Roxanne: From Addict to Hustler

by King Benjamin

  After that, the scales would become extremely unbalanced and I’d end up supporting me and this bitch’s habit. Plus, I already had my own, so as Sunshine rambled on about the who’s who and what’s what in the neighborhood, I brushed my teeth and spit out the window. She told me that her old man had a good paying job, but he wouldn’t support her habit the way she needed him too.

  Ninety percent of the girls I met on the stroll always claimed they didn’t have to be out there. Crazy thing is, a lot of the time it turned out to be true. I hadn’t taken the time to ponder on whether I had options or not. When I woke up, I made a move and wherever I landed was where I landed. It had been like that since the first night I took a hit. I asked Sunshine about vice sweeps and she said Thirsty Thursdays and Saturdays were the days to watch out for. It was Saturday, so I had one more day to be on guard.

  As I began to smoke, Sunshine pulled out a bag of wet wipes and began wiping down her breasts, between her thighs, and toes. I hoped this wasn’t her version of a bird bath. Sunshine was attractive and I could tell she was even more attractive before she got into drugs. Her light brown skin had been preserved, except for a few scars on her legs I was curious about. She was thick, with a nice round bottom and she covered her lips in cherry red lipstick. She told me I was the baddest white girl that hood had seen in a long time, and that I should stick with her for the day. She’d show me the money tricks, the weirdoes, the perverts, and the potential undercover cops.

  I knew I needed at least one confidant in this cesspool of sex, drugs, and danger, if I was gonna last. We walked up to Woodward together and the sun was bright for a January day. Snow piles departed from the roofs in orderly fashion and water dripped from the gutters. It was the exact opposite of yesterday, weather-wise, and I wished I had a skirt to change into. I liked Sunshine because she didn’t seem to be intimidated by me like so many in the past.

  She caught her first date before I did, and she tried to get him to pay for a ménage, but his money wasn’t right so I had to pass. I’d had girl-on-girl action and I didn’t particularly like or dislike it, it just came with the job. I can say I’ve had some pleasurable memories, though. So I passed on the threesome and Sunshine rode off to the motel. My first few dates were all blowjobs and by the third, my effort just wasn’t there. Fat fuck took all of forty-five minutes to come, but I made him pay like he weighed.

  When I came back to the stroll, Sunshine was there and she had some weed. She offered me a blunt to light and I quickly accepted. Weed allowed me to pace myself on smoking crack, so I knew I would have to find a weed connect before the day was over. I sat on the stoop and got high off the weed, while I told Sunshine the story of Wheels my first and last pimp.

  “That muthafucker used to fuck me so good. I swear, nobody ever fucked me that good, and then he would go put me right on the stroll and expect me to perform. I’d be so done, just lying there while some dude’s pounding away, not knowing I’m about to fall asleep on his ass.”

  “Shiiid, I wouldn’t never let no nigga pimp me. I don’t care how good the dick is, you ain’t gon’ tell me how to spend my bread,” Sunshine said.

  “That muthafucker made so much money off my ass. I was young, you know?” I said, shaking my head at the thought.

  Then a date pulled up and called me to the car. Sunshine said he was cool, but just then I realized I didn’t need a date. I already had enough money for my room and some drugs if I was gonna continue to indulge. Apparently, Sunshine was content also because when I turned the date down and offered it to her she too turned down the date. She walked over to the man leaned on his car then pointed several blocks down.

  “There you go right down there, baby,” she guided. “Them bitches look real hungry right now.”

  I laughed at Sunshine’s comment, but also at the fact that my homeless ass was turning down dates.

  “Girl, let’s get off this block for a while we ain’t doing nothing but making ourselves hot for no reason,” Sunshine said.

  “Where we gonna go?”

  “We can go to my house, my old man still at work.”

  So, she really did have a dude at home? I thought.

  “Let’s go, but before we do that, you gotta show me where the weed at.”

  Sunshine agreed to take me to the weed house, but before we could take ten steps, AJ pulled alongside us in his Bonneville.

  “Roxanne,” he called out. I gave Sunshine one finger as a gesture to hold up a second as I went to the car.

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Hop in.”

  “Well, I was on my way to my girl’s house to chill for a while. Can we get together a little later?”

  “Aww, you gon’ do me like that? I drove all the way over here to see you.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what time you were coming. I’m just kinda tired and I would hate to be a disappointment with my performance, you know?”

  “Only way I’m gon’ be disappointed is if I drove all the way over here for nothing. I came to see you,” he stressed again.

  I really just wanted to chill and get high for a while, but I hated to let a good date down. I knew AJ could turn out to be one of my top clients.

  “Can you just come back in like two hours? Please? I promise I’ll be ready.”

  “Listen, I live too far to drive all the way back over here. How about you just come with me and chill out for a couple of hours. We ain’t gotta do no fucking or nothing. We can just hang out.”

  “And you're still gonna pay me for my time?”

  “Come on,” he said, hitting the auto-locks and I took that as a yes.

  I glanced back at Sunshine, hating to leave her hanging. But getting paid to just chill was too good to pass on.

  “I’ll catch up with you later, girl,” I said.

  “Alright,” she said, as she departed.

  I hopped in and told AJ I wanted to get some weed before we went to the motel, and he responded by telling me we weren’t going to a motel.

  “So where are we going?” I questioned.

  “You’ll see. Just relax and enjoy the ride.”

  “Fuck that. I’m not with that secretive shit, where the fuck is we going?”

  “Just trust me,” he spoke calmly.

  Twenty minutes later, we pulled up in the driveway of a ranch-style home. When I saw the back of the driveway filled with oil, I remembered AJ was a mechanic. I assumed that this was his home. As he escorted me to the side door entrance, I noticed a couple of his greasy friends standing around in the backyard ogling me, sipping cans or beer. AJ didn’t introduce them, but he told me their names and said they all helped him out when he had too many jobs to do at one time.

  I was glad to see them because I was still apprehensive about going to his house instead of a motel. I’ve seen the stories on Dateline about the dudes with torture chambers in the basement: “Hooker Killers”. Anyway, the house was modestly furnished and a bit unkempt. The paint on the wall was peeling fast and the furniture’s wear and tear had reached its peak.

  The house held a certain unidentifiable stench, but it seemed related to his work. In the dining room sat four, like-new tires, a hydraulic jack, and a four-way. We sat down in the living room and began to watch Sanford and Son reruns. He offered me a beer, but I declined and told him to roll the weed up.

  I found a crack rock in my shirt pocket that I didn’t know I had, so I decided to go and smoke that first. I excused myself to the bathroom and when I came back out, AJ had a female’s outfit in his hands. It was a blue tennis skirt with a matching tube top.

  “Who’s is this?” I inquired.

  “It’s yours if you want it.”

  “But I mean, where did it come from?”

  “Came from this chick that lived with me a couple of months back in the summer time.”

  “Well, don’t you think she might come back for her shit?”

  “Do you want it or not? She left a bunch of stuff, but it’s all shorts an
d summer clothes mostly.”

  I knew I needed to change clothes, don’t ask me why I was being so morally perceptive at the time. The weather was unusually warm and it looked to me that the clothes were my size.

  “Yes, I want it,” I agreed.

  So, after that, we just got high and talked and he didn’t force the issue about sex. For the second time, he questioned why my young ass was out on the streets like I was. I didn’t really have a satisfactory answer for that question, so it always frustrated me when people asked me that.

  “Because Roxanne is gonna do what Roxanne wants to do,” I replied as always.

  “So that’s what you wanna be doing right now?”

  “Uh yeeaaah,” I sang in a sarcastic tone.

  “Selling your body and putting your life in danger?”

  “If I wasn’t, we would have never met. You didn’t seem to mind then.”

  He didn’t have anything to say after that comment. I could already see where this conversation was going and I didn’t like it. Didn’t like it one bit. He was about to try and turn a hoe into a housewife. All the extra clothes he had stored away told me this wasn’t his first time trying. But still, AJ seemed like a really nice guy, and I didn’t want to lose him as a client.

  “Let’s change the subject,” I suggested.

  I didn’t really appreciate him pretending to be better than me. Like he was so fucking scrupulous with his marijuana and whore habits. As the night began to wind down and the drugs wore off, I was ready to lie down and take a nap so I’d be ready to hit the stroll and catch all the freaks that came out at night. AJ begged me to stay, but I said some other time. He assured me that we didn’t have to have sex. I told him I didn’t mind sex, but afterward, I’d still be leaving.

  The streets were always calling me once I stepped foot in them.

  They had been calling me before that, but I finally answered the call and now I was in deeper than I ever dreamed of. After a quickie, AJ begged me some more to stay, but I refused. He dropped me back off to where he had found me, and I decided to see if I could find Sunshine, then go see Ducky with the money I just got from AJ. I had almost two hundred dollars now, so there was no real reason to be on the stroll at the moment, other than my commitment to the pavement. AJ gave me a purse, but I wouldn’t dare keep my money in it, so it hung empty as can be on my shoulder.

  As I walked up Woodward in my tennis skirt, the temperature had dropped drastically since early afternoon. The streets were unusually quiet and I heard squeaky brakes behind me. At first, I thought it was the police, but I turned to see a man inside a dark-colored sedan that I knew was a trick. He was the dictionary definition of someone who’d be looking for sex in the streets on a lonely night.

  White male, long slim face, no beard, thick mustache, thick glasses and a comb-over.

  “How you doing, hunny?” he called out from behind the wheel.

  “I’m fine, how are you, handsome?” I replied, but never stopped moving.

  I still hadn’t made up mind if I really wanted to leave the stroll or get a date while it was still early.

  “Just looking for some alone time with you, baby,” he said, driving alongside me.

  “I don’t know. My alone time is pretty expensive,” I warned, still walking.

  “I got the money, don’t worry about that. I got plenty of fucking money.”

  Just looking at his ride, I knew he could afford a date with me and probably ten girls just like me. I finally stopped and he braked.

  “Yeah, but how much of it are you willing to share?” I said, smiling.

  “As much as you want baby, but let’s get outta here before the cops come.”

  I looked around still hesitant for some reason; women’s intuition maybe. I opened the car door and got in. As we rode, the first creepy thing I noticed was the guy wouldn’t even give me a name; not even a nickname.

  “Names aren’t necessary,” he said gravely.

  “Okay, well, what am I supposed to call you?”

  He turned and gave me a sinister grin that sent chills through me.

  “In the midst of the fire, you’ll call me master,” he said.

  I shook my head, knowing this guy was a real weirdo now.

  “No, wait a minute now. Just what the fuck do you have in mind, because you’re not setting me on fire? I don’t care how much money you got, I’m not with that shit.”

  He laughed. “I didn’t mean fire in a literal sense. I meant… passion.”

  I calmed myself thinking he was a little strange, but I could deal with that. I told him I had to make a drug stop before we left the neighborhood and he accommodated me. Ducky cursed me out for bringing a strange white guy to his establishment, but he still gave me the drugs. I told him it wouldn’t happen again. On the way to the motel, I tried to figure out if creepy did drugs or not. Every time I asked him, he’d just tell me I didn’t need to know that. We checked in at my usual spot, and creepy really hadn’t said enough words to me to assure me he still had a pulse.

  Inside the motel, he opened a bottle of Jack Daniels and began to drink.

  “Can I have my money now, if you don’t mind?” I said. I always tried to get my money up front from first-time clients.

  “You’ll get your money,” he said angrily.

  “Yes, but I need it now before we go any farther.”

  He glanced at me roughly while he went into his wallet and pulled out a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill and flung it at me. I didn’t have any pockets, so I put all of my money in my purse for the moment and later, I’d relocate it to my bra. This guy was such an asshole, I was just ready to get it over, really wishing I’d followed my first mind. But something happened after he got a little more Jack Daniels in him. He became… almost friendly.

  “Have a drink with me,” he said.

  “No. Let’s just do this.”

  “C’mon, have one drink. Look, I’m sorry I came off like such a butt wipe, but I had a really rough week.”

  I didn’t want to drink with him now because I was irritated, but I figured whatever to make him comfortable, you know? So, I pour myself a shot in a plastic cup and he finally told me I could call him Dave. He told me he had an ex-wife and two kids and since the divorce, his life had become extremely boring, blah, blah, blah. By the time he loosened up, I was uptight, ready to fuck and go back to where I came from. I was already kinda tired of chatting with men anyway, from spending the day with AJ.

  I undressed and then pushed him down on the bed. I had my head between his legs unzipping his jeans with my teeth, when I heard the flick of a switchblade, then felt the cold, sharp steel touch my neck.

  “Did I tell you to get undressed?”

  “No, but I—”

  “How dare you try and dominate me, The Master!” he shouted.

  “Please don’t hurt me,” was all I could think to say.

  “Get up! Stand up right now!”

  I stood up, keeping an eye on the switchblade. He stood right after me then grabbed me in a chokehold and backed me into a wall. He pressed the knife to my esophagus while fear consumed me. I was too afraid to even scream.

  “Do what I say or you die right here in this hotel room, you understand?”

  “Yes, yes I’ll do it!”

  His eyes wore rage and his teeth snarled like a dog in attack mode.

  “Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

  I didn’t want to do it, but I knew at least then he’d have to remove the knife from my throat. When I turned and faced the wall, I heard the sound of handcuffs before they began tightening around my wrist.

  “Please, you don’t have to do that. I’ll do whatever you say,” I pleaded.

  He started to choke me again, this time with his bicep and forearm, with the blade dangling under my left eye.

  “Don’t say another fucking word until I tell you to,” he growled.

  He removed his arm and I could tell by the way he was talking, this wasn�
��t his first time doing something like this. I became horrified, knowing I was handcuffed and defenseless. He dragged me to the bed by my hair and laid me down, rolling me over on my back, but my handcuffed arms prevented me from lying flat. I could feel my heart attempting to escape from my chest as he calmly undressed and took a sip of Jack Daniels. He was hairier than a grizzly bear and his penis was erect, alerting me he held great pleasure in my fear. He grabbed the knife again and held it tight as he climbed on top of me. He put the knife to my neck while he inserted himself inside me with his free hand. As he humped on me I thought to moan in pleasure as it might soothe his rage.

  “Now call me Master!” he ordered.

  “Master! Master! Yes, Master!”

  The harder he pumped the more I could feel the edge of the blade, digging in my neck about to break the skin. I began to cry as I called out, “Master!”

  He stopped. Pulled out of me.

  “Crying huh, bitch? I’ll give you something to cry about.”

  “No don’t,” I begged, as he began to smack me repeatedly, then he dropped the knife by the bedside in order to smack me with both hands.

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” he barked.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  He flipped me over on my stomach and rammed himself inside me again. Somehow, he managed to recover the blade and I felt it at my neck again as he pulled my hair, getting his rocks off. I felt the stinging and bleeding holes on both sides of my neck now.

  “Say it!”

  “Master!” I yelled, feeling like my scalp was being lifted from my skull. He yanked away at my hair as hard as he could. Just when I thought I couldn’t bear anymore, he began biting me like a cannibal. I’ve been bitten during sex plenty of times, but this nutcase was literally trying to eat me. I screamed to God for it to stop.