Change - Part 3

No sooner than I hit the road for California, Natalie (the young hottie) and I start talking on the phone. A lot.

We talk on the phone several times a day during the course of my eight day drive to California. It took me eight days because apparently I hadn't screwed up everything quite enough yet, so I decided to stop at every casino that was even remotely close to my path down Interstate 40. Tunica? No problem. That weird little indian place in bumblefuck? Been there. Naturally, I kept this all to myself. Telling Natalie and my parents that the drive was taking longer than expected because I was tired and strung out, so I wasn't able to drive for longer than a few hours a day.

Of course, I couldn't keep the lie going once I hit Las Vegas and my remaining $6,000 was no more. I had to ask my parents to wire me fourty dollars gas money to finish the trek from Vegas to Los Angeles.

Yes, I was that bad off. Natalie and I still spoke several times a day.

I finally made it home and my parents treated me like a weird new puppy for the first couple days. They weren't too loving, but very understanding at the same time - if that makes sense. It didn't hit me at the time, though it should have, but my parents had moved from our original house to a new apartment with a spare bedroom that had all my old stuff in it. Insulting? Foreshadowing? All I knew was that I never expected to be living at home again in my mid twenties. It was crushing for the ego, but I had to get clean and find my way again.

Natalie had agreed to not do cocaine anymore, as I told her that I wanted her to quit as well. She said she did, and as far as I know, she didn't do any while I was gone - but she liked to drink. Heavily. She was an awful drunk most of the time, and it didn't take long for me to see she had a huge drinking problem.

One night, maybe a few weeks after I had gotten back to Los Angeles, she and I had started talking about her visiting in January. The original excuse was that it was an easy way for her to return my dog and just fly with him here. That didn't last long, however, because just a few days later, while drunk, she told me she loved me while over the telephone. This relationship, whatever you wanted to call it, had a very high school feel to me. The whole talking on the phone every single day, missing each other crap - it wasn't me. But I guess I needed something to occupy my mind while I cleaned up, though - so I went along with it.

Apparently I loved her too.

Keep in mind, besides the fondling on the couch and some making out, this girl and I hadn't even slept with one another yet. She had a seizure before I could get to that.

Anyway, I decide to run with my own firm and to hell with the consequences. Sure enough, within a week, I had my first client and there was no looking back after that. I was making money again, I hadn't touched drugs or alcohol for several months, and Natalie and I were "in love" and she was coming to visit very soon.

There were no available hotel rooms the day Natalie arrived (none in a part of town where I wanted to stay, anyway) so the first thing we did when she got into town was go back to my place and fuck. And when I say my place, I mean my parents house - with my father in the living room. It was very surreal. And weird. And dirty. At least the next night we'd have a hotel room.

So we go out the first night and we get pretty drunk. I mentioned previously that she was an awful drunk, and now you'll see why.

We're at one of my old watering holes in Los Angeles and the bartender is being very friendly, giving us one free shot for every one we purchase. Things are going great. Suddenly, she storms out of the bar and starts walking down Hollywood Blvd at one in the morning. If you're at all familiar with this town, this is NOT a good idea. I go after her and try to find out what's wrong, but she won't talk. She just keeps stating that she's worthless and I should leave her there.

Oh Jesus. What have I gotten myself into now.

I calm her down and drive her back to my parents place. When we get there, she says she has something to tell me. She tries to tell me how she's worthless because she slept with someone before coming out to California to see me. I try telling her that we hadn't even slept together at that point yet, and she lived three thousand miles away. In fact, I continue, if I weren't so involved with my business and staying clean, I'd have gone out and banged a broad or two myself. That should have been the end of it.

It wasn't.

Now she's telling me I need to hit her because she's so worthless. She's grabbing my hand and trying to hit herself with it. My parents are in the very next room, and this chick is getting louder and louder. I turn on the music to try and at least drown some of it out. She's getting more and more belligerent by the minute, demanding I be a man and hit her.

Much to my dismay, I was strangely turned on by all this. So much so that I finally flipped her over and just stuck it in her pooper. Not to get terribly graphic, but we're going at it pretty hard in a location you shouldn't exactly storm like it's Normandie fucking Beach if you know what I mean. Next thing I know, she starts grabbing my hand and choking herself with it. Now I like me some damaged goods just as much as the next guy, but was this really the time for it? But Fuck it, I ran with it. It was exciting. We finish off by going ass to mouth, and I go to bed wondering if I now absolutely love this girl, or hate her. I decide it's both.

The next day, while she's showering as we prepare to leave for our hotel, my mother tells me that she could hear everything last night and would appreciate it if I didn't do that in the house anymore.

I think it was the first time I'd blushed in many, many years. I said "Okay mom. Sorry." And we never spoke about it again.

The following night, as we're once again out and getting quite drunk, we decide to get some cocaine. I had no contacts in LA since I had just moved and hadn't done any since getting back, but if there's anything there's no shortage of here, it's drugs. We went to the one place you can score yourself some coke in any town, any day of the week - a strip club. Within the hour we had a guy meeting us on Laurel Canyon drive in his spiffy new Mercedes handing us two 8 balls.

If this wasn't enough, she wanted to try it the way I had been doing it before I moved, and asked me to get us some new syringes. I did.

We spent the next two days high as can be, and you couldn't even begin to imagine how disgusted I was with myself. I had my business going, I was doing great - and in one night, it all went down the drain. Even after she left, I continued using. In my parents house.

I was doing drugs at home now.

Miraculously, I kept up with my business just fine. I convinced myself I could keep the drug use under control while I maintained a normal life otherwise. I would crank out all the work I would need to within the first couple days of the week, and spend the rest of it high. I eventually stopped, and I can't exactly tell you why I did. I just woke up one day and could barely move my arms again they were so bruised and bloody, and decided I'd had enough. Again.

Natalie came out for one other visit, but at that point it was just a formality. We'd fooled ourselves into thinking we could have a normal relationship and I would continue to grow my business with her as my assistant. She was to leave school and come live with me in California. We found ourselves a great townhouse, and not a few months after her original visit, I was helping her drive out to California - but on one condition:

We wouldn't do drugs anymore. We wouldn't even drink.

Believe it or not, once we moved in together, we didn't touch drugs a single time. Unfortunately, I was completely miserable. Turns out that the sex fiend I thought I'd moved in with didn't exist outside the alcohol-space continuum. It was like I went from a cat in his mid twenties having fantastic sex every night of every day to an old married guy who had to convince his wife touch his pecker once a week, if that.

If you haven't been able to tell already, I can put up with a lot of garbage - but not having sex is not one of them. By the end of the first month I knew this was a huge mistake. I absolutely loathed this girl.

Instead of just cutting our losses quickly, though, we did what any disfunctional couple would do in our situation - we lived in mutual hatred of one another. Having promised not just my parents, but myself as well, I couldn't turn to drugs this time. For now, that lifestyle was out of the question. That didn't mean I couldn't piss away my money gambling, though.

I spent countless hours and days in the casinos, not playing poker, but the table games and slot machines. So much so that the neighborhood casinos quickly upgraded me to high roller status and gave me whatever I wanted. This put even more strain on our already-doomed relationship, because she absolutely hated gambling. I had to eventually start lying to her and tell her I was in day-long meetings when in reality I was gambling away thousands upon thousands of dollars on a weekly basis. Thank god business was good.

Our relationship got worse and worse, and eventually, it was obvious that this would not work out like my past bad relationships had - you know, where I simply just become an evergrowing asshole until they leave me. I had to put aside my complete inability to break up with a girl and just bite the bullet on this one, and dump her myself.

We had set a sex date for one Sunday morning (yes, we were literally putting fucking DATES on when we'd have sex at this point) and, as usual, at the last minute she said she wasn't in the mood. And just as the words "This isn't going to work, you need move out" were about to leave my lips, she said:

"I think I'm pregnant."

Continue to Part 4