Waking Up with C*ck in Mouth

So, if you are following me on Twitter you know what the rest of the world knows: somewhere between now and my last post I seemed to have misplaced my notebook. THE NOTEBOOK. The one that has random ideas, happenings and other tantalizing anecdotes that I use solely for the purpose of amusing you, my internet legion. Now, I have nothing more to rely on then my cell phone, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and type a note into it. Or, I will be having a conversation with someone and it will remind me of that time I was ****ing Jimmy behind the Circle K and I may act like I am checking my text messages but I am not. I am making an note. Now you know.

Since it has been a good month (meaning at least a month, not in the sense that it has been a GOOD month - though it hasn't been especially painful) I have decided just to write about my last "note"that I put in my phone. The note merely says "waking up with cock in mouth". So, here we go:

It was a Friday night (seems it is always a Friday, doesn't it?) and I was on Dunlevy, in the side doorway of the Patricia Hotel. I had had a good evening so far that night. I specifically remember having a nice spot o' the crack cocaine in my pocket and at least 5 bucks in the other pocket. No immediate down sickness in sight.

Now, if caught in the right frame of mind and with a nice amount of dope, I could be relied on for being up to pretty much anything. Of course, if I was f*cking desperate I could be up for anything as well but on this night, I wasn't desperate. I remeber this one desperate Sunday morning I accepted an offer to go to Squamish with this intense dude with nothing more than a promise of a healthy amount of cocaine as payment. How will I get back? I asked and he said, "Don't worry about it!". So I didn't. And then ended up by some shady railroad tracks hitchhiking a ride back to Vancouver. I was sick as f*ck and the old man that gave me a ride kept asking me if I needed to go to the hospital. Bless him, he drove me almost the whole way.

ANYWAYS,

So, it was Friday, I was working and this youngish guy came up to myself and another female and initially he just wanted to score some dope (crack). Then somehow between the score and him going home he had asked me to go with him and I had agreed. When I think back I think I may have been short of a couple nights sleep - not realizing how perilously close to unconsciousness I really was.

We went to his house. It wasn't too far from the hood. I mean, it was still in Vancouver anyways. We went to his house and he was just like any other crack smoking guy. He wanted to do dope and to get a bl*wjob. Fine, I did that all the time. BUT, usually me and the "guy" would at least hang out and do our dope. There was some sense of comraderie usually but not with him. I don't know how long I managed to stay awake for but all I can remember is waking up periodically with his c*ck in my mouth. Like, I would come to and he was forcing me to give him oral sex. I mean, how can that even be satisfying? I was so out of it.

The next moring I was sooo dope sick, I knew I hadn't smoked all my dope because I had been asleep but the crack (his and mine) was gone and so was my 5 bucks. What a jerk off.

Anyways, he was pissing and whining that he didn't want to give me a ride back downtown. But since he lived a basement suite I threatened to scream bloody murder so the upstairs folks would hear me and I told him I knew where he lived so he had to driveme downtown or I would come back with my gang of thugs (what thugs?).

He took me as far at the Greyhound Bus station at Main and Terminal. I was crying that I was so sick and couldn't possibly walk the rest of the way and you know what he did? He punched me in the face and told me to get the f*ck out of his truck. Nice.

It is so weird for me to think that this was actually my life. Things like this happen all the time. It's awful and true.

That is basically the end of this story. You want to know what happened next? Well, let's just say that it involved heroin, cocaine, money, prostitution and a needle exchange. Oh and some major bouts of dope sickness in between.

-----------

Right here I would like to mention that my friend from down there, whom I refer to as R has recently informed me that he is using again. I am sorry R, and I love you.

4 Years

Okay so, do you ever have those moments, those defining moments when you are pretty sure you are going to hell?? What I mean is, have you done things that you know might make your entrance into heaven (which I do believe exists in some context) a little dicey? Regardless of your beliefs you must know what I am talking about.

Most of the occurrences that I am referring to happened during my drug abuse. People do stupid sh*t when they are on drugs. Given, people do stupid sh*t all the time but I find that anything "bad" I may do now is definitely forgivable. But some stuff, when I think back..it makes me cringe. I am not going to go into to detail naming off the horrible things I have done just so you can feel better about yourself ("at least I was never as bad as HER, at least I never contracted hep C blah blah blah, at least I never had sex for money" - you probably DID have sex for money at some point you just didn't realize it) - I am just going to tell you about one time. And it isn't even a long story but I still feel bad about. I know my stepmum will probably read this and I just want to tell her that I am sorry..but she knows what I was going through at the time so hopefully P, you will understand. You were there when it happened and you were so nice to me and I totally was sh*tty and I am sorry.

Okay, to put it bluntly.. I smoked crack in the bathroom at a Christian bookstore. There it is, that is it. I have other sorts of regrets from way back when like missing my Grandmother's funeral - that was bad. I wasn't even a prostitute then but unless I could have taken my dope dealer to the island with me there was no way I could go. I still feel sad when I think about it. Grandma, I love you and I am sorry I missed your funeral. I think she heard me.

Back on topic.

This bookstore situation occurred during a brief stint when my loving Father and Stepmother were keeping me/allowing me to stay at their house in an (unwanted by me) attempt at getting it together. Anyone that has ever been addicted to a substance knows that ANYTHING and ANYTIME is an opportunity. Now, it just so happens that my parents' house was not too far from a house that I had "lived" at for a while, when I was staying with my friend R (I have mentioned him before). I had left clothes and things there and called R and asked him if he could put my stuff in a bag and I would come to get them since I had no clothes at my parents' place. He said he would but I wasn't able to go and just pick them up from the house we had been sharing. The other guy that lived there was super paranoid and thought that my stepmother would plant microphones in his house or something so we had to find a different place to do the hand off. This guy, the paranoid one, was always like this. He honestly thought that there was bugs in his car because the gov't wanted to keep an eye on him. Him, a forty something guy with a factory job that did a paper of heroin every six months or so. As if, but besides this he was a really nice guy just very misunderstood.

Anyways, the other issue was that my stepmum would not let me see or be in the same room as R because she thought maybe he would be able to sneak me a piece, as in he might slip me something dope-ish and, well, that would be bad. But see, I was crafty and had spoken basically in code to R when I had called about my stuff and got him to put a huge rock (of crack) in the garbage bag of clothes for me. My stepmum and I drove to a neighbor's house (R had an acquaintance that was in no way dope affiliated) and we picked up the bag of clothes there. As you can well imagine I was almost pissing myself in anticipation.

Now understand this, it wasn't like I was going cold turkey at my parent's house. I mean, they were giving anything a go in order to keep me safe. I was on methadone and my Dad had bought me a certain amout of crack that was supposed to last me a week. I was allowed one ten dollar rock per night and I had to wait until he got home from work before I could get it. It was TORTURE. I mean, seriously, I am sure it would have been easier to go completely without than to have to wait all f*cking day to get ONE CRACK ROCK. Retarded, but of course this was way cool of him and he didn't have to do this. Needless to say they wised up pretty fast and stopped buying me crack since I was stealing it from them anyways and pinching money from their piggy banks, etc. But they were willing to try anything. So when the opportunity came up for me to sneak in an extra bit of dope I could not pass it up.

We went and picked up the bag of clothes. Then my stepmum decides she needs to go to the bookstore. Fine, I said, I will wait in the truck but as soon as she was out I was rifling though that bag fast as anything to find the rock. And I did find it and it was big. Man, I loved R. He always came though for me. He was a total prick and we abused each other left and right but thats what codependancy IS...so whatever.

I find the rock and couldn't even wait the 15 minutes or however long it would have been until we would have been on the way back to the house to smoke it. I had to smoke it ASAP. So I went in the bookstore and asked if I could use the bathroom (because of course, I had my pipe on me..rolled up in paper towel in my sock like I always did-duh). And I smoked it, right there, in the Christian Bookstore. I have smoked/done dope in a lot of places - even in the hospital bathroom when I went I checked myself in when I thought I was pregnant, which I was (yes, I DID - yes, I am terrible and I am sorry it happened. It was the last time I did it and this Dec 24th it will be 4 years since I last used heroin or cocaine- FYI.I am not proud of it but this blog is about truth and things like this do occur so f*ck you if you want to shake your head and judge me). And this time at the Christian bookstore, well I just hate that I did it there. Especially because my step mum is so sweet and I totally used and abused her and my father the whole time I was there. I remember that I smoked that rock so fast..the rest of it, once we got back to the house, and then just jonesed like hell until my Dad got home anyways. This is just such an ugly memory for me for some reason and it stresses me out to write about it.

Anyways, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Be safe and be happy.

S.

The Boner

Okay, so there I was...f*cking this guy and......noooo, no, no, I would never start out like that. I would never use the f word so early on.

Okay, so there I was, sitting on these steps in front of some unfortunate person's house that lives on Cordova St. Unfortunate in the sense that as a drug user I often sat on their steps (as did many other drug users) and got high. The steps were high up and around a corner so in theory one would think that if a police cruiser had been driving by I might see them before they saw me....

There I was, smoking crack while also looking for a date, and this seedy looking individual approaches and begins a conversation with me. He lives very close, he says, and wants to know if I will accompany him back to his lair and provide oral companionship to his member while he smokes copious amounts on cocaine (paying me in money and dope-duh). "Yes!", I tell him and we skip away.

As an aside I would just like to mention that the downtown Eastside seems to house a lot of people that are business during the week and party on the weekend. Almost as if they are susceptible to the drugs sold on the street there and have to use purely due to geographical convenience. I am sure there are thousands that don't use but still, there are lots that do. I am just saying, I wasn't really going to go anywhere with this paragraph but I just thought I would mention it. This guy was one of those people.

I say he was seedy because he was scrawny and was out hunting for a prostitute. That is seedy...he wasn't someone that I had seen before though, as I mentioned he was a weekend user.

We get to his apartment after a few short minutes and when we get inside I am surprised to find that he already has a person there. His roommate? No, that would be too easy, it was his male lover. Yep, this guy was bisexual, but his boyfriend, not at all. His bf was fully gay. I was fine with this, as long as he doesn't expect me to have sex with an animal or something, I am fine.

His boyfriend just watches and gets high as I get busy doing what I was being paid to do and before long the proceedings are halted. Scrawny decides that he is no longer interested and wants to see if I can get his boyfriend excited, turned on, erect, etc.

This wasn't the first time I had been been asked to do something like this. I already wrote about the girl/guy couple that had picked me up. I had also been picked up by one of my regulars and brought back to his apartment at like 6 in the morning one day, paid to start bl*wing him in his living room. And paid also, to make enough noise doing so that I would wake up his roommate and then surprise his roommate by switching my focus to him. I think it was his (roommate's) birthday or something...

But never had I had a sexual encounter with a homosexual male. It was a challenge and it was fun, if I am to be honest. I gave it a try. At first he had his eyes open but nothing happened. Then I suggested he close his eyes and so we tried that but to no avail. Sadly, I was only to rewarded for my efforts by bringing him to half mast.

So basically, I blew a gay guy. I think that is pretty cool. I think if a woman ever does this, maybe it is with her bf or husband that hasn't openly come out that he is gay yet..so in THAT sense yes, I will give it to them, they have bl*wn a homosexual man...but not like this......ooohhh yeahh and snap and you've been served (and whatever other cliche, quasi hip statements I can make)....I own that ****.

She Thinks She's So Fisticated

I am here sitting here trying to figure out what to write about. I feel like writing something but what?..So, I look in my books of tricks (haha, but really, I do have a book that I write things down in, in abbreviated form...random one liners that remind me of certain things...) and nothing jumps out at me. Mainly because what I have written lately has been pretty "adult" and I don't feel like making that a constant theme. Because it wasn't all like that. A lot of what I have written in my "book" are just one sentence experiences that for some reason have stayed with me and for whatever other reason I feel they might be of interest to someone else.

As I am writing this I have come to the decision that rather than try to tell a story this time, I will just quote myself from the book of tricks and then explain what each one means. There will be no special order, no theme per se, just random happenings that I feel like recognizing in the public forum that is the world wide web. Notes that I will highlight in bold and I will type them up exactly how they appear in my book. I may only get to mention a few of 'em, but if I/we enjoy ourselves here, now, then I may do a post like this again.

He has "no one to care about, which is what makes a good con man" from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, in reference to McMurphy (said/thought by Chief, from whose point of view the book was written). - I have had that book on my book shelf forever, got it at Value Village I think, and since I know the book is always better than the movie, I wanted to read it. Eventually I got around to it about 5 months ago and when I read the above phrase I was like "YEAH, EXACTLY". Total description of the mentality of an addict, a guiltless con man.

picture of me holding $20 - It may not seem like a big deal to anyone else but one time, when I was super ill (as in dope sick) I was approached by this young-ish guy that asked me if he paid me 20 bucks could he take some pictures of me. I have done this before, it is easy money, they usually want to be quick, they don't want me to touch them and don't need to touch me, they just want to see my boobs or whatever. (Of course there WAS that one guy that wanted pics of me and an English cucumber......-am I joking? Maybe? Maybe not? Let's say yes, for dignity's sake)

Anyways, this guy approached me, wanted some pics. No problem, I said. We went into some random alley and he asked me if I would pull down my pants and lift up my shirt. I said "yes", of course. Is this a big deal? It wasn't to me. It isn't like I had any plans to be a politician or anything, so the picture leaking out was not a huge concern. Plus, try to understand, I was at the point where I couldn't even visualize myself ever getting "out" of the life I was living. So contemplating the repercussions or consequences of anything was null and void. I put myself in danger daily, multiple times a day, so no big deal. You may think "why is she writing about a f*cking picture, who cares?". I get that, the thing IS, com-padres, is that he had me pull down my pants, pull up my shirt and HOLD THE 4 FIVE DOLLAR BILLS THAT HE PAID ME TO DO IT. Basically just showing that all it took was a measly $20 for me to show him and his camera, myself..face, nakedness, nothingness and all. I don't know know why I mention it, all I know is, when I think back, I feel pretty stupid about it. Yeah, it was cheap.

still looking in windows - All this means is that for a looong time after I had quit working the street I would catch myself looking to see who was driving vehicles. When you work the street seeing and making eye contact with the driver of any particular vehicle was very important because anyone/everyone was an opportunity to make money. Plus, you could never know if it was the last "cruise" around the block that a guy was making. It was a hard habit to break, in fact my ex used to bitch me out for the longest time whenever I would do it. But I got so used to doing it that it was normal for me. I don't do it anymore.

Franco stroke - beating/deaf, Chrissy stroke - shooting meth - this refers to this guy Franco that I used to know. He was your average junkie, nice guy just f*cked up and addicted to crack. I guess he ripped off the wrong guy or something and ended up getting seriously sh*t kicked by someone and had a stroke as a result. The stroke left him like 90% deaf and brain damaged. He went from the hospital back to Main and Hastings and was a different person after it. He was still using but he was like a child after the whole ordeal. Didn't really ever really understand what was going on...he was a shell of what he once was. Chrissy was this girl I knew that was so beautiful even though she was using and she banged some super strong gibb one time and had a stroke. She was was 26 at the time. Scary. She was basically fine after but still...

David and dry humping - I had this date named David. He paid really sh*tty but all he ever wanted was to rent a room and would lie on top of me with his clothes on and dry hump me so hard that it was almost painful. He always had razor stubble and it burned my face. He would do this for a good 20 minutes then put on a condom and give one good push into me and would finish. He always talked about how he was planning on giving me more money but for some reason never got the promotion he kept telling me about...

I will share more another day, this is enough for now. And if anyone is wondering, these days I am doing great. In fact I just received word last week that I've been chosen as a recipient of a small scholarship that is rewarded to women that have triumphed through adversity. I had to write a personal essay and all this other stuff, so it was quite the process to even apply, but they have decided to give it to ME. ME. I have worked my ass of to try to make up for lost time and it feels really good to have this happen. Really good. So yeah, I am almost happy?? Yes, I am.

Deaf-speak is the Unword

Horrendous things happen in any area that has an infestation of drug addicts. As a dope addict with a conscience, a lot of the time I witnessed various sorts of heinous activities in action and it wasn't easy to see (most of the time). I mean, these people (addicts) are ruthless, they don't give a sh*t about anyone..almost psychopathic in a sense. Me, being the except to every rule (smiles), felt bad for the victims of these crimes against humanity. Maybe I am a pussy or maybe I just wasn't "there yet" in the sense of what I would do for my dope. Selling my ass was a more appealing method....Or, maybe I was just lucky to be a girl and therefore was able to make $$ easier than other addicts. The girls ALWAYS make more money than guys. Except for the dope addicts that could support their dope addiction by selling. But that was rare, everyone is basically a f*ck up and it always comes to the surface eventually.

It's true though, even the harshest of women can make money. I've seen it. I would be like, "What?? You got paid that much??" Meanwhile they have almost no hair because they pull it out, they pick their faces so bad it looks as if they got stung by an army of bees, they have track marks and scars all over them because they can't use their arms anymore since their veins there are dead, they have no teeth and are about 55 in street years - which is 105 in people years. I think some guys may get all riled up being with a prostitute, so they pick up the "textbook" example of what one is.

But this isn't even what this post is about. Not that it (the post) was going to be about anything in particular.

I witnessed things all the time as I said. I saw people smash car windows when they thought no one was watching. I was watching from a distance of course, not that it mattered because I was one of "THEM" so they weren't threatened by my presence. They'd smash these windows in broad daylight, so desperate that they do it in plain view..but still got away with it. I mean, say someone does see it, what can they do? Do a citizen's arrest? Maybe, but then they may be worried they will get stuck with a needle (never saw that happen, but it was a good threat though). Or they could call it in to 911 and tell them they are looking for a tall guy with a hooded sweatshirt, who looks dirty, making his escape on a bicycle. Which could be anyone.

----------

SO....

I was sitting on the steps of some building in Chinatown, myself and couple of other people. They were not my "friends", merely acquaintances, and total bullies. I had no dope or anything so they weren't muscling me at the time. That is how it is, when they aren't muscling you or jacking you up they just act like you and them-are just friends, hanging out.

It was late, we were sitting on steps and this old guy with a cane was walking by us on the other side of the street. This guy (we'll call him S) and this girl (we'll call him Tammy - since that was her name) that were with me on the steps came to a quick agreement that they were going to rob him, the old guy. They ran across the street, S grabbed the man in a headlock, the old man drops his cane while Tammy demands that he give the 2 of them his money. It was brutal. The guy was like ninety. It was horrible to watch, it made me feel really sh*tty and since I was sitting there, not doing anything in defense of this guy, I was a party to the crime. I wasn't about to do anything that may have lessened my chance at survival, so sorry, I just sat there and watched. better him than me. Sorry, that was my life. NOT that I have to explain myself to you anyways. You weren't there.

Tammy was screaming at this old guy and he was yelling for help and telling her that he had no money. She started digging in all his pockets and found his wallet. When she found it she smacked him across the face because he only had ten bucks. The other guy, S, released him from the headlock and the guy fell to the ground. Tammy and S just cruised back across the street to the steps, bitching about how dare the guy only have such a small amount of money on him. Like, how dare he make them rob him for ten bucks. They didn't even feel the need to run. They just traumatized this guy for a lousy ten spot. He probably pissed his pants, I would have. It was frightening to watch and how they can just be normal after that is crazy. I guess I would have sex with strange men and be normal afterwards but that was my "job", so I think there is a difference between what I did for $$ and what they did.

Another time on a Sunday morning I saw a guy on roller blades sucker punch a girl on Hastings for $3. Really I did. She was being all loud and may have been drunk and he just belted her. She hit the pavement and then he went in her pockets and took her whole 3 dollars. Understand this too, it isn't as if these people flee after committing these atrocities, they are in no hurry to disappear. What is she going to do? Nothing, she can't do nothing.

People get beat up all the time though, for whatever reason. Selling bunk dope, stealing, owing money, just for being an idiot. I got punched once because I wasn't paying attention and I went right up to a dope dealer and asked him if he was "working" at the same moment that a cop was walking by and as a result the dealer got busted that day. On a daily basis you see certain people you know that suddenly show up with the whites of their eyes gone, replaced by the blood red that is the evidence of a sh*t kicking. It's gross.

On an unrelated topic: (sub titled : SCAM OF THE WEEK)

One of the people with the best scam going was the deaf girl (of course it is unfortunate that she is deaf, OBVIOUSLY). I saw her doing her thing on several occasions. She would do the quintessential deaf voice which made people really uncomfortable (especially the dope dealers, she was a bit of a heat score, her and her noise). There was no reason to it, her deaf-speak, there was no words. She would just wail while doing charades of smoking crack. Like hold an imaginary pipe to her lips and then an imaginary lighter to the end of it. She would do this until the dope sellers or someone gave her tokes. It was awesome. It is one of the rarities in our earthly realm... the mysterious crack addicted deaf girl. How does a deaf girl even get addicted to crack in the first place??

Anubis wuz here.

Lost of times guys that have out of town jobs..like jobs that take them away from the city for months at a time, hire prostitutes. Fishermen, oil rig workers, tree planters..anything like that where one would be in the middle of nowhere but get paid tons of money for it. Usually these guys like to "go off" as soon as they get back to town. Like go off in the chemical substance sense. Especially crack..they love that sh*t. These men tend to have a connection in the underworld (the red zone), some drug addict that will let them use their room, will have a connection to get dope, and also will FIND a girl for them to violate. Many occasions I had acquaintances come up to me telling me they had this "friend" that wanted a girl to get high with and could I come with them (the junkie) back to his room to meet this guy. This guy with tons of money.

Sometimes there is no need for a middle man though- I had this fisherman pick me up once. He showed me his wad of $28,000, I actually WATCHED him cash a check at Money Mart for that amount. Can you believe that? What an idiot. Turns out that I may have gotten syphilis from him..but I can never be sure. But I WILL tell you that when I found out I had it I told the nurse his name and the city he was from so they could contact him and tell him HE had it, or may have had it. See, when you have a thing like syphilis or HIV or anything serious "they" (the gov't) need to know your sexual partners so they can talk to them and try to stop the spreading of it. I gave them only one name. His. I would tell you that name now but I won't. Though I should.

Oh, I should really include this next bit because it is totally relevant to that last paragraph and totally effing hilarious. I knew this Asian guy that drove a truck. He had a business that was all about delivering plastic bags. You know, those crappy, cheap ass, only good for one use plastic bags that you get at corners stores? Well, next time you get one, it may have been handled by him or one of his affiliates.

This guy was one of the worst. I mean, he would pay okay but would always pay the girls in coins. Do you know how degrading it is to be paid in coins? I don't care if it is 50 two dollar coins or what but it feels pretty lame. This guy, he had zero loyalty to any one girl, he would pick up who ever, didn't matter. He was sure to always use a condom but MAY have gone without one a few times. I know he did with me maybe once. So this one day he pulls up and he tells me he just wants to talk to me. He tells me that he had gone to the doctor and found out that he had caught something from one of the girls. He said he had something called "clem-dye", he pronounced it just like that. Clem-dye? I'm like what the f*ck is clem-dye? I told him that he didn't get it from me because I didn't even know what it was, I had never heard of it and thought he must have been misinformed. And then it came to me. He meant chlamydia. English was his second language so it makes perfect sense that his brain would have computed it incorrectly.

CLEM-dye. Chlamy-dia. Clem (silent y) dAI - he got the i and the a mixed up. Clem-dye.

Hil. Ar. I. Ous.

One chilly winter evening I was approached by one of these out of town working guys. I had originally been with him months before, we hooked in a manner previous mentioned in the first paragraph of this post. His name was Ricky (that was his name for real. I hate that name, by the way. I always have and I am sorry if that happens to be your name). He was into the up, they usually are. I ran into him in an alley behind this old folks home on Cordova, just off of Gore.

-----------------

*At this point I feel the need to say something: This alley I'm writing about right now wasn't super harsh and gross like the alley one's imagination might conjure up. It was harmless, wide, in the back of a few businesses..what else can I say? It wasn't totally used-needle ridden with piss and feces everywhere, etc. In fact it was my most frequented alley. It was spacious and most of my dates knew that I did a lot of my dope there. There were stairs behind the old folks home that people could sit on. It is gated now but wasn't when I was there. My Dad actually knew of this spot too and came to find me there on at least one occasion that I remember. Did I ever tell you about the time my Dad came to see me down there and at one point we were crossing the road and this addict saw us and actually asked us if we needed a room? How humiliating, I was like, "No, this is my Dad".*

----------------

Back to Ricky. I ran into Ricky in this same alley. Like I said it was cold and wet and gross out and I was sick as f*ck. Like very sick, sickness amplified by the weather. It was early evening and pretty much every girl out was hurtin'. I saw him and was thanking the heavens...He was doing fine, had obviously just came back from months out working (I assumed) and was smoking tons of crack and wanted me to do things to him while he smoked. He said he would share his dope with me and would give me money for heroin. I was so happy (relieved) but still very sick.

I got no relief from the cold because what he wanted was to be done on those very steps, the steps that I was just describing. (This was not a busy alley, just so you know, it's not like there would be Christian families driving by on their way to drop off the kids at youth group. The only guys that drove through it were trolling and if a cop DID go by you could hear it coming. A police car motor sounds like no other and I can still hear one before I actually see the car) I wanted my $$ first but he only had a hundred dollar bill. He did show it to me and told me that I could hold on to it until we were done doing what we were doing (I wasn't having sex with him on the steps in case you were wondering, it was just a ******). Fine with me. He made it seem like afterwords we would go get a room, warm up and all that nice stuff.

I did what he wanted, I smoked some of his dope (which only made me feel worse. Crack does that when a person is dope sick, at least that is how it was with me), and then I said that I HAD to get some down. He said fine that he would wait for me in the alley since I was literally going to run to score. There was this pizza place 2 blocks away that sold relatively good dope so that was where I was planning to go. I left him my winter coat so he would know I would come right back. This coat was my only means of protection from the cold. I had a toque, I have always been a toque wearer, but the jacket was key too. It had everything I owned in it. Pipe, rigs, water, chap-stick, condoms, whatever. I run to the pizza place with the hundred dollar bill in my sock. I can't even describe how sick I was. I mean, I was soooo ill. I think I hadn't even used that day, I had woken up in my friend's room in the afternoon with nothing and had been wandering the streets waiting for a regular when I had bumped into Ricky.

I get to the pizza place, told the guy what I wanted and gave him the hundred dollar bill. He looks at it and tells me "this bill is fake". Crash, burn, implode, ....my world is destroyed in about a millisecond. "Fake?" I asked him. "Fake. Watch this" he says and proceeds to put a tiny bit of water on the bill and the ink started smudging only slightly but enough. I couldn't believe it. I was devastated. I mean, I had just given this a guy a bl*wjob in a f*cking alley in the middle of a snowstorm for nothing. Sure I got a few hoots but that didn't count, just common courtesy if you will. FAKE??

I ran back to the alley and of course he was gone. Not only was he gone though, he took my f*cking jacket. Can you believe that? I found remnants of my pocket contents strewn throughout the alley. He had obviously rifled through the coat during his escape. I felt like a fool and a dirt bag and totally worthless.

No happy ending this time. I ended getting helped out by another working girl, or at least she had intentions of it. She had heroin and said she would share it with me (this happens down there, I help you out, you help me out). She wanted to go to her friend's room but on the way she wanted to smoke some of her crack. I had no idea how she was after smoking crack but I was soon to find out that she was crazy. She starting thinking that the buildings were out to get her and that they had a very ominous feel when she touched them and basically begged me to stay with her while at the same time telling me that she had changed her mind and would not be sharing her heroin.

Bad bad bad bad. I would bust out yet another f-bomb whilst summing up the events of that evening but I fear another one may not be entirely ladylike.

Points

Since last week's post was so graphic and intense, I have decided to be "lighter" this week. What follows is just something that happened..one night..like any other night. Actually come to think of it there may be a little graphic undertone.....

I used to see this guy, his name was Francois. He was a heavy (more round than heavy), short, harmless French man. He used to pick me up and give me half of my money up front so I could score and then give me the other half after, when he drove me back after the date.

He always picked me up for the same thing. After he was done work he would swing by and get me every month or so. The "same thing" that he wanted was,...sigh...was for me to put a latex glove on my hand an insert it into one of his orifices. Guess which one? Anyways, that isn't really what this post is about, as I mentioned I don't feel like getting heavy.

One night Francois picked me up, gave me $$ to score (which I did) and then we went back to his apartment like always. BUT this time we made a stop on the way to his place. I cannot remember what he was doing and why but I just remember that the crack I had purchased burning a hole in my pocket and I told him that while he was doing whatever it was that he was doing, I would go find some public washroom somewhere to do some dope.

We were parked on West 4th right by a restaurant. I went in there and asked them if I could use their washroom. They agreed. I go into the washroom and took out a make up container..like eye shadow or something (it had the dope inside)...another one of my ingenious hiding places. I smoked some dope and then re-braided my hair or combed it in the mirror. In this process I completely forgot about the eye shadow container that I had placed on the toilet paper dispenser. I finished in the washroom, went back to Francois and we continued on to his house, which was not far. A few blocks.

The drill was basically the same every time. We would arrive at his house, he would shower while I would sit in the living room and do dope. He would get out and go into his room. He would lie on the bed face down and wait for me. Wait until I WAS READY. See I always had to do a lot of dope before I stuck my hand inside someone. It may not have been the whole hand but my job was to do one finger at a time..working up to, but never was, the whole hand. I know it sounds gross, weird, or maybe it doesn't but it wasn't weird. I was wearing a glove, he didn't have to penetrate me..so I was fine with it. You have to understand that when I am doing these sorts of things my mind is everywhere else and not in the room/car, etc. with me and the date. I am thinking of dope most likely...and anything else. He told me that his ex-wife got him into the whole "rear entry" thing. Yeah, sure Francois.

I keep getting distracted. I didn't even mean to include that part because this particular evening (the evening I was talking about in the beginning of the post) we didn't even GET to the hand insertion.

He did get in the shower and I did sit down to smoke a bowl but then chaos ensued.It's what I considered a catastrophe. I couldn't find my dope. If you have ever been around dope addict that can't find their dope, it is not a pretty sight. Everything pales in comparison. I mean, the house could be burning down and they aren't leaving until they find it. As I mentioned before though, I had left it in the washroom at the restaurant. Francois had already given me half of the money for the date but he knew me well enough to know that he was going to get nothing good out of me while I was in this frenzy. Obviously I HAD to go back to find it, there was no way I was going to wait until after the date. He gave me bus fare to get back downtown and I told him I would get him back for the cash he had already floated me.

I had forgotten dope in lots places before and usually had good luck with finding it. I had left some on the floor in a 7-11 washroom early one Sunday morning HE (the date) was not one that was "cool" with me doing dope around him so I casually asked him to stop so I could use the 7-11 bathroom-and got high in there). On the way back from the date I got "him" (whoever it was) to drive me by there on the way back so I could go in and get it. It was there, where I left it, on the floor. Crack is white, floor was white. So it wasn't very obvious to an average person, plus I doubt any one even used the washroom since I had. But this time, the time with Francois, I had not only left it in a washroom but had left it very visible on the toilet paper dispenser and it was a very busy restaurant. The chances of it being seen was %100. Not that anyone would pick up someone else's makeup, I mean that is uber unsanitary. But, though the reason escapes me right now, I seem to remember that the dope must have been obvious IN the container for some reason. I was extra concerned, as well I should have been.

I get to the restaurant, bee-lining for the washroom. The place was emptying out. I go in..and no eyeshadow container, which means no crack. F*CK. As a dope addict you will do anything to get the dope back. It is that serious. I went up to a staff member that worked there and asked them about my makeup and where was it..could she ask her servers and all that if they had seen it. This is where it gets stupid..I actually told them that I had HEART PILLS in the container and that was why it was soooo important that I find them. Like who would believe that? Anyways, it turned out that one guy that worked there HAD seen it and had thrown it out. Once he knew it was mine he just happened to be able to locate my missing makeup in the garbage. Good thing because I would have seriously turned the place upside down. Garbage or not (I guess that digging through garbage is nothing compared to s*cking off random strangers in all sorts of dangerous locations). I KNEW just by looking at him that something was up. He gives it to me and of course, it is empty..besides the eyeshadow. Now, HE knows that I know that there was dope in there. He can't rat me out to the people he works with because he would have to explain where the crack was because why would he not have just thrown it out all together, why remove the "pills" (dope)? Does that make sense? I hope it does, I am moving on.

He never coughed them up, he had no reason to, but he DID have to act like he was all sympathetic and all that. Did they know I was bullsh*tting? I have no idea, probably. What I do know is that as an addict you have to be one hell of a hustler to get your needs met. I ended up convincing a different guy that worked there to drive me back downtown and then to give me ten bucks. It is the last part that I find so awesome. I still managed to turn it into a win.

__________________________________________

PS: I thought I would add in another something that this post made me think of. I used to be a total raver. Like fat pants, bright colors, all of it. No soothers though OR glow sticks, FYI. During this phase of my life I was heavy into the crystal meth. Me and my methy posse used to call it points ( holy sh*t, isn't that the best phrase ever?? Methy posse?? Haha, awesome). You know how a point of something is .1 of a gram? Thus the term, points.

One day me and my friend M had been up for a few days and she had exactly ONE POINT left on her and she had it in her wallet. We were waiting until we absolutely needed it before using it. We were far from home out in Dunbar I think and we were on our way to a friend's and had stopped at the local Safeway. I have no idea what was bought. Maybe water.

We got to said friend's house and after a time we go in the washroom to do our secret points (even though there was only 1 point, it was still referred to as points). They were a secret because we were surrounded by a house full of hurtin' jonesers so we had to be sneaky. The points were not in her wallet where they should have been. We searched everywhere and realized we had to burn back to Safeway. It was tough going back there, I mean I felt paper thin at this point in my Binge??..I had zero energy left.

We looked up and down the aisle we had been in, around the cashier's desk, I am sure we must have looked harsh. Cheeks sunken in, bags under our eyes..super fat pants...we actually asked the cashier to find out if anyone had swept that isle. She asked us why and we told her that my friend had had a small piece of paper with a VERY important phone number on it and we had to find it..had to. We laugh about it now, like as if. A small piece of paper? We couldn't tell them it was a bag of dope and we had to tell them something, so it was piece of paper.

We then turned our search to the parking lot when "it" wasn't found inside. I am sure we looked even worse outside. We were looking very slowly everywhere we had walked, total backtracking. I ended up spotting it right by the curb, by the main doors. It must have fallen out of her wallet when she put her money back in.

The moral of the story is what? I don't know. But both stories had happy endings.

The London Guard

WARNING: For all you people that know me for real, this post is pretty graphic so proceed with caution.

I have been asked if I ever got picked up by women. Yes, I have. One in particular that I remember. It was in the very beginning of selling myself.

I was standing at the bus stop on Cordova..right across the street from Oppenheimer Park and just around the corner from the funeral parlour on Dunlevy. (I give you the co-ordinates in case you ever go there you can actually know where I mean, because touring a poverty stricken, sad, hopeless area might be something on a visitor's agenda.)

It was the afternoon, gloriously sunny and I was standing, hoping it was looking like I was waiting for the bus. I was still thinking that perhaps people I knew may drive by since it was a busy street and I didn't want to get recognized.

This woman walked up to me and started talking. She asked me if I was waiting for the bus, and I said no. I can't remember how I dropped the hint but it was at some point understood that I was in fact, a prostitute. Then she asked me if I had ever been picked up by a woman, and I told her no. Not yet, anyways.

Her name was Patty, she was 42 and she asked me if I would give her a massage for 20 bucks. Of course I would, I told her. Easy money, so I thought. I went with Patty to her car.

She was attractive and obviously a lesbian. I guess sometimes one can't tell, but you could with her, she had a KD Lang thing going on but more feminine. She told me all about her girlfriend that she lived with, that she was an alcoholic, always expecting Patty to support her alcoholism and that they were on the brink of separation. I often heard these sorts of stories from the people that picked me up..and I tried to be sympathetic..they are people and they want to be heard AND ultimately, as an ulterior motive, it can secure a monetary bonus for me because I was nice. Patty also informed me that she herself was battling an addiction to crack.

I will admit I was extremely nervous since I had no real idea what she was going to have me do. We went to a park, she parked the car and then asked for just a simple shoulder massage which I gave her. After that, I could feel this weird sexual vibe coming off her and she asked if she could kiss me. I have kissed girls before, wasted drunk at a bar and stuff so that was no big deal. A kiss is just a kiss. She sort of went crazy after that...telling me that I was making her so "hot" and that she wanted to f*ck me and all that.

We were interrupted by some passers by and I mentioned that I had more than earned my money and that I would like her to take me back so I could score and be on my way. By this point though she said she wanted to score and that she had money to pay for a hotel room for the night and would I be interested in keeping her company. Of course I agreed on the condition that she pay for my dope and anything else I wanted. It was a very attractive proposition. At that point given the choice of doing a date with a man or a woman, I would have chosen the woman. She knew I was not a lesbian so I assumed that it was understood that I was not there for major sexual reasons. Minor sexual reasons yes...but I was still in the dark about what went on between girls. On girls. I had assumed due to the lame porn out there that it was eating p*ssy and finger penetration and all that. You know, vibrators, etc. I didn't think she had a vibrator.

We scored, she got the room. It was then that things got a little out of control. I am not sure if this is common knowledge, but a lot of time, especially with men, they get all aroused when they smoke crack. It is sort of irritating to tell you the truth, because they pick up girls, want to smoke crack and then they want you to pleasure them in a million ways while they get high. They ARE sharing their dope with you so it is basically a trade off. The down side is that the last thing I wanted to do while smoking crack was s*ck someone off. But anyways, Patty was sort of like this. It was all good until the moment when she started getting into the dope then she was a friggen maniac for my vagina and other private parts. Sigh, it was weird. Don't get me wrong, I mean, making out is fun, especially when I don't have to fake that I am enjoying "penetration" or whatever, but it was just weird. I was not naked and was a little shocked when she wanted to "f*ck" me. Fine, whatever, get her off my back and let her do what she wants to do, fake that I was enjoying it, then it's over. BUT.. it came to the point the SHE wanted ME to do the same for her. The same but different.

Now, it is one thing to kiss a girl at a bar or one of your friends when you are playing truth or dare when you are younger, but making out with a real lesbian was something I was not familiar with. All I will say is that I managed to get out of it in the sense that I didn't really have to do anything too serious with her BUT she did want me to fist f*ck her. It was then I realized that just because she doesn't want men, it does not mean she does not want to be "f*cked" in the traditional sense. I was apprehensive but she was very insistent. She had spent a lot of money on drugs and food and the room and I did feel like I owed her. So, I submitted and tried to satisfy her. She was really, really into it. I won't say that I actually DID put my whole fist inside of her but almost. I gave it the old (half assed) college try. She was on all fours..so I could not see her face and she was being very vocal during the attempt. As I said my whole fist wasn't in her but she was screaming for me to basically punch her, that is how hard she wanted me to be "banging" her. It was then that I broke.

I started crying and told her I could not do it. It was too much for me and I was very uncomfortable. Let it be understood that this in NO WAY is a reflection on how I feel about homosexuality. I am just not a lesbian, that is a fact, that is it. The crazy part of this is that really, as a prostitute EVERYTHING is negotiable. Everything. You go into it thinking "oh I would never do -------- and certainly not --------, no matter how much $$". As if, there is things that I would rather not do of course, but every offer is considered. It all depends on the $$ and the request.

I had done unspeakably horrific things (well, at this point in my "career" I was not as flexible in my "boundaries" as I was over time but as I think about it now, it seems weird to me that it was this that I had a problem with). You would think I would have this deep seated hate on for men or something but I didn't. And I still don't (but I must??). It was so easy for me (after the first time) to put myself in a different head space and allow myself to be used basically as a vessel. I mean, of course it wasn't just me lying there when I did dates, guys hire girls for all sorts of reasons, but I am serious when I say that I could have done any number of things while I gave some guy a meaningless hummer. I mean, I was on autopilot, so to speak. But not with Patty.

Okay, so, after I said that I could not do it anymore she calmed down, said she understood and from that point on she was a lot less intense. As the dope ran out she became unmanageable in a different way. She was a big time joneser. She eventually had no more money she could spend and I made some phone calls and used the room to do dates in. We were only there overnight so it wasn't like a parade of men coming in and out..I just called a couple of them and would not only get paid for the date but also would get extra for the cost of the room. I think I told them that I had to compensate someone else for allowing me to use their space.

Check out time came and Patty and I parted ways. She did say that she would be back and I knew she meant it. She had been doing the dope that I had bought with my earnings so I guess maybe that was a bit of an incentive for her. It wasn't like I was giving her mass amounts of dope but I was sharing, no big deal.

On to another encounter with her. It is a fleeting memory but this time I remember that I had been using her for her car for some reason. She was taking me to various places to meet some of my "regular" dates. I still would go downtown to work but it was me this time that had rented the room and she was just there. Jonesing. The room was at the London Guard Motel, on Kingsway. It has been torn down now, but it is a pretty well known place. Us dope addicts love the rooms that have their own entrance, so our frequent comings and goings would not be monitored. So much.

It was late on the night I had rented the room, there was no more crack and I was exhausted, I probably hadn't slept in days and I was fine with going to sleep. I had heroin so I was okay. She was not a heroin user though and was very much opposed to me going to sleep. She actually said to me" you know, lots of girls work Kingsway..you could go do that". I was so pissed off. It was so obvious that she was expecting me and had no shame in asking me to go make money for HER to get crack. Bitch.

I guess it is not an insane concept but she left that night to find fuel elsewhere and I can't remember seeing her again. I will never forget the Patty experience though.

That is it. Nothing overly profound other than yes, women pick up prostitutes too. And I am really not into fisting, not the punching kind anyways.

I also thought I would mention that my spell check tags the word "fisting" as incorrect spelling.

A Celebration of Decline

This time I will be changing a name. Not out of kindness (as if) but just because. I get a thrill when I tell a story about "John" that drove the silver SUV or whatever...because if by some odd chance John ever came across this - he would probably pee his pants thinking that he is outed. When in reality he isn't the only John driving that type vehicle and certainly not the only one with that name/car cruising for girls on the stroll. But I am not going to leave out ANY details besides his real name. It isn't a very common name and for some reason my insides are telling me to leave that much out. Who knows why - but I can't argue with nature.

Okay so there was this guy, doesn't matter what his name is..I will call him D. Klein (ha ha "decline" - but that is his first initial and half of his last name though. Remember!! No one is completely safe). I was out one night working - it was early..and this creme coloured 70's Monte Carlo was cruising. Hard. (Oh, typing "hard" made me think about one sleazy thing some guys used to do. They would cruise for chicks and then pull up to talk to you and actually just be driving around with their c*cks out, masturbating. They would get all thrilled when we would spot their "pieces" through the open window. Like as if we were supposed to be impressed. As if I am going to be sooo into doing a date with him because of what his junk looks like. Idiots.)

So D was cruising and I think I winked at him or something or did something to get his attention, who knows what it was. See most girls would just run after the cars (yes, they did that) so anyone cruising always had to make sure that their doors were locked because girls would jump right in and not get out unless they got some money. I preferred a different approach. If you seem like real person then chances are you would make money faster. Plus, I had lots of confidence, which came hand in hand with being lit up most of the time. So, of course, he parked and came over for a chat. A deal was struck and I agreed to accompany him to his house which was very close by.

He was nice, not bad looking, totally normal and we did what we did and that was it. When he dropped me off I said "see you tomorrow" because I knew he would be back. He was too, the next day, which was sooner than I thought, but money is money.

We ended up spending quite a bit of time together...he grew a particularly obsessive yet totally not unexpected fondness for me. It happens out there, as I have mentioned before. They think they love you, want to save you and all that crap. He was like that but sort of different. Maybe in real life we would have hit it off. Probably not though, doesn't matter really.

He knew I worked the streets and never tried to get me to stop...outright. I would spend the night at his house sometimes and he would leave me some money on the table so I could get well in the morning. Then of course... the inevitable...these guys always want to save you and make you better and then the girl is supposed to be all grateful and he owns her and all that other vomitus stuff. When this would happen with guys one would have to buy into it to a certain extent. What I mean is, is that if they want you to get clean then you tell them you will get clean. Then they give you money, thinking they are investing in the future maybe and everything is fine. They are so oblivious to the fact that you have no intentions of following through but if you tell them that then is no more money. I mean, if I was wasted enough I could say anything and mean it. A few times I probably said I would go to detox and believed it when I said it.

Anyways, we were chilling..time was passing. I think he even gave me a key to his house once....he took me to his work (a bakery that he owned and operated, he supplied most of the baked goods for the airport, etc) and he would feed me...wash my clothes..he even met my parents when I was at their place for a couple of weeks when my Dad had decided to rescue me. D came out there and got me and brought my parent's all this bakery stuff. Of course I told my Dad he was a friend of mine from "recovery" not that he was a "date" and then when he was gone, me and my Dad would laugh (not at him, really) because he wasn't the only one that was trying to get a hold of me at my parent's. We laughed because I was the worst possible candidate for a romance but yet they persisted. (The time at my parent's only lasted about 2 weeks - read back posts if you don't know this.)

So, eventually it came the time that I had to put out or get out as they say. I had put myself into a bit of a corner and I had even made a detox appointment (to get a bed) and everything. It was agreed that I would go make as much money as possible - buy as much dope as I could and then be back at a reasonable hour and have my last hurrah, so to speak. Then go to detox the next afternoon.

That night was a particularly prosperous one for me. My first date took a measly 15 mins and I made about $120 bucks. I called him, stoked, to tell him what happened and I remember he made me so mad. He didn't believe that I had done some simple sexual favour and gotten paid that much. He thought for sure that I must have been anally raped by five guys or something. Like as if he didn't think my time was worth that amount of money. Cheap bastard - just because HE didn't think it was worth that much, that didn't mean every one didn't. Whatever, I made money, went back to his house and the next day came. He had to work that day so he didn't take me to detox, my (previously mentioned) friend Richard did.

I sneaked in some crack with me and made it through the first night. I think I was on methadone at that time so I wasn't overly concerned with being dope sick but jonesing is just as bad. Crack is also a terrifying and intimidating habit to kick, despite it not being "physically addictive (so some say).

The first FULL day I had at detox I had had it arranged that the individual that had dropped me off the day before was to come visit me and then drop a rock in my hand on the way out. BUT, D happened to decide to visit me the same day and ran into Richard at the door. One visitor per person, I guess, and D (having a major hate on for my "friend" Richard) made sure to stay the whole hour so I wasn't able to see the other guy and so I didn't get my rock. Needless to say, I left detox about 15 minutes after visiting time ended. I used to think about that and think what if I HAD gotten that rock, I would have at least made it through detox another day. Maybe.

Oh, and just to be super nice and win over all of the ladies that worked the detox D.Klein even brought me flowers when he came to visit. Later on he told me that when he went back the next day to visit again and found that I was gone....all the ladies told him how sweet he was and that no one ever brought flowers two days in a row. Was I a jerk for leaving? Maybe, I never said I was a princess, he picked me up on the street for f*ck sakes.

D and I had minor dealings after that. Immediately after the whole detox fiasco he made a habit of picking up other girls and driving by me, like as if I cared. I just wanted to do my job and get high, the end. He even chased some cars I got into, screaming that I was his girlfriend. Me and my cohort would just laugh. But of course, D came back, eventually. I had a gift and he wanted it. It was never like it was in the beginning, though. He ended up finding out that I had been raiding his house for hidden money (raiding that took place during our "romance" - I don't know what to call it- but he didn't realize it until months after I did it) and as a payback he acted all nice to me, bought me dope and let me sleep at his house one night. When I woke up and he was gone to work - I saw he left me no money to get well and so I was sick and had to make my way downtown on my own. No money for even bus fare.

That was his best revenge, I guess. It sucked but it wasn't overly harsh. I woke up sick everyday anyways and most of the time I didn't have any money to get better, I had to go and make it first. The only thing that was a bit of a screw over was that if I had known I was going to be broke when I woke up, then I wouldn't have even gone to sleep.

It was just business between us in the end. I never went to his house again though or anything like that. He treated me just as a prostitute after that. He paid me money to do things, and I did them. I know he got sublime satisfaction though on the super cold, winter early mornings that he would see me out there, knowing I was most likely sick as f*ck. He worked really early in the morning and the stroll was actually on the way to his shop.

Four times I was put into detox by "dates" that were having crazy fantasies of our future lives together..and this time was the longest I stayed. 26 hours.

"The Demon Lucy", "I thought you had to be human to drive a taxi" and other charming, rainy Saturday stories.

I am sure to the average person that thinks of the dangers and risks of being a street prostitute include disease, being beaten up and stuff like that. Those are definite issues of the job but one of my own personal and most terrifying incidents was neither one of those things.

I as usual, am using real names because anyone that knows anything about the dope scene downtown will immediately know who I am writing about when I say the name "Ronnie" (and as I have mentioned before I have loyalties to no one on the street - and if on rare occasion I do choose to preserve identity, then lucky them). Ronnie lived in a big house on Marine Drive. This house was sort of famous to the girls of the hood and to certain other individuals.

The first time I met this guy was through another date of mine, Willy...he came around one day telling me that Ronnie had a room at the Regent (I think) and wanted some new girls with which to get naked and wasted. Ronnie was big into buying and selling real estate or companies or something, total business man - he was from a family of money (I am not going to use the J word). He was a total dope fiend. He was around 35-40 ish plus at the time (? maybe?) and was like 5 ft tall. I went with Willy when he asked me to and I guess it was odd to him that I had never had dealings with Ronnie - girls on the street jumped on Ronnie, they loved him. When they had nothing going on they would call him at his house and ask to come over. He always had dope and money and he had a pool and it was total debauchery apparently.

As an aside I will mention that Willy and I had had many successful dealings in the past. He was a total weekend crack head - he had a job and appeared normal but on the weekend he would get super crazy on crack. He would only smoke crack in his bathroom with the tap on - in case his neighbors could hear his lighter when he went to do his tokes (as if). He would give his cat to his downstairs neighbor -which is nice- and would set his apartment alarm from the inside in case anyone tried to get in or get out. He would cease to speak after the first ten minutes of getting high or so and would develop major trust issues. He picked up girls for sex and company but also was always on the search for the perfect girl that wouldn't make him sketchy when he was high and could keep him from getting all paranoid. Our first "date" was great but almost every one after that was messy. Messy but I always got paid and he always came back. I remember him silently crying one time and using begging body language to keep me from leaving when I was tripped out by his creepiness. He did NOT under any circumstances want to turn off that apartment alarm but I told him I was going to scream and so he eventually had to let me out. The thing is, is that Willy not on crack was a total dude. Normal as can be. We hung out other times and did E and sometimes he would come find me when a friend of his needed a girl - and AHEM, I was on the top of his list. It was good to not be a weirdo because a lot of repeat business in this "profession" (har har) is by word of mouth. Which is what led him to find me that particular day and bring me to Ronnie. If it matters, Willy was not getting high that day - he was in no way a social user. He needed his controlled environment and all that.

There was a few girls there, in Ronnie's room at the hotel...your typical idiots..the usual. We ended up going back to his "mansion" and continued to get high and hang out, etc. He actually had a girlfriend at the time, her name was "Lucy" and she was not a downtown girl but she was a dope fiend all the same. She hated when girls were at the house and wouldn't hang out with us - she would just come in the room once in a while and be intimidating and stuff. I didn't like her. She was hot though and very tall.

At the end of it all I was the girl he wanted to have stay but Lucy was seriously giving me bad vibes and since I wanted to go back downtown he took me to a swanky hotel on Davie, rented me a room so I could sleep if I wanted to and left me a bunch of cash and dope to stay and wait for him to come back. He never came back and I didn't care.

One unassuming afternoon a fellow "co-worker" Elise and I were both working Campbell Ave and there was nothing happening and Elise said she was gonna go call Ronnie. She called him and me thinking that he won't even remember me anyways - I said fine I will go for a little while and then we can come back downtown. Ronnie agreed to pay for our taxi and so we went. AT the time I think I had been awake for about 2 and a half days. I had been staying with this guy Carl who was a dope fiend as well so he never really expected me back at his house...he just knew that I would show up eventually.

So Elise and I go to Ronnie's. It is just the three of us at the time but after a bit Lucy shows up. During her absence Ronnie had told us that he was so sick of her but she would not leave and she was using all his dope and making him spend his money on clothes for her all the time and that she was very jealous of other women that were around him.

Anyways, no need to draw it out ...we got high, smoked crack, did down...blah blah blah. We did - not Lucy. We ended up downstairs and from what I was TOLD Lucy had passed out in the main bedroom upstairs. Elise was wanting to leave after a few hours but Ronnie did not want me to go. I really didn't want to stay especially since Elise had told me about the last girl that Ronnie had kept there while Lucy was in the house. She told me Lucy had came up behind this female and bashed her in the back of the head with a baseball bat. Being the pussy I was and being so afraid of physical threat I was really not wanting to stay. But Ronnie kept saying it was fine that I should just stay, that Lucy was sleeping, that he would take me to a taxi if I changed my mind etc. So fine, I said I would stay and Elise left.

He had been pumping us with dope the whole time we were there, obviously. He would cook his own dope from powdered cocaine, lots of people do. You can buy it pre-made or make it your self. He would just dump a bunch of coke into this metal measuring cup then add some baking soda (in case you were wondering how it was made, kids) and then apply gradual heat...etc. It was gluttonous really but he could afford it.

As I mentioned I had been awake for days. I was really good at handling my dope but on rare occasion I would freak out a little. On top of the sleep deprivation and the copious amounts of cocaine and heroin I had been doing in such a short amount of time, compounded with the ever present threat of the wrath of Lucy..I guess it all created this chasm of destruction inside my brain.

What happened still gives me chills when I think about it and it scared me to the most inner core of my being.

Ronnie left the room for one reason for another and I was left alone with the TV on, sitting on a bed for quite a few minutes. All I know is that one minute I was looking for my lighter so I could smoke my dope and then I realized something: I didn't know who the f*ck I was.

I knew that I was going to tell Ronnie that I wanted to leave as soon as he was back in the room but when I was thinking about where I wanted to go when I left his house...I had no idea. Of course my destination was Carl's apartment on Nanaimo but I didn't know that at the time. I mean, that knowledge was gone. It was at THAT point that I came to the realization that I didn't know where I was, where I was going, I had no idea who I was, what was my name or anything. Maybe that doesn't seem scary to you but I assure you it was truly horrifying. Not knowing who you are is not a fun experience. I can't even stress to you how helpless a feeling it is. I mean, it isn't like you sort know what is going on, it is like in the movies where a person gets amnesia and is at the mercy of those around them. I mean, you know you are a person - but what person are you?

It isn't even that I was just void of thought and rational information. I was totally aware of what was happening but in regards to the core things one knows about themselves, I had nothing. It was literally black, empty.

Ronnie came back in the room and I didn't tell him what was going on other than that I had to go. HAD TO. He drove me to the 7-11, gave me $40 for a taxi (he had already had given me tonnes of dope) and dropped me off after he told a taxi driver to take me downtown.

I had started to come to in regards to certain information..I remembered my name slowly..then eventually the knowledge of Carl's apartment came to me, etc. I had no idea how much the taxi would cost and I needed to go get a lighter (I hadn't found mine at Ronnie's) and my plan was to just buy one with some of the dope that I had. Crack is like money. Of course, Carl would have a lighter I knew that - but he was a crazy drug addict too and there was no guarantee that he would even be at home to let me in when I got there. I needed to make sure I could still smoke while I waited for him, if I waited.

The driver took me to Hastings where I got a lighter (he knew what I was doing, the cabbies down there are very in the know about what goes on) and then took me in the direction of Carl's house.

When the driver had taken me to get the lighter I had given him $20 to wait for me before I jumped out so he knew I was coming back once I got it. I was still very shaken up - don't be thinking I was all back to normal. A person doesn't just forget everything and then bounce back from that with out a second thought. I was still reeling from it all and was vulnerable maybe...

When we got in front of Carl's apartment and I went to give the taxi driver the other twenty bucks, I couldn't find it (the drive from R's to get lighter then to C's was like $35 altogether). I was frantic. I looked all over the cab - then I thought I must have dropped it on the street when I was getting the lighter on Hastings. I started crying and telling the guy I had no more money and that I wasn't trying to scam him and that I just had NO MORE MONEY. He then told me to give him my dope. AS IF - I had like a friggen' eight ball and I was in no hurry to give him any of it. So then he decides that there is another way I can pay him. With a f*cking bl*wjob. Of course, I have no choice but to agree.

There I am, not in my right mind....totally unstable..now crying and he has his hand on the back of my head ferociously making me go down on him ("making me" in the sense that it wasn't for fun - he wanted something for the ride he had given me in his cab).

Afterwards, when I got out and he drove away I realized that I had given him both bills and not just one when we had arrived to pick up my lighter. He knew I had given all that money to him and he still totally took advantage of the situation.

Carl WAS home when I got there - I told him everything and I was crying and he hugged me (we were sort of like that) went got me some super good heroin and then we smoked all of my crack. The end.

Ronnie doesn't live in that house anymore. I heard that he moved onto some farm and had these delusional fantasies about having a n animal rescue thing going on, so I heard.

Ode to Norm : Black Evidence

This next post is an homage to one of my old regulars, Norm. This isn't his real name, but it is not far off. I just didn't want to obviously out him,.. just maybe out him a little bit...The chance of anyone putting two and two together, and actually figuring out who he is, is less than likely. Of course, the more details I share, the higher chance of him being "recognized". Any girl that worked the area would probably be familiar with the individual I am writing about. On the off chance that he himself stumbles across this, he would know it was him, and for that, I feel sort of bad. But not bad enough.

One Friday night I was picked up an English guy, his name was Norm (you can't have any idea how badly I want to use his real name....first and last). He looked totally normal, attractive, quasi-stylish, etc. He wanted me to score some dope (crack) and then we would go get one of those $20/hr rooms they offer at various 5 star establishments in the downtown eastside. These type of dates are good. Taking your clothes off is usually part of it, but generally the guy thinks that he will be this massive stud/stallion with regards to his sexual prowess, but more often than not, it is the exact opposite.

As I said these dates were good. It would be indoors, he paid for the dope, he was attractive, nice, and seemed clean . So, we did our hour, smoked the dope, and then he gave me some money to go get more, which I promptly took and left with no intention of coming back. I had a prior "engagement" and business is business after all. I had my own best interests at heart. Served him right for trusting me, right? Well, no actually. I usually always came back when given money to go get dope, but not this time.

So, I was very surprised (well not overly surprised I was fabulous, even for a sex trade worker- get rid of the track marks and I could have passed for a really, really tired college student - ha ha) when he picked me up again the next weekend. He said he didn't care that I didn't come back the previous Friday, it wasn't much money that I had taken. This time though, we went to his house after I scored. He became one of those dates that I have mentioned in prior posts, one that thinks that maybe he is in love or something, they forget that the girl is being paid to be there, that why she is so nice and agreeable, etc. As long as I had my dope paid for I was fine, but after a time (weeks) he was getting into dope crazy, crazy like. He would drive me downtown in the morning so I could score cause I would dope sick, and I would always buy down AND up, and soon enough he was wanting to get high before he went to work. He was an ESL teacher. And as soon as he would get home from work he wanted to smoke crack right after he walked in the door (I can relate to this, but he had not been like this in the beginning of our acquaintance). Then of course he would want to get all sexual, and not be able to perform (which was fine by me). He was attractive, had the saucy accent, blah blah, but something about him just grossed me out, I didn't like doing dates with him at all. There was a couple of reasons for this. One being that I actually found it offensive that all he wanted to do when he got high was pretend to have sex (I say pretend, because we both knew it wouldn't happen) , but also because I smoked crack daily, I could remain relatively mentally "sound" and didn't get all wigged out and weird like him, and I would just want to talk. I would get pissed off that he wouldn't listen to what I was saying to him, all I he could think of was sex. Apparently crack can have this effect on the males of our species. I was a drug addicted prostitute but I wasn't blind, and he looked way better with his clothes on. It was easier to do dates with men I didn't know, than men I had gotten to know. The more you know someone, the more you are aware of them as a person, and my job wasn't to have sex with a "person". Oh and by the way, the whole "Pretty Woman" no kissing clause, is bunch of bullsh*t. I would prefer not to have to kiss, but if the price is right everything is negotiable.

The reason I am telling this story is because it still amusing some facet of my soul. Don't get me wrong I feel like a jerk because I am sort of making fun of him, and I did deplete his savings and took part in his descent into crack usage, but he had used before, so I am not totally evil. I didn't even WANT him to use, I just wanted him to get dope for me, but if I had to put up with his weird and pathetic self to get well, then I had to do what I had to do.

Some people are allright when they get high, others are so obviously under the influence that one can actually feel embarrassed for them. He used to get so paranoid. I remember one time he took me to score in the middle of the night, and there was a roadblock due to a car accident, and he actually thought that the cops had set up the entire thing to just to bust his ass. This paranoia is not out of the ordinary though, psychosis is a real side effect especially from coke. I too fell victim once in a while, but usually only if I had been awake for days. One time I was in my friend's room at a slimy hotel, and he went to score, and while he was gone I swore I could hear him through the vent in the floor taking to some guys and planning my murder. Even when he came back, I didn't believe him when he said I was nuts, and I took off. If I was outside I could at least run from these would be murderers. Norm was always paranoid, and the dope actually made him stupid-er than he already was in everyday life. He was a nice man, but a total easy mark for a girl like I me.

For example, we had scored a bunch of coke one night, and ended up going to sleep with some left un-smoked, and so the next day he gave me some for me to have and then hid the rest in his room for when he got home from work. He actually left me $20 too, so I could get my methadone (which I wasn't on, but he didn't know that- I had him believing this because I was having to make false promises that I would get off of heroin). When he hid his portion of dope I had every intention of respecting his wishes and just smoking my dope, and then taking off for downtown to get well. But of course, that isn't what happened. I did what dope I had, then about ten seconds after that, I had found his hiding spot and proceeded to blow through his as well. I just wanted a bit, but I smoked it all. I actually felt bad, and wanted to cover my tracks in case he found out. My plan was to put bunk dope in his hiding place (I actually used pieces of white hand soap) and was just going to go downtown, make money and buy more crack and be back before he got home from work. But, he had gotten off work early that day (probably because he knew he could get high once he got home). I wasn't overly worried about what would happened if he did discover my attempt at covering my tracks, he was sort of a wimp, and he needed me to score dope for him. It wasn't like he couldn't get too mad. I worry though, that I am making myself seem like a total b***h here, by taking his money, dissing him, etc. Realistically though, he would have been getting high with another female, if I wasn't there. Better me than her.

By the time I got myself back his place in Kits, he was already there. I was waiting for him to give me a hard time about doing his dope, but he said nothing. I had purposely took all the smoking utensils (pipes, etc.) with me when I left, in case he did return before me. But there he was, not letting on that he knew I was guilty, and he just says to me, "oh, we have that dope, do you want to smoke it", and I said sure....then I notice that there was a tiny piece of a broken pipe on the kitchen table. He must have fished it out of somewhere. In this glassware was a horrible, black, burnt toke sized nugget of the soap. He had tried to smoke it when he got home, but when it burned black the way it did, I guess he assumed that he was doing it incorrectly and just waited for me to get there. I used to give him shit all the time about burning the dope anyways, so I guess in his mind it made sense that he must have lit his pipe incorrectly. I mean, smoking crack IS a skill after all (laugh). I couldn't believe it though, he really had no idea that I had done the swapped his crack for hand soap. Wow. Come ON.

His dad actually died after some time (months), and I guess it snapped him out of the mind space he was in, and he moved in with his mom to take care of her, and so he could clear his head. I was fine with that, it was getting harder to get cash out of him anyways, plus eventually even I started to feel bad taking his money. I knew how broke he was, plus, it wasn't even like I was earning it, cause I never did dates with him when I saw him. I was just bleeding him financially.

I would see him once in a while though, he eventually moved back to Van from White Rock, and still wanted to get high once in a while, but I wasn't the only girl he would pick up.

One of the last times we did see each other, I had asked him about the other girls he spent time with and if they were weird or freaky, who were they, etc. He proceeded to tell me that the girl from his last bender had taken him to her place in a hotel and as soon as he was high he had taken his clothes off and asked her to do the same. He always did that. It's like they "assume" that we too, want to have sex as soon as we get high, when in reality, we would rather do anything but. So there he was, naked, high, waiting for this girl to tend to his "needs" when there was a loud banging on the door. He guessed that when the girl had gone to score she had set up a scam with the dope dealer. The dealer banged on the door, making threats thug style. She opens the door and then the dealer says that she is his woman and accuses Norm of molesting her. Norm, being the champ that he is when under the influence, was relieved of his clothing, dope and his wallet, and was made to fend for himself once he was evicted from the room...(naked).

This makes me feel kind of sorry for him, so much so that I had to use a fake name. It wasn't his fault that he was so ridiculous.

Maybe I was the villain in this story. Or maybe some people just weren't born to do drugs, it isn't in their DNA. (laugh)

In the Patricia Parking Lot with Peter

And yes, his name really is Peter and he used to drive a white cavalier. He wore glasses and lived in Burnaby.

It was a really rainy, gross night (most of my stories have this setting for some reason, but this is how I remember it). I had started out the evening dope sick, and had managed to score one date with a regular- was paid $30. It is hard to get a date when it is ugly outside, and every girl will be out trying to make money, and the guys know that they can negotiate cause everyone of us needs the money BAD.

I was pretty stoked I had that money. I was able get myself well, basically, and was also able to get some crack to keep me company while I worked. I wasn't one of those girls that would go make money, go buy dope, and go back to work when the dope ran out, the usual vicious cycle. I preferred to make money, go buy dope, THEN go back to work right away. It did make the whole "process" a little less offensive to my soul. The soul I still had somewhere deep inside of me.

Pretty much right after I had bought what I needed and had fixed the heroin,

a regular of mine pulls up to the curb before I even had a chance to do a hit of the up that I had. It was Peter, and I was STOKED. It is awesome when you could do back to back dates, especially when the streets were deserted.

I had known Peter for a while, he was young, he grew weed for money, and was a normal guy. I wouldn't say that we were friends...cause one friend usually doesn't pay the other friend to perform sexual favors. But we were familiar, I had been to his house. When we did hook up, we did the date first and then we would always hang out for a while, and go to Stanley Park or something. He would smoke his weed, and I would do my dope.

I got in his (lame) white cavalier and we drove about 10 feet and he pulled into the Patricia Hotel parking lot. He said he had to take a "leak" and then we would go. He got out and starts urinating against the wall that was right at the front of the car where we had parked in one of the stalls. I took the opportunity to load my pipe and light it up. After a minute or two, when he was walking back to the car, I took no notice of him walking past the door to the back of the car. A couple more minutes pass, and I glanced behind me to see what he was doing, and guess what? Apparently, cops, the fuzz, or "six" (as we called them downtown) had been driving by and saw what he was doing, and pulled in to check him out. I had turned around right when they were getting out of the car and began asking him questions.

I am thinking , "Please Peter, don't be an idiot..", and then I notice that they were doing sobriety tests on him, and he was failing miserably. I had no idea he was drunk. Not that it mattered to me, it wasn't like I was going to not go with him cause he was driving under the influence. Finally this male cop comes up to my door, whilst his female partner is cuffing for drunk driving, even though he wasn't technically driving at the time.

I never tried to make excuses for what I was doing, whenever I was questioned by the police, but I was pissed off cause my date was going to jail, with the money I could have made. I got out as the cop is asking me, is there anything in the car that is illegal. I say that I had no idea. I knew about Peter and his weed, so not wanting to get my ass in trouble, I told the cop that Peter smokes weed, and if there is any in the car, it isn't mine. He finds Peter's stash under the driver's seat. My cop goes over to him and is asking him about the weed, and I can actually hear Peter blaming it on ME! Can you believe it? What a prick.

Cop comes back over, and wants to know if my bag contains any drugs, needles etc. I said "hell yeah, there's needles in it". I had thrown crack loose into my bag when I saw the cops. I often did this, cause they would have no idea if it is just garbage or who knows what in the bag, they are looking for a container, or something more obvious. Even with their little blue latex gloves, they don't wanna be getting poked by a "rogue", uncapped needle. Most people are HIV positive down there.

He starts searching my bag, finds my pipe, smashes it and says, "If I find something in here, and you lied to me, I can take you to jail". I had no idea if he was serious or what, but I said yes, I did have dope and I got it out for him. He didn't even go through my whole bag, so I probably would have gotten away with NOT telling him. By this time, Peter's car was already on the tow hook and on the way to the impound lot, and he was in the back of the cop car. He was probably so pissed off that I walked away. Ha ha, of course, they no reason to detain me. (Unless giving a good ******* is a crime- laugh- that was a joke)

After he confiscated my dope he proceeds to say all sorts of sympathetic sh*t to me, about how I seem like such a nice girl, I am being so cooperative and how I didn't belong down there. He saw I only had a minor record, and told me that I needed to get out of downtown and the whole lifestyle. He gets out one of his business cards and writes on the back the number for an organization that specializes in helping sex trade workers get themselves together. He said, "tell the Tom sent you".

I cried. Cried for various reasons: because my dope was gone, which was a "burn". I got to do ONE "toke" and that was it, my dope was gone. I cried because it was as if I just did sexual favors for some guy for nothing, since I had nothing to show for my "effort" (DOUBLE BURN). I cried because this cop was so nice, and I really felt that he meant what he said. I knew he was right, I was way nicer and way less screwed up than most of the lifers down there. I can't even explain it, but I felt his sincerity in whatever was left of my soul. Enough so that I remember him, years later.

But I never called the number, so I never did get to tell them that Tom had sent me.

I have written 2 posts that involved some sort of interaction with police officers that were sort of cool. As cool as a police officer can be, anyways. This is not always the case (female cops were never nice from what I remember). I did a date with a cop once, and he was hot even, but he was super creepy. I could not wait to get away. He tried to pick me up again another time, and I said no. Maybe he wasn't a cop though, it isn't like I asked to see his badge.

Well, I did see his badge, in a sense.