Chapter 17 Love and Money #2
I loved turning the men I was with onto this scene.
The look on their faces when we would walk into this Sodom and Gomorrah was sometimes enough to get me off.
So, one night, Eric and I went to the Red Rooster, and I swear to God we were drugged by the meatballs at the buffet.
I know, I know—who the fuck eats from a buffet at a sex club?
Me. The next thing I knew, we woke up at Eric’s parents’ house with all the lights on, the door wide open, and our buck-naked bodies covered in Del Taco.
Why the fuck were we at his parents’ house?
No clue. I had my own place. That’s how out of our minds we were.
I was bad news for that dude, and today, my heart goes out to his parents for having to deal with both of us.
After that evening of mayhem, Eric moved in. He wanted to be with me 24-7. I thought he was the one. Between dancing and hooking, the money was flowing in. No one could tell us no, and we did what we wanted when we wanted.
Most men love the idea of being with a woman like me. But they can’t handle it once it’s their reality. Slowly but surely, Eric started getting jealous. He tried to get between me and my money, and that spells control. Once someone tries to control me, I buck like a wild horse.
I came home one night and caught Eric watching porn featuring ladies who—let’s just say, had parts I didn’t have.
Now I’d never yuck anyone’s yum. I get it.
But how the hell was I supposed to compete?
And he was so secretive about it. I’d go to the grocery store and he’d hop on the computer to whack off while I was buying a loaf of bread with money I’d made selling my body.
We were coming apart at the seams. I didn’t trust him, and he sure as fuck didn’t trust me.
Pretty much immediately after the chicks with dicks saga, he got caught cheating or doing some other shady shit, and not one to not speak up about being pissed off, I cocked back and I hammerfisted the fuck out of his face one day in his truck. His nose started pouring blood.
“You broke my fucking nose,” he said.
Eric and I fell into a dysfunctional pattern we’d repeat over and over for the next couple of years. Love, fuck, fight. Love, fuck, fight. Fucking exhausting.
One night, he thought I was out cheating, but I was really just sitting in my rented PT Cruiser in a parking lot, drunk off my ass and trying not to go home.
But he kept calling, so I drove myself shit-faced into a metal construction sign, and then another, until I was dragging sparks behind me.
They were flying everywhere, and suddenly, I needed a Del Taco cheeseburger. I mean, a girl’s gotta eat.
So I drove that car—spewing smoke and flames on a flat tire—right through a Del Taco drive-through. You should have seen the drive-through attendant’s face. Like, is this chick for real?
All the while, Eric was screaming at me to come home.
I didn’t want to fight, so I parked my car down the street to sleep it off, and that motherfucker called the cops and had me arrested for a DUI.
Apparently in Vegas if you’re intoxicated and behind the wheel of a vehicle with the keys in the ignition, it’s an automatic DUI.
But if the keys aren’t anywhere in the car, nothing.
Can you guess where my extremely intelligent ass kept the keys?
This motherfucker knew I was already in trouble with the law and had a court case for battery hanging over my head and he did this? Game on, dickhead. This launched an all-out war between us, and our battles were who could call the cops on the other one first.
He would threaten to call the cops and sometimes would if we were fighting—especially if we were drunk.
And then I would be on my phone calling them myself because of course it became about who could get their story across first. I’d say he hit me, anything to get him away from me.
I’d tell them to get him out of my house because he refused to leave.
I manipulated the system. I always cried, and he was the one who ended up in trouble.
It was a pretty sick game we played with each other and the judicial system.
What the fuck did we think would come from all this?
After years of back-and-forth, Eric ended up with a domestic violence charge. When it came time for his sentencing and we knew for sure there was no way out of it, we had a great idea. What if we got married? Surely, then, the judge would drop the charges. Because marriage solves everything, right?
We got married at the courthouse despite everyone telling us not to.
He wore blue jeans and a T-shirt with his signature beer in hand, and I wore a tight black sundress with my tousled blond hair in an updo.
We were poster children for toxic love. We thought our brilliant move would sway the judge. It actually just pissed him off.
“You’re married!?” the judge snapped. “You’ve called the cops one too many times. Both of you have played games with the court system and that’s even more reason to keep you apart.”
Keep us apart? But we were so in love, and I couldn’t bear to think of him behind bars. The day before he had to turn himself in, he had one final fan-fucking-tastic idea.
“Let’s get out of here. Let’s go to Canada. They can’t get us if we’re there.”
And just like that, we sold everything in our house, packed up a truck, and decided to go on the run.
* * *
BEING LOCKED IN A VEHICLE for days was probably the worst thing Eric and I ever did to ourselves. We couldn’t stand each other, but we couldn’t be apart either. We made it to Washington before our toxicity exploded. And—you guessed it—Eric got arrested. Again.
And who do you think bailed him out? Again?
We got back on the road and made it to the border, ready to escape into the Canadian dream life we had created in our minds.
Anyone who says all Canadians are calm, polite people hasn’t met a Canadian border patrol agent.
Those motherfuckers are scary. They yanked us out of the car and started running our shit.
We waited for what felt like hours, watching cars waved through—and surprisingly quite a few turned away.
Finally, the somber agent came to loom over me.
“Do you know you have a harassment charge?” he asked. “A harassment charge? For what?” I was baffled. I knew I had battery and robbery charges. Thug life. But I didn’t fucking harass people.
“Does the name Grace jog your memory?”
Son of a bitch, you had to be kidding me. I had threatened to beat up my best friend, Grace. As with any relationship with a Gemini, it was heads or tails. We fought like sisters. But she had taken shit too far.
Now where are we going to go? We can’t go back to Vegas. Fuck, we’re going to have to go back to my family. Texas. Maybe this will be a fresh start. Maybe we can become a family and be together and make lemonade from lemons. Maybe.
So we drove to Texas to be with my dad and sister.
I tapped out all my sugar daddies to come up with the cash to rent us a house in a quaint, upscale neighborhood right outside of Austin.
We were going to blend in and become an all-American young couple instead of fugitives on the run. I was worn out. But there we were.
Tapping out all my resources had pissed off every sugar daddy I had—they couldn’t understand the abrupt move from Vegas to Texas.
Now I had to make some money and support us, and I started dancing while I watched our relationship fall apart.
I think we both silently swore to see it through to the bitter end.
I was trying to help Eric with all the legal trouble that I had helped get him into, but we never really managed to squash it. Even though we stayed together, I desperately wanted to move on. I soon met a guy while I was out dancing, Kdub.
He was the dope boy for Austin. Flashy clothes, cars, chains.
He was a super-cute blond with a smile that would melt you.
I met him in the club one night when I tried to rob him.
I had danced for him and he said he wanted to take me home.
Not realizing he was a regular, I quoted him a price and had him pay up front.
He didn’t even blink at the money and handed it right over.
Then I went to the back, got dressed, and drove to White Castle to celebrate a long night at work.
I waited a few days to go back to the club, because I figured if the guy I ripped off was visiting, he probably would have left town by then. But when I got out on the floor, guess who was in VIP. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.
“Yoooo,” he said, getting close to my face.
I giggled and flipped my hair. Maybe I could distract him enough that he wouldn’t get too mad.
“You owe me,” he said, leaning closer.
I can’t lie, something about how he didn’t cause a scene and was so alpha about what I’d done made me wet. I giggled nervously inside—never giving an inch. Back in the dressing room, I asked a few of the girls about him.
“Oh girl, Kdub is that dude—if you want or need anything, he’s got you.”
“Are you interested in Kdub?” they teased.
Evidently, he was well known in the area. He had money, was a d-boy, and all the girls wanted him. Here we fucking go again. I knew my type. I knew myself. Men were my absolute weakness. Especially these kind of men.
I fixed my hair in the mirror, stared at myself for a second, and walked right back out into VIP.
I wrapped my legs around him and whispered, “I’m sorry. I don’t normally do stuff like that. I got nervous.” I bit my lip and looked into his eyes. “What can I do to make it up to you?”