Mortal Deficiency

I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m willingly strolling, unarmed, right into the bad part of town. Christ, I don’t even have my switchblade, but that wouldn’t do me any good anyway based off the stories I’ve heard about this place. A more fitting weapon would be a machine gun, loaded to the gills. And even then, survival would be iffy.

At least I’ve got someone with me. He seems to belong to this place, so perhaps I won’t seem like such a stranger to the scum that hangs around here. Although I’ve only just met this guy – he could be playing with me when he said he’s got “something interesting to show me” back home. He definitely could turn a phrase in an enticing way.

This is stupid beyond stupidity. But I’m not stupid. Just desperate.

He glances over his shoulder to check and see if I’m still following.

Yup, this rat is still pressing the pleasure button. And wasting away to nothing in the process.

We stalk up to a very shady hole in the crumbling brick wall and although this should deter anyone in their right mind, I don’t turn and run. My escort bangs on the door twice in rapid succession. The door opens a crack (I almost expected an eye slit to open) and a scraggly, bearded man peers out with malted eyes. The contrast between this and his dirty face is staggering. At first glance he seemed in his forties, but upon further scrutiny, he’s probably only twenty-something. I blink and look down at the ground in thought.

“He’s a virgin and he wants a taste,” the escort greets, smirking as he spoke to the doorman. I want to protest in some way but find I can’t and decide to stay quiet, letting the boy speak for me. He must mean something else, I think.

The doorman blinks and nods his head in understanding, opening the door enough for us to shimmy through. The room is stark and bare for all but a chair and sad looking table. Things are getting sketchier by the minute.

Instead of stopping here, the doorman hobbles over to the far wall and draws back a curtain, revealing a door and opening it. Commotion blasts up the stairwell and I realize this is just a cover for when the cops come knocking.

We are guided down the stairs into a room bustling with people of all shapes and sizes. I hear lots of boisterous laughter and profanity and I’m sure this is the place. The place woven of rumors and full of dreams. Existing and not.

“Set down there and we’ll get you fixed up,” the doorman tells me and I do as he says. The man hobbles away into the mass. My escort sits in the rickety chair next to me and stares at me with an unmistakable sparkle in his eyes.

“Since this is your first time an’ all, I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen,” he begins, his rancid breath bringing tears to my eyes. I don’t flinch back; I regard him as if his words are gold. “So, you get all relaxed like and calm yourself. Do that meditation shit. And we’ll bring you what you’re here for, all dressed up and ready to go.” He smirks at me like he’s sharing with me the best secret he knows. Perhaps it is.

“It’ll only hurt for a second, but after that, all you’ll want is more. That’s usually the case with most guys like you, since you can afford it,” he explains.

The doorman walks back toward me with something in his hand. It manages to shine despite the terrible lighting.

“He ready?” he drawls, looking at me intensely. I nod, answering for myself for once. He kneels beside me and rolls up the sleeve of my blazer as well as the dress shirt underneath. “You businessmen and your suits,” he mumbles as he ties the broken rubber band above the bend in my elbow. Bringing it up to the light, he taps the syringe, ridding it of unwanted air bubbles. “Just a poke and then you’re done.”

The anticipation skyrockets in me and I go into a high before the syringe even breaks my skin. This is it. I’ve found it. This is happening. The drug everyone wants but no one can find.

And now it’s mine.

The needle plunges easily into my vein and the man presses down the plunger until it’s bled dry. A slow smile breaks my face as I stare at the red dot marring the bend of my elbow.

My escort claps a hand on my shoulder and for once I don’t mind the unwarranted contact.

“In a few minutes you’ll feel the best you’ll ever feel in your entire life. Nothing compares. Think of it this way: imagine the best sex you’ve ever had and multiply that by a thousand,” he tells me. I do what he says.

His words are truth.

But what they don’t tell you is what happens later.

The drug weaves through your veins and makes you feel euphoric for a while, but then it becomes a dependency and you can’t wake up in the morning without taking a shot. The feeling is not worth the after effects.

It sucks the nutrients from the body and feeds off them, leaving nothing behind but disintegrating skin and fragile bones.

Months later, I lay here in my hospital bed, feeling dead already. Not one of the nurses can look me straight in the face and not cringe. It is pitiful and disgusting.

I used to be a successful man. Now I’m nothing but bones and memories of what once was.

The heart monitor at my bedside slows more and more with each passing day as the remainder of the drug in me leeches all I have. The doctors don’t know how long I have to live, although it seems only days away at this point. I wish it would take me already.

I wish I hadn’t been so stupid.

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Fiction. Gotta love it.

Ciao~

V