Chapter 1:

Who she was.

Her name was Bella, and she sometimes thought she could smell her death,

blowing in from the cemetery that lay south of her building in East New York.

Sometimes she even hoped for it. Stinking, muttering, moldering death. Cold and

dark. On these occasions, she felt as if even the dirty embrace of the grave would

be better for her than the squalor she lived in now. She thought, maybe, she

might find some sort of peace that had been missing all her life.

Mike owned her building, like he owned the girls who occupied it. Three

stories tall, four rooms to a floor. They lived two in a room, two bathrooms per

floor, two kitchens in the building. Just over twenty girls, every single one of

them selling her body each night at his command. In return for the money they

brought him, he gave them food. He gave them shelter. He gave them drugs, and

the drugs gave them escape.

Bella was not supposed to be here. She reflected on that often, and if she'd

ever believed in a God, she'd have cursed him now. Fickle, twisted fate had

delivered her into Mike's arms. Promises of salvation, undercurrents of doubt,

desire, desperation. The cold prick of a needle.

She tried not to think about it.

Mike held the plastic bag filled with heroin above her now, like a treat

for a dog. Little better than a dog she was, really, down on her knees, eyes wet

with tears ready to spill over. Angry, vengeful Mike, so filled with hate. Hate for

his parents, who'd given him his gorgeous mulatto features and then abandoned

him on the street. Hate for his ex-wife, who'd left him immediately upon

discovering the nature of his business, but still found fit to take half of what it had

earned him. Hate for the girls he had made his slaves, and who had made him

rich. Hate for the very money they handed over to him every night.

Mike didn't know of his own hate, but it burned in him so brightly it

scarred his features. Twisted, cruel lips. Pinched brow. Bella might have

understood this hate, seen reflected in it her own self-loathing, but Bella spent

most of her time thinking about the heroin now. She had no sympathy for

Mike, or his girls, no sympathy for herself. Lucid existence was the time

between sleep and drug, drug and sex, sex and sleep. Short bursts of clarity, ever

more painful, amid an otherwise blurred, waking dream.

"Beg for it, Bella," Darren snarled, and Bella's mouth formed words of

penitence against her will, pleading through tears without even realizing she'd

meant to do it. She begged apology for some imagined slight, some invented twist

in her voice that had caused this punishment.

"Mike, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry for what I said!" But what had she said? She'd

only asked for her daily ration of the drug, in the same manner she had for the

past four months. If Mike had detected any real change of inflection, it hadn't

been intended. But here she was, on the floor, begging and pleading for

something she didn't even want. Begging and pleading and dreaming of death.

Born Marie Isabella Swan. Bella would have gladly held it up as

evidence before God that, whatever mistakes she had made in her life, never

appreciating her parents was not one of them.

For her first fourteen years, she was Marie, and no one was allowed to call

her otherwise. Maturity had lent a different outlook, and she had begun to see the

name as a sign of what was becoming a fierce individuality. She would never like

it, perhaps, but she was most definitely not an Marie.

She'd left her father at the age of sixteen, her mother long in the grave.

Alcohol, and the overwhelming desire to fill the void Bella's mother had left, had

brought rage and lust into him when before he'd felt only apathy for the girl. He'd

never touched her, either in punishment or in passion, but the tension and the

fighting, starting around her twelfth birthday, had over the course of years grown

unbearable. At times Bella found herself wishing he would simply rape her, so she

could have him arrested. She wondered if that was a healthy line of thought, and

decided it likely was not.

She took with her very little when she finally left. She had very little to

take. Trinkets, clothes, shoes … these things meant nothing to her, as during life

her mother could never be bothered to pass down any of the traditional, societal

definitions of womanhood. Could never be bothered with her daughter at all,

really, nor with her husband. Bella had learned by herself about womanhood, in

back alleys and cheap motels, years after her mother had died. Her education

handed down by what men told her to be, what they told her to do. Promises of

love, drops of blood on the sheets.

When that didn't work, when she realized she could be more than this, it

came as an epiphany. A rare glimpse of sunlight in an otherwise dark life. She'd

left her father, apoplectic with desire and dismay and alcohol-fuelled rage. She'd

left behind their hole of an apartment. She could do better on her own.

And she had, for a time.

Pool was easy, the angles naturally making sense to her. Slipping into a bar

even easier. New York City cops had far better things to worry about. Bouncers

knew it, owners knew it, and a patron was a patron. Particularly short, pretty

brunettes with good legs and a cute face. The type of girl who could entice an entire

crowd of rowdy young men to stick around for more drinks, dropping dollar after

dollar into pool tournaments that, invariably, they lost.

She didn't go home with these men, though many had asked, and in the

end this factored into her undoing. Descent and rebirth, and descent and rebirth

again. These men could not understand her, or why she spurned them. She'd

leave them with a knowing smile, standing dismayed in the street. Sometimes she

kissed them lightly, thanked them for their interest, but always with that

mischievous gleam in her eyes, that sardonic grin on her face. The look that

proved that, regardless of pretty words, she took vicious pleasure in walking

away.

It was power, and Bella revelled in it. The ability to make men throw their

money, their bodies, their hearts at her. Lots of men. Lots of bars. She walked

away from every one … walked away grinning her savage grin. For eight months

Bella lived, celibate as a nun, feeding on the hearts of men.

Eventually they tired of it. Patrons began complaining. Bouncers began

carding. Bets around the pool table, even when Bella could manage to enter the

bar in the first place, dried up. People had heard of her. Bella was forced to give up

the pool earnings, and her tiny studio apartment with the mattress on the floor,

the only piece of furniture she owned.

One bar remained, the only one at which she'd allowed herself to develop

friends. The owner, Eric. The bouncer, Ben. She didn't play her game here. She

didn't taunt the men, break their hearts. It was here she went when she wanted a

glass of beer and a conversation. It was here she turned now, desperate for

somewhere to stay. Ben offered the use of his apartment. Bella didn't decline the

offer.

Her relationship with Ben was entirely platonic. This surprised her;

surprised both of them. Bella was attractive, young, charming. Ben was in his

mid-twenties, with a powerful build and a handsome face. Bella would have

broken her celibacy for him, if he'd asked. Sometimes she wished he would. Ben

never did, and Bella came to realize that he could not. He knew her age. He knew

her past. It would have felt like taking advantage of her, regardless of her own

willingness.

After nearly eighteen months of living with Bella, Ben had been forced to

turn her out. He was in a new relationship with a young woman named Angela, a

blind girl he had met with her seeing-eye dog at a jazz club, and this new

girlfriend worried about him sharing a studio apartment with a teenage runaway.

Eventually Angela warmed to Bella, and would likely have accepted her as a

roommate in a new, larger apartment, but by then it was too late. By then Mike,

and the needle, had hold of Bella. For better or for worse, it would change her life

forever.

"Please, Mike …" Bella whimpered.

Mike, towering above her, the bag still in his hand, the sneer on his face

half grin, half expression of disgust. She could see this excited him, plain as day.

To her own surprise, she found that she couldn't blame him for it. Bella knew the

aphrodisiac of power. Hadn't she played with it for years before, outside of those

dimly lit bars that lined the city streets?

"You were a bad girl," Mike growled. Bella repeated his words, agreed

with him, petulant, her breath hitching. But now the tears were drying. She

thought she knew how best to resolve this. Was her lower limp trembling just a

bit more than necessary? Were her eyes just a bit bigger?

"I was a bad girl," Bella said again, and arched her back, drawing out the

words like warm honey on her tongue.

Pain flashed across her face, sudden, explosive, unexpected. Bella recoiled

from the blow. Mike's expert delivery rarely left marks, but it hurt no less than

any other slap.

"Don't play that shit with me, girl."

Bella looked up at him, sniffling. The slap had brought fresh tears to her

eyes, and she blinked them away.

"Say you're sorry, and mean it." Mike looked down at her like a dark

king, and Bella realized that this had been just another in a long series of lessons.

Mike was in control. Mike was the boss. Mike was God, dispensing pleasure

and pain at his whim.

"I'm sorry, Mike." Bella meant it. No tears, now. No hysterics. Just rapid

breathing, clenched teeth. The need was a tight ball in her stomach. She tried not

to look at the heroin. She tried to look at the windows, the clock on the desk,

anything else. Again and again her eyes returned to the bag.

"Take it and get out." Mike tossed the bag into a corner, and turned to

his ledgers. Bella scrambled after it on all fours, like the dog Mike had trained

her to be. By the time she was out the door, shouting some hurried, half-meant

words of appreciation after her, Mike had forgotten entirely about her.

Her roommate's name was Jessica. The girl had been in the business for

fourteen months, a fact that repulsed Bella whenever she gave it even a moment's

thought. Jessica was a sweet, honest, quiet girl. She had become wrapped up with

the wrong people. These people had led her to heroin, and heroin had led her to

Mike. Mike had led her to the clients, of which there were many. Jessica was

an absolute premium, the Rolls Royce of Mike's line of whores. Even after

fourteen months, she was still the youngest girl in his service; only twelve. Her

work earned more in a weekend than most earned in a month.

Bella believed she didn't think about this, but looking at the bags under

Jessica's eyes on a Sunday morning when the little girl returned, tired and often

bruised, to shoot up and go to sleep, was like a physical force hammering on her.

They'd shared a sister-like relationship at first, but Bella had been forced to

establish some distance after a nightmarish group-job they'd been ordered to

perform. This had happened occasionally since, and perhaps the most horrifying

thing about the events was the way in which Bella had become inured to them.

She and Jessica were popular, as individuals and as a group. Bella, with her

large eyes, upturned nose, and small breasts, could pass for much younger than

she really was. She received the clients who wanted to fuck a twelve-year-old, but

who still retained some sort of conscience, some semblance of a soul. Jessica's

clients, as far as Bella could gather, had no soul at all.

Sweet lips, big blue eyes, long blonde hair tucked back in a ponytail, Jessica

was swinging her legs over the edge of her bed, watching Bella. Her client had

backed out tonight, but as he'd pre-paid, Mike had treated Jessica to a night off.

She had absolutely nothing to do and this, compared to her normal nights, was

bliss.

Bella cooked the heroin, pulled down her pants, and pushed away her

underwear, exposing the joint between thigh and pelvis. She still shot up here, a

remnant of the days when she'd hoped to escape, the days when she was still

concerned about needle tracks. She had no qualms about exposing herself in

front of Jessica. How could she? Jessica, in turn, registered no expression of

disturbance or concern as Bella slid the needle into her skin, pressed the plunger,

set the syringe on the dresser.

The effect of the fix was near-instantaneous, as always. First the burst of

pleasure, warm and pulsing like an orgasm. Vision blurred, muscles relaxing,

Bella seemed to float off into a cloud of euphoria. She lay back on the bed, hands

crossed behind her head, and heard Jessica speak as if from the end of a long

tunnel.

"I saw the baggie in the trash. Did you steal Renee's shit again?"

Stupid bitch leaves it out, what does she expect? Bella thought. She didn't

need to answer Jessica. The question was rhetorical.

"You're going to hurt yourself." The concern in Jessica's voice was lovely in

its innocence. Bella drew in a shuddery breath, happy to let the drugs do their

work. Caring was pain. Apathy was bliss.

"No one gonna miss me when I'm gone," she told Jessica, still looking up at

the ceiling.

"I'll miss you."

Bella smiled. Of course Jessica would miss her … until the drugs and the

pain and the sheer horror of their life took her, too. Assuming Jessica outlived her

in the first place.

Bella dozed.

Tell me what you thought…

Chantenique

Xxx

R&R!