It had started three months ago when her coke supplier—who had also been a bouncer at her club—decided to move to Florida. He was sick of the Minnesota winters and figured he could do a booming business in the tropics. Kayla didn’t know why he thought that, but she begged him not to go. He was the only supplier she knew of, and she didn’t want to break in another one. Nor did she want to go outside the club as it had been convenient with her supplier at her workplace. Her supplier wouldn’t listen, but he gave her the name of another guy who said he’d come to her place of work if she gave him a freebie. Kayla wasn’t in any position to argue, so she agreed reluctantly. She was smart enough to realize that dealing with a supplier she didn’t know could be dicey business, but she needed the junk.
The next day at work, a white guy who looked as if he had been a frat boy in college approached her during one of her breaks. He was wearing a gray Armani suit and a real Rolex. He had his Oakleys on, even though it was nearly pitch-black in the club, and he was the walking stereotype of a pimp or a dealer. Kayla cringed at how obvious he was, but she was desperate. She took him to one of the back tables and did a lap dance for him for free. Once she was done, she waited for him to show the stuff. She had made a couple hundred in tips that night, and she needed that fix like yesterday. Instead, he pointed to her skimpy top which showed more than it covered. It seemed as if he wanted to see her boobs. That was usually more than Kayla gave, but Kayla did it. The guy crooked his finger, indicating that she should lean closer. She did, and he slowly sucked her nipple while watching her face. She flushed as he took his time, doing it more to degrade her than because he got enjoyment out of it. At the same time, he ran his finger under her G-string and rubbed her pussy. She flushed, but took her medicine like a good lamb. When the man who had yet to give her his name had his fill of fun, he leaned back in his chair.
“How much?” He asked, eying her like she was a piece of meat.
“I got a hundred,” Kayla answered, feeling soiled. Though she did much more with her ‘dates’, it was usually under her control.
“Here.” The guy flipped her a small bag that contained a gram of coke and held out his hand. Kayla handed him the hundred, tucking the bag into the pocket of her diaphanous robe. Even though the robe was see-through for the most part, the pockets were not. He made a shooing motion with his hand, but Kayla remained where she was.
“How do I get hold of you if I need more?” She asked, keeping her eyes level with the table. Something about this guy scared her, but she tried to keep it under wraps.
“Here.” The guy handed her a card—a fucking business card—with a cell phone number on it and the name ‘Alexander’ on it. Just the one name—nothing more. “When you call, leave a message with the word ‘pussy’ in it, and I’ll know what you mean.” Kayla nodded her head, though she secretly rebelled at the code word. It was obvious this guy got off from humiliating women. She made to go, but he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into his lap. She had already given him his freebie so she started struggling.
“Sit still, bitch,” he barked, pinching her arms. She subsided as it was not a good idea to piss off your supplier. Besides, she couldn’t afford bruises on her arms—not good to mark the merchandise. He ground his erection into her pelvis, mauling her breasts while he did it. He kept it up for several minutes before letting go of her. There wasn’t any evidence that he got off on what he was doing, which made it worse somehow. Kayla fled, vowing never to use him again. Of course, she broke her promise the very next week.
“Kayla, I don’t need the gory details,” I broke in, impatient to get to the pertinent information.
“I have to let you know the background so you understand,” Kayla said indignantly, upset at being interrupted. I motioned for her to continue so she did.
The coke didn’t even last a week, but she forced herself to wait. She didn’t want to drop too much money on the shit, and she definitely did not want to deal with Alexander again. She asked around for other dealers, but no one was willing to give her a name. Inevitably, the cravings shook again, and she dialed the cell phone number Alexander had given her. This time, he wanted her to meet him at a hotel room for the junk. Though Kayla most definitely did not want to do that, she knew better than to argue. She went to the room, and it was pretty much what she expected. Several hours later, she walked out of the room two hundred dollars poorer but with two and a fourth grams of coke to show for it. The extra fourth was for the good time she’d shown Alexander.
“Kayla, please,” I said wearily, rummaging through my bag again. It was enough to rush Kayla through her story, which was what I’d intended to do.
Alexander never seemed to enjoy the sex, but he insisted on partaking every time he dealt Kayla her drugs. Even though she didn’t get anything out of it, she came to accept that it was part of the deal. Since she couldn’t fathom a life without her powdery friend, she simply put up with the sex. Besides, Alexander always spotted her an extra something-something for the sex, although he varied the amount each time. Kayla suspected that it was so she wouldn’t coast while fucking him, but she didn’t bother to think about it much. She’d rather focus on the briefcase Alexander brought with him each time. She must be one of his first customers because the brief was nearly full when he opened it to get her the stuff.
Slowly, Alexander began to relax around Kayla. He never dropped the act completely, but he wasn’t as brusque with her as he had been in the beginning. Nor did he demand sex every time, to the great relief of Kayla. There was something offsetting about him, especially as he never took off his sunglasses, and she’d prefer not to fuck him if she didn’t have to. She bought from him on an average of twice a week, and she only had to fuck him every third time or so. He didn’t bother degrading her any more—it was usually just straight sex. Once, he took her ass, but was kind enough to allow her to coke up first so she didn’t even feel the pain. She had to be careful sitting down for the next few days, but it was definitely worth it as he had given her a whole extra gram that time. She hadn’t had to see him for a whole week and a half.
“The last time I saw him was the night before Danny was taken,” Kayla said, her voice faltering.
“Wait a minute,” I said, breaking into her recitation. “You told Matt that you ripped off Stephen Banks the Wednesday before, and you still showed up for work? Weren’t you afraid Banks would show up and bug you to get his shit back?”
“Not really,” Kayla blushed, looking down at the floor. “Um, you see, I took something else that night—something that he would not want other people to see. He has a prominent position in a conservative organization, and these pictures would ruin him.”
“What did you take, Kayla?” I kept my voice steady, but I was ready to belt her. Trying to extract information from her was like trying to understand what the hell President Bush was trying to say. “Tell me the truth.” I felt like her mother the way I was hectoring her, and I aimed ‘the look’ at her to see if it would do the trick. No, I didn’t have children, but I had enough nieces and nephews to have developed ‘the look’ out of self-preservation.
“He has a thing for little girls,” Kayla said in a small voice. “He keeps a scrapbook. There are one or two photos with him in them. I took those. I couldn’t turn him into the cops, though, not without getting myself in trouble.”
I looked at her in disgust. Never mind how she knew he had the pictures or the fact that she’d taken a few of them. What bothered me was that she knew this guy was a child molester, and she didn’t do anything about it. Not only that, she serviced him. I bet he made her dress up as a little girl to get into the mood. What bothered me even more, however, was why he used Kayla at all if he liked little girls and why was he so stupid to keep a scrapbook of his ‘conquests’ where his whore could find it? I had a hunch that Kayla was playing fast and loose with the truth again, and I was fed up with it. I didn’t think Banks was the culprit, anyway, and it grated my ass to have to put up with this lying bitch in order to help a little boy in trouble. Her little boy. You’d think she’d want to be as helpful as possible instead of making up story after story. I sighed and turned back to the pertinent conversation.
“So what happened with Alexander?” I asked, not having much hope she’d tell me the truth. I’d know, however, if she lied to me, which was an advantage. Kayla took a minute to compose herself before continuing her tale.
The last time Kayla saw Alexander, he had been stressed-out and took it out on her. He demanded she suck him, then fuck him, all the while slapping her on the ass. He called her a bunch of names, really grinding away at her. He had never been that rough before, not even when he degraded her. The whole time, he was ranting and raving about people who betrayed him and how he knew he couldn’t fucking trust anyone. He seemed to fuck her endlessly, making Kayla wish she’d never met him. She was crying as her face was jammed into the bed, but Alexander didn’t give a shit about that. To add insult to injury, he didn’t even give her any extra after he was through. He just laughed when she asked, tossing her bag of coke on the floor. After she picked it up, she made to leave but he grabbed he by the arm.
“Suck me, bitch,” he said, pointing at his cock. He had used a condom while fucking her which meant that he had lube all over his cock. He tore off the condom and jacked off a few times before shoving Kayla’s mouth on his cock. She had no choice but to submit.
She labored to give him a blowjob with his hand tightly controlling her head. By now, she was shaking from not having a fix in quite some time, and she didn’t even know what the fuck she was doing. She had anticipated that Alexander would allow her to snort before they fucked, so she hadn’t wasted the last bit of junk she had at home. It was her emergency fix—and she wished she’d had the foresight to use it. She moved her head up and down under the guidance of Alexander’s hand a few times before realizing that he wasn’t moving any more. In fact, his grip on her had has loosen to the point where she could free herself. She peeked up at him and to her disbelief, he was fast asleep. Either that or passed out, though Kayla had never known him to be on drugs. She scrambled off the bed, got dressed, and ran to the door, hesitating before leaving. There was his briefcase sitting right there on the table near the bed, just begging her to take it. What could she do? She did.
“What?” I shouted, sitting upright on the couch. “You took his fucking briefcase? What are you, stupid?” I couldn’t believe even Kayla would do something so dense. “What did you think? He’d just let you fucking walk away with thousands of dollars worth of coke? Have you addled your brain completely?”
“I know, I know,” Kayla cried, covering her face with her hands. “I don’t know what came over me to do that.”
I did, though. It was her fucking addiction that came over her, causing her to think of nothing but the coke sitting in front of her. It didn’t matter that Alexander knew she was the last one to see the briefcase save him. It didn’t matter that it would take him two seconds to hunt her down and kill her. It didn’t matter that he probably had buddies who would do the dirty deed for him if he couldn’t be bothered to do it himself. No, all that mattered to this coke-addicted whore was that she had a free pass to cocaine heaven, and she was going to use it, damn it. Chances were she thought she deserved it for the rough treatment she’d suffered at the hands of Alexander. What an idiot.
I stared at Kayla who was still hiding her face and rocking back and forth. I quieted myself as I watched her, emptying my mind of all thoughts. I allowed the vibes emanating from Kayla to enter my being, though I was loath to do so. I was truly going to have to do a cleansing ritual after we found her son to get the stench of her off me. For the present, however, I soaked in her essence—allowing it to tell me what it could. I was bullshitting when I said her aura was gray because I didn’t read auras, but I could sense a darkness around her. Some darknesses were good, but this one was not. This one was dangerous to her and everyone around her. If I kept up with this case, that would mean me as well. She was telling me the truth about Alexander, finally. It had certainly taken her long enough.