The Heroin Scene in Fort Myers

by Oliver Markus Malloy

  Haley had been in jail for almost a year already. And Veronica and Lucy had been in jail for months at this point. Nicole was the first girl with whom I felt a real, emotional connection in a long time. We had been chatting for months, and we liked each other. And now, finally, we had sex. After I came inside of her, she smiled. I handed her a towel so she wouldn't leak all over the bed.

  "Are you still nervous?" I asked.

  "No," she said and smiled. "I'm glad we finally did it."

  We cuddled up next to each other and talked for a while. Of course Lucy came up.

  "What are we gonna tell her?" I asked.

  "I think it's better if we don't tell her anything right now," Nicole replied.

  "Yeah, you're right. And I'm not even talking to her anymore anyway. I was done with her, after I found out she was fucking around with all these other guys, while she told me I was the only one. I'm so sick of this two-faced shit. And she really has no right to be upset. It's not like she cared how I felt when she was messing around with all these other guys. She's fucking God only knows how many people on Backpage. And a bunch of dope boys. And Ziggy, G-Force, Cho and who knows who else. So if I like having sex with you, what's the big deal? It's not like she really cares about me anyway. She hasn't been faithful to me, so why would I be faithful to her?"

  I was trying to make myself feel better, because deep down I did feel really guilty. I knew that Lucy would be hurt if she found out, because despite all her grimey shit, and although she was throwing herself at dozens of people, telling all of them that she loved them or wanted to be with them, or she had sex with them, I believed that some part of her really did love me. But it didn't matter, because she and I weren't together. We weren't even talking to each other. Lucy was with someone else. I didn't know who, because it was someone else every day. All that mattered was that it wasn't me.

  After we got dressed, I took Nicole to my new favorite little restaurant: Cheng's on 41. It's nothing fancy. Just a little Chinese restaurant with a large buffet. It's almost like Golden Corral, but much closer to my condo. We ate, talked and laughed. I really liked her a lot, and I think Nicole felt the same way. She looked so happy. She had the biggest smile on her face. I took a picture of her and posted it on Facebook. Her friends commented that this was the happiest she had looked in forever.

  Nicole and I met up a lot after that first time, and she started sleeping over at my place. I loved falling asleep with her next to me, because she was the most affectionate person I had ever met. She always felt the need to touch me somehow. While we slept, either her head was on my chest, or her arms or legs where intertwined with mine in some way. Her touch felt so comforting.

  Many times Lucy texted or called her, and Nicole had to pretend to be somewhere else, so Lucy wouldn't know that we were seeing each other.

  A few days after Lucy got out of jail, she asked me to come get her, so we could spend some time together, before she went to rehab. Nicole had slept over the night before, and she was still at my house. While Lucy was texting me, she was also texting Nicole, asking her where she was. Nicole lied. She told Nicole that I was going to come pick Lucy up in a little while, and she asked Nicole if she would like to get something to eat with us.

  Nicole and I looked at each other and giggled. We both felt bad for lying to Lucy. Then Nicole texted Lucy, that she should ask me if I wouldn't mind if Nicole tagged along with us. Lucy relayed the question to me, and I replied that I didn't want Nicole to come along, because I wanted to spend time alone with Lucy, since I hadn't seen her in months. That was the truth.

  Nicole and I didn't want the three of us to hang out together for now, because it would be weird to have to pretend not to know each other in front of Lucy.

  Nicole said that she knew Lucy really did have feelings for me, and it would break Lucy's heart to know that we were seeing each other. She said Lucy was so fragile right now, one more painful disappointment might push her over the edge, and she might kill herself. I felt really really bad when Nicole told me that. I really didn't want to hurt Lucy, even though she hurt me all the time.

  But then Nicole said we shouldn't feel guilty, considering how Lucy had been treating me. And Lucy had slept with Nicole's boyfriend Antonio in the past. Before Nicole went to prison, Lucy had nowhere else to go, so she stayed with Nicole for a while. Lucy was only 17 at the time. When Antonio came over, Lucy had sex with him. It devastated Nicole, and she tried to kill herself with a drug overdose. That's why going to prison ended up saving her life.

  We agreed not to tell Lucy that we were seeing each other, and that I would drop Nicole off down the street from Lucy's grandfather's house, so that Lucy wouldn't see my car, and Nicole could pretend that she was at a neighbor's house. Then, a few minutes later, I would pull up in front of the house and pick up Lucy.

  But we never got that far, because after I dropped Nicole off, Lucy was nowhere to be found. She was probably fucking someone on Backpage again, or sucking some dope boy's dick. She didn't waste a single thought on how badly that hurt me.

  It still bothered me a lot that Lucy tricked 24/7, but every day I cared a little bit less, because I was coming to terms with the fact that Lucy was not my girl. She was way too busy fucking every guy in town and smoking crack around the clock. I tried to convince her to get clean, but there was no talking to her. I simply was not as important to her, as she was to me.

  Nicole slept over at my place a lot, and we were getting closer and closer. One night I drew her a hot bath in my jetted tub, lit some candles, played some soft music, and brought her a piece of cake while she was enjoying a bubble bath.

  She was really touched and said: "You are the nicest guy I've ever met. I'm not used to guys treating me like this. I feel like a princess. This is the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me." Then she teared up.

  She told me about her previous boyfriends and how they had raped and beaten her, and how they always talked down to her like she was stupid and worthless. She wasn't used to a guy talking to her with respect, and actually really listening to her when she talked, like she was important.

  These dumb lowlives she used to date set the bar pretty low. I looked like Casanova compared to these douchebags, without even trying. I really wasn't going out of my way to do anything that was out of the ordinary. I was just being my normal self. I was used to treating a nice girl nice. It's not like I skywrote her name with a plane, or posted a giant billboard with a big heart, or covered the bed with a hundred roses. She was really sweet, and I liked her a lot, so of course I treated her nice. I wanted to make her happy. I wanted her to enjoy being around me. Isn't that what you're supposed to do when you like someone?

  After she got out of the tub, I told her that she had been making me feel really good these past few days, and I'd like to return the favor. I asked her if she would like me to give her a massage, or maybe go down on her, or maybe both.

  "Really? You'd go down on me?" Her face lit up. It was like she couldn't believe someone actually cared enough about her, to give her an orgasm.

  "Sure," I said. "I'd love to make you feel good."

  "I would love that," she said with a shy giggle.

  She lay down on the bed and spread her legs. I kissed my way up her inner thighs, until I reached her beautiful pussy, and then I slowly started licking her lips, and gently sucked her clit. I was in no rush. I knew she needed time to forget her nervousness. I was going to give her all the time in the world. This was all about her, so I would have sucked her clit for hours, if she wanted me to.

  After a few minutes she moaned: "Oh my God, this feels really amazing!" I could tell she was really getting into it. She forgot the rest of the world for a little while, and all she could think about was my tongue circling her clit, teasing her relentlessly.

  Then she asked me to put a finger inside of her while I was sucking her clit. She asked me if she could take pictures of me while I was licking her. Like this was a special occasion, and sh
e always wanted to remember this moment. She took about 15 pictures, while moaning and pushing her pussy into my mouth. I loved making her feel this good. I would do it for her every day, if she wanted me to. I wanted her to know that she deserved to be treated nice, and to be happy and to feel good.

  Patty used to tell me that she was so hung up on me, because I was the only guy who could make her cum, because apparently I was pretty good at going down on a girl. Maybe she just said that to make me feel special. I don't know. But every girl I've ever gone down on said I'm pretty good at it. Maybe that's my hidden superpower.

  Afterwards Nicole asked me to fuck her. I told her I would like to take pictures of her, too. She got on top of me and rode my dick while posing for the camera. Then I got on top of her and took pictures of my dick inside of her. I loved having sex with her.

  One day she told me she wanted to show me what she had learned from some black girls in prison. She stood on her hands, with her head facing the floor and her feet in the air. Then she leaned her feet against the wall, and she started twerking her butt like that. We both cracked up.

  I asked her to do that again, but naked, and let me video tape her. She did. She was leaning on her hands, upside down, while wiggling her perfect ass and pussy in my face.

  She was just awesome! I loved hanging out with her. Not just because of the sex. She just had a really great personality. I felt so comfortable around her, like we had known each other forever. And she was so down to earth. We always made each other laugh with stupid jokes and funny voices. She was a silly little dork in a pretty girl's body. The perfect combination.

  They always say in romantic comedies that beautiful girls usually have shitty personalities, and ugly girls have beautiful personalities. And then there's the Holy Grail that's really hard to find: a beautiful girl with an ugly girl's beautiful personality. Nicole was it. She was every guy's dream girl.

  LUCY AND NICOLE

  "Prostitutes have very improperly been styled women of pleasure; they are women of pain, of sorrow, of grief, of bitter and continual repentance, without any hope of obtaining a pardon."

  Unknown

  "Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

  Plato

  "To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nicole had slept at my house again the previous night, when Lucy called me to give her a ride to the Greyhound station, so she could visit her mother in Georgia and go to rehab. Nicole and I had sex that morning, and then I dropped her off at Lucy's grandfather's house. Later I returned to pick up Lucy and take her to the bus. It was the first time I had seen her in months. She felt self-conscious, because she had gained a lot of weight in jail. She asked me if I thought she was ugly now.

  I said: "No, you'll never be ugly in my eyes, sweetie. Everyone gains weight in jail, and you should know by now that you will always be beautiful in my eyes, whether you're a skinny minnie, or you're 300 pounds."

  That made Lucy smile, and she gave me a kiss. Then she said Nicole would like to come along for the ride. I said ok. Nicole got into my car, and for Lucy's benefit, we pretended not to have seen each other ever since she cleaned my house months ago. It was weird and awkward. Nicole and I kept giving each other looks in the rear view mirror.

  We arrived late at the Greyhound station, and the bus was about to leave without Lucy. She and I jumped out of the car, and she grabbed my hand and led me around the building, to the bus. I knew right away that she really had no intention of getting on the bus and go to rehab, because she didn't grab her bags. She left them in my car. She asked the bus driver, if she could postpone her trip for a few days. He said no, her ticket was only valid for today.

  The bus was actually going to drive from Fort Myers to Fort Lauderdale, and then from there to Orlando, and then from Orlando to Atlanda, Georgia.

  Lucy asked the driver, if she could get on the bus in Orlando at 4 am, instead of boarding now in Fort Myers at 8 pm. He said yes.

  I tried to tell Lucy to get on the bus now and not postpone the trip, or she would never go to rehab. She completely ignored me while talking to the bus driver. Afterwards she said she postponed the ride, so she and I could spend more time together, and then I could drive her to catch the bus in Orlando.

  I kept looking at Nicole, hoping she'd say something, to convince Lucy to get on the bus, but she didn't. I could see in Nicole's eyes that she was high as a kite. Ever since Lucy got out of jail, she and Nicole were hanging out and doing more and more drugs together. It reminded me of the way Veronica and her mother Rachel were getting high together, when she got out of jail last time.

  After we left the Greyhound station, I thought Lucy and I would spend some time together, because she said that was her reason for not getting on the bus. But once we arrived at her grandpa's house, to drop Nicole off, Lucy said she would go back in the house with her. I asked her why. She said she wanted to spend some more time with Nicole, before she went to rehab.

  "You spent the last few days getting high with Nicole. But you and I haven't seen each other in months. I can't believe you'd rather go smoke more crack with her, than spend time with me," I said. It reminded me of what Veronica did with Kim after I picked her up from the Salvation Army.

  First she denied that that was her reason for going back into the house with Nicole. But then she finally admitted it. She told me to go home. I was crushed.

  I never did drive her to Orlando that night. The bus ticket expired the next morning, and Lucy never went to rehab.

  Before, Nicole's drug habit had still been manageable. But now, being around Lucy, her habit was getting worse and worse. She was shooting up Ds, heroin, snorting coke, smoking crack and taking mollys. Slowly but surely, Nicole was getting just as bad as Lucy.

  It really started to bother me, because I knew where she was headed: sucking dick and spreading her legs for a hundred guys on Backpage. That thought made my stomach turn. I didn't want to keep losing one girl after another to drugs and Backpage. I couldn't take it anymore.

  I tried to talk to Nicole about it, but she said she was fine. She said she really wasn't doing that many drugs, and she was making enough money with tattoos to pay for her habit. She said she would never hurt me like Lucy did. Déjà vu. How many times did a drug addict tell me she wasn't going to treat me like the previous drug addict? How many times did a drug addict tell me she wasn't like the others?

  But Nicole was getting flakier and flakier. She had told me she would cook me dinner on my birthday. She made a list of all the things I needed to buy so she could cook her special sweet and sour chicken. But then she just went ghost on my birthday and left me hanging. That really really hurt. That was when I knew this was the beginning of the end.

  A day or two later, she told me she was really sorry for abandoning me on my birthday, and she said she would make it up to me tonight. But then she just disappeared again.

  Another day or two later, she asked me to pick her up after work. She was holding a sign at the car wash next to the Red Roof Inn in North Fort Myers. But when I asked her later that day when I should come get her, she disappeared again.

  One of the nights she slept over, she walked out of the house in the middle of the night and disappeared for a few hours. When she got back at 4 am, she said she had met up with a dope boy at the Coconut Point Mall, to get some drugs. I asked who it was, and what took so long, but she was being evasive. Something wasn't right.

  She was texting all the time. She told me she had some tattoo jobs. I drove her there, and then she disappeared again for many hours. She claimed she was working on the tattoo the whole time. But when she asked me to pick her up, she was somewhere completely different.

  I had a feeling she was tricking, so I asked her about it. She started to cry and said: "I'm not that kind of girl! Ask anyone! I don't sleep around like that. I'm not like Lucy and those other girls."

 
; But I could tell she was hiding something from me, and she wasn't being honest about where she was going or what she was doing, and who she was with. And since I already knew about her drug use, the only other thing worth hiding from me was having sex with someone else. So I was sure she was tricking. But she continued to deny it and got really emotional and defensive every time I questioned her about anything.

  I told her that if she wanted to just be friends with benefits, fine, just say so. But since she and I had been talking about being in a real relationship together, and she had told me she loved me, it wasn't fair to lie to me, if she was still seeing other people.

  "I swear I'm not seeing anyone else. I just want to be with you. You are the nicest guy I've ever met. I SWEAR I'm not having sex with anyone else," she said. She was in tears again.

  She told me she loved me and gave me a kiss. I smiled and told her I loved her, too.