Chapter 31

Julie arrived at her double wide home by 7:45, in plenty of time to meet Van. He was usually late anyway.

She hung up her coat, and thought about changing out of her new dress, but decided not to take the time.

She went to the kitchen area, and climbed up on the counter, being careful not to run her new nylons. She opened the very top corner cupboard, and reached in to retrieve a package wrapped in an old washcloth. She set it carefully on the counter before she climbed down, and then took it with her to set on her bed.

She pulled out the bottom drawer of her nightstand, and from the space underneath it, got the small bag of coke that was hidden there. Taking the mirror from her purse, as she had so many times before, she shook some of the powder on to the mirror. She pulled out the razor she kept in a fold of her purse, and used it to arrange the powder into two straight, even lines.

She intended this to be the last week that she used cocaine. She was looking forward to Barbara and Raul's return from their honeymoon, and with their help, kicking the habit for good. But the idea of facing down Van, as she felt she had to do this night, terrified her.

She snorted up one line, and then the other, and sighed in relief as she began to feel its effects. She knew that now she would be able to do what she had to do.

She picked up the bundle she'd retrieved from the cupboard, and carefully un-wrapped her dad's old revolver. She opened the cylinder to ensure it was loaded and snapped it shut again. She then put it just under the top blanket on her bed. She placed her teddy bear over the small lump it created, with the stuffed animal's back leaning on her pillow.

At the same time that Julie was fortifying her nerve with coke, Van Daddock was also, if for different reasons. He loved to fuck when high on cocaine. It had been the thing that had brought him together with Julie a few summers ago.

He had promised Julie some heroin and amazing sex if she broke up with Bobby. Remembering how great a fuck Julie had been when on coke, he figured she'd blow his mind if she had a little something extra mixed in as well. He tapped his breast coat pocket, to ensure his little gift to Julie was still there.

He grabbed the pictures of Julie giving him head that he'd promised to give her, and the cell phone that had originally captured them. He glanced at his pc as he went out the door, a small smile on his face. He'd copied Julie's pictures on to his computer's hard drive anyway, so he could always retrieve them if he needed to.

Julie heard Van's car finally pull up. She looked into the bathroom mirror, and evaluated herself. She did her best to look miserable and heartbroken. She had to convince Van that she'd just left a "Dear Bobby" letter to break up with him, and needed to look the part.

Van banged on the door, and stepped back a couple steps. He vividly remembered Julie's threats to his life at the end of his last visit. He expected to have to calm her down first, so he could then screw her brains out. The coke buzzing in his head lent itself to his supreme confidence that Julie would no doubt eagerly welcome him back between her legs.

He was surprised when Julie opened the door. Her face was drawn and sad, her shoulders were slumped, and she didn't look him in the eye.

"Hi, Van," she said tiredly. "Come in."

'That's weird, ' he thought. 'She should be sizing me up for a body bag.'

He followed her back to her bedroom, where Julie climbed on the bed and sat leaning against the headboard. She picked up her teddy bear and clutched it to her chest.

"So... how'd it go?" asked Van cautiously.

"Fine," she said lugubriously. "I did what you wanted, Van. I left a note telling Bobby I couldn't be his girlfriend any more." She then looked at him with a bit of the fire in her eyes that he'd been expecting.

"Did you bring the pictures?" she said, eyeing him closely for the first time.

"Sure baby," he said soothingly. He pulled the pictures from a pocket and handed them to her, face down. Julie took them and put them on her lap without turning them over. Van stood looking at her innocently.

"And the disk?" she asked, her lips tightening.

"Oh, yeah," he replied, as if just now remembering. He produced his cell phone, and made a great display of erasing the pictures from its memory.

"And I remembered the gift I promised you," he said with a sly smile. He reached into his coat vest pocket and retrieved the cigarette case. He opened it with a snap and produced the small plastic bag of heroin, and tossed it to her.

Julie picked it up off her lap, touching it only with her fingernails as if it were a dirty diaper, and set it on her nightstand. She then looked impassively back at Van. He was sure having a hard time reading her tonight.

"So..." he said slowly, "I know that must have been hard, breaking up with Bobby like that. How about we do something fun to take your mind off it?" he said, with what he hoped was a sexy smile.

Julie stared at him with no expression, long enough for Van to begin to squirm. "How do I know you don't have other copies of those pictures, Van?"

"Hey, you can trust me," he exclaimed. "What would I want those for any more? If I want to see something like that, I'll just come see the real thing, baby."

She stared at him again without speaking or reacting to him. Van was beginning to get nervous.

"How do I know," she said, with anger beginning to show on her face, "that you're going to leave Bobby alone now?