Author: Celia Hye (pseud.)

About: Celia Hye had two bad habits--sex with boys, and sex with girls. Of course, it wasn't all her fault. Fresh out of high school, she tried to save a young addict by squandering her virginity on him. The result, not surprisingly, was that she got hooked, too. She fell into a life of drug-induced kicks and complete sexual degeneracy.

Then, locked into intimacy with girls as twisted as herself, she learned from them the forbidden thrills of lesbian love. There was Erna, her special sweetheart--Ziggie, the ugly

Hold It!

Additional: This novel was one of the classics of trash drug lit. Originally published 1957, it's more the account of a Jewish gal who gets into drugs, boys and especially prison. Vaguely famous among aficionados of Burroughs' Junky. The sex itself is there, but quite limited.

Excerpt:

It didn't seem to bother him that I was bothered. He would take me around to see his junkie friends instead of leaving me on the comer or in somebody's car the way he used to when he went for a fix. Once, he took me to a connection's house and told me, “If I ever get sick and can't get out, I want you to remember this place so you can go for me. 'Cause I told the guy if you should come for anything, to give it to you.”

“I'll remember this place,” I looked at him and said.

He just kept using and using and getting thinner and thinner. He had to punch a new hole in his trouser belt. And I recognized symptoms I'd never even thought of before. Why Bernie used to fall asleep in the movies. It wasn't because he was tired from working hard all day. Why Bernie's eyes always looked so bright and beautiful. There was hardly any pupil at all. Just this lovely mass of brown. Limpid. In fact, when I started using drugs, people used to tell me how dark and green my eyes looked because that's the way they get when the pupil contracts. I used to walk around all the time with these crazy green eyes. In fact, sometimes I used to look in the mirror and goof behind my own eyes that I never even noticed before.

Then Bernie began asking for money. Not force me to give him. But he'd go into this routine of how he was sick and had to have it or he would go out and do something.

“Don't do anything rash,” I would say. “Think of your mother, think of yourself, think of me, think of anything. Think!” But my speechmaking had no effect so I gave her money.

Finally, I started getting snippy. I just sat down one day and said to myself: I don't need this aggravation. I really don't. I've had in my life enough aggravation for ten adults. What am I looking for now? Yet I loved Bernie with all my heart and I needed him so badly I decided to talk to him just this once more.

So I went over to his house. He lived in a crowded flat with his folks and one brother. Poor people, like most everyone in the neighborhood. What little money came in, his father drank up and the brother threw out on the horses.

I went over early and woke him up, which is an unheard of thing. His poor mother had a fit.

“Celia, sweetheart,” she pushed back some strands of her faded blonde hair. “I'm warning you right now. That boy is crazy when you wake him up.”

“Ma, it's got to be done.”