Out of the Burlap Ch. 02

"I have a brother," Carol began. "An older brother."

"Like a half brother or something?" Maya asked, confused. When Carol shook her head, Maya said, "I thought you were an only child."

"I might as well have been. Mom took my brother with the divorce. Like I'm a Daddy's Girl, he's a Momma's Boy. It's just this bond that, when push came to shove, made it impossible to do custody any other way. It would have torn me and Steve apart more than already done by our parents' splitting, especially Steve.

"Mom's an addictive type and the fruit didn't fall far from the tree with my brother. I mean Mom and Dad came of age in the late sixties, full of experimentation and generational rebellion. Dad grew out of it quickly, realizing if he wanted to have a family and succeed as a businessman in order to provide us well he had to set aside all that wildness and immaturity. It turned out Mom didn't want to grow up. She loved getting high and hanging with high friends and doing crazy things.

"That wasn't clear immediately. When she got pregnant with Steve and then with me, the drugs got set aside. Friendships based on mutual drug intake got set aside. Dad had his friends from high school here that didn't value partying like those they had encountered in Berkeley where Dad got his masters in business and met Mom. Though mom also came from here, her friends from here never really matured, preferring living hand to mouth with just enough cash to score than to move up out of the trashy cold water flats. And her friends in Berkeley and in San Francisco weren't much better, though they tended to at least have a spark of intelligence and could converse and befriend Dad.

"So in the end, all Mom had for friends were Dad's friends who she really didn't see eye to eye with all that much. So she gradually reacquainted with her old pals, slipping out of the house while Dad worked, bringing me and Steve along while she got high. It wasn't all the time at first, nor were the drugs heavy, mostly pot. But Dad caught her gone from the house without any note and smelled her potted breath when she returned and freaked out, mostly because we had been dragged along.

"Mom begged forgiveness and promised to be good, but Dad was less than convinced. He threatened to call her unpredictably at home to check on her. Eventually she got around this when her urges returned by inviting her friends to her home or taking a side jaunt when she went shopping. Dad could always tell.

"Being a bit of a prodigy in business, Dad's success started early in his career and he was able to bring in a nanny to deal more with his wife than us kids in a way, but it allowed Mom to go out and party more without feeling guilty about exposing us or endangering us. By this time, Steve started kindergarten, and he hated it because he hated leaving Mom. Everytime she slipped away before he had cried. And evenings, when Dad started his travelling, Steve would go nuts when Mom would leave him again to go visit friends. So it was just easier to bring him along.

"The shit hit the fan when Dad came home early and found Mom stoned out of her gills and, worse, Steve stoned too. It seems she and her friends got a kick out of blowing pot into his mouth. Divorce came swiftly. And Dad did all he could to keep Steve. I was not a problem. But Steve wouldn't be with Dad. And Mom had a lover already in place, a home for her and Steve in San Francisco with an old boyfriend of hers who she'd managed to come visit her in the Twin Cities for some sordid cuckolding and drug taking.

"Steve grew up junky. Mom was a junky turning tricks for smack, her boyfriend pimping her. And it wasn't long before Steve had his first taste of heroin. Thirteen he told me, but somehow I think it must have been earlier.

"When Mom died of pneumonia via AIDS, Steve came to live with Dad and me. Thing is, despite a prematurely drug addled brain, Steve is smart. Street smart maybe, but exceptionally so, and really just smart in general. I mean in some ways he reminds me of Joe in having this impressively wide range of knowledge and interests. In no time he had his business thriving here while still keeping is fingers in the West Coast part of it.

"He's a dealer?"

"Of course. He had to be to survive and thrive while strung out. But growing up in it he knew just how to stay under the radar or to avoid being snitched out. He knew not to share needles and always wear protection when fucking the sort of girls he encountered on the job. He knew how to survive.

"So I got curious. I pounded on his door when he got in. He always ran into the bathroom and into his room to prepare a shot for himself, and I could tell. I wanted to watch and maybe even try it. He always seemed calmer and sweeter after shooting heroin.

"Eventually he let me in. Said he couldn't concentrate with all my pounding. I told him I just wanted to watch him set up his shot and inject himself. So he schooled me. It fascinated me, not just the actions he took, almost ceremonial, but his transformation. He looked so...sated, like the horniest son of a bitch in the world finally having a killer orgasm. I asked if I could try and, despite seeming to be in this really cool and calm place, he completely freaked out. He called heroin a demon, a hell-spawn beast that took away souls, a succubus whose pleasure numbed all other pleasures or any feelings at all. He said his greatest regrets in life had to do with the seduction of teens for his own lust, a devil introducing his victims to the succubus heroin to tie that person to him as client or as a sex slave, a pussy to wet his cock on demand. He said he'd cut it off rather than letting me taste this demon. And he ended up leaving soon after back to LA probably worried about me, about him seducing me with heroin."

"And how has it affected your brother, his guilt over being a seducer?" asked Maya.

"I don't see him all that often. I did see him recently, visiting his own stomping grounds in LA while checking out schools and dance companies there. Every time I see him, he's more of a shell or a husk of a man. It's so sad because despite living so long with a needle in his arm, he's such a bright and brilliant man, though less so each time I see him."

Maya finally asked, "Why are you telling me this?"

"I want us to use up what Joe bought from your friend. I want to give it one try and I want you to as well. I want it to be the last time any of us, including Joe, inject that shit into our veins."

"But what about his tension?"

"He's lived with it this long. It's a major part of who he is. I could see what was lost when it didn't exist anymore at practice. He just wasn't Joe anymore."

"But when we're so intimate and then...we're not."

"Maya," Carol sighed, her hands lightly guiding Maya's face to look at her, "Does it ever happen when he makes love to you?"

"No. Never. In fact the opposite more so than I've ever experienced. He is so much there with me when we're making love it's as if we're in each other's skin. Only after..."

Carol nodded. "After you get Joe version 2."

"It's true he's different to talk to and be with then."

"And it makes you uncomfortable?"

Maya shook her head. "Not anymore because I don't blame myself for causing it."

Carol smiled. "In fact we're the ones that relieve him of that burlap for a time."

Maya chuckled. "I suppose we are." Then she noticed, "I'm becoming a prune."

Carol shared a laugh with her dark haired lover as they rose out of the bath and dried off. Checking on Joe who slept soundly in the middle of Carol's king sized bed, its size making even the very tall man look smallish ("Why such a big bed, darling?" asked Carol's father. "Why, for orgies of course," Carol smirked.), they put on their robes walked out of the bedroom, sitting at their usual spot together on the sofa.

Carol searched through Joe's shoulder bag and found two cellophane packets barely an inch square and a syringe. "Be right back," she told Maya and went to fetch a tablespoon, a cotton swab and the tipped matches. Dropping them off on the coffee table she finished her acquisitions with a glass of water. The two looked over the items.

"What about a tie?" asked Maya.

"You've witnessed this ceremony?" asked Carol, pulling on the belt on her robe and realizing its attachment to the robe. "Be right back."

"I told you Spike cringed when I refused to inject the stuff, instead wishing to smoke it."

Carol waited to respond so as not to wake up Joe when she reentered her bedroom to find a red leather tie she used with a suit when she wanted to cross dress. "Oh yeah. I forgot. And about your band..."

Maya nodded. "I'll fire Spike and Spoon. They were flaky and too male to take me seriously anyway. Maybe it will get me over my fear of rejection to ask Barb Olson to join the band. She's just waitressing now and the world is less great because her drums are silent. You've heard of the Bimbos haven't you?"

"I'm a bit ignorant about punk bands."

"But what about your friends? Didn't they turn you onto any music?"

"I've been obsessed with dancing since forever. Music is all about dance: classical and modern and jazz and such. And when we dancers let loose, it's usually to some sort of disco. And when I'm in a quiet mood, Joe turned me onto some cool ambient music by Eno."

"We should clean that syringe out pretty thoroughly," Maya realized, "before injection and then between injections."

"I don't want alcohol injected into my blood," Carol pointed out.

"Maybe really hot water?"

They agreed and hoped for the best. Not that they feared AIDS would come from sharing. Joe had been a virgin as far as injecting drugs, had practiced safe sex and heterosexual sex, and the works had never been used before except by him. They just weren't sure what other pathogens might make unwelcome appearances.

They went silent as they prepared shots, splitting the bag and a half between them, extracting about half the liquid mix of water and smack that they cooked up in the tablespoon. Maya tightened the red tie around her biceps first and let Carol find a vein into which she injected the drug, filling the syringe with blood once the vein had been tapped and slowly and carefully pressing the plunger.

Maya had a harder time concentrating on injecting Carol because the heroin hit her so profoundly. It had been thought that since Maya had experience with getting fairly stoned on Percocet that she would be better suited to injecting under the influence. They just hadn't considered how much more intense the direct mainlining of heroin would be compared to the slower and less powerful swallowing of pills or even breathing in smoke. With great care, Maya managed to successfully shoot up her lover without causing any more damage than necessary at the injection site.

"Wow," said Carol dully.

"Yeah," Maya agreed.

"I get it."

"Me too. I guess speedballing with coke makes the rush even greater."

"I guess I'll take your word for it," Carol chuckled.

"Yeah," said Maya with a soft edge.

"Maya?"

"You're right, Carol. I don't need to meet your brother. I can see it in Spike and in Spoon. Especially Spike since he's a cutie that I've known for years and I can see the cost of his addiction. He's become like a cipher. His personality seems so much less than it was. And I don't think he's advanced his musical chops one bit in years."

"So you plan to replace Spoon with this Barb. What about the bassist?"

"Excuse me," Maya moaned, running off into the bathroom to puke.

"You okay?" Carol asked, having followed her and while holding back her hair.

"Unh-hunh. Joe had a similar reaction. I'm too stoned to feel anything but relief that my nausea just escaped out my mouth. What about you?"

"There's a dull feeling in the pit of my stomach, but it's nonthreatening. I think some red wine and some hits of Joe's fine pot will help."

"Sounds good," Maya smiled, even more when Carol pulled out a fresh toothbrush and some toothpaste and mouthwash.

"Join me when you're ready," said Carol, kissing her lover on her forehead.

"So you have plans for the bass player?" Carol reminded Maya a few minutes later between soft kisses and sips of wine. Maya had been thorough cleaning away any residue of vomit.

Maya sucked in the smoke of one of Joe's perfectly formed doobies, neither too thin nor too fat, before answering with smoky breath. "I want to teach Joe to play. I have a pretty nice Fender bass I haven't played in years and I'll loan him my little Pignose amp."

"He'll love the offer," said Carol. "But won't his lack of skill hurt the band?"

Maya shook her head. "It takes great skill to be great at bass, but it's one of the easier instruments to get by on. I'll teach him the chords and the strings to stroke. He's got the rhythm obviously since he dances with such skill and subtlety. It's just a matter of toughening his fingertips and lots of practice. He can learn from the best."

"What do you mean?"

"He's got lots of Yes albums. Their bassist, Chris Squire is the master of masters. He'll know that."

"And you'll get him to sing with you?" Carol asked her friend.

"That'll take lots more convincing," Maya chuckled along with Carol. "I hope so. It'd be cool for him to sing his lyrics even if it's just in harmony with me."

"Yes it would," Carol agreed. They kissed. They lingered on it until both of them nodded off, their lips drifting apart.

"Wow. It's like a dream state even more than with opium," Maya said. "It's like a dream overlaying reality. It's kind of disturbing except I'm too relaxed and sedated to freak out. You ever do LSD?"

"A couple times," Carol admitted. "And mushrooms and peyote one time. This is different though. It's not so much hallucinatory, like visions overpowering reality, but like reality is nudged aside a bit to make room for a dream or something. It's like comfortably knowing your dreaming and not getting lost in some vision."

"Hmm," Maya nodded, nodding off.

"You two okay?" asked Joe seemingly moments later to Maya, but obviously hours had passed.

"We finished up your heroin," Carol explained.

"I noticed."

"Are you mad?"

"No."

"I don't want you doing it anymore. My brother's a junky, Joe, and I don't want you to be."

"Okay. But why...?"

"Because all three of us know what pleasure we'll sacrifice by not getting seduced by it," said Maya. "That's why you insisted, isn't it Carol?"

"Unh-hunh," Carol responded. "And I admit I was curious. And I'm sure Maya was too."

Maya nodded without nodding off. She still felt the tinge of euphoria remaining in her system, but it was on its last legs. "How are you feeling, Joe?" she asked.

"Like there's a dull gray mass of uselessness where my brain used to be," Joe smiled.

"You said 'Okay' about not using that stuff," Carol realized.

"Unh-hunh."

"But...your burlap..." Maya stuttered.

"I hate it..."

"But...," Carol encouraged.

"But I guess it's me?" Joe shrugged. "I'd rather feel tense and alienated than dull and...nothing."

Carol sprang from her seat beside Maya and into Joe's arms. Their mouths met as if magnetized. The suddenness allowed only the briefest awareness of morning breath in Carol's mouth, but the intensity of the kiss made him forget it just as quickly.

"You're not tense with us?" she finally asked.

"Hardly ever," Joe smiled at her.

"Oh Joe," she murmured, reattaching her lips to his.

Maya stood impatiently beside the embracing couple. Finally she spoke. "I want me some of that sugar."

The couple broke with a chuckle. Joe swung Maya into his arms, but Maya stopped the kiss. "Come here, sugar," she said to Carol who embraced both her lovers and after a brief giggle sealed her lips to Maya's. Joe waited patiently with a big grin enjoying the embrace he felt as both Maya and Carol pulled their bodies ever harder against his.

When his two lovers ended their kiss, he asked Maya, "How are you feeling?"

"Still a little stony. We didn't shoot it up until pretty late last night. Carol?"

"Me too. It's pretty damn pleasant in a sort of powerful way."

"You'll miss it when it's gone," said Joe. All three nodded, an agreement made. They had acknowledged the seductive power of heroin, its demonic overture towards their desire to be lost in its manufactured bliss and the need to fight that temptation.

-to be continued-