Broke, Fat, Black, and Ugly

Chapter 5

"Mom. Mom!" Someone was pushing me. I opened my eyes. Stace hung over me. She must have covered me with a throw. I was warm under it. My naked body had been so cold all weekend! "Is he gone?" She looked even more frightened than yesterday. "I-I locked the door. Was that okay?"

"Oh, Sweetheart, it's over." I told her. At least, for now it was. Getting up, I wrapped the throw around me and went to my bedroom. Donald lay still on the bed.

"Honey." I called softly.

"Hnngg?" He grunted and opened one eye.

"We have to get you to a hospital."

"C-can't afford it." He croaked.

"I don't care. There's a reason he did this to you."

"He hates white people."

I didn't think that was it. Honestly, I was surprised he hadn't done something worse to Stace than tie her up and gag her.

"What's this?" I noticed a corner of paper sticking out from under the pillow by Donald's head.

"Nothing." He groaned and tried to cover it with a hand.

I plucked it easily away from his slow attempt. It was a handwritten note. The penmanship was excellent. A knife cut my heart, reading it.

"Three days of shit in your veins means one thing, Fag Wad. You're gonna need more, and I'm gonna give it to you. I don't want your fucking money. I'll dose you for free, any time you want, unless if I think it'll kill you. You ain't getting away that easy. Those joneses you'll have to sweat out. You're mine, Dick Nub. If you call the cops again, you'll suffer so much, a pansy like you would probably slit their throat rather than survive withdrawal."

"I'm calling the Heroin Hotline." Terry had left my phone on the kitchen table.

Donald shook his head and cried.

"Hello, we're poor and my husband is addicted. What can I do to help him?"

The young man on the other end of the line was eager to show his commitment. "There's a public treatment center in Bellevue. I can forward your call."

BELLEVUE! I'm in gods damned Ranier! I wanted to yell. It takes three buses and as many hours to get there. Donald would be puking his guts by the time he got there. "I said so in lesser terms."

"I'm sorry, but the Ranier clinic was closed by a neighborhood association ballot proposal."

"How can I help my husband overcome this?"

"Self treatment is dangerous, Ma-am. If he has any medical issues, they could be exacerbated by the chemical changes that take place, or the violent tremors. He could die."

"FUCK!" I did say and hung up.

Donald tried to sound like a man instead of an addicted, drugged mouse. "I'll get over it. I saw a movie once. Chain me to the bed-"

I ran out of the room, sobbing!

"Why doesn't Daddy want to go to the hospital?"

"The police will find out." I told Stace.

"We should call the cops!"

"It won't do any good." I had lost all confidence in the greater Seattle area's police.

"I'll call them." She reached for my phone. I tucked it away.

"NO. I'm going to use your father's painkillers to get the poison out of his system."

I nearly killed my husband with an overdose of legal opiates, that Wednesday.

Nothing of our situation stopped me from going to work, Monday, if an hour late. I made up for it by working late. Melissa growled at me when I arrived and thanked me when I left.

I used the LINK stop closest my house. Terry couldn't do anything worse to me, as long as I didn't go to the BBQ. I walked past an empty corner of the street, where he previously begged for change.

Wednesday evening, I came home to Donald puking in the toilet. He had eaten every sweet in the house. Stace was locked in her room, which had been her normal, until our home had been invaded.

"Those painkillers hardly take the edge off of my back. They're doing nothing for my aching head!" He almost yelled. He was pale and sweating.

"Then we'll go to the hospital."

"NO!" He shouted. "I'll get through this."

I had to sleep on the broken couch, while he writhed, agonized on our marriage bed. He woke me up at 3am. "Honey, I think I could make it, if I just got one shot. Just a little one, enough to take the edge off."

He didn't stop pestering me, until I left for work an hour early. I came home and found Stace crying on the stairwell. "He hit me, Mommy!" She threw herself on me. I left her outside, while I stormed into our home.

"I didn't mean, Honey. I'm sorry. It was just a slap-"

I slammed the door on my way outside where Stace trembled. "Go to one of your friends, until dinner. Call me then."

I jogged down to the BBQ. I checked from a distance. It was open, and there was no sign of Terry. There was a good chance he was inside. I risked that Angus was a decent sort and entered.

Four older men and women were eating at a table. I went to the counter. "I'm looking for Terry."

"Huh." Angus scratched his head. "He's not here, but he told me you might stop by." The cook pulled an envelope from under the cash register. "It's for you." It was marked with a C. "I thought your name was Ruby."

"It is." I took the envelope. It was heavier than expected. I thanked Angus and left. I opened it carefully. Inside was another paper packet. There was a note too, but daylight was fading. I hurried home.

"I watched him cook it." Donald's hand shook while grabbing matches, a candle, and a big spoon.

"We don't have a syringe."

My husband looked away from me. "He left one in my socks drawer."

Pussy, I mentally shouted at my husband. I hoped his hand shook the foul liquid right off of the spoon.

"It'll be okay. He was shooting me up my veins. But I'll just stick my muscles. Enough to take the edge off." He promised.

I checked in with Donald, half an hour later. He gave me a weak smile. I crushed Terry's note in my hand. Then I forced myself to read it.

"I promised I'd give the shit to your limp dick husband, for free, but I won't deliver, and I've bothered Angus for the last time. You'll find me easy enough, when you need to."

Donald's low doses strategy wasn't terrible, but heroin's ability to enslave the brain is only exceeded by morphine and nicotine. All he did was prolong the inevitable. He stretched out the packet for a week. We tried internet alternatives that we could afford but not get arrested for. Whether they helped, I don't know, but I thought they were a waste of time. Three days after licking the packet clean, Donald dragged himself to me, eyes bloodshot. "I'm a stupid fool."

I was tempted to agree, angry enough to slap him. My temper had been flaring. Work sucked as usual. Stace's rebellion against us threw back all of our neglect and frustration. Donald neglected me too, in our bed. It was understandable, and after my first two rapes I didn't want anyone to touch me. Only after being forced to cling to a warm, naked body for an entire weekend had my aversion to touch relented. My pussy felt empty.

I hated Terry all the more when Donald dropped to his knees and cried from his suffering. I was the worse fool. My husband didn't have to ask. I had just returned home, greeted by his pathetic groveling. I turned around and strode back out the door.

Okay, Terry, if you're so easy to find when my husband needs a fix of your shit, I'll walk randomly around the neighborhood, and you'll magically appear. That's what I was thinking as I padded wet streets. I figured I'd have a long walk to myself without worrying about punching into work in time, or if my ******** was getting fucked after discovering the cock slut that was her mother. I did think about that. It was good for a laugh.

My phone rang. Its tiny LCD screen flashed, "Terry." The fucking fuck must have added a contact during my ******'s ordeal. I assumed he was calling from a local shop that was kind to the homeless. Once again, his abilities didn't add up to being a bum.

Feeling self-conscious, I looked up and down the damp street before answering. I was the most suspicious person about. I ducked under an apartment building's awning and huddled in the least conspicuous corner before answering.

"How did you know?"

"The only thing I'm going to tell you, Cunt, is where to find relief for your dickless, addicted husband."

"You're not giving away free shit out of the kindness of your heart, Terry. What's your game?"

"The same game I've been hunting since you waggled your pert butt past my cup, dipping down to stuff a dollar my way."

"I'd rather lock Donald out of the house until he suffers that shit out of his system, than let you ever touch me again."

"You do that, Cunt." He laughed and hung up.

I screamed at the sky but resisted throwing my phone at the sidewalk. Where was the rain when you needed it to hide your tears? I sobbed until I got that dumbshit out of my system. Which dumbshit? I hated Donald and Terry equally.

Ignoring my husband's resumed groveling, I knocked on Stace's door. "I'm coming in." She didn't respond. I wrenched the door open and flung myself inside. "I don't know what to do." I gushed stupidly.

My ******** looked up from her desk. She had been studying. "You want my advice!" She snorted.

"I want you to care. You can't escape what's happening." I fell to my knees before her and literally cried on her shoulder.

She held my head to her. "Mom." She didn't need to say more.

My anguish softened into self pity. I cried until I babbled. "If I go to him, he'll give your *** a fix."

"If you do, you'll have to do it again next week."

"I know. I'm so stupid."

"You want to go to him." Her voice crackled.

"I don't. I hate him."

"Then don't. Stuff *** in a taxi to the hospital."

"The bills will bankrupt us."

"Call the police."

"I'm already complicit, giving your *** drugs."

"Then go to him." She emptied her hands of me and glared at her text book. What did she care?




...to be continued...