Sex and Crime: Oliver's Strange Journey (66 page)

I grabbed my phone and pretended to start
dialing.

"Fine, I'll go. I can't believe you! We
didn't do anything! We were just lying there."

Veronica said the same thing when I found
her in bed with Kim. And then again when I found her in bed with
Norbert.

"I didn't do anything wrong! But I'm not
gonna explain myself!" Lucy yelled.

"I'm not asking you to explain yourself.
Just pack your stuff and go. We're done," I replied with the same
unshakable calmness. This whole situation didn't even feel real. I
was totally detached from what was going on. I felt absolutely
nothing. Like I was watching a movie, and this stuff wasn't really
happening to me.

I woke Jasmine up and told her to get
dressed and pack her stuff. She pretended not to know what was
going on, so I explained to her that she had to leave, because I
found her in bed with Lucy.

"This is so petty," she scoffed under her
breath.

Funny. She didn't think it was petty when
Veronica or Wigger were cheating on her. Then her anger felt
perfectly justified. But now I was being petty, because I wasn't ok
with Lucy fucking someone else in my guest bed, after we had just
made up last night?

Then Lucy came over to me with big puppy dog
eyes, and asked me like a little kid: "Am I allowed to come back at
some point? Or am I never allowed to come back?"

She was so adorable at that moment, I just
wanted to squeeze her and let her know how much I love her.

You know that feeling, when you have to
punish a puppy for peeing on the rug, but it breaks your heart to
spank him, because all you really want to do is cuddle him? That's
exactly how I felt right now.

"Yeah, you can come back some day," I
said.

Her face lit up. It made her feel a little
bit better that this was not really going to be the end between us.
Now she knew I still loved her, even if I was mad at her right
now.

On our way out the door, she showed me a
notebook she had stolen out of one of my office drawers. She said:
"I'm gonna make a scrapbook! Of all our meals together! I'm gonna
cook for you every day, and we'll take pictures and then we'll put
all the pictures in this book, so we can always remember it!"

It took everything I had not to hug her and
kiss her and tell her I love her, and that I really didn't want her
to leave. It was breaking my heart. She was just the sweetest
little girl in the world. All she wanted was to feel loved. But I
had to take a stand. I couldn't keep letting her treat me like this
and let her cheat on me like it's no big deal. Either she was going
to learn that the only way to be with me was to be faithful to me,
or she was going to have to go fuck dope boys and Backpage pervs
again.

In the car she started texting some guy who
called himself Fatso. He was supposed to pick them up at the Edison
Mall. When we were almost there, she said: "Great, now Fatso isn't
answering his phone. I think we're gonna be stranded."

I dropped them off in front of the main
entrance.

"Are you really gonna make me get out of the
car?" Lucy asked. "You have no sympathy. You are so cold." Then she
slammed the door. I left. I didn't even get out of the parking lot,
when Lucy already called me back: "Please don't leave me here!
Please turn around and take me home with you."

I felt so bad. But she needed to learn that
her actions have consequences. You can't just fuck someone in my
guest bed and then act like nothing happened and everything is ok
with the world. I hung up the phone. Then I texted Nicole. I hadn't
heard from her in a day or two, ever since she had disappeared
again. I knew she was getting really bad on drugs, and at this
point she was probably no better than Lucy.

Nicole texted me right back: "Hey sugar. I'm
at the Days Inn in North Fort Myers, please come get me."

When I arrived at the hotel, she was sitting
in the parking lot. She told me she had been staying in a room at
the hotel with someone else, and he ditched her.

I figured it was most likely a dope boy, and
either she had been fucking him for drugs, or she had been
tricking. Like I said, girls don't live in hotel rooms, unless
they're tricking. I couldn't stand thinking about it. I just gave
her a hug. She looked sad and exhausted. She was so worn down.

I took her home to my place, and we cuddled
and talked. I told her what had happened with Lucy and Jasmine, and
Cassidy's call.

Nicole told me she had a new probation
officer, and that he called her in that day, out of the blue. She
was supposed to report to his office at 4:30 pm. But by the time we
got there, it was 4:58 pm. He was really pissed and screamed at
her. He felt disrespected. He told her this wasn't a game, and she
better be at his office tomorrow, at 8:30 am sharp. If she was
there at 8:31 am, he'd violate her and send her back to jail. And
she'd better be ready for a drug test.

She was hysterically crying when she came
out of his office. I tried to calm her down. She had a full blown
panic attack. She couldn't breathe or stand up straight. I gave her
a hug and just held her tight, while gently telling her that
everything would be ok. Finally she calmed down a bit. She said she
would obviously fail the drug test tomorrow.

We made plans for her to get a plastic cigar
tube and smuggle clean pee in her vagina. She was supposed to
practice that night, because she had never done it before, but then
she started texting frantically again, and suddenly told me she had
to go do a tattoo for an hour at night. She disappeared all night.
When I finally picked her up, it was midnight. Now we had to go
searching for a cigar tube, go home, and practice. We went to bed
at 4 am. Then we got up at 6 am. I checked the Sheriff's website
and saw that Cassidy had been released, but she didn't call me. I
messaged her on Facebook and asked her what happened.

Then I took Nicole to her probation officer.
We stopped at the same CVS where Lucy and I had bought presents for
Summer when she was in the hospital. We went in the bathroom
together and she prepared herself for the drug test by placing the
plastic tube inside of her vagina. It was really uncomfortable, and
she had a hard time walking.

Once we got to the office, she went inside
and I waited for her in the lobby. After half an hour she texted
me: "You might as well go home. I'm getting arrested. I'm going to
jail."

"What?!?! What the hell happened?" I texted
back.

She told me later that they were watching
her so closely while she was peeing, she wouldn't have been able to
use the tube, so she just admitted that she had drugs in her
system. She removed the tube and peed dirty. Her probation officer
was really nasty to her. She started crying and yelled at him that
he had no idea what she had been through in her life. Then she told
him about Lucy's dad Dick raping her ever since she was a little
girl, all her suicide attempts, and that Johnny had tried to run
her over with a truck just a few days ago.

The officer felt bad for her and told her
he'd give her another chance, but as part of her probation, from
now on she would have to go to mental health counselling at Salus
Care on Ortiz Ave at least once a week, and to NA meetings at least
twice a week.

I had already gone home, when she texted me
about three hours later: "I didn't get arrested after all."

"Huh? What? Well, that's great! Do u want me
to come get u?" I texted back.

"No, I already got a ride. I'm gonna do a
tattoo and then u can pick me up at 1 pm," she texted back.

My spider senses were tingling again. I had
been right in the middle of this. I was part of the story. I had
driven her to probation, waited for her there, and we were going to
spend the day together and celebrate that she passed the test. For
her not to call me right away and tell me that she wasn't going to
jail after all, and to call someone else for a ride, meant only one
thing: she was fucking someone else.

I didn't hear from her until 4 pm. Then she
asked me to come get her. We went home, and she started getting
dressed up in the bathroom.

I sat down on the edge of the tub and tried
to have a talk with her: "You've been acting really shady lately.
You keep telling me you want to be with me, but I get the feeling
you're seeing someone else."

"No, I'm not! I swear!" she replied while
putting on her make-up.

"Well, if you are, just be honest about it,
so that we are both on the same page. Don't make me think there is
something between us if there's not. If you just want to be friends
with benefits, just say so. It's ok, as long as we're on the same
page," I explained.

"No, I swear, there is nobody else. I'm not
the kind of girl who sleeps around," she reassured me, while
straightening her hair.

She was obviously getting all dressed up to
go somewhere. When she was done, she said: "Oh, my friend Jeanie
just texted me. I have to babysit her kids. She is visiting her
baby daddy in jail."

I was suspicious. Why the hell would she get
all dressed up to babysit? And why was she getting dressed up
BEFORE she got the text to go babysit?

She was frantically texting in the car, and
then told me she would meet Jeanie at Walmart on Colonial and
Ortiz.

"Huh? Why would you meet Jeanie at Ortiz
instead of at her house? If she's going to visit someone at the
jail on Ortiz, she would have to drive you all the way back to her
house first, and then drive all the way back to Ortiz Avenue for
the viso. That doesn't make any sense."

"Uhmm, she's buying some food stamps from
me, so we're going shopping at Walmart first, and then I'll babysit
while she's at the viso," Nicole replied.

I knew Nicole didn't have any food stamps
anymore. Lucy had told me just the other day, that she was mad at
Nicole, because she had sold all her food stamps this month, and
now they had nothing to eat. So Nicole was definitely lying about
what she was doing at Walmart, and who she was meeting, and why. If
she had simply met a drug dealer, she would have told me. So again,
the only possible answer was that she was about to go have sex with
someone.

"So at what time is the viso?" I asked.

"Uhh, at 7 pm, I think," she replied.

I had been visiting Veronica in jail for
almost two years. I knew exactly when the viso times were, and
there is no viso at 7 pm.

Nicole was still frantically texting. Then
she said: "Jeanie is already done shopping at Walmart. Now she
wants me to meet her at the Racetrac gas station on Colonial."

"For what?" I asked. This was all complete
bullshit. Even a blind person could see that.

"She still wants to buy my food stamps, so
we'll buy stuff at the little Racetrac store," Nicole replied.

Once we got to the gas station, she jumped
out of the car without even saying good bye. I knew what that
meant. Her mind was totally preoccupied with what she was about to
do next. She wasn't just meeting her friend Jeanie to babysit her
kids.

She told me she would only be gone for an
hour or so. The jail visitations are only an hour max. I dropped
her off at the Racetrac at 6 pm. By 9:30 pm I still didn't hear
from her. I figured she just disappeared on me again. I was right.
She disppeared all night. I didn't hear from her until the
afternoon of the next day. She claimed she had fallen asleep and
her phone had died. That's every drug addict's favorite excuse when
they disappear to fuck someone for drugs.

Later I found out that she had started
posting escort ads on Backpage, and that's really where she was
going. She had told me a dozen times she wasn't fucking anybody
else, and then she got out of the car and fucked somebody else.

It reminded me of how Veronica lied straight
to my face, shaking with anxiety and battling her diarrhea, during
our viso at the Salvation Army. She swore she'd never talk to Dee
again, and as soon as the viso was over, she talked to Dee again.
Or when she used to tell me over and over on the phone that she
wasn't dating Wendy. And as soon as she hung up the phone, she went
right back to dating Wendy.

Or when Lucy said she wasn't talking to
anyone else but me, and that I was the only person on her viso
list, and then scheduled visos for 2 other people who were on her
list.

Or when Alice swore she wouldn't run away
from rehab, and then she ran away from rehab. It was the same shit
over and over. Patty was right.

Anyway, later that night, Cassidy called me.
She was whispering: "Please come and get me! I'm in Lehigh Acres.
When I got out of jail early this morning, my baby daddy was
sitting in the lobby, waiting for me. I had no choice but to go
with him. He's really violent. I'm seriously afraid for my life.
Please please come and get me!"

This was another job for James Bond. I
packed my gun, just in case her baby daddy was gonna try to kill
her or me. Around midnight, I arrived in front of the address,
where she wanted me to pick her up. When she saw me, she quickly
ran over to my car, got in and told me to take off.