Page 115 of Life of the Party

I just wanted to get the dope and get out of there.

“Here you go, ladies.” The man who introduced himself as Jack strode back into the room. He was good-looking, with longer blonde hair and a huge, built body.

He handed Courtney a little black balloon full of something.

“Uh…” My craving overcame my terror and stupidly, I spoke. “The kind I had was like, powder. Do you have any of that? China White, I think? You can sniff it.”

“No.” Jack looked at me from the side of his eye, like it angered him I’d opened my mouth. I clamped it shut. “Black tar is all we serve here. Like it or leave it.”

The way he said it sounded like a threat.

“No, no, this is good.” Courtney shot me a glare. “I just don’t think she knows how to do it this way. Can you show her?”

I wanted to intercede, to tell them I had no interest doing it any other way, but at the moment I was too petrified to argue, terrified of angering this lumbering hulk of a drug dealer any further. My tongue seemed swollen, dry, stuck to the roof of my mouth. I didn’t know what to do. And I wanted the heroin.

“Why didn’t you say so?” Jack smiled at me, creepily, like he enjoyed teaching new users how to inject. “Let old Jacky here show you how it goes.”

He sat down on the beat-up recliner beside us, pulling out a kit from beside his chair. He took out a spoon, a lighter, a cotton ball, some water, and two clean syringes, setting everything down on the coffee table in front of us.

At the sight of the needles, my heart began to hammer furiously in my chest.

I hated needles with such a passion. In school they had to wrap me up in a sheet for immunizations, and the only way I could get my bellybutton ring was with Riley shielding me from the sight, holding my hand.

My mouth went horribly dry, like the cotton ball on the coffee table. The part of me that was already scared nearly got up off the chair and bolted, but I knew I couldn’t go now; I was trapped there, feeble, helpless. I tried to calm myself down, to focus on the heroin and how good it felt, how good it was going to feel. How all of this would be worth it, in the end. It didn’t work. The same panicky sentence repeated itself over and over in my mind, “Not safe, not safe, not safe, not safe…” I wanted to cry.

I wished for Grey, prayed for Riley. For anyone to come and get me out of there.

Jack took a chunk of dark, sticky heroin from our balloon and put it on the spoon. He added a splash of water and then expertly flicked the lighter below to heat up the concoction. I watched the heroin dissolve, turning the liquid an oily, browny-black.

Using a little piece of cotton as a filter, he sucked some up into a syringe. “Ready?”

I shook my head as he held the needle menacingly towards me.

“N-No, I think I’m good.” I stammered thickly.

“You aren’t yet.” Jack chuckled, wickedly. “But you will be. You will be.”

He clamped the syringe between his teeth, grasping my arm and wrapping one of those rubber band things around it, the kind they use at the hospital, the kind that pinch the skin with their tightness. I tried to pull away, my heart hammering wildly as I watched the veins sticking up.

I couldn’t get my arm free. What had I done? What had I gotten myself into? Jack grasped the syringe, holding it just above my elbow, his other hand clenched around me like a vice. Holding me. Still. Trapped. Helpless. Tears of terror stinging my eyes.

“No-no! Please. Don’t!” I pleaded.

Then he plunged the needle into my arm.

It was instant. It was intense. It was wonderful, beautiful, magical. All the fear was gone, all the tension, all the anxiety. I’ve never felt so good in my entire life, I’ve never known that kind of euphoria—not in all my drug use had I even been so overcome with such overwhelming bliss. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t do anything but relax against the couch cushions, my mouth open in awe, a tear slipping down my cheek. I was awash in utter joy, I could feel the heroin dancing in my veins, spreading and peaking and making me tremble with uncontrollable pleasure.

Charlie went next. Suddenly she was beside me on the couch, slack and motionless, her eyes shut and a peaceful, ecstatic smile on her face.

I don’t know how long we lay there for. I forgot everything, my fear of the sweaty men, the dirty junky-ness of the house, the unbearable heat.

I couldn’t even feel the heat. It couldn’t even touch me.

When I came to, we were back in Courtney’s car. Charlie was slumped over in the front seat, Courtney driving us around our darkened town, smoking, humming quietly along with the intro to the Rolling Stones song, “Gimme Shelter”.

“How you feeling?” She chuckled, eyeing me in the rearview.

I didn’t know how to put it into words, the warm nothingness that consumed me, the peaceful lethargy I felt, the emanating bliss that wound its way through my entire being. “…Good…” I answered simply, my head nodding with pleasure.

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