Chapter Three

“Well, *Kitty*, you just earned yourself a place in my bed for the night, but if you want anything more than that, you will need to look elsewhere. The ol’ bag will be back in the morning, and I expect you to be long gone before she shows.” 
Turning around, my arms covering my still exposed breasts, my stomach turns at the sight of Teddy, one of Gary’s *friends*, sprawled out on the bed with a satisfied grin plastered onto his repulsive face.
Teddy is in his mid-fifties with black hair that’s beginning to gray at the temples and sunken-in, dark brown eyes that would evoke fear in the most formidable of adversaries. 
Having to jump from man to man, and bed to bed, each night just to ensure that I have a dry, warm place to sleep, truly makes me sick to my stomach, but a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.
“Can you at least score me some shit?” I ask, not even glancing at him as I search his trashed room for my discarded clothes.  “I’m out and I need a fix. And please make sure it isn’t from the same guy as like time, because whoever you bought from,  I don’t know what it was laced with, but that shit was fucked.” I explain as I spy my shirt over on the other side of the room, heading in that direction as I await Teddy’s response, not chancing a look in his direction.
Just looking at him, at any of them, disgusts me.
When I don’t get a response, I look at him, knowing what he’s wanting.
He expects respect, whether he returns it or not. So, me not looking at him while I’m talking to him, to a man like him, is disrespectful.
I know this.
I also know that he’s a man of few words and should have expected to see his answer rather than hear it.
Teddy nods his head in my direction, narrowing his beady eyes at me as if contemplating whether he wants to punish me for the disrespect that I just showed him.
Whatever.
I’ll just sleep on a park bench tonight. Not like it’s the first time. Doubt it will be the last.
Color me surprised, when after a few moments of deliberation, he opens his mouth to speak and it’s not anything demanding or a reprimand.
“I’ve got a guy coming by shortly to make a drop. It’s supposed to be some good-ass shit. But it will cost ya. Ain’t nothin’ free. You should know this by now *Kitty*.”
*Damn it! I hate it when he calls me *Kitty*. It’s insulting and pisses me off!*
“Damn it, Teddy, you know that my name isn’t Kitty! Why do you keep calling me that?” I practically growl as I pull my shirt over my head.
The left side of his full mouth pulls up in a smirk, his eyes almost mocking as he stares back at me.
“Because *Kitty*, you give me pussy whenever I want it, no questions asked. You’re just like a little pussy cat. I crook my finger, dangling something in front of you that you want and next you know, you have your ass in the air, purring, begging for my cock.”
*Goddamnit, mother fucking bastard! Goddamnit! God damn it! God. Damn. It!* 
*I can’t keep doing this.* 
*Not with him.* 
*Not with any of them.* 
Just then a knock comes from the front door. I know the knock. I’ve heard it many times before.
It’s *the* knock.
“You mind getting that, *Kitty*? Wouldn’t want him to take off with your score now, would you?” He nods his head in the direction of the door as he climbs from the queen-sized bed and begins searching for some clothes for himself.
“Can I at least─” I start, but he cuts me off with a cold look that makes me shut my mouth.
Instead, I turn on my heel and head towards the front door and the awaiting goods.
I open the door and find a man standing there.
He takes me in, starting at my bare feet before slowly moving his gaze up my naked legs,  my barely-there thong that is hiding absolutely nothing, and the crop top that I had managed to find and throw on.
“Holy sh─” I start but am cut off by the man at the door saying, “Damn…how much?” 
*What?* 
 “Umm…excuse me?”
He runs his free hand down his face, his smirk spreading into a broad smile, revealing his incredibly straight, white teeth. He nods his head at me and lifts an eyebrow in the same cocky manner that I remember from when we were younger.
“How. Much?” he repeats, this time enunciating each word.
*What does he mean by ‘how much’?*
“How much for what? I—I’m not…”
“How much for the night, Darlin’. That’s why you’re here, right? Teddy promised me he’d have something good for me the next time I stopped by…” he says and then runs his eyes up and down my body again and fuck me if my nipples don’t get hard at the way that he looks at me as he does. “But, fuck, I’d definitely say that he delivered.”
*What in the everlovingfuck? I thought he was bringing me something to forget the fact that I jump from bed to bed, not to offer yet* another *bed.*
“Monroe, my man. What’s happenin'? Did you bring it?” Teddy asks as he walks up behind me, clapping his grubby paw down on my shoulder and it takes everything in me to not cringe away from him.
*Monroe?* I murmur to myself as I glance back at the guy still standing in the doorway, confused because he definitely looks like someone else, but instead of calling him on it, I figure I must have it wrong.
Chalking it up to mistaken identity or something, I continue watching him as he pats his jacket, then says, “Got it right here, just picked it up.” Even though he’s speaking to Teddy, his eyes never leaving my own, causing me to feel uncomfortable and skittish, not to mention nervous for the both of us considering that I have already disrespected Teddy once tonight.
“Well come on in son, show me what ya got.” Teddy invites, ignoring the slight against him as he turns, his arm still wrapped around my shoulder and pulling me away from the door and against his chest as the Monroe dude saunters into the living room.
I don’t know what he does for a living but holy shit, I’d hate to cross him, that’s for damn sure. He has to stand well over six feet and must weigh around two-fifty, if not more. 
His presence, although large, isn’t imposing, at least not to me. Instead, it’s well… *I can’t quite put into words how it makes me feel if I’m being honest.*
“What do ya have for me, Son?” Teddy asks Monroe as soon as we get settled in the living room. Teddy is sitting in the recliner, Monroe on the end of the loveseat next to Teddy and I’m opposite Monroe, curled up on the couch on the other side of the room. 
Monroe flits his gaze over to me, once again making me squirm under his scrutiny, and then pulls a brown bag out from the inside of his jacket.
Holding it in his hands, he glances at me once more before chuckling to himself, then he levels Teddy with a look that suddenly reminds me of his earlier statement.
“So, Teddy,” Monroe starts with a smirk pulling at his mouth.
“You know I don’t like games boy, what is it?”
“The girl. I want the girl. You were right when you said you would have something good next time I stopped by. I’d like to take you up on your offer,” he says without hesitation.
Teddy glances over at me, contemplating the offer as if I don’t have any say in the decision whatsoever.
Before Teddy says one way or another, Monroe adds, “To sweeten the pot, I’ll even let you have everything in this bag in exchange for her.”
He waits the span if a heartbeat and then levels Teddy with a look and says, “What do you say? We got a deal?” 
“Hell yes, we gotta deal!” Teddy agrees as if I’m his property to do with as he pleases.
*With in the actual fuck?*
Teddy stands, shaking Monroe’s hand with his right and accepting the brown paper bag with his left.
“What the fuck?!” I screech as they release each other’s hand, and Teddy sits back down in the recliner. Looking from one guy to another, I ask, “Do I not get a say in this?” Then to Teddy, I say, “I’m not yours to do with as you please.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, *Kitty.* You’ve been mine for a *very* long time.”
My stomach turns at that statement and with a shake of my head, I storm into the bedroom, determined that I’m finding my pants and then getting the fuck out of here.
Alone.