A Downward Spiral

Emily Castle-Jones stubbed out her cigarette on the cracked asphalt, climbing up the stairs back into the unoccupied townhouse she and her drug addict friends were using as a home this winter.

It shouldn't be like this. She should be a kept wife in a kept world, a creature of privilege. She remembered the days, long ago, of growing up in a mansion, of being the daughter of a powerful man. And her mother threw it all away -- for what? Some old geezer and her honor? Emily had never adjusted. She'd dropped out, fled, and was here. Surrounded by drug dealers, drug addicts and other members of the nadir of society.

She sat down on a broken, musty couch. She had had sex with everyone in this house, male and female alike. She was the only white girl here. And she was broken, as much as the couch was.