passed. Escape. Why not? The heroin already held her in an iron grip, but heroin was in ready supply. She would not submit to the indignities Darren proposed. She would not sell her body for what could be provided for without.

She left him in the subway. Sliding onto the train, darting out from between the doors just as they closed, laughing and cursing as his angry face slid away. People all around her not-looking, a New York practice perfected to an art form. Two stole food and drink from a news stand, ran from subway cops, still laughing.

Withdrawal came, and Two learned how truly weak she was. She’d paid for the heroin with the same currency Darren had initially proposed. The irony of this was not lost on her, and when it was done, she felt more defiled than she would have thought possible. The dealer disappeared to obtain what she had paid for. Two dozed, unaware that she was doing so.

Thumps on the stairs, the door kicked in, Darren’s face, raging, screaming, dragging her by the hair down the stairs, naked, splinters in her thighs. Wailing as the car sped back to the apartments, shrieking as she was dragged again into them, thrown into Darren’s office, where a slow, methodical beating commenced until she could no longer even plead with him to stop. Finally, lying on the floor, still naked, sobbing, unable to move, she’d learned what the small scar he’d burned into the webbing between her left thumb and forefinger meant.

Two was trapped, branded like cattle, and there was not a dealer in the world (or at least, the scope of that which made up her world) who would sell to her. If Two wanted the heroin, and the need inside of her was now a ball of fire racing through her veins, she would have to earn it from Darren.

She took the drug, went out on the corner that night, found a client. Later, in the early hours of the morning, she lay on the floor of the shower, and let the hot water wash away salty, bitter tears.

* * *

“Get your ass up and get ready, Two!” Darren shouted from down the hall. He kept his office near his best earners, of which Two and her roommate were perhaps the top.

“Get ready for... what?” Two questioned, yawning and trying to clear her head. The heroin had made her drowsy, and she had slept through the strongest part of the high. Now there was only the afterglow, and that rapidly fading.

Molly was in the bathroom, probably taking a small fix of her own. She liked to use it in small amounts. Two preferred to administer large, megaton doses.

“Didn’t I tell you? Must’ve. Your stupid ass just forgot.” Darren’s voice betrayed his uncertainty in his own words.

“Why is it, Darren, that every time you fuck up, it’s my stupid ass that just forgot?” Two muttered under her breath.

“Somethin’ to say, bitch?” the words startled Two, much closer than before. Darren had come down the hall as she’d been muttering to herself, and now stood in the door. Two looked at him, too tired and high to feel any real fear. If he beat her, at least she wouldn’t have to go out on the street.

“No. Nothing.”

“Good. You got a client. Weird motherfucker. I told him and told him, ‘look... we got girls fuck you twice as good, and look better doin’ it too.’”

Two rolled her eyes. Darren ignored her.

“He was real particular though. Said he wanted you, and motherfucker gave me a whole list of shit you supposed to wear. Listening?”

“Sure.”

“Black panties, black socks, black pants, black shirt. Tie your hair back in a ponytail. Wear a gold chain. Make your pale-ass little white-girl face even paler. Black lipstick, dark eye-shadow. Shower first, and clean yourself well. One gold chain, no other jewelry. No deodorant, no perfume. He says it ‘disagrees with him’. Don’t look at me like that, I’m just quoting him.”

“What... the fuck?”

“Look, if he wants you to look like a gothy heroin addict, that’s his priority.”

“I am a heroin addict.” Two’s voice was more insolent than was prudent. Darren looked at her for a moment.

“You’d do well not to mention that, or I could see some severe problems developing in your future,” he said, dropping the street dialect for the moment. Darren held two business degrees, and was by no means confined to what he’d learned on the street. This was a warning; Darren never