" She only sleeps in it when the store is closed. There isn't a spare room in my apartment." Where's your apartment?" Downstairs." Can we see it?" Thi...s way." Hollis led them down the stairs. "Bathroom with shower ... kitchen. These are my quarters. She's under the same roof." Okay, I think I've seen enough." The agent headed toward the front door. He stopped to write notes in a spiral-bound steno pad. "Her arrangements are a bit unconventional, but she seems to be thriving in them." She's. “I’m sorry, I’ll have to go, there’s an orchestra waiting for me.” You walked away, almost dancing, made one-and-a–half turn, rushed back, put something in my hand and closed my fingers around it. “A little something for you, it was gathering dust in my cupboard for the last twenty-five years or so,” and you danced away… In my hand a mood-ring decorated with dolphins. Slowly it turned green. Deep-purple The next week I was out of sorts. I was cooking and the food burned. Stupid mistakes at the. Images, smells, and sounds came quickly; and there she was trapped against the same brick wall as always. Surrounded by men with the smell of alcohol rolling off of them in waves, one held a length of pipe, another some chain and others miscellaneous things meant for her death. Blood already ran down her arm and her eye was almost swelled shut. This is how I found her, in the back of an alley bloody and begging for her life and getting nothing but sneers in return. They began all at once, each. They simply shifted focus as he took her offering and slid his lips and tongue down the slim column of her neck while his hands roamed the ripeness of her breast. “You are so beautiful, Ariel. All of you. I’ve wanted to make you mine from the first moment I saw you today.” “Oh, God. Yes. Please.” He stopped his exploration of her jaw and neck just long enough to remove her scrub top and bra. When he resumed, his mouth slid lower. He gently lifted one plump breast to his lips and kissed the ripe.