I learned how to smoke crack today
The mattress finally got too old and crappy to support even a mediocre night's sleep last night, so today was declared new bed shopping day. We got a good deal on an excellent mattress from a guy here in Cumming, and we ended up chatting with him. We mentioned in passing that we happened to run into a mattress salesperson at a convention we were attending this weekend, and he asked what kind of convention. So I told him.
Turns out he was a swinger back in the day. His wife was in the sex industry. Dancing, porn, high-end prostitution. They'd host boat parties and hotel parties, five hundred dollar blowjobs, multi-thousand-dollar fucks. Women, men, groups. And drugs. For fifteen years he did everything under the sun. For eleven of it he was addicted to crack. But he realized twelve years ago that it was royally screwing his life, so he buckled down and sold his businesses to go into rehab. Since he got sober he's built back up his businesses -- mattress stores, of all the mundane things. He's in his fifties now, and the endorphin rush that he used to get from sex and drugs and fighting he gets now from roller coasters and base jumping. In fact he's probably going down to Florida for a jump sometime in the next few weeks. He's taken ten days off work since he'll probably be arrested for it. That's OK with him. It's worth it for the rush, and a couple of days in jail is nothing compared to what he's seen.
He raised his daughters himself. He had to divorce his wife twelve years ago because she couldn't stop the drugs with him. He's pretty liberal with the daughters, too: the oldest at nineteen has the body to support her new stripping job, and he's supporting her in it. She's tried drugs, but he knows she won't get into them because she sees what they've done to her mother. Nowadays her mother -- his ex-wife -- sells five-dollar blowjobs down on Fulton Industrial. She can't actually sell a fuck because her body's too messed up from all the drugs. But she's happy as a homeless prostitute because she feels like she's in control of her life. She doesn't let anyone do anything to her that she doesn't want them to.
He's pretty sure his ex will be dead in a year or two if she's still alive today even, and I could see in his eyes that it really saddens him. He loves her. Has since day one. He's paid to get her into rehab more than thirty times now, hoping that one day she'll shape up but recognizing that she probably won't. He knows the responsibility's hers, but he wants to give her every opportunity he can. She asks him for money sometimes. Pretty often, really. He won't give it to her, though. She'll just spend it on the drugs. He pays for food and clothing, though, and for rehab when she'll take it. One particularly busy year he had to sell two of his stores to pay for it. He did it because he still remembers the amazing, strong, and drop-dead-gorgeous woman she was when he met her. And he knows she's still the same woman deep inside, even if the cocaine's rotted her brain and her ability to show it.
You might see Tina down on Fulton Industrial. She's easy to recognize: she's in her fifties, but it's still obvious she was a heartbreaker before the drugs and old age got her. Nowadays she's about eighty pounds soaking wet, and she's got swollen fingers from the copper in the flamed brillo pads she uses in her crack pipe. She still has her long brown hair, though it's got a good bit of gray in it by now. And she still has the same soulful eyes she had thirty years ago when she first stepped out of her Ferrari -- long legs, short skirt, no panties, and a nicely-tucked blouse opened a button or three more than is really decent. The same eyes that he saw when she lowered her glasses slightly with a playful smirk and said, "So you must be Steve," that day they met and began their trek into exploring the guilty pleasures of the high life.
Let me know if you see her. Steve would love to know if she's still breathing, if there's one final chance to get her back into rehab before she dies from exposure. Before some john sees her as some random homeless fifty-year-old five-dollar crack-whore and decides to murder her for the drug-induced fun of it in the shadows down on Fulton Industrial.
Turns out he was a swinger back in the day. His wife was in the sex industry. Dancing, porn, high-end prostitution. They'd host boat parties and hotel parties, five hundred dollar blowjobs, multi-thousand-dollar fucks. Women, men, groups. And drugs. For fifteen years he did everything under the sun. For eleven of it he was addicted to crack. But he realized twelve years ago that it was royally screwing his life, so he buckled down and sold his businesses to go into rehab. Since he got sober he's built back up his businesses -- mattress stores, of all the mundane things. He's in his fifties now, and the endorphin rush that he used to get from sex and drugs and fighting he gets now from roller coasters and base jumping. In fact he's probably going down to Florida for a jump sometime in the next few weeks. He's taken ten days off work since he'll probably be arrested for it. That's OK with him. It's worth it for the rush, and a couple of days in jail is nothing compared to what he's seen.
He raised his daughters himself. He had to divorce his wife twelve years ago because she couldn't stop the drugs with him. He's pretty liberal with the daughters, too: the oldest at nineteen has the body to support her new stripping job, and he's supporting her in it. She's tried drugs, but he knows she won't get into them because she sees what they've done to her mother. Nowadays her mother -- his ex-wife -- sells five-dollar blowjobs down on Fulton Industrial. She can't actually sell a fuck because her body's too messed up from all the drugs. But she's happy as a homeless prostitute because she feels like she's in control of her life. She doesn't let anyone do anything to her that she doesn't want them to.
He's pretty sure his ex will be dead in a year or two if she's still alive today even, and I could see in his eyes that it really saddens him. He loves her. Has since day one. He's paid to get her into rehab more than thirty times now, hoping that one day she'll shape up but recognizing that she probably won't. He knows the responsibility's hers, but he wants to give her every opportunity he can. She asks him for money sometimes. Pretty often, really. He won't give it to her, though. She'll just spend it on the drugs. He pays for food and clothing, though, and for rehab when she'll take it. One particularly busy year he had to sell two of his stores to pay for it. He did it because he still remembers the amazing, strong, and drop-dead-gorgeous woman she was when he met her. And he knows she's still the same woman deep inside, even if the cocaine's rotted her brain and her ability to show it.
You might see Tina down on Fulton Industrial. She's easy to recognize: she's in her fifties, but it's still obvious she was a heartbreaker before the drugs and old age got her. Nowadays she's about eighty pounds soaking wet, and she's got swollen fingers from the copper in the flamed brillo pads she uses in her crack pipe. She still has her long brown hair, though it's got a good bit of gray in it by now. And she still has the same soulful eyes she had thirty years ago when she first stepped out of her Ferrari -- long legs, short skirt, no panties, and a nicely-tucked blouse opened a button or three more than is really decent. The same eyes that he saw when she lowered her glasses slightly with a playful smirk and said, "So you must be Steve," that day they met and began their trek into exploring the guilty pleasures of the high life.
Let me know if you see her. Steve would love to know if she's still breathing, if there's one final chance to get her back into rehab before she dies from exposure. Before some john sees her as some random homeless fifty-year-old five-dollar crack-whore and decides to murder her for the drug-induced fun of it in the shadows down on Fulton Industrial.