Christmas Miracles

He had calculated that it must have been six months after he ran away that Luke had, one night, crawled through the broken window into Christopher's squat. Luke was seventeen, and he had changed Christopher's existence as a street kid. The two developed a strong bond over the time they spent together. Luke had taught him how to fight, and taken him to a new level of crime. It was now that Christopher graduated to mugging. He still had to steal food, and sometimes clothing and shoes, as most of their money went to feeding Luke's drug habit. The two were together for several years; Christopher calculated the amount of years by the number of New Year's Eve fireworks displays that had occurred. Across that time, the pair had moved from place to place - Luke had warned Christopher of the danger from police of staying in the same squat too long.

It had been one night, when they were curled up in the Botanical Gardens, that Christopher finally worked up the courage to ask Luke a question he'd wanted to ask for several weeks. Luke was smoking a joint as he prepared his daily fix of heroin.

"Could I try that?"

"Sure man! I've been waiting for you to ask that! The high's so much better when y'got someone to share it with! Roll up your sleeve."

Christopher did as he was told, watching silently as Luke tightened a belt around his arm and tapped his wrist to bloat the veins. Choosing one, Luke got him to hold the belt tight while he filled his needle. Christopher winced slightly as the needle slid into his arm, and watched the plunger push itself down under Luke's thumb.

"Now, remove the belt." Luke said.

Christopher did as he was told, and for a moment felt nothing. Then it hit, and Christopher floated high into the night. It was as though heaven became closer, and he could reach out and grasp the stars. That night, for the first time in years, Christopher felt happy and pleasant about himself, as though all his pain and torment had been washed away by the possession of Luke's needle. He flew away from his misery in a drug-induced fantasy and finally fell asleep with a smile on his face.

It was the following morning, being shaken awake by Luke, that Christopher found it was only a temporary cleansing. The pain he felt was still there as the high fled with his dreams.

"We gotta get out of here before someone finds us, man."

Christopher nodded, and the two gathered their belongings, crawling through a small hold in the wire fencing around the gardens to escape.

The days were usually alright. Luke and Christopher almost always found a way to keep themselves busy. Lurking in back streets, they would hold someone at the point of a stolen knife and eventually gain enough money to continue feeding what was now their habit. They would visit youth centers, and be given free coffee and perhaps a meal. The nights, when they were alone and silent, Christopher was grateful for the escape offered by the heroin. They never wondered how they managed to continually escape the law, Christopher simply knew he was good at this life; Luke knew their luck had to run out one day.

Another New Year's Eve came, and Luke vowed to make it special for his companion. At times, Luke had left Christopher alone of a night to visit one of the city's prostitutes. Tonight, Luke would make Christopher a man in the true sense of the word. He'd taught Christopher to fight, to mug people for cash, to shoot up. Tonight, he'd get Sarah to teach the youngster how to fuck.

The pair were drunk in a park. Christopher turned to Luke.

"You got the gear?"

"Give it a while," Luke responded. "I've got something for you."

"Oh? What?"

"Come with me." Luke replied with a gleam in his eye.

Christopher followed Luke as they both staggered to a shabby block of flats. His confusion was obvious on his face, and Luke delighted in this as he knocked on the door of flat 210.

The door was opened by a blonde haired woman who appeared to be mid-thirties. No one would guess that she was only twenty-five. Christopher failed to notice the empty look in her eyes, the weariness in her face as she forced a smile. His gaze was locked on her body, all but exposed under a semi-transparent slip, Christopher saw she was wearing nothing underneath it, and felt a stirring in his groin.

"Evening Luke. You must be Christopher." Her voice was tainted by too many drugs, cigarettes and bottles of cheap alcohol. "Come in."

Luke pulled Christopher through the door. "I think tonight's going to be the last of the lessons I can give you, man. Watch and learn."

First, Christopher watched Luke, and then was ushered to the bed after him. Once again, Luke's tutoring brought Christopher to a new height of enjoyment with the introduction of sex.

Sarah had no other clients that night, and she joined Luke and Christopher in their nightly dose of heroin. As sleep overcame his fantasies, lying in Sarah's bed, Christopher wondered if life could be any better.

A month later, Sarah rented a second flat for her work, and Luke and Christopher moved in to share her residence. Each night the three would shoot up, letting the misery of their lives wash away in the ecstasy of sex and drugs. Luke and Christopher would always travel far from the flat of a day, and evening to gain what money they could. Christopher was finally introduced to the world of dealing the drugs that he was taking, and the mugging stopped within three months. Sarah and Christopher continued their illegal work, while Luke looked after the residence, and their meager amount of possessions.

As Luke had known, their luck ran out. Though it was not police or money that brought about their demise.