The following work is real and it's mine. All rights are reserved
under international laws.

If you want to talk about it for any reason, please contact me at
twylamarie @ ymail.com.

Writing this stuff down is hard.  Lots of memories - some of them
not so good. Feedback is appreciated.

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A cop once told me that he knew that I probably turned heads
wherever I went, but it wasn't just because I was a pretty young
girl   He said "what makes you so seductive is that you are so
self destructive.  Men love that in a woman."

It wasn't a compliment.  More like a warning of sorts, given to
me by a detective during an interrogation.  (The room was just
like in the movies by the way - single table, two chairs, a
mirrored window and the thick putrid smell of old coffee and
cigarette smoke.)

In front of this cop was an open file containing 23 photos of me
in various stages of undress taken at various times over the past
few years. If they had just been naked pictures, it would have
only been embarrassing - but that was just the beginning.

In many I was featured holding a comically large bong.  

In another I was using stacks of cash as a bikini of sorts,hiding
my nipples and pubic hair as I laid back on the bed with my legs
spread open. (This one had been a big hit at the house - we had a
copy of it posted on the refrigerator for a while with a magnet.)

In one particularly incriminating one I was holding a rolled up
dollar bill in front of a mirror with an impressively large pile
of un-identified white powder on it.  On my naked left breast was
an unmistakable dusting of powder. (I still remember that night.
I had mistakenly dragged myself across the mirror after taking a
snort.  The coke was so good that my nipple was actually numb.)

In another - this one taken a few months before I turned 18 - I
was reclining topless in a chair.  My hair was tussled from
having Dennis's hand holding my head, my eyes were red from
something I was on, and on my cheek, chin and neck were the
telltale signs that I'd tried to swallow it all and missed more
than a little.

Perhaps worst of all - at least from a legal standpoint - was a
picture of me in a field of what were pretty obviously marijuana
plants. I was carrying an arm full of uprooted plants and wearing
nothing but my sandals and a smile.  That was proof enough of
distribution with intent to sell.  (Decades behind bars back
then.)

I found it all awkward and embarrassing, but somehow maybe just a
bit amusing.  If you've never sat across from a complete stranger
staring down at a picture of your spread and slightly matted
pubes, you probably can't relate.  There was just something
surreal about it all - especially since he had a more than
passing resemblance to my high school English teacher.

The nice officer wasn't finding the humor in the situation
however. He was actually kind of pissed, and was firing questions
at me like the bad cop from the movies the week when the good cop
was on vacation.

The questions over the last hour had all be the same four or five
questions, all asked in different ways.

"What was my association with Dennis Gainer?*

"Who took these pictures?"

"What were you doing here?

"Where and when was this taken?"

And of course the big one. "Do you have any idea how much trouble
you're in?"

Good questions all - and really tough to answer.

Since Dennis and I shared many bank accounts in cities and towns
all over the state I couldn't very well say I didn't know him. 
The file contained bank statements from perhaps a dozen different
accounts - which was less than half of what we had out there.

We were obviously co-signers on a checking account or two, but
past that my association with Dennis though, was pretty hard to
put into words.  I wasn't sure I always understood it myself.

I wasn't exactly Dennis's Girlfriend. You could have called us
lovers, but you didn't use the "L word" about Dennis.

"Fuck buddy" might have been a good answer, but I don't think it
was part of our collective vocabulary back then.

 "Plaything" might have worked too since I it was more or less
the way I felt most of the time.  My mom would have preferred
"coke whore" - a hurtful but perhaps accurate description that
she had slung at me every time I'd seen her on the streets since
I'd left home.

As for who took the pictures, they were all from Dennis, who had
a thing for bringing out the old Polaroid now and again when we
were having naughty fun.  I didn't know whether the cops actually
knew I was underage in some of them though I think they
suspected.

What I was doing, and where I was depended on the picture being
asked about, but it is safe to say that I wasn't following the
letter or the law in some, was either fresh off my back or my
knees in others, and was stoned in all of them --- and I was in
the company of one of the bigger drug dealers in the Midwest
whenever they were being shot.

But of course I couldn't say that.
I was still slightly stoned from all the pot I'd smoked at my
overnight job at the local grocery story when they brought me in,
but I wasn't stupid.  I made my call and had got my lawyer
(actually Dennis's lawyer.)  Once he arrived the answer to each
question was either "I don't recall" or a difficulty worded
objection from my attorney that I later came to understand was my
right to avoid saying anything that might incriminate me.

The questioning lasted more than 3 hours, 17 cigarettes and 5
shitty cups of coffee.  At end, the detective was frustrated, my
attorney was bored despite his early interest in studying the
photographic evidence in question with WAY too much enthusiasm,
and I had to pee.

When the policewoman arrived to take me back to a holding cell,
the officer told me that he had enough evidence to hold me
without bail forever and that it was all an open and shut case.
I'd be in prison for at least 8 years.

I was out in three hours and the evidence never made trial.

(I still don't know where those photos went though, and that
bothers me.)