Which was another reason I
was still a paid companion. Medication was expensive, even with
insurance. Hospital stays, especially the frequent ones Stella had
to make, were expensive as well. And I was determined Stella would
have the best care, the best medication, and she would be ready to
go on that transplant list as far as cost was concerned. No matter
what those medical shows on television told you,
money
talked. More than
once, I had seen it open doors and make things happen when the deck
was stacked against someone.
The soft snore against my chest
brought me out of my internal reverie, and I glanced down to see
that Stella had fallen asleep. I brushed my hand over her hair
softly, feeling my heart clench slightly as it only did when I was
with her. I felt affection for Amanda and Tim; they were, after
all, helping me with Stella, had taken her in when I needed them
to, and they knew about my biggest, deepest, darkest secret. But
what I felt for them barely skimmed the surface of what I felt for
my child.
“
Let me put her to bed,”
Amanda said softly.
I shook my head. “No. Not yet. Just
let me hold her a little while longer,” I whispered. “As soon as
you put her in her room, I’m going to have to leave, and I’m not
ready to go just yet.”
Amanda didn’t respond, but I didn’t
really need her to, I knew how she felt about what I did. How they
both felt. But what did they know? They both had an education.
Options. I had neither. My path had been set for me a long time
ago, before I was even aware of it. Stella was my only light, the
only bright spot in my life, and until I could free myself from the
darkness that permanently held me in shackles, I would soak up as
much of Stella as I possibly could.
Chapter
Eleven
The door creaking open was
my only clue that someone was coming into my room who wasn’t
supposed to be there. Whenever my mother came in, she knocked
first. It was an agreement we’d come to. Ever since she’d made her
new “friends,” she gave me the courtesy of a knock. But that creak…
the hinges on my door were like my own personal alarm
system.
My eyes snapped open, and
I only caught the barest sight of the man standing in the shaft of
light from the hallway before he spoke.
“
Hello, pretty. Your mom
told me you wanted to join the party…”
****
I woke up in my bed, covered in sweat
and trembling. I didn’t understand why the nightmares were
bombarding me with such intensity. Why now? What was causing me to
be haunted by them?
My hand trembled as I reached over
toward my nightstand and pulled open the top drawer, taking out the
small, red jewelry box with the bronze Arabic symbol on top that
lay inside. It had been a gift from the first dealer I bought a
gram of heroin from independently. Laying it on top of the
mattress, I wiped my mouth, removing the moisture that had
collected on my upper lip before I opened the lid. Lifting the top
layer from inside the box, I stared down at the syringes, spoon,
and tiny baggies of white powder that stared up at me. Rubbing my
palms up and down my arms, I exhaled a shuddering breath before I
ran trembling fingers through my hair.
I reached out to pick up
the drugs that were beckoning to me and stopped. I clenched my
hands and covered my face, my entire body flushing hot. God,
I
needed
that
hit. I
needed
to
not feel anything. The darkness was coming back for me. I could
hear it calling for me, screaming for me. Its inky, black fingers
reaching out for me, touching my skin, causing the hairs on the
back of my neck to stand straight up. My mouth was filling with
saliva for just a taste. My heart was pounding, my stomach rolling,
and my nerves trembling. I
yearned
for it. I hadn’t gotten high in years, but I kept
the drugs with me—just in case.
I dropped my hands to the coverlet and
rubbed them over the material as I muttered to myself over and over
again.
“
You don’t need to do this,
Tyler. Just say no. Think about Stella. You gave this up for
her.”
Usually thoughts of my
daughter were enough to drive away my pressing
ache
for the pinch and the release,
the rush and flight of that high, but this time it wasn’t working.
The memories were assaulting my mind. My present room was
disappearing—the white walls, pristine and clean—all that I had
whored myself and my body out for. All that I had given up my soul
for, shredded pieces of my spirit for, were being stripped away
only to be replaced by images, smells, memories of nightmares from
long ago. I felt helpless to stop them. I was drowning, and the
only way to prevent them from returning was to get high. That was
the only way to stop the pain from returning. To make the memories
go away.
I returned my gaze to the
paraphernalia that lay within my jewelry box, taunting me—beckoning
me like some sea harpy hoping I would crash upon the jagged rocks
of the ocean floor—and I reached within. I needed peace from the
emotional pain currently stealing the very breath from my lungs,
causing me to gasp for air. I yearned for silence from the voices
whispering of misdeeds I had done and those that had been done to
me.
I needed to block out those
screams.
The screams of a young child being
violated. Torn apart from the inside out while a mother lay a room
away, passed out from drugs and alcohol, numerous naked men
surrounding her. They were my screams.
I desperately had to drown out the
whimpers and the cries of that child. I had buried that child long
ago. Why were the cries and screams returning?
My hands shook as I tried to open one
baggie…
“
Now c’mon pretty. Don’t be
like that. Your mama sure liked it. Why can’t you?”
I grabbed the spoon and poured the
powder into it.
A rough hand grabbing at
the covers, pulling them off of my body. My cries and screams for
help went unanswered by my mother. The man—who later became my
stepfather—simply laughed as he told me that everyone says no… at
first. He smelled like cigarettes, liquor, and cured ham. His hand
around my throat cut off any further noises, and all I could hear
was him grunting. Him and the darkness as it flooded my room and
filled my broken spirit.
The jangling noise of Tori Kelly’s
“Dear No One” was a shock to my system, and I jumped, my hands
releasing the baggie and the spoon. Both clattered into the jewelry
box, powder fluttering out to cover some of my bedspread, and I
blinked in confusion for a moment. Where was I?
Looking around, I saw my phone on the
nightstand, and picking it up with shaking hands, I swiped my
finger across the screen and answered. My voice was shaky and
high-pitched, not seductive and in the mid-range level it usually
is when I answer the phone used exclusively for
“clients.”
“
H-hullo?”
“
Tyler? Hey. It’s
Dodger.”
“
H-hi, Dodger. Wh-What can
I d-do for you?” I cleared my throat, hearing my words come out
shaky and stuttering, but I couldn’t help it. The vestiges of my
memories were holding me hostage, and though I tried to shake them
loose, I was powerless to do so.
“
Tyler? What’s
wrong?”
“
N-nothing.”
Dodger grunted, and the sound of it
made me smile. Jack used to do that a lot whenever I would bullshit
him, which was a lot. It was a part of my business. I told men what
they wanted to hear. About themselves, about myself, about what
they did to me, about what I liked. No one ever wanted to know the
truth. No one except Jack.
And apparently Dodger.
It was extremely unnerving.
“
Don’t give me that
bullshit, Tyler. You sound upset. And to be honest, your voice is
really high. You almost sound like a girl. What happened? Do you
need me to come over?”
My body froze, and I slid out of bed,
my eyes darting around the room in fear. I shook my head
frantically even though Dodger couldn’t see me. “N-no. No no no no
no. No need to come over, Dodger. I-I’m fine.”
“
You don’t sound fine,
Tyler.” Dodger sighed. “I’m coming over.” His voice had lowered,
and it brooked no argument. I found myself straightening almost
immediately, nodding my head where I stood in the middle of my
bedroom. “Make sure you unlock the door for me. I’ll be there in
thirty minutes.”
“
O-okay,
Dodger.”
I hung up the phone and
stared down at the tiny device. What the hell had just happened? I
didn’t just take orders from people like that. Not unless they were
paying me and had an appointment to do so. Was Dodger going to pay
me for this? It wasn’t likely, especially because he was coming to
help
me
, and this
wasn’t sexual, it was… what? Friendly? Emotional? Kind?
Whoa. I shook my hand and sliced it
through the air. No. People were not friendly and kind for no
reason. And they especially did not get all involved in someone’s
emotional affairs without there being something in it for them.
Career advancement. Gossip. Money. Blackmail. Sex.
Dodger didn’t need money or career
advancement from me, so he was either coming to get information
from me he could use to blackmail someone, coming to get gossip
about someone else… or it was the same old-same old. Comfort
someone equals having sex with them.
I was fine with that, but…
I stared down at my groin and noticed there was absolutely no
movement whatsoever behind the fabric of my white satin pajamas.
Little Tyler was totally
not
interested.
I walked over to my dresser and opened
the top drawer. Pulling out the small sandwich bag I kept there, I
opened it and took out the tiny yellow rabbit Stella had given me
the last time we had gone out to the carnival. I held it up to my
nose and sniffed it slightly. There was still the faintest trace of
Stella’s scent on the toy, and it soothed me somewhat. Holding the
tiny rabbit close to my chest, my eyes burned, and I lifted a hand
to rub at them, scared that exposing myself to drugs after all this
time may have caused some sort of damage to my retinas, because why
else would my eyes be burning and my throat have a lump inside of
it, making it difficult for me to swallow? I stared off into space,
the sweet smell of Stella’s rabbit wafting up to my nostrils as I
fought off the strange emotion, losing myself in my
thoughts.
A knock on my front door long moments
later made me stand up and put the rabbit back into the plastic
bag. I walked downstairs to let Dodger in. I opened the door and
stepped back to admit him. When he walked in, Dodger took one look
at me and, closing the door with one hand, gathered me close to his
chest with the other. He pressed my head to his chest and rubbed my
back.
I stood frozen. Confused. Slightly
alarmed. What the fuck was he doing? Was this how adults comforted
each other? I kept waiting for his hand to drift down to my ass,
for him to make a move, but he never did.
While part of me wanted to press my
face in deeper to his torso, to smell his cologne, and rub my face
all over his wide barrel chest, another part of me wanted to scurry
away. To run into a corner and hide from the concern I could hear
in his voice, the care I could feel in his touch, the… affection in
his hold.
“
What happened?” Dodger’s
words finally penetrated through the rambling mess of my own
chattering mind.
“
I d-don’t know,” I lied,
shaking my head and trying to push away from him. Dodger’s arms
were like steel bands, however, refusing to allow me to escape from
his hold.
“
Don’t lie to me, Tyler. I
heard you on the phone. You sounded spooked. As if there were
something chasing you. Frightening you. Is there someone here with
you, right now?” His words had gone stiff, dangerously low, and I
shivered. Not from fear but from arousal. Whereas I had heard KuJoe
take that tone plenty of times, it had always been before he or one
of the other “workers” in his employ had beaten me. It meant danger
for us. But I knew, in some deep part of myself, Dodger meant me no
harm. He was going to hurt whomever he thought was in the house and
causing me to be afraid.
“
No. There’s no one here
but you,” I said. Was I pressing myself closer to him? Why would I
do that? I didn’t seek solace and comfort from others, because
people always,
always
, let you down. I knew that better than most. So what was it
about Dodger that made me want to be comforted by him? That made me
long for his arms to be wrapped around me, holding me closer,
protecting me from the world? Why did he make me feel safe when I
hadn’t felt that way since my father had died?
Dodger stepped back slightly, and I
swallowed the whimper trying to escape from my throat. He shushed
me gently and tilted my head up. “What has you so upset, Tyler?” he
asked softly. His voice felt like a soothing balm on my
contaminated skin.
I shook my head, not wanting to
answer. No one was allowed inside my head. Inside that deep, dark
part of myself oozing blackness and despair. The piece of me
screaming and wailing, never ceasing, only drowned out when I was
with a client or high.