Corrupting Amber Ch. 16

I doubt riding to the hospital to have an unexpected birth is usually a calm cruise, but my experience was probably setting the bar pretty damn high. Amber was next to me chain-smoking and trying to shoot up one more time before being admitted, things most mothers-to-be would be prioritizing less than dealing with contractions and a baby that wanted out. Now. I couldn't tell which gasps and moans were Amber reacting to the baby or missing a vein as I was trying my best to keep my eyes on the road and avoid traffic; of which there was a lot.

"Shit, I missed again.. fuck I might need you to pull over for a second.." Amber cursed frustratingly.

"Uhh... I think we need to get there as ASAP and there aren't any places to pull over at the moment anyway..," I replied, looking around at the rest of the cars in the two-lane one-way street where everyone seemed to be rushing to one place or another.

"I need to fucking get high before I get there babe, they are not going to let me out of their sight when they see me," she pleaded, sprinkling in the 'babe' only to sweeten up her otherwise prickly tone.

I noticed a small alley behind a Chinese restaurant and pulled a quick left to duck in, eliciting another yelp from Amber who had most likely just poked herself unnecessarily due to my hasty maneuver.

"Sorry babe, I saw it at the last second," I apologized, feeling a little overwhelmed.

Amber, however, had not even bothered to wipe off the blood that was all over her arm or even look over to me to acknowledge my presence. She was laser-focused on hunting down one of her increasingly evasive veins, whose willingness to oblige her heroin addiction had become less and less. Finally, a familiar gleam appeared in Amber's eyes as she zeroed in on her prey, gritting her teeth visibly and pulling the tourniquet ever tighter. With very shaky hands she punctured her inner elbow and drew back, a splash of red in the barrel of the syringe indicating success, and then plunged what had to be the biggest dose I'd ever seen her shoot, directly into her vein.

Suddenly, as if she'd been holding her breath, Amber sighed visibly and audibly while letting the tourniquet fall from her mouth. She reached her arm up and closed her eyes, the darkness of her eyelids and gauntness of her face seeming more pronounced to me at that moment. Her intense drug habit and general malnutrition combined with the anxiety of our present situation appeared to have drained her in a way that made the physical manifestation of her 'corruption' something to behold from just a year ago. If I hadn't been with her every day, making the transformation more subtle from my perspective, I could have sworn that she'd aged 10 years.

Suddenly I reawakened to my predicament, as even having just flooded her pleasure centers with a massive amount of opiates Amber was visibly reacting to the baby. Which meant it was pretty serious because normally she'd be borderline comatose from a shot that big. I followed the alley down a street and pulled out, having to do a bit of a backtrack because of the one-way streets but resuming our drive toward the hospital that couldn't come into view quick enough. Fortunately, traffic eased just enough to allow for darting in and between the other cars, ping-ponging my way there faster than I expected.

I pulled right up to the ER entrance, ignoring the 'Drop and Pickup Only' sign and parked. I made brief eye contact with an old lady being pushed out of the automatic double-doors by her husband in a wheel-chair and I'm sure she thought I was going to open the passenger door to a gun-shot victim judging by my frantic behavior and unkempt attire. Alas, it was only my extremely pregnant, junkie girlfriend nodding off and barely able to walk at a snail's pace. I decided to skip the part where she tripped over and fell trying to manage her considerable girth and inebriation and scooped her up and headed toward the lobby.

I burst into the room and drew the gazes of everyone, including the wide-eyed receptionist, who must have sensed the utter panic I was feeling because she wasted no time in calling me over.

"She's going into labor.. now.." I panted sharply.

"Okay, go around to the doors and I'll meet you with a wheelchair," She instructed calmly.

I basically ran to the doors and sat Amber down into the wheelchair and immediately saw the receptionist's eyes bulge a little when she looked at Amber. She looked rough. Her eyes were barely open and darkly stained by lack of sleep, nutrition, and fluids and she was drooling out of the side of her mouth. Her cheeks were recessed and the same pallor that surrounded her eyes was even more pronounced there. Her jaw slacked, her hair was matted and greasy, and she was actively nodding out in a way that I could only describe as 'blatantly stoned.'

The receptionist's glare turned to me and I gave her my best 'whoopsie' face which didn't seem to appease her.

"Sir, if she's on something we need to know," she said, putting a strong emphasis on the word 'need.'

"Heroin, crack, meth," I stammered, trying to keep my gaze on Amber and not on the increasingly shocked look on the receptionist's face "She's an addict so..," I concluded, hoping that I would be able to get to the baby-having part sooner rather than later.

The receptionist decided the best response was a very loud, very disapproving sigh and wheeled her back to a room while I followed like I was being led to the principal's office in the 9th grade.

Upon entering the room we were met by a nurse who immediately began setting up an IV for Amber, something that Amber could probably do herself if she weren't falling into and out of consciousness every few seconds. I watched as she tried her best to ignore the prominent track marks on Amber's inner elbow and instead focused on the inside of the forearm, exhibiting her proficiency by getting the IV in quickly. The receptionist handed me a form on a clipboard and left the room without a word.

"The doctor will be in momentarily," the nurse said as she walked out, clearly disgusted with the both of us.

Until this point, Amber and I had been secluded in a drug dealers house, away from the judgmental eyes of traditional society. We had been largely unaffected by the clear and unmasked disdain most people had for what Amber had become. It was fairly unpleasant but I wondered how Amber would react when she sobered up enough to be aware of it. I felt a pang of guilt and sadness sweep through me as I imagined Amber being treated like she was anything other than the incredible girl that I loved. My thoughts were interrupted by the doctor, a man in his 50's with side-swept gray hair, a matching mustache, and large glasses, entering the room.

"Are you patients here? Do you have an OB/GYN?" He asked, looking at my blank face and the equally blank information form sitting in my lap that I hadn't even started.

"Um, no, this was kind of unexpected.. we.. uh.. didn't know what to do," I tried to explain.

The doctor furrowed his brow disapprovingly and looked at Amber and back to me.

"Unexpected? She's very visibly pregnant, what was unexpected exactly?" He asked pointedly, in a way that suggested it was almost rhetorical for all the help I was going to be.

"Yeah, I just.. thought we had more time I guess.." I again tried reasoning, leaving out the part that Amber was actively pursuing and expecting to have a miscarriage.

The doctor's incredulous face stared at me a moment longer before a soft moan from Amber broke our stalemate. Amber was being roused from her chemical slumber by the baby and her face wore a contorted look while she placed her hand on her bulging belly.

"I guess we just have to deal with this now, I will get someone in here. Finish filling out that form," the doctor relented, motioning towards the clipboard on my lap.

Instead, I scooted my chair next to Amber and tried to comfort her, taking her head in my arms and kissing her forehead.

"It's okay baby, everything is going to be okay," I murmured, unsure of how cognizant she was of her surroundings at that point.

"Cigarette babe, I need a cigarette.." she croaked softly in my arms.

"I don't think we would get away with that right now babe, they already really, really don't like us here," I understated.

I could feel her slump a little in my embrace and make a little bit of a 'humph' noise but thankfully not press the issue. I really didn't want to be delivering a baby in the car and I figured we were damn close to finding the very last nerve of the hospital staff. If it weren't for the life of the unborn child in Amber's belly, I was sure they'd have thrown us on the streets at this point.

It was only a few minutes before the doctor returned with a woman in a white doctors coat with the letters 'OB/GYN' on them. I could basically smell her disdain for Amber from here, but being a junkie mother probably doesn't win you many points in the eyes of the general public. The doctor with the mustache looked at the blank admissions form on the bed and then back and me, shaking his head in clear frustration at my apparent obstinance. In truth, I had just forgotten about it while trying to comfort Amber, but I'm sure the doctor hated me all the same.

"So we're going to the delivery room now, ok?" The female explained while kneeling down to try to meet Amber's unsteady gaze.

In return, Amber just nodded very slightly and the female doctor gave me a final disapproving look before wheeling her out of the room. I again followed along like an inmate walking to the electric chair, wondering what the fall-out of this whole ordeal would turn out to be.

We arrived in another, larger room with a giant bed in the center. The female doctor paired up with the mustache doctor who carefully lifted Amber up and placed her softly on the bed. Together they removed Amber's clothes and fitted a light blue hospital gown over her and then secured her bedding. The female doctor then grabbed a small remote and adjusted the bed so Amber was sitting mostly upright with her knees raised. Finally, the female doctor walked over to me and handed me a gown and gloves. I quickly put them on and then went to sit beside Amber.

Over the course of the next hour, Amber, the female doctor whose name was Dr. Jennings, and I, all stayed in the room while Amber's contractions became more and more intense. At about the hour mark Dr. Jennings was joined by the mustache doctor, Dr. Moses, and they delivered the baby. I kept my place next to Amber during the entire ordeal while most of the 'action' occurred out-of-my-sight under her gown, which I was thankful for. The baby ended up being white, which was honestly a little bit of a surprise with all the black men who had shot their loads into Amber in the months preceding her pregnancy.

The baby was a girl, and we barely even got to see her before she was whisked away to premature incubation due to low-weight and apparent complications due to being born addicted to heroin. Amber and I met with a few social workers who explained that the baby was going to be adopted and that we were unfit parents. There may have been a case for us to fight it if we really wanted, but we didn't and felt it was the best thing to do for all parties involved.

Amber, however, was impacted by the birth. I don't know if there were maternal instincts that were triggered by having a child, but not even being able to hold her baby did something to her. She never shot up again, and only relapsed into meth a couple times before giving everything up for good. Unfortunately, Amber would be diagnosed with ovulation dysfunction years later, leading to infertility. Her past drug use would be listed as the primary culprit. She remained a torrid smoker and perhaps even increased her intake, probably in an effort to fill a hole we had both helped create in her.

Our relationship never faltered and although our wildest days were behind us, we remained more in love than ever. My dream of the ultimate bad girl had been realized, even surpassed, and Amber had gone to depths I hadn't even known existed in an effort to fulfill that fantasy and in the end discovered a fantasy of her own. I never questioned Amber's decision to stop, the intense depression that followed the birth was everything I ever needed to know. Surprising even myself, I only missed it occasionally. The memories of some of those times having been burned into my mind and surfacing in moments of weakness and reverie. But they always passed quickly and I never again felt unfulfilled or unsure about my commitment to Amber as she was.

As for me, I continued working at the local grocery store that had originally paid me the minimum wage that I'd used to fund Amber's foray into corruption. I moved my way through nearly every department in the store on my way to becoming the manager and eventually part owner. It wasn't a glamorous job and it wasn't what I'd dreamed of doing when Amber and I had envisioned ourselves running away to California together, but it paid well and gave me lots of opportunities to vacation with Amber. We found a simple house in a nice neighborhood near Amber's parents and made it our home.

Amber's year-long drug rampage had alienated most of her friends and bewildered her parents. We hadn't known at the time but they had reported Amber missing at some point during that year after completely losing contact with her and not knowing where she had gone. It took years for things to regain any sense of normalcy but eventually their love for their daughter and relief that she was okay paved the way for the reestablishment of a healthy relationship. Eventually, Amber made new friends through her job as a CNA, and they never had any idea about the wild woman Amber had once been.

Eventually, that chapter of our lives became a rumor and then before long, it was just a secret that Amber and I shared. Something that most of our friends and neighbors probably wouldn't even believe.

It would be nearly 20 years later when our past would catch up with us and take us completely by surprise. But that's another story..