Submissive Beauty Wants to be Used VI

David had made enemies of everyone here in our park. Basically because he was so shitfaced all of the time, he ran his mouth too much. He had an incredibly big mouth. For about a year and a half, David had been stealing cases of product from his employer, Billy, and his vendors. He then sold the product to everyone who would buy it, from the party store at the corner, to the people on our block. This made him popular with some; he was always giving away free booze. But others were jealous of David's obvious success- which was stupid. He'd probably end up in prison, if there’s any justice. Then David wrecked the company vehicle driving drunk.
 "Mom dad's home. Mom wake up. Something's wrong with dad!" Taylor was shaking me and I started to come around slowly. I was sleeping a lot then. I just had the breast surgery one week prior.
"What? What is going on?" I said groggily. I couldn't seem to get the peace of sleep out of my head and body. Taylor was standing in the kitchen by the back door. He was looking out of the little window on it.
"Dad's been sitting in the car sleeping with the door open for like forty-five minutes!" He said to me with big eyes and his voice barely above a whisper.
"Well did you try to wake him? It's cold out there." I asked. I got up from bed and started to put on my shoes.
"No! I'm not going out there! What if he yells at me? What if- he is dead?? I don't wanna go anywhere near him honey." Taylor said to me joking, trying to add levity. Tanya had just come from her room, and she was sitting by the living room window looking outside at her father in the car.
I trudged outside, thankful I was feeling well enough to do this, but shocked a grown man could act this way. David was sprawled in the driver's seat with the car door open, and one leg hanging out of the car. His head back, he was snoring loudly, not hearing the radio blaring. I shook him, and his eyes opened. He straightened up and looked at me.
"Hey," I said, "do you wanna come inside and go to bed?"
He shook his head, looked at me again and said, "Where the fuck am I?"
"You're at home. You fell asleep in the car, do you want to come in?" I asked again trying to get him to move.
"I'm home? Kick ass!" David said, he then started puking all inside of the car, when I went to move him, he puked all over me. Thank God it was just alcohol.
"I'm not coming in!" he said after he stopped heaving. "Get out of here bitch. I wanna stay here."
 I shut the car door, lock it, set the alarm, and went in the house to take a shower.
 While he was still passed out, I went back to get the keys out.
 When David woke the next morning he didn't remember any of it.  After waking him I explained what happened the night before.
   “You can take a cab in to work from now on. I won’t have you wrecking my car the same as you did to mine and the work van. Didn’t Billy say it was over eight thousand dollars in damage?” Standing over him laid out there, he hardly moved. Just a flinch, and small facial movements let me know he was awake.
   “I guess I’m not going in to work then, we don’t have the money for a cab.” He rolled back over into his pillows.
   “You know we have enough money for you to call a cab. You bring home cash everyday- I never know where it comes from. I have a drawer full of twenties that you kept bringing home besides your pay. Call a cab, and get dressed.” Standing there, my stomach, hip and leg feeling too heavy for the rest of my body, I held on to the bedpost for support. David hardly moved.
   “If I can’t take your car, then I’m not going. Goodnight.” David pulled the blanket over his face, turned over, and put his head under the pillow trying to escape the sunlight coming in the window right next to his bed.
   “But you just called in last week- TJ will be so pissed if he has to do both routes again. I don’t think Billy appreciated it either when you called him right after the accident at three in the morning. You told him over and over you would be there, and then called in the next morning. He won’t put up with this too.” Images of being homeless and begging for food on a roadside in threadbare clothes filled my mind, but there was no way he was getting my car again. I had hidden both copies of the car key underneath my dresser. No response from David but snoring.
   In my room, about forty-five minutes later and his phone is going off loud enough for the whole house to hear. David just lets it ring until voice mail picks up- two times in a row. When it started ringing a third time I heard him pick up.
   “Hello… Hey Chris... Yeah, I lost my car keys. Can you come and get me?....Okay, call me back.” David is snoring again in minutes. The phone rings again five minutes later. “Hey Chris….Yeah, I’ll be ready,….Okay, see you in a few.” David promptly falls asleep again. The phone rings a third time, but the ringtone is different. It was a mock alarm, making it sound like there was a nuclear reactor melting down in our living room. Your boss is calling…This is an urgent call…Your boss is calling…
   “Hello….Yeah, okay if that’s what you think…Whatever Billy.” The call ended. The next thing I hear is David calling down the hall to me. “Well I’m fired.” He yells. “Chris was trying to get me a ride, but Billy just called and fired me. Should’ve let me use your car.” David goes back to sleep for good this time.
In David’s mind this was my fault apparently. The first couple weeks he didn’t even look for a job. I got through a successful Hysterectomy and was in bed recovering a few days later when David’s Father called him. I don’t know exactly how the conversation went, I was so in and out of it during that time. The radiation treatments along with the surgery left me exhausted, and violently ill for a few weeks. The kids filled me in when I was finally good enough to talk with them. Taylor was the one to go to for any kind of information. All of the kids called him The Inspector. Fortunately, he always came to me first with any new report he had.
   “Hey guys! How was your day?” Oliver, Taylor and Tanya had just come in, I was finally able to sit up in bed and eat a bit. I had been reading when they walked in. Lady faithfully guarding me, stood at attention as usual.
   “Hey ma.” Oliver sat down at my desk and pulled out a few books, starting his homework. Tanya went into the bathroom to use my tweezers after repeating Oliver’s greeting. Taylor sat next to me on the little black cube stool.
   “Hey mom, hello Lady GaGa. You gonna give me my smuckers today?” Taylor dissolves into giggles as Lady licks his neck and ear.
    “So tell me, how are you guys? What have I missed this time?” Due to the radiation I had been getting for the last six months, there was always catching up to do when I was coherent again.
   “Papaw came over yesterday, he was really mad at dad.” Taylor imparted, with raised eyebrows and a lowered voice- as if this is the juiciest story he had at the moment. “I guess he was friends with dad’s boss.” Taylor looks around suspiciously, even though his dad is up at the party store.
   “Yes I know, your papaw was the one who arranged the job a couple years ago when I was getting too sick to work. What happened?”
   “Papaw took me bowling on Saturday like he always does, and he asked me if dad was looking for a job. I told him no, dad was just drinking a lot more cos he’s home all the time. He said His boss called him about the wrecked van, and him not coming into work.” Taylor takes a bite of the apple he saved from lunch.
   “So did he talk to your father?” I asked knowing this was not going to bode well for the kids and I if David was still pissed at his dad.
   “Oh man, it was great! Papaw yelled at him as soon as they got back from bowling! When dad went out to talk to papaw- all you could hear was them yelling at each other! I saw the whole thing in the front yard from my bathroom window.” Tanya tells me excitedly as she joins us.
   “Yeah, but papaw knows this lady who can get him a job at a temp agency. He starts tomorrow.” Taylor tells me in-between his munching.
   “Anyone can get a job with a temp agency. He didn’t need his dad to call in a favor for it.” Oliver says not looking up from his work.
   “Yeah, but dad wasn’t even looking for work! Papaw had to do something, ma was too sick.” Taylor says slurping apple juice as it runs down his arm. I handed him a tissue.
   “Yeah papaw did the right thing. I’m worried about being homeless. What will happen to Lady and Hammy if we have no house?” Tanya said sitting down on the pink cube stool.
   “Well, ma could come live with me, and bring Hammy and you guys- but I know GaGa and Moose won’t get along. GaGa will just keep fighting with her until Moose kills her.” Oliver says. The younger two children both look at Lady and then back up at me.
   “Don’t worry you guys. Even if we do end up at Steven’s house, He already told me I could have the upstairs with Tanya and Gaga. We’ll just have to keep them separate until we find our own place. My settlement should be coming any time now. I can’t imagine them denying me now that I have Cancer.” I felt like a broken record saying this same thing all over again. Oliver looked up from his work.
 “Mom, you’ve been saying this since you got diagnosed, and we have been waiting on your disability for the last couple years.” Oliver says in an impatient voice, puts his pen in his mouth and looks back in his book.
   “I know right? We’ve been waiting forever for that money, I don’t think they care how sick mom is. Or how poor we get. We’re gonna end up at Steven’s. I just know it.” Tanya says and then props her chin up on both hands, with her elbows on her knees.
   “The government is broke, they’re not going to help anyone unless they are absolutely sure they have to. These things take a long time for everyone, not just us.” Trying to remain hopeful, but it’s hard looking at their glum faces. Tanya’s phone vibrates.
   “Mom, Brit wants to know if I can meet her at the store. I just got ungrounded, but dad won’t let me go hang out with her. I don’t know what to do.” Tanya is standing now rising up and down on the balls of her feet.
   “Do you have any homework?” I asked her.
   “No, but I still have to do my chores.” Tanya says, her face perking up.
   “Brit didn’t get in trouble, you did. If your work is done and you’re not grounded you can go play. Just check in every half hour like usual.” I said, glad to deal with a minor issue, instead of the huge ones mulling around in my skull. It was a lot to process right after the ordeal I had just been through with the radiation and the surgery.
   “Yay! Thanks mom!” Tanya almost bowled me over with a huge hug. I gasped and winced. The burning cramping was so strong I lost my breath for a second. Tanya jumped away from me. “Oh God I’m so sorry mom! Are you okay?” GaGa rushed toward us licking my face to comfort me. Trying to find my breath again I nodded.
   “No big deal.” I smiled. “I missed your hugs.” Tanya relaxed a little.
   “Okay mom, I’ll let you know when I’m going to meet Brit. I wanna meet her half-way from the apartments.” Tanya picked up her coat and bag and rushed out of the room. Taylor threw his apple core in the garbage, and stood up.
   “I have to get my stuff done too. I wanna play Zombies with Oliver and Brad later after they finish their homework.” Taylor looks down at me on the bed and speaks barely above a whisper again. “I will fill you in on all the good stuff later.” I laughed a bit more genuinely than my last smile, and Taylor picked up his things and left too. I could hear them out in the kitchen getting started with their work.
   “You gonna say anything to him when he comes home?” Oliver asked me after a few minutes. I had eased down into a laying position again. The pain was awful.
   “Honey, even if I thought he would listen, I don’t have the energy to deal with it. Let’s just hope he goes into work tomorrow.” I shut my eyes breathing through the tearing feeling in my eyes, head and stomach.
   “I’m sorry you’re so sick ma. You deserve a way better life than this.” Oliver says in such a sympathetic tone my heart aches.
   “Ah baby we all do.” Oliver is already looking back down at his Algebra. I shut my eyes and tried to get some rest.
                                                                                         #
   “Vicki, we don’t have it this week! I’ll take care of it next week. I got you some pizza though.” David stuffed a little over a hundred dollars in my underwear drawer.
   “This is the third week of June. So next week you can pay double on the lot rent? How does that work when you can’t put anything on the lot rent this week? I had just finished cleaning the bathroom. I took my gloves off and came into the bed room. “You know I can’t eat pizza, you know I want to eat it and yet you still buy it!” I was incredulous that the rent still hadn’t been paid. Did he really think the whole world was going to keep making exceptions for him?
   “Don’t start with me Vick- I had to pay Phil something, my tab was huge cos I had to charge so much stuff that we needed.” David has his hands on his hips. “I can’t get you weed or cigarettes this week either- sorry.” He finishes and turns away from me to leave the room. My voice stops him.
   “What about your smart phone, the seventy inch TV, the deep freezer,” I held my hand out, “this stereo. I know you are still paying on these things while you put off the rent. Why? Are we supposed to live in that freezer after they kick us out of here?” I was moving stacks of books off of my coffee table so I could dust it. “Is pizza one of the things you charge on your tab?”
   “Don’t bitch at me about that. We need that freezer to keep all of the food I got from work. We may not be able to buy groceries. I still have to pay the cable and internet bill. It’s over three-hundred dollars now!” David stormed out of my room. I kept dusting all of the nooks and crannies in the table. He came back in with a pint of brandy in his hand. Seeing him with it my vision went red.
  “You always manage to get your shit! You can’t spend twenty dollars a week on my medicine, but you always have booze. You can’t pay the lot rent where we live, because having a deep freezer and a big screen TV is more important.” I threw my dust rag in his face. “I think you’re full of shit. If you lose this place, don’t think I will ever come to any place to live with you again. There is no way I am living with one of your parents as sick as I am. Not while you get drunk every day and play games with our lives.” I put my shoes on and got my purse.
   “Where are you going? I got you pizza baby. You know it’s so good, you have to have a slice.” David shambles behind me on my way to the car.
   “I’m going to Steven’s house. I know he’ll have smoke. I’ll be back in an hour. Tanya’s playing in the front with Britney and Taylor’s up at Concord playing ball with Bradley.” I unlocked the car and got in. “If they ask just tell them I went to see the other kids and Moose.” I turned the key and started the ignition. “Please tell them I love ‘em and I’ll be right back.”
   “Oh, so now you’re gonna leave just cos I didn’t buy you any weed. I wanted to watch a movie with you.” What he really meant is he wanted to start a movie, try to get close to me, and then pass out when I didn’t give him a piece of ass. I pulled out of the driveway and went to Steven’s house.

Submissive Beauty Wants to be Used V

   I woke at about ten minutes to midnight with this awful chest pain. My heart was pounding in my ears, I was covered in sweat, and freezing at the same time. My dog, Lady GaGa, woke with a start and stared at me. Metallica is playing softly through the flashing speakers. Getting up with a really bad sick feeling in my stomach, I walked out through our home to check on the kids. All of the lights were turned down low in the living room and the TV was off. Tanya probably did it. It hadn’t been this quiet or dark in our living room in years. David, Mike, and Jeff are all gone. The kids were both sleeping. Feeling puzzled, but also alarmed. I knew something was terribly wrong but I couldn’t find it.
   When I woke again an hour later it’s because David and Jeff were running around the trailer screaming their heads off.
   “Oh my God! Baby it’s gone! The car it’s gone!” David ran out of the room and then came back holding a big bottle of his Altos Mecca tequila against his chest. I sat up in the bed, and GaGa looked annoyed at me again, putting her paws over her face and snorting. Rubbing sleep out of my eyes I processed what I was hearing. Jeff was in the other room on the phone with someone- I could hear his excited shouting.
   “Yeah man, we’re lucky the trees weren’t bigger….. yeah, I told you, there was three of them…..I know, if they were bigger, we would be dead.”
   I got up feeling the sickness in my stomach return. He actually wrecked my little car. Memories flash at me, a thousand in a second, Oliver at ten years old asking me if he could have it if it’s still running when he learns to drive. Taking the kids to school for hundreds of mornings and running to the gym after. The thousands of times she took me to work, the gym, and brought me back home safely from the deepest and darkest places I had ever been in. I splashed some water on my face and came back out to sit on the bed. GaGa sighed loudly and sat at attention, doing her duty. I lit a cigarette and sat back on the pillows. Looking up at David, his eyes darting around like a scared child, I was thankful I didn’t keep a gun in the house.
   “Start at the beginning,” I said in a calm voice. “Tell me what’s gone.”
   “The car, I just wanted to go for a ride in the old neighborhood, and I was so fucked up I had Jeff drive. We were bored, and I wanted to show him where you lived. It’s so cool down there. He was driving too fast, and he hit a curb down where Dix and Vernor meet.” David’s fists were bunched up against his chest and the whites of his eyes are so pronounced he reminded me of a scared cow. “Then the car just kept going, and we went through three small trees. They were on my side and I thought they were gonna come up and cut me, but the engine block stopped them.” He shakes his head blinking in memory of his panic. “And then as soon as the car stopped we both got out and ran in separate directions we were so freaked out. I brought the face of your stereo back, but we lost everything else.” David broke down in tears, sobbing like a baby. The whole thing came out in such a rush I could hardly conceal my anger.
   “So let me get this straight.” I took another drag. ”You took the car I loved best- in my whole life- and you went to the very neighborhood I grew up in, then you fucking wrecked it and left it. You bring me the face of my radio. And nothing else? You could have called your father to have it towed. He would’ve done it.” A spark of hope flared in my chest. “You still can. That neighborhood is so deserted the police won’t tag it until late tomorrow. Call your father.” I began to plead. “You know how much money went into that car. The memories alone are worth it.” I felt like crying. This couldn’t be happening. But some part of me wasn’t surprised at all. Some part of me expected it.
   “I didn’t do that stupid shit! Jeff did! And I can’t call my father. He won’t help us anyway.” David took another hit off his bottle.
   “You mean you don’t want your father to see you like this! You were so fucked up you gave Jeff the keys.” I held my hand out toward the living room. “He’s a kid compared to us and you took him to the city? In the middle of the night? No, you are responsible for what happened. And you have work in a few hours, you’d better get going on this. I want my car. Back. Now.” I popped open a Rockstar Recovery. No more sleeping for me.
   “I’m so sorry Vicki. I had no idea we were gonna go so far. I should’ve just brought him home.” Jeff threw down his hat. “I swear, I’ll pay for the damage. As soon as I get paid I’ll put something on it.” Pity he didn’t have the money then. I could’ve used a tow. Jeff also lost his smart phone in the wreck.
   David passed out about an hour later. He didn’t go in to work that day. In the late morning he finally went back to the scene, and Dearborn Police were there. Taking pictures, looking around the taped up area for clues, towing my baby blue car away. She had taken such good care of us. She deserved better.

Submissive Beauty Wants to be Used IV

   David, has had a devastating year, for someone who gets away with so much reckless shit. David's lost most of his jobs, wrecked one of my best cars, he usually goes through an average of one old hooptie a year, but this was one of my favorites. It was a car I drove, kept for seven years, and put an indecent amount of money into, fixing it up to last. When I bought it for $1,100, it was ten years old. It had 110,000 miles on it. I replaced everything broken or original; in the suspension, and the engine, piece by piece. Really loved that car. She was a little egg-shell blue '98 Escort ZX2 the kids and I lovingly named Crystal. The passenger’s side door and rear panel was smashed in from the 18 year-old previous owner. I didn't even care, since the door and window were still functional.  When David wrecked the car, it had over 380,000 miles on it. I felt it could have ran forever.
It was a cold cloudy Sunday in the middle of March when it happened. The kids were gone with their grandma at the Plymouth Ice festival.  Sitting in my room, blowing clouds with my friend Sarah, it wasn’t a bad day. Considering I had spent every weekday that month so far at a doctor’s office, hospital or other medical institution. A couple Saturdays too. David wasn’t having such a great day.
 
Attention! Your computer has a virus. Your computer has a virus. Please call this number…David’s computer had been repeating the chant for about a half hour.
   “Fuck Dean, why did you tell me to do that streaming shit to my computer to watch movies? My shit’s bricked up now. It won’t even work.” We could hear David in my room even with the door shut and locked. Attention! Your computer has a virus…..
   “I don’t know man, it works on my computer all the time. I don’t like to steal movies like you do.” Dean’s deep dopey voice was loud too. I think that’s why they are friends. They both spend hours together drinking and hollering at each other like two old deaf men.
   Sarah was staring at me this whole time. I was staring back at her too, and we both busted out laughing like it’s the funniest thing in the world listening to these two morons argue. David was banging on the door again. He was drunk already, and it was not even two PM. Attention! Your computer has a virus…
   “Vicki, I need your laptop! Dean just fried mine!” David always expected a bailout to be ready for him.
   “Did not! You download so much shit- it could be anything.” Dean countered from the other room. Attention! Your computer has a virus…..
   Listening to these two wasn’t so funny anymore. Went to the door, but I didn’t open it.
   “I’m sorry, but we’re using it in here, Sarah was showing me something for our homework.” I lied. I’d never let David touch my computer before- that’s why it had never crashed. His on the other hand had crashed more times than I could remember. Attention! Your computer has a virus. Your computer has a virus…..
   “Well hurry up! I wanna watch this new Avengers movie.” We heard David go back to his friend. Your computer has a virus…
   Sitting back down in my little blue love seat with Sarah- she passed the bowl. I lifted it to my lips and fired. Passed it back to Sarah. Held it until I breathed out clear. Sarah blew the biggest cloud I’d seen all day and promptly began choking. Attention! Your computer…
   “Ah, I think we’re down to the resin now.” I said. Picking the glass pipe up, it wasn’t just warm, it was hot enough to singe in the bowl part where the weed gets packed. Sticking it back in my mouth, I held the neck while torching it one last time. The resin hits made the biggest clouds. As the fire went in the resin at the bottom catches again, and it made a fiery starburst of light flare up between the blue rings within the glass. During this time Sarah had caught her breath.
   “Dude, all I got in my head now is, ‘Your computer has a virus…” Sarah complained. She pointed at the stereo lighting up in all of the colors of the rainbow. “C’mon, let’s listen to my Ed Sheeran CD again.”
   “I don’t wanna listen to that anymore today, it just depresses me. How about some speed metal instead?” Tapping the commands on my phone to pull the music up, a second later all space was filled with fast beats and screaming guitars. Sarah gave me a look of relief.
   “So much better. I don’t hear a thing out there now. Let’s go put the blue streaks in your hair now before it gets too late. I have to pick up Brian so we can have dinner with my parents.” Sarah went into the bathroom and started to mix the noxious bleach that took all of the red out of my hair in thick streaks. Cherry auburn in the top layers, and the deep purple in the bottom layers really popped once we added the bright blue highlights.
   “Pretty serious huh? I thought you didn’t want to bring him around your parents since he’s not Jewish?” Brushing and sectioning my hair on top while she tied a towel around my shoulders.
   “Yeah, well, we did just get engaged, it’s better if they find out now-“Sarah was cut off by banging on the door again. Going to the door I hit the remote to turn Slayer down.
   “Yeah- what’s up?” I yelled at the door, still not wanting to open it. Attention your computer has a virus…
   “I’m going to take Dean home. He has to work early tomorrow.” David said on the other side.
   “Don’t you have to work early too?” I yelled back. Sarah started painting the bleach onto the strips of hair I separated for her. Your computer has a virus…
“Yeah, I have to work early too. I’m coming straight back. Open the door, Jeff is here to see you guys.” Jeff is a twenty year old who grew up here in the park. Sometimes he brings trees over, sometimes he wants to blow mine. I don’t care- he has always given more than he takes. Besides that- he had been reading with the kids and I at times, and he would always stay to talk long after the kids were gone, learning as much as he could.
   “Okay, I’m unlocking the door now.” Throwing the new lock back and opening the door, Geoffrey walked in and David pokes his head in.
   “How come you always lock this door?” Davis demanded. Sarah and Jeff both seemed to find interesting patterns in the carpet to study.
   “Because you never knock unless I use it. You just walk in. Sarah and I were burning just now. What if the kids came home? I don’t want them to just walk in.” Holding the door, I looked at him expectantly. David usually behaved around company, but he had to be a little difficult.
  “Well at least keep the fucking music down, I can’t even hear-“, cutting him off I mimicked the female voice,
   “Your computer has a fucking virus dumbass. Yeah I know, good stuff. Don’t wanna miss that.” Sarah, Geoffrey, and Dean in the other room all cracked up. David turned a shade darker than his normal high-blood-pressure-red.
   “Yeah, that’s alright dumb fuck, I’ll deal with you later. I gotta go.” David slammed the light and hollow door shut. Geoffrey and Sarah sober, looking at me with wide eyes, Sarah with a hand over her mouth.
   “Don’t forget to turn your girlfriend off! We don’t wanna listen to her the whole time you are gone!” Sarah said as her and Jeff are packing the bowl again giggling. Sarah gave Jeff the first toke. We all heard the front door slam.
   Touching the warm tinfoil in my hair, and looking at the clock, I decided my hair had another ten minutes to fry. Sarah passed me the bowl.
   “He’s bitchier than ever today. What is going on with him?” Sarah asked digging through her sack. She pulled out a nice nugget and set it on my overturned tin lid. I passed the bowl back to Jeff. He wouldn’t say a word until it was just him, me, and the book we were reading, Choke. Sarah and I were used to his characteristic silence. I turned some Eminem on then, and sat back to enjoy the cloud. All the kids had gone now, even David.
   “He’s having a bad day. You know how he acts when he can’t get his way. I’m glad the kids are gone. I hate when he gets like this.” We continued to pass the weed around like a game of baseball. Done before Sarah could pack it a second time, I lit a cigarette. “I don’t know, I can’t shake this feeling I have. Things never end well for any of us, when David gets a bug in his ass like this.”
   “I think it’s so fucked up how he keeps you here against your will just so you can see your kids. I think I would kill him if I were you.” Sarah peeked inside the foil to check my hair again. “Nope. Almost done.” Jeff’s head popped up.
   “How can he keep you here? Just leave him.” He offered. Sarah laughed.
   “That’s what I said. “Sarah returned. “It’s not so simple. When Vicki met David she was still married to her ex. Vicki and this guy smoked dope back then, do you mind me telling him this?” Sarah asked me with the pipe halfway to her lips. Sitting there with my legs crossed I shook my head and took another drag off of my cigarette. Sarah continued.
   “Well Vicki had to work with David and train him. Somehow she ended up burning with him.” Sarah looked at me to fill in the blanks.
  I exhaled hard. “Yeah, I was stupid and smoked with him every day for a while since we had to take our breaks together.” Looking at both of them in turn, “David can be very charming when he wants to be, I had never seen his bad side yet. He gave me a lot of attention. He was intelligent and I liked that.” I knocked the ash off my cigarette and continued.
   “The closer he got to me the more I thought he might be a better role model for the kids. He didn’t have any habits I was aware of, and I was terrified that Isabelle and Oliver would grow up to be smokers. Since all Steven did was sleep anyway, I let him come over late one night after work. Really stupid.” Shaking my head, I got up and began to pace.
  Jeff scrunched up his face. “But Steven didn’t notice how close you guys were getting at work? I thought you guys used to work together.” He lit his own cigarette.
   I smiled and scoffed at him, “Steven didn’t notice much. His own twin had been trying to sleep with me for seven years, he never seemed to notice that. Norman worked there too. Hell, half the guys in that place wanted to bang me. Norman was the one who kept them all away.” As I blew more smoke out, Jeff wanted to speak.
   “That is so fucked up yo. I would be so pissed if anyone hit on my wife. I would kill my brother.” Sarah agreed with him.
“Yeah, that is a really long time for it to go on too. It must have really sucked.” I didn’t want to elaborate about Norman that day so I went on with the story.
   “Anyway, I had only known David a couple of weeks, and he’s at my door. His uncle had given me a ride once so he knew where I lived. He’d ridden a bike over after work. I let him in and he’s already stinking drunk on tequila, with what’s left of the fifth in his coat. He said to me, ‘Can I stay here tonight? My uncle and I had a fight.’ Me, I’m like ‘Sure’. That was my second big mistake. I should never have let him in, or let him stay.”
  “But why? He was drunk and needed a place to go, so what?” Jeff asked me. I put my cigarette out.
“I have to wash my hair to get this crap out. I’ll tell you if you’re still here when I get back.” I grabbed my clothes I had sitting on the bench by the bathroom door, went inside and shut it.
When I came out of the bathroom, Sarah and Jeff were staring off into cloud space. I laughed and snapped my fingers.
  “Are you guys awake out here? I thought you would’ve had some great conversation going by the time I got out.” Brushing out my crazy looking hair and Sarah was digging in her bag for the blue hair dye. Jeff laughed.
   “I would’ve left already, but I wanted you to finish your story.” Jeff said as he was packing another bowl. Sarah sat me down in my desk chair and started applying the blue stuff. We only used organics from her grandfather’s store where I used to work, so there was a strong smell of blueberries in the room to compliment the smoke. I looked at Jeff and spoke.
   “I let David in, and he is on ten. He’s screaming and yelling about his uncle, saying the same shit over and over. He woke Isabelle up, and she came out of her room. At first he’s all like, ‘Aw. She’s so cute.’ She was only five. But when she gets up after a few minutes and starts touching his long coat, probably found the fabric interesting or something- he slaps her!” I stopped for a minute and hit the bowl again.
   “No way! If he did that to my daughter, man I would kick his ass.” Jeff’s skin was turning pink from anger, from his ginger eyebrows to the roots of his red coarse curly hair. He was the same age as Isabelle, and they grew up together. He was more Oliver’s friend than Izzy’s, but he was still pissed.
   “So I’m angry,” I went on, “and I’m telling him he needs to leave. Then he says it. My life has been a train wreck ever since. He says, ‘If you call the police to try and get me out, I will make sure CPS finds out how much dope you have in this house, and I’ll be sure to tell them how much I’ve seen you smoke. I’m not leaving. Tomorrow you can take me to get my stuff. My uncle’s a crackhead and I can’t deal with it anymore.’”
   “Dude, that’s terrible. But why didn’t you just go get your weed card?” Jeff asked me.
   “They didn’t have weed cards back then dumb ass!” Sarah stopped fussing with my hair a moment, shaking her head so her straight brown hair swayed over her shoulders. “Weed was still highly illegal. Between her and Steven, the kids would have gone to the state. Everyone knows once they’re in the system bad things happen to them, and it’s almost impossible to get them back.” I nodded my head.
   “That’s right, I wasn’t willing to risk it. The next day When David went to the liquor store, I asked Steven if we could just quit for a while, you know, get clean after all. We could stand together against him and get him out of our house. And you know what he says to me- he says he won’t give up dope for anyone- not even me and the kids. That was the end of it with him. He just washed his hands of us. Fucker.” I was lighting another cigarette and Sarah had finished putting the highlights in. Another thirty minutes. The room was silent besides the little portable heater buzzing. Taking a deep breath I continued.
   “At this point, my brother-in-law takes notice, he had already taken measures to separate us at work, which I was grateful for. But when he comes to talk to David, it lasts about five minutes. David tells Norman that if he tries to remove him, he will find his wife and tell her he’s seen Norman and me screwing around at work, which Kathy had been suspecting anyway. Norman drove off after that and I never saw him again. Long story short- David never left. The following month Steven did. I had never even slept with David yet, but he owned me just like that.” I snapped my fingers. “All because I was stupid and burned with this fucker on our work break.”
   “I can see David doing that.” Jeff said nodding his head slowly.
   “Well you’re smarter than I was at that age. I thought everybody was as nice as I was. My dad tried to warn me, but you know, when you are young you know everything already.” Shaking my head I laughed bitterly. “Even though I have my card now, it doesn’t matter. His mother has even warned me that if I try to leave she’ll lawyer up and spend as much money as she needs to take my kids. She says I’m too sick to take good care of them.” The bitterness then won out and two tears ran out of my left eye.
   “Bull shit. You’re the best mom I know. You made fresh juice for them since they were babies, taught them to read before school even started.” She held her hand to her chest. “I remember coming over during your lessons. You even live in this shitty old trailer for the sake of their education!” Sarah stopped, blushed. “Sorry.”
   “It’s okay Sarah, I know I live in a shitty tin can.” I said smiling again. It took everything to tell this story.
   “Well I wanna beat his ass.” Jeff said. “I wanted to before, but now I really do.
   “That’ll just get you in trouble, and unless you kill him on accident, it won’t help a thing.” I crushed out my cigarette. “I think it’s time to wash again. You leaving Sarah?”
    Sarah looked at her phone. “Yeah, sorry, I can’t stick around to see how it turned out, I have to go now.” She was already standing there with her coat on and bag packed. “I’ll call ya later, love you Vick.” I gave her a hug and she left.
   “I’m gonna go down and see what Kenny is doing.” Jeff said as he got up rubbing his hands on his jeans.
   “Okay, sounds good, I’ll see you later.” Jeff left. I made sure the front door was unlocked in case the kids came back, and took a shower.
   After I got out, and blew out my hair- it was so glam- the kids were home, and getting ready for school the next day. I started making some lentil stew for dinner, with fresh bread. I was in pain, but the steady work kept my mind off of it.
   The front door opened and in walked David with Big Mike! I had just gotten rid of this guy, and David brought him right in the front door with the kids home and everything. Dinner was almost done.
   Mike was a crackhead from next door that David liked to drink with. I still wonder about what other partying they might have done together.
   Jeff walked in too at this time. “Hey Vicki, I know the kids are here and everything, but can we read now? I can come back tomorrow if you want.”
   My heart swelled at this. “Of course we can, just go on in there and wait for me.” Jeff went back to my room and plugged in my white Christmas lights strung around the room. I got the lights since they made me feel better during the long winter. They gave a beautiful candlelight glow at night.
“Hey Taylor, keep an eye on dinner, the bread’s almost done.” I called to him in his room.
  “Okay ma,” Taylor returned distractedly. Probably was on his game.
   I got back into my room and sat down at my desk. I got out my book and opened it back to where we left off. Mainly Jeff reads with my assistance, except when he gets really tired, but still wants to go on- then I’ll read. Not having to read that night, I just sat back and enjoyed the sound of his voice and the rhythm of the story. We were interrupted once by Mike and David, but I handled that and Jeff still stayed for another chapter. He did well that night.
   “Okay Vicki, I gotta go. I promised my sister I would read with her tonight, I just wanted to go over it with you first.” Jeff was putting his coat on.
   “Jeff you hardly need me to read ahead if you want to. You could always be more prepared for our readings.” I shrugged my shoulders at him. He smiled big, showing off his perfect twenty-year-old teeth.
   “Thanks again, I’ll see you around.”
   After dinner the kids had their showers and Mike and David were still going strong in the living room.
   I was exhausted and wanted my bed, but just then Jeff came back. He didn’t want to see me. David had told him if he wanted he could come back to drink. I shook my head and drug myself to bed. Washing my face, turning on Linkin Park the bed felt so good I hoped death would be as sweet.

Submissive Beauty Wants to be Used III For Obvious Reasons

  Many people feel a good responsible wife and mother would never consider such a thing.
She would starve apparently, before she would ever have an independent idea. A sick, starving lady would just have to make due and die quietly, rather than make a bit of noise, and with a little ingenuity make her home a better place with the funds she brings in for her children.
   With only three jobs so far, just with this ad, I've managed to get both Taylor and Tanya all of their school clothes this year, a pair of shoes for each of them, Oliver's shoes, and half of his school clothes. I've also gotten backpacks for all three of them, and school supplies. Doing all of this, and still saving a little. Every time.
   Before this ad, if I had any outcalls of this kind, it would only be through or with one of several men I met at the club I used to dance at. I had quite a few regulars left after only working there for two years. I had to quit two years ago, I was getting too sick to do the job. I wondered why I bothered with it at all when the possibility to place an ad was always there.
   Sometimes I was even lucky enough to get a job where all I had to do was look pretty and smile just to make an insecure guy feel important at a party or business dinner. Shake hands, pay attention, have intelligent conversation for a few hours for anywhere from six to twelve hundred dollars? Sure, I was down.
  
   For obvious reasons, no one who knew me personally had an inkling of what I do. If people knew- where would that have left my children? What if something happened to me? The kids would’ve always be treated as ‘other’, as that hooker’s brats.
   There were also more immediate reasons.
   Waking up, I sat up disoriented. There was loud music coming from the rest of the trailer, but besides that all I really heard was David’s mouth. His voice was so loud you would think he was at a ball game, not inside his home where people were trying to sleep. It was early on a Wednesday morning. There was school in six hours. Walking with heavy feet, I moved slowly from my bedroom out to the kitchen. Everyone sitting at the table got quiet as if they had just remembered it was the middle of the night.
   Tanya, who had just missed a day from school-with strep throat- was sitting at the table in the cigarette smoke too. She took one look at me standing there watching everything and slinked out of the kitchen and back to bed. I looked up at the clock- 1:04 AM.
   “Baby, are you okay? Why are you up? You just went to bed a couple hours ago.” David said in an uncharacteristically soft voice to me. His friend Mark stayed quiet, but he stared at me like I was some hag that just dragged myself onto dry land from years of living in the swamp. I really didn’t care.
   “I would imagine I am up from the noise.” I said looking at the beer cans and empty plates everywhere. Shuffling over to my chair that was between two tables on the far side of the room, I sat down, lit a cigarette, and looked at my phone. Six missed calls. Why do these people always call at night?
   David sauntered away from the table where he was standing. I looked up yawning and he was right next to me.
   “What happened to the little nugget of weed I kept in your tin?” He was talking about the little Norman Rockwell tin that I keep all of my bud in.
   “I didn’t know you had any in there, when did you start smoking weed?” Puzzled I started checking my emails. He slapped my phone out of my hand and got inches away from my face; holding onto both of the arm rests of my recliner. His shit-beer breath was hot in my face.
   “What, I don’t buy enough for you? You have to smoke my shit too?” He had that tight-lipped, squinted eye look on his face that said he wanted to fight.
   “Look, I didn’t know you had any weed in my tin. I’m just sitting here minding my own fucking business, go back to your friends.” Speaking in a low voice, I blew smoke in his face since I couldn’t hide the venom I was feeling. David shook my chair hard and then straightened up so he could grab my wrist and yank me to my feet. He pulled me to the kitchen table where my tin was dumped out. Little scraps of weed were scattered all over the white tablecloth. In a pile in the middle of the table sat my little medical marijuana jar, my scale, scissors, papers, and my glass bowl.  David picked up an empty dime bag with green happy faces all over it, and shook it in my face.
   “This is where I kept it. My shit, and it wasn’t even safe from my own wife-“David slapped me so hard, that his other hand felt like it would break my wrist as I flew backward. Being half-asleep still, my reflexes sucked, and I fell into the dog dishes spilling dry dog food and water everywhere. I stayed on my feet though because of the vice-grip on my wrist. Both of David’s friends, Mark and Tommy both rose and started getting their shit together. They’d made excuses and were out the door before my vision could clear. This enraged him even worse.
      “I can’t have anything without you taking it. Can’t I have anything for myself?” He whined and threw my wrist away from us. The momentum caught my shoulder and when I spun away he kicked my bad leg from behind, making me fall into the wet mess. Incredulous that he actually bested me I just sat there and started to scoop up the dog food and my soaked cigarette with my hands and drop it into the garbage a few feet away.  David threw a dish towel over my face, and as sleepiness melted away into anger, I used it to dry up the water. Formerly afraid when he was like this, now there was just a burning rage. I was trying to get up, to go change. David saw me moving and turned back to kick me again. This time I was ready for him- I grabbed his foot with both of my hands, moving with his momentum, and twisted as hard as I could, rolling my body with him. David crumpled as his huge body landed on a kitchen chair that exploded into flying splinters before he was rolling in pain next to me.
   I started crawling away. I got to my feet in the small mirrored hallway adjacent to my bedroom. Catching a glance in the mirror as I passed, there was blood running from my lip.  There were pieces of wood stuck in my hair and even a sliver of wood the size of a toothpick stuck in the side of my neck.  Fear rising in my throat, I tried to keep calm. I could still get out of there. Getting inside the room, I threw the lock on the flimsy door. Stripping out of my soaked Hello Kitty pajamas I was rifling through my drawers to find something dry to wear. David had already recovered- and I could hear him swearing and throwing the pieces of the kitchen chair he disintegrated.
   “Fuck!” Apprehension was swallowing me. I finally got ahold of my joggers and slid them on. I was just wiggling into a white tank top when there was a loud crash and the door buckled under great pressure. David was hurling what was left of the unlucky chair against the door. Urgency building so rapidly it felt like a presence in the room. I threw on my green velvet hoodie, and my eyes cast around the room for a pair of good running shoes. Finding my black Reeboks, I had just picked them up when the door flew open, the lock splitting off of the door and breaking another mirror. Shrieking- I grabbed my purse and keys and ran for the back door in the hallway right outside my bedroom doorway. David caught me by the throat and hair and drug me back into the room. When he released me I flew into the side of my small bed, and fell to the ground, my keys, and the contents of my purse clattered everywhere. David grabbed one of my boots laying out and tackled me as I tried to crawl out of the room. With my heart pounding in my ears, he turned me over and straddled my hips, holding my pretty patent leather boot over my face, and his other hand was crushing my throat under his weight.
   “Who the fuck do you think you are smoking my shit too? You greedy bitch. That was my shit! Don’t I buy you enough of your own?” David’s breathing was labored. But I couldn’t breathe, and with both hands I was trying to pull his larger hand off of my closing throat. He let up off of me for a second, but then I felt the side of my head explode in peppered white light as he struck me with the boot. In spite of this, I was still coughing and choking. When trying to get my breath back he stood up, and kicked me in the gut.  Vomiting right there, it was too much- worse than humiliating. He picked me up, stretching the collar of my hoodie and threw me onto the bed.
   My voice was raspy, “What about that time you took my bag next door and smoked the whole thing with Mark? How is anything ever mine if you’re always taking it back?” I was still coughing, and couldn’t get any volume above a loud whisper. Sprawled on my back in the bed, I was ready to pull my feet up and kick him in the face hard if he came closer. David sensed this and kept his distance.
   “It’s all mine!” David was picking the wood out of his bare chest and belly. “Everything you have I pay for. Nothing here is yours. Not even this shitty old trailer.” He moved a bit closer, and both of my feet hit him square in the chest. David shot backward into a speaker set up high on a table- the speaker launched through the window behind it. Shattering glass flew everywhere in a fantastic crash. David shook his head, and stood there, unsure of what to do next. I scrambled over to get a towel, and then threw it over the puke to soak. Between the anger I felt soaking up my own vomit, and the exhilaration of stunning him a moment there was no room left for fear.  Deciding this is enough I stood up and went on-
   “You think you paid for all of that weed you just smoked?” Giving a bitter laugh, “Where do you think the kid’s shoes came from? Hmmm? All of their clothes, school supplies?”
   “I paid for all of this- your dope, your cigarettes, and I paid for the kid’s clothes!” David spluttered, eyes growing wide as he thought of where this was going.
   “With the $42 you gave me after you got your new phone? You must think I’m a fucking miracle worker. Those kids got over two grand worth of stuff before the school year even started stupid.” Still smiling, I couldn’t keep the words in any longer. David looked at me in horror.
   “My mom bought the kid’s stuff! You said Isabelle bought the kids their shoes!” He wanted to hit me again, but he wanted to hear what I had to say even more.
   “No David, I bought the shoes. Did you really think I would let you know if I had any money? You’re too fucking selfish. Your mother spent a couple hundred a piece on the kids, cos she knew you weren’t taking care of us. But the rest came from me.” I finished in a rush. I was exhausted then, and David was coming closer.
   “You didn’t pay for it! Fucking Joe blow paid for it while you were all too happy to spread your legs you filthy cunt!” David punched me in the jaw and I was right back on the bed where I was a second ago. He jumped on me and backhanded me again as I reached for a heavy brass candle holder next to the bed. I should never have said a word, was he going to kill me this time? I started to fold on my side underneath him; held my arms over my head and pulled my knees up like my self- defense teacher taught me. David growled in frustration and reached for one of the many extension cords in the room, yanking it out of the wall. Blocking my face, I couldn’t see though. I only heard the lamp crashing to the ground in the struggle. When he was looping the cord through my arms, my eyes flew open, and I bucked in panic. It was too late though. He flipped me over on my stomach and tied both of my arms up to the elbows tightly to the bed frame. I cried out, face down, powerless. I couldn’t see anything in the awkward way my elbows were tied over my head.  Decided to save my energy. Crying and struggling wouldn’t have helped, and he’d probably gotten off watching me.
   “Playing dead sweetheart?” David was out of breath, but you could still hear the victory in his voice. “You want to be a whore- I need to show you how it’s done. You’re much too bitchy.” He yanked my sweats and panties off as easy as cutting butter. Offering no resistance, he’d just enjoy it more. But my mind was racing, going back to memories I thought were buried. Images burning of the last time this happened terrified me. “What man would pay for this with that fucking mouth of yours running?” He smacked my ass hard, and then slipped a finger inside of me. Laying there limp and resolved not to cry, I still choked back a sob. “After all of these years, why do I have to keep teaching you this?” David sneered at me.
    Whatever he was going to do, I wished he would just get it over with. My arms going numb I tried to relax and concentrate on breathing. Maybe I can go so deep into my mind that he won’t find me.
    David grabbed the back of my head again and yanked it back hard until I cried out again. He was going to break my neck! He stuck two fingers in my mouth down to the knuckle. “Pity I tied you up this way, I wanted some head.” He dropped my head and it bounced on the bed beneath me. Feeling one of my silk scarves passed over my face I screamed. I thought he was going to choke me to death. Before the sound could leave my throat the silk was sliding between my teeth, forcing my jaws apart. He tied it tightly behind my head. “Now I won’t have to hear your shit.” he said and barked a short laugh.
   David started whipping me with something, maybe another extension cord. Breathing, through it- it started off as a sharp sting, and built into cutting blows that made me jerk and scream on the bed. He was yelling at me, but through the biting pain I didn’t hear what he was saying. Covered in sweat, shaking with tears running silently down my face by the time he finished- there must’ve been bleeding welts all over my back, ass and legs. David thrusted inside of me like an animal over and over- lifting my hips off of the bed violently. I screamed and choked feeling every searing open cut he touched. Fear rebounded harder than ever. This was too much. He was surely going to kill me. He grabbed my jar of coconut oil next to the bed I used for sunbathing. Hearing him grease his hands I whimpered and bucked into the mattress with his cock still inside me. All reasonable thought had left my head by then.
   David shoved two fingers hard into my ass. I could feel his fingernails cutting the delicate tissue. The initial pain was like boring a hole where there was none previously. It was so bad I screamed through my gag.
   “Like that stupid hoe? Does it feel good? What makes you think your stuff isn’t mine? I can do whatever I want to you.” David pulled my hoodie over my head, making seeing or breathing near impossible. He pulled his cock out and shoved it in my ass deep, sodomizing me as I laid there shaking and gasping for breath. Every few minutes he pulled out and pushed deep in my vagina getting his cock good and wet before he could go another round on my ass. He was so rough I was going to split in two. His warm vinegar sweat stink filling my nose. I’m not sure how long this went on. It was an eternity.
   “I can’t cum this way, I need your mouth.” Feeling the cord come loose, blood ran into my cold hands and arms. They felt so full of pins and needles, I still couldn’t move them. He had my sharp pocket knife from my purse in his hand. In his other hand was a bag of zip-ties he had stolen from work. Turned on my side, but my arms were still numb. “C’mon and be a good whore for daddy.”  David pulled on my hoodie, yanking it off of me and I slid off of the bed and onto the floor again with an exhausted moan.
He pounced on my back, zip tying my wrists behind me. Sitting on me pushing on the back of my neck with my gagged head turned sideways he said, “Hold still Vicki, I don’t wanna cut your pretty face.” I felt the blade slide up next to my cheek, and in the next instant the scarf slipped away, but he still kept the sharp knife next to my face. “For every tooth I feel- I’ll cut a notch out right here,” he pushed the blade against my cheek, “got it?”  Feeling his weight pull up off of me, he then snatched me up by the hair- pushing and kicking me into a sitting position on the floor, my back and arms up tightly against the bed. There was blood smeared all over his torso, cock and legs. Wondering how much laundry I had to do that day as he held my face with both hands, using both thumbs prying my lower jaw open. He stood over my prone face, and pushed his dirty cock all the way down my throat, holding it there until I was jerking my whole body fighting to get away. He still held my hair at the nape of my neck, and my jaw in a crushing grip. When I shook my head hard in a last ditch effort for air, his cock flew out with gobs of saliva flying everywhere as I caught my breath. Wash rinse repeat. David kept doing this until my fighting began to irritate him. He pulled out and backhanded me.
 “Stop it. I own every inch of you. You’re gonna take this and love it.” He slurred and then switched up to full out throat fucking. Weakness threatening to overtake me again I kept my mouth open as wide as I could, slurping gulps of air at any opportunity, but remembering David’s promise. I wasn’t really afraid any more, just resigned.  He pounded my throat so hard and fiercely, I was afraid the kids would wake and hear the squishing and squelching sounds. David was so drunk his climax took forever to arrive. Finally with both hands on the back of my head holding me still- he thrusted deep and hard the last few times, spraying his rotten metallic tasting spunk down my throat. I fell away panting and choking again.
   While I laid there in a heap he returned with the knife to cut the zip-tie holding my wrists. I coughed and squirmed away from him, while he sat in my bed laughing at me. He grabbed me again by the back of my neck and held my face in his foul hands.
   “I don’t care who fucks you, how they fuck you, or what they do to you really. But you better not ever keep money from me again. I’ll bring my friends in here next time- we can take turns on you.” Laughing he pushed me back down on the floor.
   Before I took a shower, I looked at my face and body to assess the damage. My jaw on the right side had a purple knot on it. My eye on the same side was the same shade, but a puffier raised welt. There were red angry welts from my upper back down to my legs. Most of them had burst and rivulets of dried blood covered me. I had big swollen red spots everywhere from the body kicks, the one on my stomach was the largest and most painful. Blood was still running slowly out of my right ear. Dried flecks of blood were all over my face.
   No John had ever beat me this badly.
   I had to lock myself in my room that day. Too injured to clean up the damage I hollered to the kids that I was sick with a bad cold, and didn’t want them to catch it, and collapsed into bed. After almost a week I finally emerged, and had to lie again. This time taking a fall walking the dogs, to explain the bruises on my face that were still there.
   This is why it had to be kept a secret.

Submissive Beauty Wants to be Used II

This is what I did to pay my bills, since my husband David worked to drink, and not to support our family. This was the outrageous ad-see title, posted on a free website, and all of the texts, phone calls and emails I received were men notifying me if I want work.
    Eleven months ago I was diagnosed with Uterine, Cervical, and Breast Cancer. Along with a nice dose of Leukemia.
   I couldn't stop this. As bad and as disgusting as this all seemed, I was still placing an ad practically begging for abuse. I didn't want the normal boring old-men patrons. I wanted the hot-blooded, the crude, and the violent. I wanted to see how far the other side went. I knew this was irresponsible, and I loved my family, but this behavior paid for my children's and my needs. As an added bonus, if I could call it that, was the risk factor. Playing chicken with fate. It was not healthy in any way. Was certainly not advisable, yet I kept looking farther and farther over the edge.                                                   
   This was a typical day in my life.
   Insomnia dominated all hours of the day, I would wake up anywhere from 1 to 5 a.m. There was no TV blaring. No loud wall shaking music coming down the street. The only sound was the dull buzz of the fans in my room, and the crickets and frog song out my windows. Bird song if I woke up after 4 a.m. My dog snored in the bed next to me.  This was the best time to get any reading done. My tastes in reading varied widely, since I was in love with the act of reading, language, and heavily addicted to learning. Collecting data. Insatiable.
   It was time for the daily five mile walk.
   I pulled open my tin, and removed my blue-striped glass bowl. Packing it only halfway with weed, and firing it up. Held in the smoke as long as possible, and blew out a satisfying cloud. Fire, suck repeat. Two times. It felt safe to move my body afterward.
   Hobbling a bit faster to the opposite side of the trailer, I knocked on Abby’s broken bedroom door.
   “Hey, you wanna walk today?” Abby stirred, her sleeping baby face slightly twitching to life. Her eyelashes fluttered as her sleep addled brain took in the request. Her eyes opened finally as she turned her head to look at me.
   “Yeah, I’ll go.” Abby didn’t move immediately, but she would be ready in a few minutes.
   Going back to my room, I changed into compression gear and running shoes. This was the part where GaGa started jumping, pacing and whining by the back door. Hammy just stood in my way at every opportunity.
   Hammy was a ten year old Black Lab-mix male, who weighed in at fifty- five pounds, he was especially attached to Abby. She was twelve years old, and if she wasn’t in school during this time, she usually accompanied us walking with Hammy. The second dog we had was a female Pit- Dachshund-mix named Lady Gaga, and she weighed about forty-five pounds. She was skinny, with huge muscles, and a golden blonde coat. Eyes like sparkling amber with chunks of gold, gray rings around her irises, and what looked like a perfect Cleopatra eyeliner job around both eyes. Lady Gaga was spunky, aggressive, loyal, and my best friend in the world.
   I sat down and lit a cigarette. By the time I was half-way through Abby came in the room dressed and ready to go. Still looking half-asleep- she sat on the little black cube next to my bed. I smiled at her.
   “Good morning. How did you sleep?” I asked her. Lady was still whining and twirling in circles next to the door. Hammy sat down hard with a disgruntled groan.
   “I slept good.” She said with bright green eyes. Remembering just a few years ago I could get it together just as fast. “Mom, I had this dream, and Brandon was in it and so were you. We were riding down this road in a car, I don’t know whose it was. Then the car broke down, and we had to get out and walk. The longer we walked, the more the road cracked up. Then we were standing on the edge of this huge cliff,” her arms went up with her fingers spread out, “ and there was water below us, and all of a sudden the dogs were there, and they were trying to pull us all down, and then you woke me up.” Abby stopped for a breath, her eyebrows up in expectation. Abby, like me, had some of the most vivid dreams. For some reason she thought I could interpret them.
   “Maybe you were dreaming about our walks? But because you were upset with Brandon it turned kinda scary? I tried to offer.
   “I think it means going with Brandon would be a bad path for me.” She said with a certain finality. Tanya’s mind was made up. I don’t know why she wanted my opinion. But I liked her idea, so I went with it.
   “I think that’s exactly what it means! That makes sense. I’m glad we figured it out.” I put my cigarette out and we got up. “It’s really nice today compared to how it’s been. The sun is warm, and the air is dry.” I walked to the back door just outside my bedroom door, and grabbed the dog’s leashes hanging there. GaGa danced into her pink choke chain.
   “I’m glad to hear that. I’m so sick of the humidity. My hair poofs and frizzes so bad.” Tanya was putting the leash on Hammy. We both straightened up from leashing them and headed out. We didn’t really speak much during our walks. We had to keep our eyes on where our feet would step, since we covered a lot of rugged ground. We also had to pay attention to what the dogs were doing. There was always glass, poison, or some other potential danger on the path, and seeing a squirrel was the least of our worries.
    We start from our trailer, and once we left the park, we were walking north on Telegraph Road for about a mile. This was the busy thoroughfare we lived on. At this point my left hip was throbbing. This deep, slicing pain radiated with each stride. Bones and muscles so swollen they rubbed and ground on each other in all of the wrong ways. Pulsing lava shot straight down my leg all the way down to my big toe. Once we passed a liquor store, a diner, a florist and an Italian restaurant, we turned down a road that was half residential, with crab-apple trees lining that side, and a long sheet metal fence that went down the other side of the road all the way into the woods.  By this time, the pain was muted, replaced a bit, with a good tingling feeing- almost like healing.  The pain wouldn't return in earnest until I cooled down- locking me in a vice that returned with a vengeance. But during that time, we were in our own private dream world. After leaving the noise and din of traffic, this place had a surreal fairyland quality to it. There we would reach a huge duck pond that we walked around. There were usually geese and ducks in the pond, and a beautiful huge white Crane we called Frank. The air was scented with wild flowers, and dragonflies, moths and butterflies all danced and swooned next to us as we walked past all of the landscape. After we walked around the perimeter of the pond, we went straight in to the woods for another mile and a half of trails there. This was our favorite part. Maple, Oak, and Locust trees reach as far as seventy feet in the air, anf made me feel so small I half expected to see a giant lumbering past. The air was sweet. We saw deer, rabbit, skunks, squirrels, and too many birds to name. The woods cleared out into the trailer park, and our trailer was right on that edge.
    There were mis-matched, tiny, ancient mobile homes were all packed tightly together only fifteen feet apart from each other.  Even worse were the huge gaping holes in the park, where no new trailers had been moved in- a reflection of our economy. There were much more open space than there were antique, rotten mobile homes. Electric and gas meters sticking up out of the otherwise undisturbed earth were a grim reminder. Crackheads and other derilect people were wandering, or worse, fighting. Loud music would’ve been blaring, even at this early hour, while groups of people sat out next to their trailers in the road; drinking, or smoking any kind of dope they could get their hands on. Loud vehicles were being worked on, some were racing up and down the small streets making it impossible for children to play.
   Looking at my beautiful daughter next to me, I was thankful that we never allowed her to play with most of the kids here. As sick as I was, would she have been over there by the creek with that group of kids smoking cigarettes? Looking at their dirty faces and threadbare clothes I barely suppressed a shudder. And what If I got killed? Or if the Cancer did it first? Where would my children end up in such a place?
Due to the severe case of lymphadema diagnosed at the age of 13, Overtop the super developed muscles I've been working so hard on for the last 30 years, there were essentially sacs of stagnant lymphatic fluid that my body refused to drain out. The reason for the huge muscles was because exercise was the only effective way to move any of this filthy stuff. Exercising everyday actually filtered the fluid through the muscles. This took up anywhere from 2-5 hours a day in the gym or working out at home. Some days more, some days less, but I always had to hit the gym a lot.
If I refused to work out like this, I would develop what the doctor called 'Elephant legs'.  The extra fluid would sink into my legs and feet below the knees, crushing all of the bones within. This would be more painful than the constant training by far.
  We returned home. Finishing my workout with step aerobics, weight training, plyometrics or kickboxing, showered and got ready to do any work lined up for that particular day. Sometimes it was just some housework, sometimes meeting a man that day to pay me for some kind of sexual act. I usually have to go to the doctor, or the library for books or research.  There was always the shopping, or taking one of the kids to the many places kids have go.

Submissive Beauty Wants to be Used I

Submissive Beauty Wants to be Used
Jamie LaGrow
dollface996@gmail.com
  The store's air conditioning was blowing down on my neck and shoulders in my thin tank top, making me stiff. The store intercom was playing 'Sweet Caroline'.  Standing at the Walmart pharmacy counter looking down at it; deciding what I have to put back. I had $178 in my purse.
"I'll be with you in a moment," The pharmacist, a middle aged woman told me while she counted out pills. I needed a moment anyway.
There in front of me, was one gallon of milk, $3.99, two loaves of bread, $5, a Bissel-Xtra-Lite small vacuum cleaner, $39.99, and three composition notebooks, $7. My script of Carboplaitin was $128.
"Hey, Jem! I thought that was you! How you doin doll?" The tapping on my shoulder drew me out of the problem that was before me.
"Hey Roy. Yeah it's me." I replied in a soft distracted voice while looking all around us to see if anyone else I know was at Walmart the same time as Roy and I.
"Wow wow wow doll, I thought I would never see you again. Why didn't you return my calls?" Roy asked me as he ran one age spotted hand through his white hair. He looked concerned, not angry, staring at me through his thick eyeglasses. Probably all of the weight I'd lost. Almost thirty pounds in just twelve weeks. Never been so thin.
"Uh, my phone died. I had to get a new number, and I lost all of my contacts." I shrugged my bony shoulders at him. Really his number was blocked on my phone, but I wasn’t going to say that to him.
"I really wanted to see you again, you're so much fun, and you cry so beautifully... , he trailed off as he put his arm around me and started squeezing my breast. The one I just had surgery on. Yelping before I could stop myself and jump away from Roy. "How can I help you?" The pharmacist asked me, smiling.
"Hi. Yes, I have a script for LaGrow." I told her while trying to keep some distance between me and geriatric Roy. His enthusiasm certainly wasn't rusty. The lady went to look for my medicine.
"We really need to get together again. I have so many new toys I want to show you." Roy was smiling too, but for a different reason as he stepped too close again, leaving no room at all between us and the counter.
"I don't know Roy, I'm really busy with school right now. I can take your number and call you when things calm down." A lie I told Roy as he stroked the side of my face. He stiffened, grabbing my shoulder.
"I'm not interested in giving you my number Jem," Roy said much too loudly, "You know what I want to give you...".
"$191.66." A young clerk said. While I was trying to deal with Roy, she was ringing my items up. They were all bagged and ready to go on the counter.
"Shit! I was supposed to put something back. I'll just have to wait on my medicine. Can you take it off of my order please?" Irritated that Roy even had to show up.
"Your script?" The pharmacist said, incredulous. "Are you certain you want to do this?"
"How much is it?" Roy butts in, looking in his wallet. He holds his American Express card out to the clerk. "Here, put it on this." The clerk took his card.
"No Roy, I don't want this. I don't know when I'll be able to pay you back." I said close to tears. I couldn't believe how bad this day was getting.
"Who said you have to pay me back?" Roy beamed at me as he straightened up from signing the screen on the counter. "You need a break, some time to relax. Come over, I'll put some steaks on...".
"I didn't ask you to buy my shit," I said in a low voice grabbing my bags off of the counter. "and I'm not coming to your house ever again." I smiled at the clerk, "Have a nice day." and started walking toward the store's exit.
"Hey you can't do that!" Roy was shouting. He tried to follow me, but there was no way he could keep up. "You took my money you filthy whore!" was the last thing I heard him say as I outpaced him out of Walmart.