The Spider Inside (8 page)

Jim was sitting on Cherry’s couch when he got the call from
Two Step. Word had gotten around that Sue was throwing another one of her
parties. When Jim heard the news he split in half. Part of him wanted to hang
up the phone and take Cherry and check into a motel and not tell anyone where
they were, just hole up and stay there for a day or two, until the party was in
full swing and everyone had given up trying to reach them. It hadn’t been long
enough, he hadn’t had enough of a break. He was looking forward to another two
days or so of just chilling out, of maybe smoking a little weed and hanging
with Cherry. That half of Jim was still a little sleepy, though since waking up
to piss and eating a light meal of potato soup with Cherry another eighteen
hours had passed. His nose still ached, his jaw still faintly throbbed. That
half of Jim simply was not ready.

The other half of him was almost ready to drool. His pulse
immediately kicked up a notch thinking of all the free crank that would be
there. It was that
other
half of Jim that said, “Come pick us up.”

“Be there in twenty,” Two Step said, and Jim knew that if it
were just Two Step that he
would
be there in twenty, but of course he
had Soup with him, who moved pretty fucking slow for a speed freak, so Jim
figured they had at least half an hour to get ready, if not forty-five minutes.

“What’s going on?” Cherry asked.

“Sue’s having another party,” Jim said. He felt a quick twinge
of guilt when he saw Cherry go through an abbreviated version of the admittedly
brief struggle he himself just experienced, and knew she came to the snap
decision because of him. She could tell by the sound of his voice and the smile
on his face that he wanted to go, so this got her excited, so that was what
they were doing. If he’d said something a little different, if he’d changed the
pitch of his voice just a little, maybe dropped it half an octave and expressed
concern or hesitation, she would have wanted to skip the party, and easily
convinced him of the same. If she had answered her phone instead of him, he
knew he would have gone along with whatever her first instinct was.

Did this make him a sad, co-dependant asshole?

Jim didn’t think so, not entirely, at least. The bald honest
truth was that he liked to be with her, and therefore where she wanted to be,
he wanted to take her.

“I’m gonna change real quick,” Cherry said, and headed
toward her bedroom. While she changed Jim cooked up another can of soup that
they had been talking about eating, washed some fruit, made some crackers and
cheese, generally just piecing together whatever he could. They had to eat
before they left. There was no telling when they would feel like eating again.

Just as Jim was ladling out the soup Cherry reappeared.
She’d went into the bedroom looking like a librarian on her day off, and came
out looking like the epitome of every girl Jim had ever wanted to fuck. He
couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before the drugs started to sap
her beauty. Had it happened already, and he just didn’t care? Was he too out of
it to even notice?

They just needed to slow down a little, take some time off
like they did earlier in the summer...maybe this time head up north for a week
and eat healthy and sleep, get clean, come home, stay in seclusion another
couple weeks and get their essence back.

Her eyes brightened at the food and she thought that if she
could get Jim alone again after the thing at Sue’s that she will try and kiss
him.

As it turned out they didn’t have to wait for Soup, he ended
up being early for once in his life and was buzzing Cherry’s apartment just as
they sat down to eat. She invited him and Two Step up because she refused to
rush while she ate...it always made her feel like a pig.

Two Step didn’t seem to mind, he never really gave her any
shit, not any more, anyway, not since she and Jim had gotten so close. She
didn’t know if he thought she would tell Jim what he’d done.

It had happened two days before she’d even met Jim. She’d
been out drinking and ran into Two Step, and had passed out next to him on some
random bed in a house she probably wouldn’t even be able to find anymore. She’d
woken up with warmth between her legs that shouldn’t have been there, and the shock
turned to disgust mixed with anger when she felt Two Step’s boner digging into
her and his fingers, inside her pants, rubbing her through her panties. She’d
shoved him away and stumbled out of the bed, and when she turned on him he was
asleep, or pretending to be. She’d never mentioned it and didn’t even know if
Two Step remembered it...but she thought that he did.

She thought this was the incident that kept his tongue in
his head with her when with anyone else he would have verbally cut them to
pieces. She thought it kept him from acting the way Soup was right now.

Soup sat in a chair and just stared at her, tapping his feet
and glaring and being kind of a baby about the whole thing, in her opinion. It
was obvious he was jonesing and she took a little sick pleasure in knowing he
was further gone than she was. She hadn’t had anything at all since leaving
Tattoo Nik’s and was just fine, but he’d obviously dipped again and wanted
more. She was looking forward to the party, yes, but not for the same reasons
as Soup...not because her stomach hurt and her eyes were hot and her bones felt
broken and she didn’t have money to buy anything and had to wait to get a
fucking hand out. She smiled and ate a little slower, taking as much
nourishment and pleasure from his discomfort as she was from the food. She
wondered what Soup would be out doing right now for money if this party of
Sue’s hadn’t come along.

At her leisure she filled her stomach and her heart and her
mind on these small pleasures, and only then was she ready to leave.

Soup made the drive a short one.

When the four of them walked in Cherry felt like they owned
the place. They knew everyone at the party, but for the most part, so far at
least, their crew dominated it. Tattoo Nik was there so that put their numbers
at five, and of everyone at the party, no one knew Sue as well as they did.
There were definitely less people here, so far at least, than had been at her
last party. Normally Sue’s parties were total blow outs, but Cherry guessed she
could see why Sue would want it toned down after how trashed her house had been
after the last one.

Sue came to greet them at the door. She was a short, pretty
girl, a total hippie. Her hair was down almost to her waist, she wore
bell-bottoms with a bunch of different patches sewn on them, a loose, flowing
paisley shirt. She smoked a lot of pot and would occasionally take a bang of
heroin. She was a full time dealer, and she sold everything.

Cherry wasn’t sure why she threw the parties she did. Off
everything she sold she would take part of the profit and squirrel it away, and
when she had enough she would splurge on drugs of all kinds and have a party.
She carried everything in a satchel slung across her chest. All you had to do
was ask, and she would give, but she didn’t want anyone to just grab a handful
of her shit and leave everyone else without. She did not abide stealing.

There was always the possibility someone would knock her
down and take her satchel, Cherry supposed, but she doubted that person would
make it out of the house. Sue was with good people, and had made friends out of
most of her customers. Maybe, Cherry decided, that was why she had her parties.

After giving each of them a hug Sue dipped her hand into her
satchel and came out with several small plastic capsules, already knowing their
drug of choice. Cherry knew from experience that these little capsules held
enough meth to chalk out one pretty decent line. If you came down and wanted
more, you asked.

Cherry shivered a little at the casual gesture of Jim
putting his hand on her lower back and steering her toward Tattoo Nik, who was
peeling himself away from that creep Lance.

“How you guys doing?” Nik asked them, slapping hands with
Jim. “You fixed up yet? Come on, we can go back here.” Tattoo Nik turned and
walked toward the rear of the house and the four of them followed.

The five of them crowded into the bathroom, and locked the
door behind them. It was large, which made it bearable for them to be crammed
in, but once they had all done a line there was no way they could stay in such
a small, enclosed place.

“How’s the tat?” Cherry asked, as Soup squeezed past her to
get to the sink where he started shaking out powder from his capsule.

“Sore, it’s sore, but it’s good. I let it breathe all today,
you know, but decided I should wrap it up for the party, you know, it isn’t
quite ready to be unveiled to the public, see? Plus I knew fucking Lance would
be here. I don’t understand who keeps telling him about these, I bought a gun,
I know for a fact Sue doesn’t like him, but she’s too nice to tell him to go
fuck himself and slam the door in his face and I haven’t been down since I last
saw you I don’t think maybe for like six hours off sleeping pills but that’s
it. Lance came in with Summer and Monster but Summer told me he didn’t come
with them, right? She said he just kind of caught up with them out front like
he was waiting for someone to show up so he could come in as part of a group.
He’s a leech, man, a fucking leech. A sucker fish, like those fish that hook
themselves to a shark and eat all the scraps they leave? Same exact principle.”

“I’m sorry, but did you say you bought a gun?” Cherry asked.

“Huh? Oh, uh…
no
. Gum.” Nik cracked and chewed the gum
in his mouth so she could see it. “So I don’t grind my teeth too much, right?
Sugarless. What good is not grinding your teeth if you just rot them out with
sugar, right?”

“Hey,” Jim said. “You remember Big League Chew?”

Cherry smiled and turned away, still listening to Jim and
Tattoo Nik reminisce on their childhoods. Even though Nik was perhaps ten years
older, they seemed to find small things like this all the time that bridged the
gap between them.

Soup finished his business and mumbled something about
seeing them out there and left the bathroom.

“You wanna go next?” Two Step offered her, stepping aside.

“Sure,” Cherry said, taking her place at the sink and with
her fingernail digging the tiny lid off the end of her capsule. She tapped it
out and realized she didn’t have a tooter.

She was about to say so when Two Step put his on the counter
next to her. She took it and lowered it to the little pile and gave one long
powerful snort and a thousand stars explode behind her eyes her pussy gets a
little wet and her nipples harden it happens every time she does a line and
this is part of the reason she loves it maybe Two Step isn’t that bad he
couldn’t be that bad if Jim was such good friends with him they’d been friends
for years and years and there was no way Jim would stay friends with someone
that long if there wasn’t something fundamentally good about them.

“Thanks,” Cherry said, handing him back his tooter and
moving aside so he could shake out his own pile of gack. She rubbed her nose,
not that it was running, it just felt like the thing to do and she beat that
rhythm that
bambambam
of the world was rocking through her head her
heart her soul and she decided never to tell Jim about what had happened
between her and Two Step, there was no reason for it. He had been so fucking
drunk he probably would have tried to finger the family dog if one had been
lying next to him instead of her not that this did a whole lot for her self-esteem
but she didn’t need Two Step to want to fuck her to feel good about herself.
She didn’t care if the world at large thought she was a hideous little goblin
as long as Jim always looked at her the way he did. He still looked at her like
he had that first time, like a man who’d just found everything he’d ever need.
Slowly, over the last few months, she’d realized that his look could have been a
mirror in front of her face, showing her that she felt the same.

Ten hours later, and though Cherry can feel beneath the drug
the weariness of her body and bones she is not quite yet ready to surrender.
She asks Sue for another capsule, and later, another. People come and go and
she knows most of them, but the party never really explodes like the last one
had. This was more of a gathering, Cherry thought. Jim always came by to talk
to her, to check on her, but they weren’t joined at the hip or anything, and
this made Cherry glad. She’d been with boys that always had to have their hand
on your shoulder wherever you went. She didn’t need a watchdog. Even when he
was across the room talking to Two Step or Old School he would look over at her
and ask her with his eyes if she was okay, and even if she was in the middle of
a conversation with Summer or Alice, she would give him a slight nod of the
head to let him know that she was.

“He’s cute,” Alice said once, after catching this little exchange.
“Are you guys together?”

“Not really.”

“He doesn’t have a girlfriend?”

“Nope. By the way,” Cherry asked. “Who’d you get to
babysit?”

She tuned Alice out as she answered and gave Jim one more
smile and the music got louder and the world spun faster.

Later Cherry was coming down again and just wanted to get up
one more time, just one last blast and this would be the end of it. She got
another cap from Sue and Cherry tried to stop herself from chewing on her lower
lip while she walked to the bathroom and did another line. Her nipples went
rock hard again and she locked the door and dropped her pants and rubbed
herself to an almost immediate orgasm, but it wasn’t enough, she sucked her
fingers for lubrication and worked them inside herself and with the other hand
rubbed her clit and thought of Jim and couldn’t help but cry out, just a
little, a couple minutes later when she came again, hoping the music from the
living room had been loud enough to drown out her sounds. She had to get out of
here or she would be locked in the bathroom, rubbing off all night. She washed
her hands and fixed herself up a little and went back out to the party.

The next time she started to come down she decided it was
time to leave. She didn’t even want to bother asking Soup for a ride because
she knew that unless Jim was leaving too she had no chance, and even then, the
way Soup was now, the chance was a slim one. She looked around. She watched Jim
as he cracked a capsule and put it up his nose and inhaled it. She watched his face
flush a little and his eyes widen and she didn’t want to ask him to leave now,
either. She could probably get him to come with her, but if he was up she’d be
tempted to get off too and right now what she wanted was sleep.

Cherry spotted the girl with the huge cold sore on her face.
She was most often called Carmex but Cherry couldn’t remember the girl’s name.
Something with a J though...Jessica? Jane? Either way she was looking about
like Cherry felt and as Cherry watched her, Carmex actually started saying her
goodbyes to people. She gave Sue a hug and thanked her and before she could get
to the door Cherry headed her off.

“Hey Cherry,” Carmex said.

“Hey, you taking off?”

“God yes, I’m exhausted. Did you...need a ride?”

Cherry was relieved at not having to ask. “If you don’t mind
too much?”

“Do you still live in that same complex? Where that guy got
shot in the parking lot last year?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“No problem,” Carmex said. “I go right by there on the way
home.”

“Thanks soooo much!” Cherry said. “You mind if I hit the
bathroom real quick?”

“No, I’ll wait.”

“Thanks again. You’re a life saver.” Cherry walked through
the knot of people and down the hall into the bathroom. She splashed some water
on her face and heard a jiggling of the door knob.

“One minute,” she called.

The door knob jiggled again and she rolled her eyes. She
opened the door and there, staring at her with those flat black eyes, was
Lance. The way he came in he seemed to push her back without touching her. He
was about a foot taller than she was and creeped her out besides, so her
natural reaction when he started coming in was to back up.

“Oh, hey,” Cherry said, trying to keep the tremble out of
her voice. “Let me get out of your way.”

“No. Stay. Wanna line?” Lance asked. He opened his hand and
held out three of the capsules Sue had been giving out.

“No, thanks, I’m good, I just did one, so I’ll just le--”

Lance closed the door behind him and she stopped talking.
This strange empty smile spread across his face and her heart was slamming away
in her chest he licked his lips which were like worms and she could hear a high
pitched buzzing sound and the blood thumping in her ears and the bells, of
course the bells, and he moved toward her and reached out touched the side of
her face, gently, she could feel his hand shaking and smell his breath like
rotten meat. Cherry put her hand up to push him away and he grabbed it in one
of his own, squeezing, grinding the bones together a little and oh my god,
Cherry thought, he means to do it, right here, and her voice wouldn’t come
because Lance’s hand had gone from her face to resting lightly on her neck. She
couldn’t hold his gaze, her eyes dropped and she stared at the key he always
wore around his neck and had time to wonder what horrible thing a person like
Lance could have that they felt important enough to lock away. He wasn’t
squeezing but she could sense that he had before, that he knew right where to
put his fingers and dig in and Cherry swallowed a lump and was about to try and
scream when the door opened.

Lance’s hand vanished like a magic trick from her throat and
he took a quick step back and turned, all at the same time, toward the person
that had opened the door.

“Carmex! Hey!” Lance said. “Howya doing?”

“We were just leaving,” Carmex said.

Cherry pushed past Lance and went into the hall. Jenny,
Cherry thought. Carmex’s real name was Jenny! Cherry didn’t look back, she
could hear Jen coming along behind her. Cherry looked around and didn’t see Jim
so she leaned in to Tattoo Nik as she went past.

“Tell Jim I had to go,” she said, doing her best to keep her
voice even and not cry. She was shaking. She could still feel his hand on her
neck like it had been covered in a hot slime.

Nothing happened, Cherry told herself over and over. Nothing
happened, nothing happened, nothing happened.