Chapter 21: Businesswoman

My first explicit deal took place the night of my 26th birthday. I met my dealer at the time – I think his name was Carlos, I have no idea how I met him but it was probably through someone I partied with in Greenpoint, or maybe someone at work, and he ran a delivery service – at some bar in the city. I had no plans that night, no one had asked me to hang out – not even Brian – or even knew or cared that it was my birthday. I might have grieved over this fact it if I stopped and really thought about it, or cared about anything other than getting my shit. So I was convivial and flirtatious, and told him it was my birthday.

How lame – a room full of people there for the sole and express purpose of consuming poison, and I’m still the biggest fucking loser there.

The hand-off was far from discreet, I just held his gaze and kept chatting on pure instinct, nothing going on here, as he passed the baggie to me across the table. No qualms, nobody’s looking, nobody cares. I took it and reached into the neck hole of my shirt to stuff it into the slit in the right cup of my bra. I burst with life, newly ebullient, miles from the thought, How will I eat tomorrow? I reached across the table and touched his hand, and apologized but I had to use the bathroom, and practically skipped my way across the room. I was verging on drunk and hated that feeling but was energized by the thought that relief was around the corner.

This was decades before I learned to pace myself and had started fiending as soon as I called him before I left work and made plans to meet, and the urge was by now stunning, sweet – and made me wet as hell. I figured I would probably fuck Carlos but I didn’t articulate the thought, and nothing in my brain had the cadence of a plan. Right then I had a singular focus, I needed to get right, so I peeled down my jeggings, sat down on the toilet, and crushed the baggie with the heel of my right boot. I held it in my left hand while I rolled my last $10 with my right, then stuck the makeshift straw into the baggie and sucked it in hard.

Fuck, I thought, I just did almost half the bag, how the hell was I going to make this last all night? But there was no time for reflection before someone knocked on the door, I figured, so I closed the baggie sort of, stuffed it and the rolled bill into the slit in my bra, and pulled up my pants without peeing. Whatever I may have been feeling before I hit the bathroom was somewhere far away, and in my mind’s eye I saw it in the distance, on the horizon, flickering without going out, but dim against the glow of my new high.

I emerged from the bathroom a new woman. I stood up straighter, filled my 6-foot frame, and I heard the clack, clack of my cheap boot heels on the wood floor and it almost made me self-conscious, like it did on my way to the bathroom – but the sound, I realized, came from afar.

I didn’t go in with a plan to persuade him to give me a 50 on top of the one I had cash for, but I saw an opening. I didn’t have an end game at first but was eager to get more; he was kind of chunky but in the dim light he was appealing in his form, and he was affable, and paid attention to me. He asked me to come back to his place and I asked if he’d hook me up with another 50 if I did, and he said yeah, so we hailed a cab and took off.

As far as I was concerned, it was a win-win.

I saw him pretty regularly. I was usually drunk and fiending by the time he called me a cab, and would do my eyeliner by the interior light of the car. The drivers didn’t always like that I turned the light on, but I was pretty heavy-handed in my charm and persuaded them to let me use it.

I was in my mid-twenties and my coke habit in full swing; I was consorting with dealers with no remorse, having discovered that sex was currency and could be traded for what I needed. This opened up a world of opportunities for me, and I threw myself into it with my usual commitment and ardor. Instinctively I knew that if I devalued my own body, my own sexuality, men’s objectification had zero power over me – in other words, I had beaten them to it. As for the coke, I figured it was too late for me, and I’d never be able to function without it ever again, and I had just had to make do.

I started making new connections around Bed-Stuy. One was a black guy who lived in the basement of a brownstone around the corner. He was pretty unreliable but when I had cash he often came through.

Again, through the power of suggestion I made it known that I was willing to do things for coke.

“I can hook you up, go get ready and I’ll call you.”

I doubt he was in any way real pimp material but I was desperate for cash and needed to score. So I pounded a couple of 22-ounce Coors and forced myself to take a shower. I usually shaved off as much as I could without hurting myself, but this time I was especially thorough and shaved around my asshole, as well.

Dave knew that I had gone out with intention and came by my room to check on me. I had already confided in him that the wannabe thug guy was going to turn me out, gotta keep your eye on the prize, I slid into the only skirt I had, this green army skirt with pockets on the slide, but Dave stopped me – he physically blockaded my doorway and put his hand out.

“No, you’re not doing this.”

I had never been so turned on in my life. I put my open mouth on his, grasping for his tongue, finally finding it, and I wrapped my legs around him and dragged him over to my bed, pushing him down onto his back, where I ripped off my thong and sat on his dick and rode him, my mouth open and close to his, and I would have come fucking hard and in succession if I hadn’t had so much coke in my system.

I was so moved by his gesture that not only did I fuck him with pain and gratitude but I decided not to go.

I met a few people through Carlos, and a few more people through each of them. I was hungry to build up my clientele, and, as it turned out, uniquely skilled in the art of networking. It was just business to me, and almost nothing was as important to me as having regular, dependable access to coke. Meeting new people was thrilling – but not as much as taking charge of the conversation right out of the gate, massaging an otherwise awkward social situation until he (or they) felt at ease. Finding ways to connect with men came easy to me – especially when I knew there was a reward and I’d get to have sex, too. I reveled in each new successful connection and could always tell when I had won them over. And when I had, I steered the conversation back to business.

Most of my negotiations were done via text or phone, before I met up with them, or they showed up at my place. That made the cash hand-off more seamless and preempted any dispute over cost or further negotiations.

Between the coke, and the sense of power when a job was going well, and the promise of sex under the dirtiest of circumstances, by the time my clothes came off I was practically dripping and ready to go.

I usually started by sucking their dick. I never did this for the man I would later marry because he made my skin crawl but with new clients it was easy. And it usually went well – the only guy who ever pushed my head down and tried to choke me to death with his dick was a man I would meet later, a man who told me he loved me.

One-on-one was easy to navigate; I knew what sounds to make, where and how to touch him, how to move beneath him. Sometimes I would suck one guy’s dick while another guy fucked me, but threesomes usually didn’t pan out because someone always got coke dick. Although I really wouldn’t have had a problem with getting pounded by one guy and then another, in turns.

I monitored my stash and when it started to get low, I would speed things along. I wanted to make sure everyone was accounted for and dipped into their supply to preserve my own and keep the party going when I could. All that mattered to me was that I still had enough left over when everything was said and done, and was left do my drugs in peace, alone.

Carlos had started delegating. One of his footmen was a tall, skinny guy they called Frenchie. I saw a lot of Frenchie, and it wasn’t long before I was broke and brainstorming again. I had started working at an agency in the Theater District for a woman who liked me for some reason and hired me even though I had no idea what I was doing, and I often left work in the middle of the day to meet Frenchie at a hotel somewhere in the neighborhood. Frenchie always stood by the deal we made and was never too forceful or even an asshole at all. Carlos told me one day why they called him “Frenchie”.

“Because he looks like a French fry.”

I felt guilty about laughing.

I liked talking to Frenchie. He told me his girlfriend was always accusing him of cheating.

“So I was like, well, I might as well fucking cheat.”

This is part of a memoir-in-progress. Read the next chapter published on Vocal here.

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