Pill Whore

You used to cut the coke with baby aspirin and baking soda. You could flip an 8ball like a quad. That means just about nothing to most people, but the kids you ran with would marvel at that statement and treat you like a goddamn god.

Megan never noticed that the gram you would sell her every other day was weak. She might have, if she hadn’t been so fucked up on pills, the pills you used to sell her, and using the baby aspirin coke to bring herself back up from it. She might have noticed if she wasn’t trying to coat her brain with powders; white to speed her up, pink to slow her down, light blue to completely incapacitate her. You sold her ketamine once. She liked that all too much, muttering on about how she could watch herself like a TV show, from above, flying. Her eyes sat in her doughy face, thick black eyeliner getting slathered wider around her eyes, trying desperately to cover up the purple bags sagging under them. She hadn’t lost much weight, unlike most of the other junkies that started calling you all too often. You used to go meet them somewhere, the Meijer parking lot, the Steak n’ Shake, the park, all of the lonely places in your town that would never catch a glimpse of the handshake that took just a little too long and was a little too sloppy, as tiny plastic bags slid across a hand full of bills, the exchange done in as secret a way as possible. But they would never come to your house. You lived with your parents still, you did. You had moved back home after failing out, doing too many drugs yourself and fucking up. Now you’re a dealer, trying to make money until you can find a job, trying to find an apartment so that you can move out of your parents ranch house with the big yard, the big black room you call your own, and the refrigerator that is always stocked.

Megan is the only customer you let inside your house. You’ve known each other forever, since you were kids. She always was bigger, especially in the middle, the thighs, the arms, the tits. Oh, the tits. You still think about that night the year before when you had your chance; she was jealous of the girl, her pretty blonde friend that you were hitting on and to assert her dominance, she started kissing you. You got a hand up her shirt, for a while. Then you moved and she fucked your best friend, then started doing coke, stopped fucking your best friend, and started visiting you, brown eyes glossy and shining in your dull basement light, asking you for a favor.

“I don’t have any cash right now.” She said, running her hand along the top of her tank top. It was winter, don’t forget, so why was she wearing a tank top?

“Then you don’t get any of this.” You said, shaking the bag in the air. You smiled.

“Well, I mean, is there something else I can do? A favor maybe? Something more interesting?” She was being coy, batting her eyelashes, looking silly, really, a girl trying too hard. You remember when she was eleven, falling down in gym class, scrapping her knee and crying, even though she didn’t break the skin all that much.

“I don’t think I know what you’re getting at.” You lie. You remember that time you had just started high school, and she asked you what it was like, as if it were some special privilege that you received, something great, terrifying, wonderful.

“I think you do.” She says, slipping her left strap off of her shoulder, the black bra strap falling as well, meeting the red fabric of her shirt, and you remember the night that you kissed, fighting hard to race the sun when you would have to leave, go back to your house; you wanted to go further, to start exploring, to start working your way inside her jeans, but you got stopped in her shirt, her friend asleep in the bed next to you, dawn rapidly approaching. Megan takes a step towards you, from the black frame couch you have pressed up against your wall, to the bed in the corner that you sit on, wooden stash box filled with baggies in your lap. She drops the other straps, her shirt barely clutching onto her now heaving breasts as she inhales and exhales in what you guess is a sexy way, in through pursed lips, out through her nose, the ring in it vibrating with each breath.

You think and you think and you think. What will you do in this situation? Chances are, you’ll probably laugh it off, tell her to fuck off, and spend the rest of the night masturbating while thinking of her.