"What is it you're trying to escape from?" I say.

"Is it that obvious?"

"I know your brother keeps you under strict rules and I work for him."

"He doesn't have to know."

"Know what?"

"What this music represents to me. Liberation, the freedom to be a woman, to enjoy a man, to satisfy myself with him."

"Maybe you need to pick someone your brother would approve of."

"My brother would never approve of anyone."

I watch her move and she seems caught between the shadow and the act, some female lure who knows what she has and wants to be carried across the threshold. Her arousal is on the threshold like the half-touching of her desire.

Diamonds are less stable than graphite and I look at her and see the flickering of something in her mind. It is trapped in a body she can use to get any man.

And I want to take her clothes off and f.u.c.k her there and then.

I want to lay her on her back and part her legs.

She smells like sin.

I listen to the lyrics.

I watch her dance in her skin tight dress.

"You want some guy to die for you?" I say.

"To be prepared to die."

"Because otherwise your brother will stop you being with anyone."

"In a few years I'll be too old."

"Or am I a mirror?"

"A mirror?"

"You're watching your own beauty through me and getting what you need."

"I know I'm beautiful."

And I say it. I use her secret name.

"So what then Sultry?"

She stops. It's like a key unlocking a door.

I want to unzip her. I want to peel her dress from her.

"I want you to f.u.c.k me Mack." she says.

We have some drinks and she touches me.

I turn and her lips are there and taste the heat of midnight.

She has the flavor of a corrupted Queen.

And as Neil Diamond plays I peel her dress from her and let it fall to the wasted ground.

I touch her and feel it all in her skin, the river of her desire.

She feels like silk.

I look into her eyes and see a knowing.

I wonder if I am the first.

I take her to the bedroom.

I take her across threshold of herself.

I see it in her eyes they are asking me.

She wants the inner act of love making. She wants me to penetrate her inner being.

We are touching and she reaches for my c.o.c.k.

She bends and sucks me and I feel her wetness.

She lies back and I part her legs.

She has a diamond set in her navel. I reach out my tongue and lick it.

I open the lips of her sliced peach and put my tongue inside her.

I enter her and it is like feeding on the sap of an exotic wildflower.

She has s.e.xual depravity in her flesh and she arches her back on the bed as I f.u.c.k her.

I hear her breathing speed up, the small short gasps she makes as a vein stands out on her perfect neck and I lick it, feeling the tube of blood with my tongue.

And as I listen to her gasps increase in speed she pulls me tight into her and I see it in her face.

She is on the threshold of womanhood, knowing all she needs to know and young enough to fool men into believing they are teaching her something.

She occupies this s.p.a.ce as perfectly as a con man becomes the person required by the mark.

Her skin exudes the flavor of s.e.xual hunger.

I get some drinks and she goes through my coat.

I have some acid in there I am going to deliver.

It is pure acid, way stronger than anything you can imagine.

I sit and talk to her and we screw again and later, as I am getting dressed, I notice the pack is gone.

She's taken all the tabs.

"Did you drop that acid?" I say.

"What if I did?" she says.

"Do you know how strong that is?"

"Stay with me Mack. f.u.c.k me Mack."

I get her to stand up and I call Tamsin.

Tamsin knows. She has the medical training, she is a drop out.

She knows all the drugs necessary to deal with any situation. I call her the doctor.

"I need your help. Someone's taken too much acid. I need you to help them come down," I say.

"Who is it?" Tamsin says.

"It's a chick."

"She needs a benzo like Klonopin."

"Have you got any?"

"Yeah. It'll cost you."

"Bring it round."

I give her the address and hang up.

Sultry is drifting, her eyes are nowhere.

I wait as she begins to trip out.

She begins licking the wall, running her hands across the wallpaper.

"My fingers feel like marshmallows," she says. "And when I move I am bending at the corners, do you think you want to f.u.c.k my brother? Maybe he needs to give me his baby."

"Sultry sit down," I say.

"He f.u.c.ks me, you know. He f.u.c.ks me. He comes to my room at night and sticks his c.o.c.k in me and I hate him."

"Sultry do you know what you're saying?"

"Yeah. Why do you think he's so obsessed with me? Take me away Mack. Take me out of here."

There is too much truth in what she is saying.

Her brother has his mark on her.

I think of her teeth removed and rattling in his box.

I think of where his obsession may go.

Tamsin gets there and we give her the Klonopin.

I hold Sultry as she injects her.

"I like p.r.i.c.ks in me," she says. "Feels like come inside me."

Tamsin shakes her head.

"Get her to rest," she says.

I pay her and she leaves.

I see her walk away into the night.

Sultry starts to come down.

She gets sleepy and I sit beside her watching her body and her breathing.

She wakes at one point and sits up.

"I can see messages in the wallpaper," she says. "I can see them now, they have always been there."

It isn't long before Carlos returns and he is going to take one look at his sister and ask me how she ends up like that.

I keep seeing his box of teeth.

I sleep.

I feel her at my side.

The night is intense in its heat.