Sex and Crime: Oliver's Strange Journey

by Oliver Markus

  Then Lucy told me that Las Vegas was pimping her out. He rented the hotel room where she had sex with guys. She had to pay him a cut for the room each time she had sex, and pay him if he drove her to outcalls, and she gave him the rest of her money to buy drugs from him. So at the end of each day, after having sex with a bunch of guys, she had nothing to show for it, because Las Vegas got every last cent. And she owed him money on top of that, because she often did more drugs than she could afford with the money she had left.

  My savior instinct kicked in, and I just wanted to take her away from all this. I felt so bad for her. She was such a sweetheart. She was just a kid, but she had already been through enough traumatic experiences for three lifetimes.

  "If you want, you can stay with me tonight," she said while giving me a shy look.

  "Sure," I replied. I knew she desperately wanted to feel loved. She craved affection. Especially now that her grandma was gone.

  We spooned. She pressed herself as hard as she could against my body, grabbed my arm, put it around herself, placed my hand on her breast, and fell asleep cuddled up next to me, as if I was her blanket. I felt happy. I was so content, holding this sweet, beautiful girl in my arms while she was sleeping. There was no place in the world I'd rather be right now. I had completely forgotten about Veronica. And I think, for a little while, I helped Lucy forget about how much she missed her grandma.

  Later I read an interesting article about hugging. Medical studies have shown that hugs and cuddling are important for your mental health. They kill depression, relieve anxiety and strengthen the immune system.

  Hugs are healing. Cuddling is medicine. The heart rate slows, blood pressure stabilizes, and the immune system improves. Virginia Satir, a psychotherapist, wrote that we need four hugs a day for survival, eight hugs a day for maintenance, twelve hugs a day for growth. Hugging increases oxytocin, especially in women.

  Studies have shown a link between oxytocin and the ability to achieve orgasm, positive social behavior, pair bonding, anxiety, and maternal behaviors. It is sometimes referred to as the "love hormone." A lack of oxytocin has been associated with maladaptive social traits such as depression, anxiety, aggressive behavior and drug use.

  Hugging and cuddling have been proven to not only increase levels of the healing hormone oxytocin but also decrease the levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

  Lucy and I started hanging out every day. At first I met her at her hotel rooms, but then after a few more days, she began coming to my apartment and sleeping over. She brought all her clothes to my place. She even cooked for me. I loved being around her. It seemed like she never stopped talking, and I never got tired of listening to her.

  She was so lovable and affectionate. When we spent time together, her face just lit up with this big beautiful smile. She was like a little ray of sunshine. Whenever we went to Publix to buy groceries, she would hold my hand and pull me around the store, like a little girl. She probably used to do the same thing with her grandma.

  But she was still a drug addict. Every day she asked me to drive her to these two trap houses in Pine Manor, or to some motel so she could buy drugs from Las Vegas. I was getting more and more uncomfortable. I really didn't want to keep doing that. The law of probability said that sooner or later we would get arrested on one of these drug runs.

  One time we saw a police raid in progress at the trap house we were headed to. If we had gotten there 5 minutes earlier, we would have gotten arrested.

  I wanted to help her get clean, and show her that a sober life is worth living, not drive her to trap houses and enable her to be a drug addict and watch her degrade herself on Backpage while she's slowly killing herself.

  More and more often, she locked herself in my bathroom as soon as we came home, and she smoked crack for hours, until every last crumb was gone. Then, as soon as she got out of the bathroom, she wanted me to take her back to Pine Manor, to buy more crack. It all seemed so familiar again. Haley used to do exactly the same thing.

  I told Lucy I didn't like that she kept locking herself in the bathroom for hours, and that I didn't want to keep driving her to these drug places. We started fighting, and she had Las Vegas pick her up at my place in the middle of the night.

  Meanwhile she had violated her probation, because she never reported to her probation officer. He issued a warrant. The cops arrested her a day or two later, while she was staying at the La Quinta.

  She called me from jail and told me she loved me. Her bond was $10,000, so the bondsman's fee was $1000. She asked me to bail her out. I told her I wouldn't, because she was totally off the chain and she really needed to get clean, and this was her chance to sober up.

  She had called her aunt Nicole from my place a few times, and had given my number to Nicole and Nicole's number to me. We friended each other on Facebook. Nicole and I were the two most important people in her life at this point, so Lucy wanted us to be able to call each other, to let each other know how she was doing, once she went to jail. She had known that it was only a matter of time before her probation officer was going to issue a warrant, and she wanted to be prepared.

  I called Nicole and told her Lucy was in jail, and that she had asked me to bail her out, but that I didn't want to.

  I was so happy when I spent time with Lucy every day, but now that she was in jail, I started to get depressed again. And I started to think about Veronica again. Not because I wanted to get back with her. I hated her. I just remembered the pain she had caused me, and it still hurt. Thinking about Veronica was nothing but pain and misery. Thinking about Lucy made me happy. Without Lucy, there was nothing for me in Florida right now, so I went to New York again.

  "Please don't bond Lucy out. She's going to end up dead if she keeps going the way she's going. She needs time to think about her life with a clear, sober mind," Nicole told me on the phone.

  Nicole was a drug addict, too. She had been in prison for two years, and got out about 3 or 4 months before I met Lucy. She said prison saved her life, because it gave her a chance to sober up and think about her future. She had been clean since she got out and started her own little lawn care business. She went to church and AA meetings regularly.

  Lucy called me a few times every day while I was in New York, and she told me she loved me and wanted to be my girlfriend. I told her I loved her, too. I really had been getting very attached to her when we spent all that time together. She was so lovable, I couldn't help but fall for her.

  She told me she wanted me to come back from New York and get her out of jail. She said if I'd bond her out, she'd like to come live with me, because she was happy whenever we spent time together. I loved the idea of her coming to live with me. Spending time with her, cuddling with her, being led around by the hand, or getting one of her random little kisses made me so happy. It was impossible not to love this sweet little girl.

  But I still wasn't going to bail her out, because I knew that no matter what she said right now, as soon as she got out, she'd be smoking crack nonstop again, and she'd be back in some cheap motel room, sucking some guy's dick, and then giving all her money to Las Vegas. I couldn't stand the thought of anyone else touching her. I was starting to feel possessive and protective of her. That's how I knew I was starting to have real feelings for her. I loved her, and I didn't want to share her with anyone else.

  Nicole told me she was worried this guy Cho might bond Lucy out. Lucy had told me about some of her regular "clients." One guy paid her a lot of extra money so she would kiss him during sex. So she did, even though she really didn't want to. When he started running low on money, he couldn't afford to pay extra for kissing anymore, so she stopped. He got upset about that. I don't remember if that was Cho or someone else.

  Anyway, Cho was one of her sugar daddies. He was a short, fat, bald Vietnamese guy in his early 50s, who was a pharmacist at one of the hospitals in Fort Myers. He was infatuated with Lucy, and when he realized that she was on drugs, he started to keep feeding her crack
, so she would hang out with him. And he started to smoke crack too, to have something in common with her. What a fucking moron!

  She told me Cho wanted to be in a relationship with her, but that she obviously wasn't really into him, and that she was just using him whenever she needed money, or a new phone, or clothes.

  When she called me from jail, I asked her if she was still talking to Cho. She said no, that she had stopped talking to all other guys, and I was the only one in her life.

  Afterwards I called Nicole and asked her if that was true. She said: "No, Lucy is lying. She's still talking to Cho, because she's hoping to con him into bailing her out."

  When Lucy called me back later that day, I told her I didn't believe that she was no longer talking to Cho.

  "It's true. I told him I want nothing to do with him anymore, and that I'm with you now," Lucy said. "You can call him and ask him yourself."

  "Ok," I called her bluff. "What's his number?"

  She purposely gave me a wrong number. But I hacked her phone and got the right one. I called Cho and introduced myself. I told him what Lucy had said. As it turned out, she was telling him the same story she was telling me. She didn't tell him she wanted nothing to do with him anymore. Instead she told him she loved him and wanted to have a future with him, and come live at his house after he bailed her out.

  Considering I wanted her to be sober when she was going to live with me, but Cho fed her crack, it was obvious to me where she would end up. She would choose drugs over me, just like Alice and Veronica did.

  I was still talking to him, comparing stories, when Lucy called me back and asked me what I was doing. I told her I was still on the phone with Cho.

  "No you're not," she said. She knew she had given me a wrong number, so she didn't think I was really able to talk to him. "Well, if you're talking to him, good. Then put him on a threeway, so I can tell him that I want nothing to do with him and that I'm with you. Right now, in front of you, so you can listen."

  "Ok," I said, and called her bluff again. I merged the calls. Now Cho, Lucy and I were all on the phone together. She was startled and didn't know what to say for a second. She had to think quick.

  Then she said: "I'm going to be with Cho, because he's going to bail me out."

  I pretended to be shocked: "What? That's not what you said two minutes ago! What the fuck? Well, good luck with that. Never call me again!"

  Then I hung up. Lucy called me right back and said: "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean it! I just had to say that because you put me on the spot. I love you and I want to come live with you. But I really want to get out of jail, and you said you won't bail me out, so I have to have Cho bail me out instead."

  I guess in a drug addict's mind that makes sense. But if my parents ever argued over money, it would never ever occur to my mother to tell my stepdad: "Well, if you won't come up with the money I want, I guess I'll tell some other guy I love him and ask him for the money instead." Only sociopaths and drug addicts think it's ok to do that sort of thing.

  Ever heard about the sociopath test? It's a little riddle that floats around the internet:

  A girl attended the funeral of her own mother. There she met a guy whom she did not know. He was her dream guy. She fell in love with him at first sight. However, she never asked for his name or number and afterwards could not find anyone who knew who he was. A few days later the girl killed her own sister. Why did she do it?

  Supposedly a sociopath will figure out the correct answer to this riddle pretty quickly, while a normal person will be stumped.

  So, can you figure it out? No pressure. Nooo pressure. Take your time.

  Alright, I'm not gonna keep torturing you. Well, if you're a sociopath, you already know the answer: she figured that if the guy showed up to her mother's funeral, then he might appear at another family member's funeral as well.

  The point is that sociopaths don't care who they hurt to get what they want.

  Anyway, I was really upset when Lucy acted like it was no big deal that she had been telling Cho and me the same story. To her it really wasn't a big deal. It was just business as usual. It's what all drug addicts do. She said that when she told me she loved me, it was the truth, but when she told Cho she loved him, it was only to con him into bailing her out.

  How was I supposed to trust someone like that? This was the same kind of two-faced shit I hated about Veronica and every other drug addict I had met so far. I wanted nothing to do with her anymore. (How many times have I said that sentence so far?)

  A few days later, Cho paid the $1000 to bail Lucy out. She went to his house with him. They smoked a bunch of crack together and had sex. That thought made my skin crawl. Then she wrote me a love letter, took a picture of it with her cell phone, and texted it to me. Cho found her letter to me at his house and kicked her out in the middle of the night.

  She asked her aunt if she could stay with her until I got back from New York, but Nicole lived in a halfway house at the time and couldn't have Lucy there. The next morning, Cho pulled the bail, and the bondsman took Lucy back to jail.

  When Lucy called me, she told me that now she was really done with Cho for good, and asked me to bail her out again. She said since Cho had already paid the $1000 the first time, all I had to do was sign some paperwork at the bondsman's office and they'd let her back out. I told her again that I didn't want to bail her out, at least not until I got back from New York. I told her she needed to sober up, because the drugs made her do really grimey things.

  She swore once again that she wasn't talking to Cho anymore. I didn't believe her. I put Cho, Lucy and myself on a threeway call again, and it was a replay of the last time I had merged the calls. She sold me out again and said she'd be with Cho, because he'd bail her out.

  Cho ended up having to pay another $1000, because the bondsman said he forfeited the first $1000. Lucy got out a second time, stayed with Cho, and smoked a bunch of crack with him. But as soon as his paycheck was used up, she ran off into the night. She had only been out for 3 or 4 days, when Cho pulled her bail again, and she went back to jail a third time.

  I was really sick and tired of Lucy's shit at this point. She was no better than Veronica.

  "Don't compare me to Veronica," Lucy said angrily. "I'm nothing like her! I would never hurt you like Veronica did."

  Funny, Veronica used to tell me the same thing about Alice.

  The sad part was that Lucy really didn't understand that she had already hurt me just like Veronica always did. The part of her brain that's responsible for empathy didn't work properly. It didn't really sink in that the things she does actually hurt other people. All she did was lie, cheat, and manipulate people to get what she wanted, like a typical sociopathic drug addict.

  I wrote her a nasty postcard and told her to stop calling me.

  BABY FEVER

  "You know what the great thing about babies is? They are like little bundles of hope. Like the future in a basket."

  Lish McBride

  "The only creatures that are evolved enough to convey pure love are dogs and infants."

  Johnny Depp

  Meanwhile I had run across Veronica's new Facebook page. Once her dad picked her up from jail in June 2013, he brought her to the 2 bedroom condo he had rented for her at Forestwood Apartments on Brantley Road.

  Veronica posted pictures of herself, bragging about all the new clothes and shoes her dad had bought her. It made me sick, how shallow and materialistic she was. All she cared about was stuff. And what pissed me off even more was that there was not a single word about me on her Facebook page. It was like I never even existed. She didn't miss me at all. As soon as she didn't need me to take care of her in jail anymore, I became less than air. What a fucking lowlife she was.

  I was so heartbroken when she just disappeared, I couldn't think about anything else, until I met Lucy. But Veronica couldn't care less about us breaking up. She was back on drugs already.