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I wake with a sudden start I sit upright drenched in sweat. I look at the clock and discover it’s 4 A.M. I sit up, sweat dripping from my forehead. Wishing desperately that I had just awakened from a nightmare. I hate what comes next. The chills will come slowly at first and then intensify. Kind of like sex: the slow build up and then the intense climax. The only thing it lacks is the pleasure, the intimacy or joy. Pain and pain and depression and pain replace it.
After two hours of repeated bouts of the chills the vomiting session begins. I stagger towards the toilet. Weak and still shaking in a feverish daze. Before I can reach the toilet vomit erupts violently from my mouth. It comes with such sudden force that it shoots from my nose and mouth. I cover my mouth in a vain attempt to stop its flow. The vomit comes in violent rushes and flies between the cracks in my fingers. I slip and fall into my own vomit. I lay shaking on the floor looking at specks of green and red floating in the bile. Must have been the burger I had last night.
Fuck it, I tried but I cannot quit. I really did try. I hate myself for it. I despise myself but I need it. My whole body cries for it. I start to get excited at the thought of heating the spoon and the thought of the needle gives me a sense of relief. I hate myself for giving in. I hate myself for getting excited about ducking out. I accept defeat and crawl to the nightstand to get what I need to “duck out”.
My body rejoices as my heart sinks. My veins greedily drink the heroin in. I start to feel better immediately. I feel worse at the same time. The chills subside but my spirit is dead. The nausea subsides as the warm tingling sensation takes over. My mind wanders to better times, wasn’t always like this. I had control once or so I thought.
I’ve always liked to party. Most of the time I was in control but like most everyone else I would go over the edge every now and then. The first time it happened Yvonne was there. Yvonne is a lady I work with. She seems kind of mysterious. It’s odd because I’ve heard all kinds of bad things about her but I don’t see it. She seems to be a nice person to me. Then again I don’t know if her looks are clouding my judgment. I know it’s not right but the better a person looks the more chances they get. The uglier you are the nicer you have to be. If a ugly girl breaks up with you it’s no big deal. If a fine girl breaks up with you it’s tragic.
So Yvonne remained a mystery to me. I wanted to trust her and I did like her but I remained guarded with her. I would flirt harmlessly with her on a daily basis just because it was fun. I like the way she dressed; she would wear outfits that complimented her figure. Not that her figure needed much complimenting. Face it, she was a babe. She always smiled and seemed nice so I didn’t really know why people talked bad about her. I decided to remain guarded.
Friday the thirteenth came and a lot of my coworkers and I decided to laugh at superstition and have a party. I arrived at the party at about 9:00 P.M. Not that early and not that late. I decided to drink slowly because I didn’t want to be the gossip on Monday morning. I was pleasantly surprised to see Yvonne there looking fine as usual. I went up to greet her and noticed that her husband wasn’t there. I asked her where her husband was and she replied “fuck that bum.” This is bad, this is very bad, I thought. She was obviously distressed and pissed.
“Do you need another beer?” she asked. I had almost a full can but I said yes anyway. I didn’t know Yvonne could drink like she was drinking. One beer after another we kept drinking, laughing and having a good time. Amazing how alcohol can lower barriers between people. There are no pretenses, no bullshit, just what is the true essence of what you think. When you’re drunk you don’t think before you talk, you just say what you mean. Of course this could be good or bad depending on what you say and whom you say it to. In the space of two hours we each drank a twelve pack. I knew I was drunk and I thought she had to be drunk also.
This is when the drunk talk began. I told her I thought she was beautiful. OK maybe I wasn’t that eloquent. What I actually said was DAMN YOU ARE ONE FINE SEXY WOMEN. She just told me that I was sweet and that I was probably drunk. I told her I was drunk but that didn’t change the fact that I thought she was a babe. She laughed at this and flashed her brilliant smile at me. She then grabbed my hand and told me to follow her. My mind was racing I didn’t know what to think. I followed her and hoped none of my co-workers would see me.
We went into the back yard and went into a shed in the back. To my surprise there were five people that I didn’t know sitting there. Yvonne made the introductions but I am terrible with names so I didn’t really care who they were. I was wondering why the hell she brought me here. Then Yvonne said lets play roulette. I’ve heard of spin the bottle and the postman but I didn’t have any idea what roulette was. What the hell I’ll play. I sat up at the table and saw seven needles on a tray. Even in my drunken state I knew this wasn’t good.
Heroin was in one of the needles and the other six filled with saline. I had never done heroin before and honestly it scared the shit out of me. I had my little experiments with pot and acid and ecstasy but I had never ever shot anything into my veins. The thought also excited me a little. What were the chances that I would get the needle? My luck had always been bad. My stomach was churning and butterflies were rampant in my stomach. Yvonne gave me a little wink and my mind was made up.
The tray was spun around and we all blindly took our needles. I guess as fate would have it I got lucky or unlucky depending on how you want to look at it. The sensation was indescribable. I felt a sudden rush. I no longer had control, my head was bobbing back and forth. Warm tingling sensations filled my entire body. It felt as if my whole body was asleep and waking up. Then I got scared because I hate not feeling in control. I couldn’t get up, I could barely move. I cried out and Yvonne gently cradled my head. She gently brushed my hair back. That sensation was unbelievable to be touched was total joy. “Is this your first time, baby?” she asked. She could tell by my reaction that it was. It’s going to be all right, she said. She still gently soothed me and caressed me. I don’t remember much after that. I guess I passed out.
I woke up after what seemed to be hours. I wanted to get up Yvonne was still holding my head. “How long was I out I asked?” She smiles at me and says you weren’t. This totally floors me. I had to be out for at least five or six hours. I look up at everybody else and realize she’s telling the truth. I struggle to get to my feet and walk out into the nice cool night. I feel great still a little out of control but great. I take a few steps and vomit with out warning. I didn’t gag no warning at all the vomit came as unexpectedly as a sneeze. I see a duck waddle over and begin to consume the vomit. That’s going to be one fucked up duck, I thought. This strikes me as hilarious. I begin to rant and rave feed the ducks everyone must feed the ducks. I run around in circles chanting this over and over until I collapse in a heap.
I woke up in a disoriented frame of mind. I didn’t know where I was what time it was or whom I was with. I saw a figure next to me and hoped and prayed it wasn’t a guy. Please don’t let it be a guy. It’s not that I have hidden gay feelings, but I have always been afraid of someone taking advantage of me when I lose control. My ass didn’t hurt which was a very good sign. I looked over at the figure next to me. Long hair small frame and smells good. It was Yvonne. She awoke while I was looking at her and smiled. “You were unbelievable last night. I wish I knew that you were capable of such unbelievable lovemaking.” Oh great. I had intercourse with the beautiful babe and I don’t remember it. What makes it worse is she’s married. Apparently I lose my morals when I lose control. How could I sleep with a married woman? Worse yet I do the crime and don’t even remember it to enjoy it. Yvonne burst out laughing. “I am just joking, sweetie, you were so out of it you couldn’t do anything. Relief and disappointment.
We talked the rest of the night. We talked about everything and nothing. She told me about the problems she was having with her husband. I told her the problems I was having with my ex-girlfriend. She was a good listener and had good insight. I was trying to remain guarded but I felt myself slipping. We finally went to sleep about 3 A.M. In the morning we said our good-byes and went our separate ways.
The following Monday I heard all kinds of jokes about me. As it turns out I wasn’t shouting at a duck. It was a Chihuahua. My gracious coworkers got me a shirt with the Taco Bell dog saying “YO QUIERO UNA PINCHA CERVEZA.” I knew the jokes would be endless but that was to be expected. What do you expect, I was screaming at a Chihuahua, not a duck? Oh the shame. The relationship I had with Yvonne changed though. We seemed to be better friends. We talked on a more intimate level. We still flirted but we talked about more personal matters as well.
The weeks went by and everyone eventually forget the whole duck incident. The only difference was I started to do heroin. I didn’t do it much at first but I started to like it more and more. I liked to call it ducking out. I would duck out every now and then just to get away from it all and lose control. I didn’t know how often Yvonne ducked out. This question often popped into my mind. I did notice that she wore long sleeves on a daily basis. This didn’t mean anything, she might just like them. I started to view heroin as nothing to me it was just like a beer. Maybe I was in denial. Maybe I knew what was happening and just didn’t want to face it. I knew I was getting addicted. I just didn’t admit it to myself.
Sometimes I wish I was stupid. It seems stupid people are always happy and smiling. They just aren’t smart enough to realize what’s going on. They get less responsibility at work they are counted on less by everybody. They get less rewards also. I wonder if it would be worth it. What’s better to be intelligent and miserable or stupid and happy? To have everything except happiness or to have very little and be happy. I guess the answer should be obvious.
I decided to ask Yvonne to duck out with me. I thought all she could say would be no. It wasn’t like she was going to say, get away from me, you ugly loser. I decided I had nothing to lose. As it turns out my timing was perfect; her husband was going out of town on a business trip. She seemed to be excited about my proposition.
The weekend came and it was going to be good or so I thought. Yvonne arrived at about ten. She seemed calm and relaxed. There was no tension in the air. We drank a couple of beers before I took the heroin out. I carefully took out two sterilized needles and the spoons and sponges we would need to duck out. Yvonne’s eyes rolled into the back of her head as she received her first dose. She moaned with pleasure as she fell back into the couch. We continued to duck out into the night. I don’t remember how many times we ducked out or what time it was or any other details that would usually have some importance.
Inevitably we started holding and caressing each other. One thing led to another and soon we were engaging in intercourse. It wasn’t the awkward sex that one usually has when it’s the first time with a new partner. It wasn’t the anxious clumsy drunken sex either. It just seemed natural. We would alternate sex and ducking out until time became a blur.
When I finally woke up I saw that Yvonne was still sleeping. I didn’t want to wake her so I walked quietly to the bathroom. I look back at her still naked figure and couldn’t help but smile to myself. I took a quick shower and decided to see how much heroin we had left. To my shock there was none. I couldn’t believe we did it all. I know I was pretty ducked up but I could have sworn that there was plenty of heroin left. I decided that I didn’t want this party to end. I was going to get more. I knew that I couldn’t really afford it but what the hell, I could pay my rent late, no big deal.
On my way to score I started to think about what I was doing. I couldn’t possibly be addicted could I? Let’s see, I’m going to pay my rent late to score more heroin. I’ve paid my rent late before for all kinds of reasons right? I’m just doing it to keep Yvonne here right. I really don’t want the heroin that much I just want Yvonne to stay right? Hell I’ll have plenty of time to think about this later. Of course I’m not addicted. It’s amazing how we justify almost anything to ourselves. I knew I was lying to myself but I wasn’t ready to admit it yet.
I returned to my apartment ready to duck out. To my surprise Yvonne was still sleeping. I admired the silhouette of her beautiful figure again. I decide it’s time she woke up. I walk over to her and gently shake her. No response. I roll her over and the needle breaks in her arm. Her eyes are open and reflect no life. I can hear the pounding of my heart in my head. My palms become sweaty and I think I’m going to scream like a bitch. I don’t have to check her pulse. I know she’s dead. I run to the bathroom and vomit.
What the hell do I do? I have to think clearly. I can’t panic. I must remain calm. I wash my face with cold water and try to clear my head. I walk back into the living room and I see the heroin. My pulse quickens my body says yes, my mind says no. What the hell, I’ll duck out and lose control for a while and then I can deal with this. This is too much for me to deal with. What the hell would I tell the cops? Wouldn’t I be indicted for involuntary manslaughter? Hell I didn’t know and I didn’t want to know. I ducked out.
That brings me back to the present. Two weeks have passed. The smell isn’t that bad once you get used to it. You see I won’t have to face the fact that there is a dead rotting women in my living room as long as I duck out right. I’m not addicted, I just don’t want to realize that Yvonne is dead. That I killed her. That she liked the ducks so she had to go. The needle still protrudes from my arm. I take in a deep breath and sigh. Nothing like ducking out to take the edge off.
I vaguely realize reality. I know there is a dead women in my house. I know it stinks. I think I saw some maggots or worms or something. I really should do something about it. I look at the heroin and decide I should duck out one more time. I take the needle out of my arm and look at the multiple track marks in both my arms. I smile to myself as I think I’m not addicted. I fix the needle using the rest of the heroin and I duck out one last time.
