A/N: Nothing here belongs to me, except my imagination.
This is a short chapter, I promise others will be longer. Enjoy!
It's cold, and dark. I'm hungry. And I'm tired. But I'm here. Working again. Still at the Cat Scratch, still working my ass off to dance in front of drunk men. Luckily I only have another half hour before my shift ends. I start dreaming about my life. My past, and especially my future, what lies in store. I think of the great life I could've had...It's been about four years. I don't know how I could stand it this long, but I did. I've been working here, in tight skirts and showy tops arousing men by flirting and almost making love to women. I'm paid to be sexy.
Well, technically, it's more than that. I'm an exotic dancer at a club in New York City. I got the job at fifteen. I had to lie about my age, saying I was eighteen. The only reason I even took the job was because it was the only one I could get. I was young and desperate. I badly needed money. So I started working here.
I had run away from home. At fifteen. From my home in New Jersey. I lived with my oblivious mother and abusive father. Neither of them really cared about me. I have a younger brother, Jose. Haven't seen him since I left. Sure, I miss them sometimes, I miss my mom and brother at least, but I couldn't stand life with my father any more. I hated my life there. So I left and came here. With no money, no place to live, no food, really with nothing at all.
Then I met Benny. He'd been a regular at the Cat Scratch for some time. Sometimes I'd see him over in the corner, talking to a buddy or two. He would always look over at me and talk to his friends, look and talk, look and talk. He and I flirted a lot whenever I got the chance. He was really cute and sexy. He was very much a ?ladies man?, always knowing just what to say. He also seemed to like me in my skin-tight and very revealing outfits from the Cat Scratch uniform.
He's very sexually oriented, but that's okay. After all, I work as practically a stipper. And he's very excellent in bed. An added bonus. But still, he's very nice. That's why I was still seeinghim, as of three months ago. But I stopped after I found out he was married to Allison Grey. Of the Westport Greys. That rich bitch, as I call them.
Anyways. Benny offered me what I couldn't refuse: an apartment, and money too. Not to mention great sex. But still. He helped me get an apartment in the building where he lived. I was a few floors below him. He moved out about nine or ten months ago, but I'm still there. He now owns the building and is threatening to evict all the tenants, but he still has a thing for me, I can tell.
We were happy for about a year. Until one day he told me he was married and had been cheating on his wie for about six months with me. Well, technically, he was cheating on me with his wife, since I was there first. But still.
I broke it off with him the moment I found out. Then about a week or two later I was out walking at night. I was cornered and led into an alley by a strange man in a mask. He raped me, leaving bruises and a few other things. I went to get tested for STDs, and then I found out that that guy... that ASShole, had given me HIV. He gave me AIDS.
Well, when I heard that, I broke down crying. I acted like it was all my fault, that I shouldn't have been walking at night, that I should have stopped him. It was all my fault.
But then I realized, still sitting here in that chair in the hospital waiting room, that I was not responsible. I did not rape me. That bastard did. It was hisfault. When I thought that, I felt ready to murder someone. Preferably the guy who raped me. But since I didn't know who he was, there was really nothing I could do. And it was a horrible feeling.
I went into serious depression over the next month. Thank God it only lasted a month, or else who knows what I would have done. I could've killed myself. But I didn't. Thank heaven. I was definitely seriously depressed. I might have cut myself if I was willing to get out of bed. I wasn't.
That was when I started doing heroin. It was the only thing that made me feel better. Being high was a wonderful sensation. The first thing I reached for, when I woke up in the morning, my eyes still half-closed, was my dope. I loved it. It was the only thing, the last pleasure in life, something to hold onto. It gave me sustenence. Shooting up, my pains and fears and everything would just melt away. I'd be carried off into the imaginary world where everything was perfect. Where I didn't have AIDS. Where everything was all right.
Once I started I couldn't stop. Never. Still haven't. Why should I? I love my drugs. They make things all better. At least for a while. Yes, I understand that the drugs are killing me. Look at me, you'll know it. But I don't care. Because I AIDS is killing me anyways. Might as well die happy.
That's what I thought, anyways. I still think it, to some degree. But it's no longer my anthem, not the only thing that matters. Ever since I went to that support group meeting.
I went to a meeting of Friends In Deed, a support group for people coping with AIDS and other diseases. They taught me to live without fear. Live in the moment. No day but today.
Why this change in attitude? Well, let me tell you about my Friends In Deed experience.