The Hole Within

CHAPTER 41

The first time you use a drug like heroin is always the best. You spend all subsequent attempts trying to reach that first sweet high. Chasing. That is what they call it. Junkies use more and more trying to reach that first elusive, sublime high. But it is never like the first time. Imagine your orgasm and multiply it by ten then stretch it out over several hours and you get a glimpse of how it feels.

***

Later that night or early the next morning we left Roxanne's house with its shit encrusted bathroom and I drove home from Salt Lake while Tyler slept. I was so acutely alive. I wore a stupid grin on my face as I sang along with the radio. This was it. This made me feel contentment, peaceful, the voices strangely quiet in my head. Nothing else mattered. I wanted to feel this way all the time. I drove with the windows down, my body still flushed from the opiates and coke. The works were tucked into my sock next to my right ankle. Tyler "let" me carry them along with the remaining cocaine. The smack was all gone. I thought Tyler shot most of it. The way he was passed out in the passenger seat it was a good bet. Not that I minded. I did not care. Nothing mattered.

The week passed slowly as I waited for Friday night. Friday, we would go to Salt Lake again. Friday, we would go buy and get high again. Friday, I would be alive again. Friday, I would be saved again. I gave up my body to Tyler in the bargain. During the week, my body was his. He was a selfish lover, taking what he needed from me then leaving me alone. I really cannot remember the days between getting high. I know that I continued taking pills but that their effect was now muted. Nothing compared to the euphoria of coke and smack rushing into my vein. It was if the weekdays existed in black and white and only the weekends were in full marvelous color.

We drove to Salt Lake City Friday evening. I had butterflies in my stomach from fear and anticipation. Tyler guided me to a seedy part of town. There were prostitutes up and down the street. We parked and went into an alley. There was a tall black man in a full-length fur coat wearing a fur trimmed hat. He had gold rings on all his fingers. I was amazed. He was a Hollywood version of a pimp/drug dealer. He and Tyler grasped hands I gave each other quick hug then Tyler introduced me to him. His name was Marcus and he showed us to a door in the side of the building. We went in and found it was a run-down apartment complex. Long hallways stretched on either side, marked by apartment doors. Tyler and Marcus steadily chatted about old times as I followed them. We went into one of the apartments. It was a cramped space. There seemed too much furniture for the room. Marcus led us over to the worn cloth couch and invited us to sit down. There was a glass coffee table between us. The place reeked of old cigarette smoke and the floor was filthy. Tyler told Marcus he was looking for some junk. Marcus nodded and went to the back room and came back with a small lump of the sticky black tar heroin wrapped in Saran Wrap. As I lit a cigarette, Marcus placed it in Tyler's outstretched hand and told him to give me a taste. Tyler tried to object saying that we were going to fix up together but Marcus, not trusting me, insisted. Tyler asked for the works which I pulled out of my sock. Marcus provided a dirty silver spoon and Tyler begin to heat the heroin. He asked Mark if he had some coke to add. "Ah!" he nodded approvingly, "She likes to go ballin!" (heroin and coke mixed together is called a speedball). Tyler took off his belt and cinched it around my arm. I just sat frozen. I wanted to get high but I did not want to do it alone with Marcus watching. This situation was so foreign to me. I watched it all with detachment. How did I get here? I was a good Mormon girl who grew up in a sheltered household. How was I sitting here with a pimp/drug dealer and a needle poised at my arm? Tyler slipped the needle in, waited for the flash of blood and smoothly injected the brown liquid. The rush that came over me made me forget my apprehension. The questions I had asked myself seconds before melted away. I wanted to cry out in ecstasy. I wanted to share my love with these two men. The feeling was so intense it was sexual. Marcus nodded and smiled as my body fell back against the cushions, cigarette dropping. "Now dat's some good shit!" he drawled.

I am not sure how long we stayed. Next thing I knew we were walking down the street towards my car. I felt a moment of nausea before I bent over and threw up. "That's right," laughed Tyler, "let it out." The nausea left as fast as it came. Tyler took my keys out of my purse and eased me into the passenger seat. We drove to Joshua and Roxanne's house. They were the couple from the fork incident. Their home was basically a drug house where friends gathered to shoot dope and sleep. I sat in their living room while Tyler fixed up. After a while, minutes? Hours? Roxanne showed us to a bedroom where we could be alone. Tyler had sobered up enough to get an erection and he undressed me as I swayed to the music inside. I wanted him. I was so full of love. I wanted to give myself to him. I pushed him back on the bed and removed his jeans. I knelt next to the bed and took him in my mouth. Licking and sucking, holding his balls while I made him rock hard. I climbed on top of him and lowered myself down onto his cock, using my hand to guide him inside me. I rocked and swayed, moved up and down as he rose himself to meet me. My eyes were closed, my hands fingered my own nipples as I rode him. I do not know if either of us came. It did not seem to matter. Just the act of intimacy was pleasure enough, I was already higher than any orgasm could take me. The sex act seemed to last forever as I rode the waves of the high. Once again, I was complete. Tyler was just the body I used to express my love for everything. I would not have cared if it were Marcus or Joshua underneath me. I just wanted to commune with someone, to be filled and to fulfill. Eventually we slept.