... I don't want the dog from you... I want Veronica to bring me the dog."

  I hung up and told Veronica that I had a bad feeling about this. My instincts told me that Rachel was setting a trap for Veronica. She was probably going to have the police waiting at that McDonald's. I told her again that we should just keep the dog. Screw her mom.

  A few minutes later, Rachel called me back: "Ok, fine, I'll meet you at McDonald's."

  Veronica said good bye to Venus and handed her to me. I told Veronica to lock the door behind me, just to be safe. I got into the car and Veronica waved good bye. Venus stared at her through the car window and barked. I felt so bad, because I knew Veronica really loved that little dog. And I had gotten attached to her, too. Venus was shy at first, but then she warmed up to me and was all over me, cuddling with me and kissing my face. She was an awesome little dog.