Stumbling across the room Candi picked up the Jet inhaler and shook it. Exhaling with excited anticipation, she lifted the plastic to her lips, and pressed down on the top of the inhaler. Nothing came out.
"Fuck this," Candi yelled as she tossed the worthless piece of plastic at the wall. Breathing hard from the exertion and the lack of chem's in her veins caused Candi to feel like finger nails were raked across her skin. She squirmed and pulled out a drawer from her night stand, looking for a forgotten pill or syringe full of something. She saw white flakes, ran her finger along them, then massages it into her gums, praying it was left over buffout, or even a lame mentat.
Huffing, the woman leaned back on her elbows, glancing around the dirty hotel room she'd been doing drugs in for days. Her worn leather heals slid across the burned out carpet, catching little strips of the fabric as she tried to wiggle her way up. She stared over at a glowing bottle of Nuka Cola, one of those special brands; she couldn't read so she was unsure what variety. Moving towards the door she palmed the bottle, shoving it a pack she kept wrapped around her waist, holding her skirt up.
Stumbling outside into the sun, Candi pulled a pair of faded blue plastic sunglasses over her eyes and inhaled the air blowing through the El Ray Motel. She looked over to the right and saw a tall man with an old world derby covering his bald head and a tattooed neck. He stopped his conversation with a worn out Junky and pushed his way over to Candi.
"Hey babe, wanna go inside and huff some Jet," Thomas asked, pulling Candi close to him, reminding her and him who she belonged to.
"We ran out of shit last night," Candi said, fidgeting, not even a smoke around to ease her nerves. "Out of money too. Out of…out of everything. Was gonna go over to McCarran and see if those solider boys would give me enough caps to get an inhaler. Maybe pick up a customer or two if it wasn't."
"That's my bottle," he snorted, stepping backwards, causing a glass vile to crunch under his feet.
"Well, unless you can smoke it or huff it, don't do no good for me," Candi said.
"Yeah, true. I could use a hit maaaaan. You sure nothing's in the hotel room?" He asked, bobbing up and down like a ball on the end of a fishing pole.
"Ain't shit in the hotel room," Candi murmured as she headed towards the stair well of the El Ray Motel, holding tight to the railing as she traversed the ancient metal steps.
Turning right she marched the ten feet to the front of McCarran, only to be stopped by a guard at the front.
"We don't let whores in here," the guard said.
"Come on baby, I just wanna trade some cola for some good caps. Maybe, maybe some NCR dollars. You like this glowing cola? It's real good. I hear it makes you feel real strong, but you probably don't need that do you baby," Candi said, shifting on the worn high heels, her torn pantyhose, miniskirt, and pink bra under a tight white shirt making her look ridiculous in the devastated wasteland.
"Why don't you go get a job at the Gomorrah, and get out of my face," The soldier responded.
"Eh they kicked me out," Candi said, twitching slightly as she looked around the wastes, worried she'd have to hike it to Freeside without a weapon. She'd go by Crimson Caravan but she was on a list of thieves that weren't allowed in.
"Why would the Gomorrah kick out a fully functioning piece of pussy?"
The other guard turned and glared at his companion for asking such a crude question. The dark haired man shrugged and turned his attention back to Candi, who watched the both of them in a kind of daze.
"They were liars, said I was keeping money from my Johns when I wasn't. Even if I was, not like it's right of them to keep a working girls tips. Told me to sober up and maybe I could come back. Stupid fucks, ain't a girl in there who ain't at least on MedX."
"Judging from the scabs on your arms, I'd say it's been awhile sense a dose of MedX did the trick for you."
Candi adjusted her hot pink bra strap and shuffled backwards in the dirt, moving like an intoxicated ballerina. If the guard had ever considered hitting her up for a cheap blowjob, he quickly changed his mind once he realized how emaciated the woman was. She wasn't remarkable compared to any other wasteland junkie; at least her addiction had kept her away from the Fiends so far, but he wasn't going to stick his dick in it.
"I think you need to get going," the nicer guard said, motioning in the direction of Freeside with his rifle. "If Gomorrah won't have you, maybe you can pick up a job at the Atomic Wrangler."
"Fucking Garrets," the girl spat, as her skinny legs wobbled off towards Freeside, occasionally catching her heals in the pavement cracks.
Half way to Freeside, she came across a Fiend corpse that had been in the sun for a few days. Excited that maybe the body would yield some prize that would help her cope with withdrawals; she carefully picked over the corpse.
"Gimme gimme gimme, some jet, baby jet," she sang as she went through the dead man's pockets, pulling out only a burnt metal spoon and a single cap. She pressed the cap into the pouch with her bottle of cola, and stood up. She noticed a piece of wood poking out from the body, she reached down and carefully pulled it from under the bloated corpse, groaning as the skin broke open and a foul liquid leaked out.
She grasped her prize and moved away from the body quickly, lease the corpse explode on her like she had heard they could do. She looked in her hand once she had wobbled off and smiled at the pool cue tucked between her fingers. It wasn't much of a weapon, but she could put a hurt on someone's face if they jumped at her from the wastes.
Finally making it to the Freeside gate, she wandered past a group of Kings, the gang members glaring at her as she straightening her skin tight leather skirt over her ass. Winking the boys with their slicked back hair, the thugs turned away in disgust, which was fine with Candi, who always thought their outfits were dumb.
She turned through the alleys quickly, holding on to her pool cue as if her life depended on it, finally arriving at a shop. She smiled, unable to read the sign above, but knowing it belonged to Mick and Ralph, both of whom would give her a fair deal for their soda. Ralph practically lived off of the stuff.
"Look what the cat drug in. Smells as bad as it looks too," Mick said as he moved to the back of the store, refusing to deal with a slut like Candi.
"Yeah girl, you're pretty ripe, what have you been into," Ralph asked, instantly regretting it, as the woman looked particularly volatile at the moment.
"Do you have to be nice to every two bit hooker and hustler in Freeside?" Mick asked from a reloader bench in the back.
"Real fucking nice to see you too," Candi spat.
"What can I do you for," Ralph asked, hoping to get the junkie out of his shop before a customer came in, or she stole something.
"I wanna sell this," the girl said, pulling the glowing bottle of cola out of her satchel and placing it in on the counter.
Ralph whistled, and picked up the purple glowing bottle of liquid and held it up to inspect. "Where'd you find this?"
"Probably stole it. Decided she's sell it cause she can't huff it or smoke it," Mick sneered from the back of the store.
"Shut up you. You're just soar cause you're peckers real small," Candi snipped, real proud of herself.
"Ignore him," Ralph said, sitting the bottle on the counter. "Thirty caps."
"Shit, that'll like, just get me one thing of jet," Candi whined. Pressing her breasts together the hooker leaned in, biting her lip in a way that used to drive men crazy when she was younger and less filthy. "Can you do me five caps better?"
"Nah, I'll be lucky to sell it for 35, I'm doing you a favor cause you've been here before, and I want you out of my place quickly. Mick and Ralphs might not be the Silver Rush, but we aren't a holding place for old slut's looking to pawn their teeth for drugs."
Candi recoiled at the insult, annoyed at the cruel language the men were using, but knowing there wasn't many places in Freeside that would do business with her based on looks and reputation. "Fine, give me the caps."
Ralph counted out the money quickly, then took the bottle and put it on the shelf. Candi looked up at it for a second, this beautiful glowing thing no longer in her possession; she regretted loosing something so nice. Her thoughts stopped there, the realization of all the things she had given up to chase dragons would start to overwhelm her otherwise.
"I don't know, I've hired some pretty strung out whores in my past, but this one is really pushing it," James Garret complained to his sister Francine.
"She'll work for dirt, and let's face it, most of the people who come in here can't even afford that," Francine said.
"I should make her go over to the Followers of the Apocalypse and get checked for diseases first, don't you think?" James said.
"She probably can't afford it. Look, I want another Jet huffing slut around here like I want a hole in the head, but as long as she's good for her fifty percent she's good enough for me," Francine responded, glancing over at Candi.
"I'm making her get checked out first," James growled, ending the conversation by storming over to Candi.
"If you go get a clean bill of health from the Followers over at Mormon Fort, you got a job," James said.
Candi wobbled on her dirty shoes, swaying like a tree caught in the wind. She looked up at James with liquid blue eyes, holding back tears. "I don't have very many caps," She sputtered.
"Then the Followers will probably see you for free. I'm not selling diseased snatch in my establishment, now get lost and don't come back until you can prove that you're okay."
Candi shook her head, the motion sending small strands of movement through the thin fleshy parts of her arms and legs. She was mostly jitter, and she wanted so much.
Spinning herself, Candi ended up at Mormon fort with a dark haired female doctor looking over her. The woman took thirty minutes trying to find a vein to draw blood from, finally resigning herself to sticking a needle in Candi's neck.
"Glad to see your teeth are the least fucked up thing about you," the doctor said, the sarcasm lost on Candi.
"I have most of my teeth," Candi said, seeming oddly proud.
"Would you like to talk about your chem addiction today?" The doctor asked from behind the clipboard.
"Nah, me and chems have a good ole time."
"You know you're not going to be able to keep this up for much longer. You will be dead soon. All the shit you put in your body is the reason you keep having those miscarriages, and why your legs look like tooth picks with some skin on them. Do you even know the last time you ate real food?"
Candi looked away, some level of shame filtering in past the plastic sun glasses, and dirty shirt. Candi shook her matted hair at the woman, refusing to accept that she had anything useful to say. "Chem's are good to me and I'm good to them. They make me better, man. They make me like see life with this vision that I can't get when I'm sober. They make the whole world pulse around me like a massive heart beat, and I'm comfortable and high, and life is just good. You fancy doctors just don't get it, in here with your sterile lives. Shit out in the wastes is to real man, you gotta cut it up, you gotta huff it down, you gotta do what you gotta do so you don't feel that shit no more."
"That's the same pathetic crap I hear from every junkie that comes in here," The doctor chided. "Look, this is going to kill you, sooner than later. Even if it doesn't, do you really want to be one of those pathetic ghoul beggars with a messed up face because a jet canister exploded on her?"
"That's not me man. Not me. Don't worry. I tell you what, when I get this job with the Garrets, I'll think about sobering up. Think real hard. Maybe I'll do it. I'll come back here and ask for you, doctor. Just need me some money so I can start a straight life someone doing a straight job."
The doctor nodded, refusing to accept the woman's lies. She'd heard it before a million times. The ones that were going to change had hit rock bottom, and somehow this woman wasn't there yet. Looking at the shaking mess in front of her, the doctor wondered if Candi would ever really get to the bottom. She ripped a piece of paper off her clip board and handed it to the hooker.
"You're amazingly STD free. Keep living this life and it won't stay that way."
Candi nodded excitedly, taking the paper and righting herself on wobbly legs. She ambled out of the Mormon fort, the yellow sheet in her hand, and marched towards the Atomic Wrangler. Barely able to hold her shit together, the hooker happened upon a dealer working the corner.
"Name's Dixon, you look like you could use a fix," The dealer said, pulling the brim on his black cap kindly.
"Finally, a gentleman," Candi said, shifting on her heals as she examined the man, the buldges in his jacket making her more excited than a dick ever could.
"What you need girl? I got buffout, I got medx, I got psycho, I got jet, I got whiskey."
As he listed off the drugs Candi felt her mouth water and her heart tremble with excitement. She wobbled around on her heals excitedly and begged him, "Oh man, jet, jet, jet. I need some jet reaaaal bad. Real damn bad."
"Sixteen caps, " the dealer laughed, slipping her a container he had rigged with rat poison. The added contents of his jet fucked the junkies up extra hard, and kept them coming around to avoid the horrible detox effects of the poison. Eventually it would rip their insides apart, but he would be to rich at that point to care.
Taking the container in her hand like it was a precious artifact, Candi wobbled off into an alley, sucked on the plastic mouth like a baby who had gotten a forbidden item of its mothers, and inhaled. The rush of the drug sent jolts of static through her limbs and torso. She shook back on her heals, almost falling on her ass, the extra jolt from the cyanide making her feel like she could run a marathon. She coughed into her hand, rubbing a streak of blood from her lungs onto her black skirt where no one would notice. A little blood coming up after a Jet hit wasn't odd, but she didn't want anyone to know.
Two clients had left Candi with enough caps to drown in Dixon's jet for the rest of the week. The excitement of more drugs added to the rush of a special client coming in and asking for a girl who was down with anything. He was a man in his early forties, with sunken in cheeks, and a mean look in his eyes. The other girls in the establishment were scared of the man, but Candi just smiled and said "Come on."
The man had started out the session by tying her to a chair, which wasn't common, but not anything that would scare Candi. He roughed her up a little, laying slaps across her face, and wrenching her nipples through her dress. Candi was to numb to really care.
The man pulled a chair across from Candi and sat down in it. He sat down and stared into her dazed blue eyes, making the hooker feel uncomfortable. After she turned her head and refused to even look at him, the man spoke for the first time, "That's right, you're really not worthy of looking at me. I asked for an unfortunate such as you, because I don't feel like honest working girls deserve what it is I enjoy."
"I can believe that," Candi said. "So far your actions are pretty pussy though."
The old man slapped her again, sending her face to the other side of her neck. "Don't back talk me. A slut such as you isn't worthy of such privileges. I can tell you don't know who I am, so I'll spare you the speech. Let's just say I spent my life interrogating prisoners for the NCR, before they decided my methods were crude, and I was forced to retire."
Candi whimpered as a response.
"I didn't think you'd be all that difficult to break, but that's not really why I'm here. I want to understand you, my child. I want to know what makes the average drug addled street walker tick. Yes, average, I said it. You're really not that remarkable Candi, there are a million strung out losers like you in the Mojave. Worthless wretches who don't deserve the life they have been given."
"I'm human just like you," Candi responded.
"Yes, that's really the pathetic part of it. You were born with all of the promise any child is born with. You reached adulthood with a choice, a choice to be someone of note, or to be a whore with a chem addiction. Yet for some reason you thought spreading your legs for anyone with caps and inhaling dangerous chemicals was superior to whatever it was you used to dream about. Tell me, what is it that you used to want to be Candi?"
"I wanted to be a singer in one of them casino lounges. You know, the one's that dress real nice and don't have to take their clothes off," she said with a good deal of resignation.
"Ah, and here you are; taking your clothes off for anyone who can buy their way into your room. Not that it cost much to get you in here. I paid more for a bottle of water than I did you, Candi. Tell me, in hindsight, are the drugs worth it? Is it worth ruining your voice and selling your body to experience a little artificial elation every now and then?"
"Look, I do what I do. Ain't anything wrong with it. Chems ain't illegal unless you're one of those Legion fucks."
"You know, sometimes I think the Legion has it right," the man said, as he stood and started to walk around the table Candi was sitting in front of. He crossed his hands behind his back and watched her like a disappointed principal.
"To bad the Legion also has such undesirable elements like Slavery, and men who wear dresses. You know, sometimes I wonder though, what is the difference between someone like you and a slave, really? You have no master, except chems. Sure. Yet Chems rule you life as cruelly as any Legion dog would. At least he wouldn't make you work so he could take all of your money and ruin your body. Oh I'm sure you'd work for him, but there wouldn't be the lie about whom and what you are."
"I'm sick of this," Candi complained, the high she had before the session terminating quickly due to her anxiety over the pacing man. "I want you to let me go."
"Oh no, I'm afraid I paid for a session, and it's what I'll have. The other girls don't like me because when I come here I've missed doing my job terribly, and feel the need to explore the human psyche with someone I can break easily. You see it gives me pleasure, hearing a whore like you dressed down so that she sees the kind of scum she really is."
"You're a pretty fucked up man."
"No, I'm normal. I just enjoy the truth Candi, and the truth is that people like me think all of these horrible thoughts about people like you; others just don't have the balls to speak it. No one wants to tell you what a worthless piece of trash a junkie like you is, because they know you won't believe them. You've spent your whole life ignoring the common sense of other people around you, so why would you listen to them? Well you have to listen to me Candi, and I'm telling you: you're pathetic. You should probably just suck on one of those Jet inhalers until you go to sleep and fail to wake up. It's a good thing I don't see the signs of any brats around here, because your children would probably just be worthless hooker drug addicts like their mother."
Unable to deal with the man's words anymore, Candi started to cry, the tears flowing unabashedly down her face. The man moved at her, running his nose along the trail of tears and purring. He untied her then, shoving her to the ground and ripped her underpants from her body. He took her quickly on her hands and knees, his member only finding a dry well with which to satisfy itself. He paid no mind, working her over until he found his pleasure, then standing from the crying mess on the floor and exiting the room.
An hour later Candi wobbled down the stairs from her hotel room and sat at the bar next to another prostitute. The woman leaned over and slid her drink to Candi, "I was with that prick once. He's a head trip; don't let him get to you."
Candi nodded, finishing up the whiskey. She stumbled towards the door and found Dixon after about half an hour. She bought all the jet she could afford, making little lumps on her body as she stumbled out of Freeside back towards the EL Ray Motel. She crashed up to the room she used to stay in, finding Thomas inside alone.
"Hey babe, you got some presents for daddy? He sure did miss you," Thomas said, a MedX needle falling out of his arm as he stood up. She nodded and passed him some of Dixon's jet. The two of the made short work of the dozen or so inhalers, Candi passing out on the ground, while Thomas rummaged through the bathroom looking for a rat he thought he saw.
Candi opened her eyes and looked at the dim light coming out from under the door. She pulled a jet inhaler to her mouth, and pressed down, getting the last hit from the tube. She leaned back on the floor, exhaled the bitter tasting vapor, and never drew in another breath.
It was a few days before Thomas noticed she was dead and not just napping on the floor. He picked Candi up and tossed her over the balcony, her body making a disgusting "pop" sound as it hit the pavement below. The sun and bugs would make short work of her out there. He returned to the room, drowning his sorrows in another Jet inhaler and some psycho. Later a man pushed open the door, it wasn't a junkie, just some guy with a gun. Thomas screamed and rushed at him, convinced the man was trying to take away the last of his drugs. This landed Thomas dead on the floor with bullet wounds all over his body.
The person who had picked the lock looked around the room, finding a few empty jet containers and a few caps on Thomas. He frowned and looked at the dead junkie at his feet. "Guess you're just another nameless corpse littering the Mojave without even a grave to hold you. Sorry buddy, I have things to do, people to save, and you're just taking up my precious time," and the man exited the room.