When I Slammed Meth the First Time, I Crossed the Rubicon

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 4 Part 1

Warning: Graphic descriptions of drug use and sexual situations.

When I came above ground in the East Village one warm August morning, I was throwing wishes into the ether, praying my trip wouldn’t be wasted.

A few days before, I’d been in the West Village where I thought I’d won the PNP jackpot. My host was a stunningly handsome 30-something, 6 foot 4 mountain of muscle. He didn’t have a hair on his sculpted body. I’d been ready to ride that bull long past 8 seconds, while he tossed me about like a naughty sack of potatoes.

After taking a couple hits from his pipe, he said he wanted to role play. He wanted to be a gladiator, and I was to be a servant boy sneaking into his chamber to give him a midnight rub down.

I mean, it sounded fun. Problem was I sucked at improv even sober. High, I had zero patience and restraint. I didn’t want to play the scene out. I wanted to jump right to the good stuff.

“Hey, listen,” he said. “We’re not really clicking, so I think I’m going to call it quits. I’m sorry you came all the way down here.”

As disappointing as that was, he could not have been more gracious and polite, not to mention straightforward. He even let me have a couple more hits.

So I walked the blocks of Alphabet City, praying this time I could get a little fucking in before heading all the way home, I looked for the number matching the one on the post-it in my hand.

The East Village still had plenty of grit and funky energy with its aging five-story tenements and an occasional vacant lot littered with street sculptures. Memories of Old World immigrants and struggling artists hung from every fire escape and street lamp.

But it was in transition. Starbucks were appearing on every corner. Tattoo parlors and vinyl shops were giving way to expensive boutiques. The peaceful early morning hours were like a brief cease fire during a battle the East Village was losing. The neighborhood death rattles hadn’t started yet, but they would before long.

When I found the building I was looking for, I saw it was newly constructed, a five-story apartment building clearly built to blend in with the neighborhood. Yet, the newness of the construction, the blemish-free façade, the newly poured concrete sidewalk, all gave it an artificial feel, especially surrounded by buildings that looked like they were on a decades-long bender. This building had central air, not noisy and overpowering radiators. It had fresh drywall, not cracking and crumbling plaster and lath. And there was sure to be an elevator.

I pressed the buzzer and waited.

Nothing.

I pressed it again.

Nothing.

“Oh, come on.”

I pulled out my phone and called his number.

No answer.

“Shit.”

I buzzed again and called again with the same result.

Just as I was weighing my options — of which there was one: go home — a young woman rushed out the front door and right past me in a “late for work” kind of way. I caught the door and watched as she scurried down the street. Faced with a long subway ride home, I decided to take my chances.

Stepping off the elevator — because there was one — I found his apartment.

I called one more time.

When I heard a phone ring inside the apartment, I knocked. I wasn’t heading home till I exhausted all my options.

At last, he picked up. “Hello?” I heard his groggy voice both through my phone and faintly through the door.

“Hey, it’s John. I’m here.”

“Huh…oh, uh…ok, sorry…I’ll buzz you in.”

“Actually, I’m standing outside your front door.”

Not exactly “the call is coming from inside the house,” but still.

A minute later he invited me in. At least I wouldn’t be heading home right away.

He was about my height with a full head of thick brown hair, a long oval face, and a pleasantly lean and defined body with just a bit of hair on his chest.

“Sorry,” he said, leading me further into his apartment. “I fell asleep. I hope you weren’t waiting out there long. Here.” He handed me his pipe. “Go ahead and have a couple hits, I just need to tidy up a bit.”

As he slowly fumbled around, putting things in places, tossing clothes in his hamper, I admired the thing of absolute beauty in my hand.

When smoking, a little bit of the Tina will coat the pipe. A normal user will only have a small amount at any given time. When his little baggie runs out, he will dutifully melt and vacuum up every last bit of Tina residue left behind, leaving the pipe clean or, often, scorched with burned and wasted Tina shellacked on the inside.

The pipe I held in my hand was pure, solid white from stem to stern! There was enough Tina in one half inch of that pipe to have me fine and dandy for an entire day if not more. Whatever my host did for a living, it clearly did not leave him wanting. This pure white pipe told me that he was not a man who struggled and scrounged for every last whisper of Tina. Being tremendously careful, I took a couple magnificent hits and then gently put the pipe out of harm’s way so as not to risk destroying such a valuable work of art.

I disrobed and he waved me over to the bed.

“Now, I slam. Is that ok with you?”

My gut reaction was disappointment. Randy was my only basis for comparison, and, revived from the hits I had just taken, I didn’t want to have to wait.

Before I answered, I looked around the room. The curtains and windows were wide open, freely letting in the morning sun. His apartment was clean. His bedroom was well furnished, uncluttered, and put together. A large heavy mirror with a thick black frame leaned against one wall facing the bed. Nothing I could clock suggested that this guy was in any way the hot mess I knew Randy to be.

“No,” I said, satisfied.“Go ahead.”

He hesitated. “Do you slam?”

“Nope, never have.”

With a tilt of his head, he asked somewhat flirtatiously, “Would you like to try?”

“Well…what’s the difference?” My tone already suggested which way I was leaning.

“It’s better than smoking, more intense. I only do it when I’m going to be fucking. You don’t have to, but I’ll slam you if you want to try it.”

I felt a surge of excitement on top of the couple of hits I just had. I hadn’t been interested before because Randy made it seem like such a fucking process, and he didn’t even like the initial part of the slam to begin with.

But better than smoking? Better than what I was already feeling at that moment, which already felt pretty fucking good? “Sure.”

I watched as he took two fresh syringes and made up two slams. I was absolutely floored at how quickly he finished, a fraction of the time it took Randy.

“Ok, scoot over, sit right here.”

I sat on the bed with my back against the headboard and my legs straight out, giving him enough room to sit on the side of the bed and face me.

“Give me your arm and make a fist.”

I did as he instructed as he tied a rubber tourniquet around my upper arm.

“Now,” looking me straight in the eyes, “I want you to close your eyes. This is going to be very intense and possibly scary at first. Just remember, I’m right here, so just hold onto me if you need to.”

This worried me for a hot second. Scary? Should I be doing this?

I closed my eyes and braced myself.

I felt the needle penetrate.

I held my breath.

I felt a current of cold air being blown down the back of my throat.

I felt my body slowly falling, sinking, expanding.

I began to breathe deeper and deeper.

My heart started pounding like a kettle drum, tempo quickening.

I felt a shattering expansion as colors danced on the inside of my eyelids.

I felt that pleasure and heat I knew so well, yet had not known, never known, not like this, in my life, slowly exploding, extending beyond my wildest understanding, beyond meaning, beyond reason, beyond description.

I opened my eyes to find they had gone crazy, rapidly snapping back and forth. I closed them again, lost in this new mind-shattering euphoria. An animalistic moan escaped my lips.

My body fell slowly sideways onto the bed. The heat and power of this infinite edging full-body orgasm continued to climb and climb as heat and light and ecstasy passed through every part of my body.

Through slow, guttural gasps and moans, I somehow was able to speak, “I…don’t…don’t…know…what…you’re…talking about…scary…this…this is…fucking…amazing!” Those were the last words I was able to speak.

My entire being was throbbing.

I could feel every part of my body.

My shaking hands began to explore this newness.

My skin felt cold with a torrent of swirling heat just under the surface.

My hands explored this writhing body of lust and flesh, my head, my chest, my nipples, my ass, my thighs, my cock.

I made sounds like I had never made before, moaning, and gasping with each brush of my face, each twist of my nipples, each grope of my dick.

I was in heat.

I was heat.

Then I felt him join me!

My hands found his flesh.

His mouth found my mouth.

My mouth found his cock.

His mouth found my ass.

I was no longer a person but a writhing being of need, grasping and pleading with limbs and moans and skin.

I felt him push me and bend me, holding me down, throwing me over.

He guided my face to his body.

I consumed him furiously as if I had only ever known hunger.

He guided himself into me, and I wanted all of him.

He took me.

Had me.

Split me apart.

Took me to the beyond.

Everything fell away.

There was only our bodies.

Our sounds.

Our pleasure.

The vibration.

Of our grunts.

The friction.

The sweat.

Of our bodies.

I writhed

In a warm sea

That filled me

As he filled me

As he surrounded me

Infiltrated me

Flowing out of me

Into him.

Into me.

Into all.

When I finally came back, lying naked on his bed, running my hands over my slick, hot skin, I had no idea how much time had passed. Could have been 20 minutes. Could have been 2 hours. Could have been ten.

Slowly, I realized I was alone on the bed. Looking around, I saw my host seated with his back to me at his computer, though his computer wasn’t on.

“Hey,” I said, my voice shaky. My heart had slowed but I could still feel it thumping through my entire body.

He didn’t respond. “Is…is everything ok?”

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “But I have to call it for today.”

I vaguely remember him saying something about a recent breakup. Aside from that I wasn’t really registering anything, still awash in my first slam. Though disappointed, I was beyond satisfied. I put my clothes on, thanked him, said it was lovely to meet him and that I had an amazing time and went skipping on my way.

I don’t remember traveling home from the East Village, but I did without incident. Nor do I remember what I did when I got home.

What I do remember is the crash. I have no idea if it came a couple hours or a day later, but it came hard.

It’s said, “As high as you go up, that’s as hard as you come down.”

Before sleep finally overtook me, I was overcome by unreasonable sadness. I felt like gravity was pulling harder and harder on my entire body and wouldn’t let up till it had pulled me through the floor.

Anyone who’s crashed from a slam can tell you exactly what it’s like to be a prisoner of Azkaban guarded by dementors. It really did feel like all the happiness was gone from the world.

After I slept and the weight of the crash had passed, it was replaced by an unyielding hunger. A great boundary had been crossed. I had touched sexual nirvana. As a consequence, I would no longer be truly satisfied with anything less. I wanted to touch it again and again and again. I wanted to dive deep into its ocean of lustful abandon, its torrents of orgasmic obliteration.

I wanted nothing less.

I would be satisfied with nothing less.

From then on, my searches on Manhunt were for more than just PNP. I searched for “slam,” and “shooT the moon,” and “straight to the poinT,” and other codes and variations.

From then on, I would only ever be satisfied when Tina took me by the crook of the arm.

Next Chapter

Chapter Guide

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