The gun in my hand, which I stole last week, vibrates my arm as I finish the worst piece I’ve done since I was still learning how to tattoo. My head nods a little as I wipe the last of the cheap ink from the girl’s back.

“You’re done,” I tell her.

I’ve tattooed about a dozen people in the last two weeks, and none of the pieces have been quality work, but I’ve been paid for my services in drugs. Smith doesn’t like it. He only wants me using his drugs because he wants me to need him, but I like to keep stashes of my own around for when he’s being stingy. The drugs these people pay me with are probably his anyway, so I don’t know why he cares that much. I’m still just as dependent on him, just in a once-removed kind of way.

“Next,” I call out.

Someone else sits in the chair in front of me, and I don’t bother to get a clean needle. They don’t care. They’re all sharing needles anyway. So, why should I waste my time? Smith and I always use clean needles when we shoot up, but that isn’t the case for most of the others around us. I don’t even share with Smith, who I haven’t left for a minute since I met him outside that diner.

“Come take a break with me.” Smith stands over my shoulder. I can sit here and use my skill to earn my own drugs, or I can go with him. Either way, I get what I want. So, when he asks something of me, I go. A snort attempts to release itself from my nose, but I hold it in. Smith doesn’t ask for anything.

He orders.

If you don’t obey, he withholds what you want.

I don’t bother to say anything to the guy I was about to tattoo before getting up and following Smith, who knew I wouldn’t disobey and is already walking toward the back room.

We’re still shacked up in the house he brought me to for the party that first night. I’m not sure whose house it is, and I haven’t cared to ask. It could be Smith’s house for all I know, but I have a feeling it isn’t. The same familiar faces filter in and out of the house at all hours of the day and night. Some of them I know by name, but others I just give nicknames to. All of them come to find their fix.

Speaking of, my hands begin to shake, and I look at him expectantly. Sometimes, he’s generous and gives to me without stipulations, but other times, he makes me work for it. Chances are that, because he found me tattooing, he won’t hand anything over easily.

“Tattooing again, huh? You shouldn’t be taking drugs from anyone but me. At least I know they haven’t been fucked with. You never fucking listen, Iris.” Smith’s voice is stern and calculated.

I’m not getting the drugs without a catch.

“I like tattooing,” I tell him simply.

“Then, do it for free because you love it.”

I just shrug.

“The only work you should be doing for drugs is on your knees, bowed down before only me.”

He thinks he can scare me, but he’s nothing compared to what I’ve already faced.

“Strip, Party Girl.”

I huff, ready to perform like a monkey for the heroin he’s holding hostage.

“No.” Smith takes two long strides toward me, and his hand goes against my jaw, something I’ve noticed he does a lot. “You need to learn some respect, Iris. Do as I say and do it without the attitude, or you’ll entertain me all night until I give you what you want.”

In these moments, when the drugs are wearing off and I’m doing what needs to be done to get more, there is only one thing I think about—the farmhouse and the man who held me there. The drugs do a good job of erasing him. From the moment that needle goes into my arm until the first trace of withdrawal hits me, he disappears, but he always comes back. Fucking for smack. Shooting up to forget. But the farmhouse isn’t the only thing I’m running from. Kai seems to be even harder to erase. He’s here with me when I’m weak, and I know he’d be horrified if he could see me now.

I straighten my spine and only flinch a little as Smith’s grip on my jaw tightens.

“I’m sorry.” I’m not, but it’s what he wants to hear, what he wants to see. Smith and I don’t have sex a lot, but when we do, it seems to be only when he shot a light load, and I’m withdrawing. It’s his favorite time to play. Maybe because he knows I’ll do what needs to be done to relinquish my demons.

“Good girl.” He backs away, knowing I’m ready to give him what he wants.

My fingers go to my chest, and through my shirt, I rub my tits. Since I’m not wearing a bra, my nipples tighten and show through the fabric. I moan for show because I want the drugs, not because what I’m doing feels good. Whether he knows my actions and noises are forced doesn’t seem to matter to him. He sits on our mattress with his feet on the floor. I move to stand between his knees, and he looks up at me. Slowly, with my fingers brushing my skin, I lift my top above my head, letting my tits come out to play.

“Twist. Twist your nipples until they’re red and sore,” he demands. I sway between his legs while I obey his every wish. “Harder.” His voice is stern. No matter what I do, it’s never far enough for him. I twist and pinch until they’re raw and chafed. Smith likes to play hard, and before he can voice his next need, I press my tits together.

I slap them.

I shake them in his face.

He likes to watch my body move and watch me get rough with myself almost as much as he likes to do it himself. It’s all worth it. Smith lets me be free, even under his heavy hand. He doesn’t ask if I’m okay, and he doesn’t want me to talk about it with him. He simply lets us live in this fucked-up, heroin-fueled bubble we’ve created. I’ve found exactly what I was looking for when I agreed to that ruse of the wellness clinic plan. This is my therapy. What I’ve found here is good.

“Do you want to see how wet my pussy is?” It isn’t, but again, he doesn’t really care.

I tease him by pulling my shorts down only a little. I don’t feel sexy when I perform for Smith. Yet, somehow, this is the most confident I’ve ever been when playing the part. Maybe it’s easier to act like the porn star than play the part of the girlfriend. I don’t have to worry about the emotions. They were Teagan’s, and Iris only wants one thing.

“You’re such a good little cock-whore.”

He likes to call me names like cock-whore and cum slut. They don’t even faze me anymore. He also praises me as his good little girl quite often, and it’s usually when I’m being extra naughty. There really isn’t an option for me to be anything but Smith’s perfect fantasy.

“Thank you. I am good because I am your cock-whore.” He likes acknowledgment, to hear me appreciate his compliment and agree that I am his property.

I slide my shorts down my legs, taking my panties with them, and kick them aside.

“Turn around.” Tits and ass. Tits and ass. Other than drugs, they’re his two biggest obsessions. He’s watched me play with my front, and now, he wants to see the action in the back. I turn and direct my ass toward his face.

“Bend over.”

This is going quicker than normal. I’m that much closer to getting what I want.

After Smith gets what he wants.

I stretch to touch my hands to the floor and give my ass a good shake. This time, it’s him who groans. I don’t have to see it to know he’s taking his dick out; the sound of his zipper opening tells me I’m right.

“Spread them.”

My hands leave the floor and go to my cheeks. I pull and spread them apart to expose myself fully to Smith. I hear the sound of his throat before he spits onto my asshole. His saliva runs down my crack, and briefly, I remember the man who spit on my face, but Kai enters my thoughts and fights off the memory.

“Play,” Smith says.

My fingers skim my most private of areas. I play with my pussy, attempting to create wetness and failing miserably. I lick my middle finger and then bring it to my ass, circling the hole. I push my hips closer to my audience of one. Smith brings his hand between my legs and growls in frustration, unhappy about my body’s lack of enthusiasm before slapping my pussy with a firm open hand.

“Bitch,” he mumbles and then throws a bag of H onto the floor near my feet. “Don’t touch it.”

I think about the band around my arm, and tingles run through my body. I envision him holding the needle to my skin, and wetness dampens my fingers. I imagine the prick of the needle, and then the warmth and a feral moan release from my lips.

Smith doesn’t get me hot. The promise of what he’ll give me afterward does.

He groans, this time with eagerness. Without warning, he stands and shoves his cock into my pussy as his nails scrape against my hips, drawing small beads of blood. His pelvic bone slams into my ass repeatedly, and I have to brace my hands on the ground, so I don’t fall forward as he fucks me bare. There are worse things I’ve done to my body in the last two weeks. Within minutes, I know it’s almost over.

He pulls out, and his hands shove me to the ground so that I’m on my back, watching as he pumps his dick over me. Then, hot white spurts drain from his cock and rain down on my chest and face.

He laughs as he finishes, like the real victory is his power over me.

I let him believe what he wants. He doesn’t have as much power as he thinks.

Heroin does.

He isn’t the only person I could get it from, but he is the closest, so I play along.

“Don’t move. You can nod out, covered in my cum.”

Fine by me.

Finally, I get what I want out of this.

The spoon. The lighter. The makeshift tourniquet. The needle.

Smith sets up, and my mouth waters.

The second the drug enters my system, I know it’s all worth it.

Everything leaves my brain, and I find peace.