Up In Smoke, Pt. 02

Disclaimer: Ok, first and foremost a Trigger Warning: the following chapter contains Suicidal Thought, Hate Sex, Revenge Sex, NonConsensual/Reluctance Sex, light Bondage/BDSM, a little bit of everything, plus Mind Control, but that is what we are all here for anyway. That said, if any of this is not 'up your alley' then maybe skip this one. However, it also has a lot of important plot points for the story moving forward, so if you liked the first part and want to continue the story then maybe at least skim through it.

Secondly, thank you to those who liked the first part of the story. I am glad so many did. I hope this next section will be received just as strongly. I think most people have experienced the pains of a heartbreak, we live our lives and we gamble on love and sometimes we lose that bet. The pain can be worse than any other feeling life can throw at us, but we have to move on. The story below tries to deal with this pain at an extreme level, but it certainly is not condoning any of the actions within, please do not take it as such.

Finally, the story contains instances of Drug-use with elements of mind control/altered perception. It is not intended to promote its usage or actions within, blah blah blah...Basically, don't try this at home, kids.

Anyway, thanks for coming back and I hope you enjoy this next installment of "Up in Smoke".

Light 'em up if you got 'em up.

- - -

"The biggest killer on the planet is stress, and I still think the best medicine is and always has been cannabis."

- Willie Nelson

"Couples who blaze together, stay together."

- Unknown

- - -

THE HANGOVER

- - -

I was exhausted. I had been out all night drinking, smoking, dancing, and fucking. Any energy I had left I was using just to keep myself upright on my motorbike as I drove home down the mean streets of Hanoi. Or I was trying to at least. It was sometime around 8AM, so I was stuck in the mob of morning traffic, everyone else trying to get to work (yes, they work Saturdays, freaking weirdos). Vietnam is a 'developing country', with a growing economy, so there are some people who had enough money to buy cars, but the vast majority of people still drive motorbikes. Try to imagine yourself sitting on a bike, surrounded by thousands of other people on their bikes, all idling on horribly dusty roads, none of whom drove like they have ever sat a day in a driver's ed class, with the occasional car thrown in the mix, just to add to the confusion. Every gap is filled in by another bike just trying to get a foot ahead of their neighbors. Some drive in the opposite direction against traffic, to try for a more direct route to their destination and will squeeze through any gap they see, while others try to turn but get stopped by a bike or car in front of them, all of which causes road blocks on the regular. Red lights are barely seen as suggestions - much less stop signs - and driving on the 'correct side of the road' is only if the driver was feeling rather cheeky that day and want to spice things up. Now multiply that by a thousand. Shit, they even go the wrong way on fucking roundabouts just so they don't have to go 'all the way around'. It was sheer havoc and confusion, and this was only a Saturday morning, a light day. I was starting to get a headache.

Eventually, I managed to fight my way through to my alley, and I was home clear. I took the turn and sped up down the tiny street surrounded on all sides by cement, block houses - the usual in Vietnam - and headed for my house towards the end of the alley.

I didn't think anything of it at first, but as I got closer I saw a woman standing by my front door ringing the doorbell. She had a couple of suitcases with her. Maybe a new housemate was moving in. But as I approached she turned towards me and stared directly at me, I recognized her immediately even though she looked different than she had.

Thuy. She was here. She was back from France. Back in Hanoi. Scratch that, she was back at my fucking house. My headache got worse.

I stopped my bike and just stared for a moment not sure what emotions I was feeling, as she straightened her clothes trying to look less disheveled and not like she had been traveling all night. She looked back at me and simply said, "Hi." Her voice was quiet and nervous. She was smiling and looked like she was to be excited to be here, but I could see the nervous tension in her body.

I got off my bike and walked it closer to my door, put down the kickstand, then set the bike down right in front of her.

"What are you doing here?" Was all I said.

"Hi!" She repeated, "I'm back!"

"I noticed." I said without smiling and I moved to unlock the door.

Her smile slipped for a moment, but was back quickly enough. "Yea, I just flew in and...well, I had no where else...I mean, I wanted to see you!" She finished strongly.

I just rolled my eyes with my back turned to her as I walked my bike up a little ramp that led into our parking area inside the house. She followed me in through the open door. Her bags left out on the street. She watched me put my bike in its usual place.

I turned back to face her and repeated, "What are you doing here?"

Before Thuy could answer, I heard another woman's voice behind me say in a neutral tone, "Oh hi, Thuy. I guess you managed to find your way in anyway." I turned to see Trinh, my landlady, walking down the stairs. Well "landlady" was not actually right, she was the 28 year old daughter of the owners of the house, but she handled all the business and management of the place, while the rest of her family lived elsewhere. Trinh lived in the first floor suite, while I was up at the top of the building on the sixth. I had moved in a little bit after Thuy and I had started dating, so the two definitely knew each other but had never gotten along. I hadn't known why, but every time they talked, the air got cool.

"Morning, Trinh." I greeted her warmly as she just rolled her eyes and went about her way. I had no problem with Trinh, in fact, I liked her. She never gave me any problems and I tried not to cause any for her in return. She was always professional and even generous about the rent on the few occasions it had been late. It also didn't hurt that she was pretty in a polished, businesswoman kind of way. Professional to the bone, except for a few instances I had witnessed when her emotions had gotten the better of her and she had turned into a screaming stick of dynamite. I definitely was not in the mood for that, so I needed to handle this situation with care.

"Yea, I did. Thanks for your help, Trinh." Thuy replied to the other woman's greeting, going for polite but also with a slight hint of sarcasm, as Trinh walked to the kitchen behind our parking area. Thuy added to the other's back, "I told you he would."

I eyed Thuy. "You guys already talked?"

"Yea, she wouldn't let me in. She said I had to talk to you first."

Well, 'thank you, Trinh.' I thought, only imagining what would of happened if Thuy had been allowed in my room before I got home.

The building was not that large, only seven floors. Small enough were everyone in the house knew each other and tried to look out for one another. The ground floor was taken up by the parking area and the communal kitchen we all shared, while the seventh had a small gym, a laundry room, and an open-aired patio we sometimes used for picnics. Attached to the patio was a rusted old staircase that led up to my favorite part of the house, the roof. It looked out over one of the city's largest and most beautiful lakes, and sometimes in the evening I would just go up there, sit on one of the benches and just watch the sunset across the city. It was a beautiful view. The rest of the floors were taken up by apartments, two to a floor, except for the first (Trinh's) which took up the whole level.

When I had first moved in, the place was a kind of boarding house filled with foreigners, coming and going at all hours of the night, being a bit too loud for the quiet neighborhood. But as time went on, Trinh took over management of the house and one by one each of the foreigners eventually moved out, all except for me. Trinh had replaced them with young, professional Vietnamese women, all just starting out on their own. Her thought must have been young women would be quieter than rowdy foreigners, and she was kind of right. But from my perspective, I was now living with a dozen or so young women all in their early- to mid-20s, and they could each be almost as crazy as a group of drunken Expats. I had stayed in the house primarily because I was just lazy and hated moving, but I was a mostly quiet housemate who kept to myself, so no one seemed to care about me staying. They liked having a man around the house to help with odds and ends, and occasionally run off an unwanted visitor, so it worked out for everyone. I guess today, Trinh was the one keeping out the unwanted visitors.

"...And I couldn't call you," Thuy went on, breaking my train of thought, "since you blocked my number. So I have been trying to wake you up for a while now. Where were you? You are never up this early?"

"Out." Was all I gave her.

"I see that." She replied, with a touch of attitude as she eyed my clothes. "Staying out all night again now, are we?"

"Yes, we are." I said with an accusatory smile, but even smiling hurt my head. I reached up and massaged my temples. "And me blocking your number should have been a hint that I didn't want to talk to you."

"I know. But we need to. The way we left things...look, I just wanted to say..."

I cut her off. My head was pounding now. "Thuy. Stop. I'm not in the mood right now. I'm tired and I have a headache. What do you want?"

She looked like she was thinking for a moment before making up her mind, then just blurted out, "Can I stay here...just for a day, maybe two?"

I just stared at her, eyebrows raised, "Umm...No?"

"Please," she said, trying to go for seductively. "Not for long, I need a place to stay."

"Why not at your family's place?"

"They are gone, they moved back to our hometown for the summer, and I don't have keys."

"What about friends?"

"They...they aren't answering their phones." She said vaguely. I thought about something Mai had said the night before about Thuy making enemies and wondered how many people she had left angry.

"Hotel?" I suggested.

"I don't have any money. Look, it's only for a day or two, just until I can work something else out. Please. I'll be quiet, you won't even know I'm here."

I just gave a snort. A) My room was not large, we would be in close quarters the whole time, and B) I knew Thuy. Quiet, she was not.

"Thuy, it's a not good idea. I'm tired, I have a headache, and, oh yea, we broke up."

"Please." She said quietly, this time a touch of sadness reaching her face, her eyes tearing up. "I don't have any where else to go. I need your help."

I should have just said no, thrown her out, and gone to bed happy dreaming of Amber. Let Thuy spend a night on the street or sell herself for a bed. She'd deserve it, right? Didn't she?

My headache was now piercing my eyes. I felt like I needed to throw up.

No, I wasn't that kind of guy. I was a sap. A sucker. A moron.

I don't know what my feelings were at this moment. Anger. Pain, Empathy. Lust. She had hurt me, she had lied, she had left me. But we had also been together for three years. Three fun, glorious, sexy years. Was I still attracted to her? I hated myself for it, but yes. Was I angry? Yes. Was I hurt? Yes. Was I horny? Even after last night, yes. Not to mention, I had loved this girl once, maybe even still, betrayal not withstanding.

But in the end it came down to, 'was I a bad guy?' I'd like to think not. I mean, I don't know if anyone can ever really judge themselves. We all like to think we are the hero of our own stories, or at least not the villain, but when it came to it, we are all just great at lying to ourselves. Plus, my head hurt too much to argue.

Fuck.

"Fine." I sighed, fingers back at my temples.

Thuy squealed, giving a little bounce. She came up and gave me a quick hug as I just stood there. She did smell nice.

I could have sworn I heard a snort coming from the kitchen.

Thuy spun around and skipped outside to get her luggage. I followed her and held the door open, hating myself, as she lifted her suitcases in passed the door, handing one to me. I didn't bother to argue, I just took it. She swung a book bag over her shoulder, grabbed the handle of the other case and rolled it in passed me. I closed and locked the door and we both walked over to my other favorite part of the building, the elevator. As I pushed the call button, I saw Trinh busying herself in the kitchen making her breakfast. She had clearly heard the whole conversation, but was pretending like she hadn't, pointedly ignoring us as we awkwardly waited for the elevator to arrive. When the doors slid open, we loaded the luggage in, and Thuy went in first. I looked over at Trinh, lifted my hand in a little wave, and simply said "Night."

She looked over to me, shaking her head. I saw a smirk. "Night." She said with a little too much of a knowing smile.

I followed Thuy into the elevator, pushed for the sixth floor and the doors closed. For the next few moments we just stood there again in awkward silence. As tired and as much pain as I was in, I hadn't really taken that much notice of her appearance before now. She looked a bit different than she had last time I saw her nearly a year ago. The biggest difference being her hair. She used to keep it long and straight, well passed her shoulders, but now she had curled it into big, springy coils that bounced around her face. She had also dyed it. Instead of the jet black I remembered, her hair was now a flowing cascade of brown, darkest at the roots and got progressively lighter the further down it went. Intermingled in the brown, she had highlighted streaks of bright pink. It really did look good. She was clearly wearing make-up but good luck trying to get me to describe what she had done. All I could tell is that around her eyes were shaded dark, her cheeks rosy, and her thick lips, deep red. I had always joked that she had "blowjob lips" and she was clearly leaning into it.

Her clothing style had also changed during her time in France. Where she used to be more of a pants and t-shirt sort of girl, with the occasional dress or skirt thrown into the mix, now she looked more refined. I guess her friends had taken her out shopping during her time abroad. I mean, how else was she going to woo nice, handsome, French gentlemen without looking like a 'Woman-of-Taste' herself. At the moment, she was wearing a tight-fitting deep black dress that came down to her mid thigh and had streaks of white flowing down from top to bottom, made of small white gemstones. The dress did a great job of accentuating the shape of her hips and her chest.

During the moment I took the sight of her in, she looked nervous but eventually ventured to ask a question.

"So, where were you last night? You are never up this early. I figured you would still be sleeping..."

"Out." Was all I said again.

"All night?"

"Yes."

"Oh." She paused for a few moments, for some reason just looking at my neck, maybe she didn't want to look me in the eyes. "Did you have fun?"

"Yes." I sighed again.

"Looks like it." She said with a smirk.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. You're just back late...or early...whichever."

Before I could respond. The elevator dinged, and the doors opened up. She just smiled at me, grabbed a bag, and got off. I followed her and went to unlock my door. I held it open for her as she dragged her bags in, and plopped them in an open spot near the doorway. As I was locking the door behind us, she did a quick look around the room. Like I said, it wasn't a big room, just enough for my bed, desk, chair, a small couch, closet, and the TV dresser piled with my school books and my PlayStation. The room was messy though. Between me being lazy and the last few months of self-pitying isolation, I hadn't bothered to clean up much.

"Sorry about the mess." I muttered.

"It doesn't matter." She replied, while scanning my room looking over the disaster area, a look of distaste on her face. She had always been sort of a neat-freak. Her eyes locked onto a spot over by my desk, where pictures of her and some of us still hung on my wall above my computer. I hadn't been able to take them down, figuring self-torture went along well with my self-pitying. She looked back at me with a sad smile on her face.

I looked away.

"Look, do you mind if I use the bathroom, it's been a long night?" I asked.

"Sure, go ahead."

I grabbed a towel as I walked over to my bathroom, while she moved over to one of her suitcases and opened it up. I closed the door behind me, put my back up against the wall, and closed my eyes for a moment trying to gather my thoughts. What the fuck was I doing. This was not a good idea. Nothing good could come from this. I felt nauseous.

I sighed to myself, forcing me to get a grip. I walked to the toilet where I took a much needed piss. Fuuuuucccckkk. Sometimes a good piss can feel as good as sex. When I was done, I moved over to the sink and just looked at myself in the mirror. I was a mess. My hair was all disheveled, my eyes bloodshot, and my shirt was wrinkly and dirty. I reached for a bottle of aspirin and popped a handful of pills into my mouth. As I leaned my head back to swallow them, I noticed my neck was smeared with what looked to be lipstick and behind it a large bruise was forming. Well, wouldn't you know it, my first hickey in a year. Then it dawned on me that Thuy had obviously seen it, and that was what she had been looking at in the elevator. Well...good. I didn't care. Well, not too much at least.

I tried to clean myself up as much as I could in the sink. I stuck my head under the faucet and gave it as much of a scrub as I could. I cupped water in my hands to tried to clean my face and neck too. After the lipstick smears were gone, the bruise was even more visible, but there was nothing I could do about that. I took off my shirt and flung it in the corner where I have a small hamper and I used a wet towel to clean myself as much as I could. I was too tired to take a full shower. I finished up by brushing my teeth and trying to get the taste of stale beer, whiskey, tequila and pussy out of my mouth.

When I was done, I threw the towel over my bare shoulders, opened the door, and walked back into my room. Thuy was sitting at the end of my bed, a few clean clothes next to her and a make-up bag. She watched me as I made my way over to my closet and got some fresh clothes out. I threw the towel on a shelf and pulled on a shirt. I turned back to her, not sure what to say, and saw her still watching me.

"You need to use the bathroom?" Was all I could think of.

- - -

BASEBALL

- - -

"Yea, thanks." She gathered up her things and glided past me. I caught a whiff of her perfume as she did, something alluringly floral. It made my pants tighten a bit. God.

As she disappeared into the bathroom. I took the opportunity to get out of my pants and boxers, both of which stank and were as filthy as can be expected from a night of rolling around a dance club floor, not to mention the wild sex. I replaced them with a clean pair of boxers and pajama pants. Normally, during a hot Vietnam summer I would usually forgo the pants, but under the circumstances I didn't want to test fate, things were already sticky enough. I then went through my dirty pants and emptied the pockets onto my desk. Out came my wallet, keys, phone, some cash, and a bulging bag of weed. I smiled to myself thinking about the night I had just had.