I finally enter my bedroom which is located a few blocks from Euphorika. My building faces it so I'm constantly tormented by what I'm doing with my life. I try my best to block out the blinding lights that come in through the windows but they always find a way to somehow leak in. I live alone here, in a giant apartment with no one else to occupy it with. My walls are a crimson red, and my floors are a dark, faux hardwood. My bed is king sized and covered with an impossibly soft blanket made from an extinct animal’s fur. My bathtub is ginormous and has all the new features the rich people care about. The TV is glamorous; it's a 70 inch screen mounted on the wall in the living room. I don't do much these days, I don't really go out, and all I do is stay confined within these bloody walls. I turn on the TV for some background noise and I decide I need to take a bath. 

I lay in the bathtub with my feet propped up and my head leaned back. I collapse into the warm water and remain perfectly still amongst the top layer of fizzling white bubbles forming from the soap and side jets. The bubbles pop and roll as if the water were boiling across its surface. Pink candles varying in sizes decorate around the tub and flicker in the soft darkness. I stare up at the ceiling. I sent Madeline out to the wolves today. She's already a natural; she'll be that way looking for approval from strangers for the rest of her life. God, it drives me crazy that it's getting harder and harder to do what I do. There was a while there where it was getting easier and I was able to tune everything out but I just can't do it anymore.

She reminds me of when I was “hired.” I came to Euphorika just like Madeline, and just like everyone else does. I was tired of how society made me feel, I was so sick of feeling disregarded and I thought, I thought that if I used my sexuality against the world it would empower me. If I could one: be appreciated at least somehow, and two: do it in a way where I made money, I felt like it was a win-win. Almost like I'd be getting back at the world, while also finally feeling like I was actually worth something. That's the game they've invented though, that he's invented. The world makes us feel bad about ourselves, we try to remedy it, and then The Lion takes us in. That's also the sick part. We all know what we're doing deep down isn't exactly healthy, none of us are stupid. 

The Lion immediately took a liking to me; you should've seen him. He was hungry for me, he was ravenously consumed by his need for me. His mouth was practically salivating. It's like he could smell it. Maybe it was the way I carried myself or maybe it was intuition, but he knew. He told me that it was ok I was infertile, in fact, he would make me his number one star because of it. I remember that he was different back then, a bit nicer, a little more handsome, more charming. I didn't feel like a machine so much in those days. He had gotten up from behind his desk and danced with me. He told me to relax and that all of the other girls were nothing compared to me. He told me that I was magnificent and he held me close as he gazed into my eyes. We danced a little longer and then he told me that he'd do anything for me, give me anything, as long as we were on the same page and that I would do the same for him.

When I put on the costume I felt so pretty as I looked in the mirror. My body was revealed and I loved the way my thin curves filled just enough of the black leather jeans. The way the studded belts gently sat around my boney hips and waist, barely pressing into the skin under my belly button… I loved the way my lips were so plump, I loved how my striking eyes popped through the eye holes of my mask, and I loved the way the sleeves fell just baggy enough on my skinny arms. I ended up getting my white bandana with black spots. I was only the 3rd Mate to do so. Francine wasn't sure someone like me could handle it but I wanted to make The Lion proud. She ended up loading my pouch with a wide variety of paraphernalia: ones that make you go up, down, sideways, into another dimension; any variation of consciousness was able to be experienced in seconds, right in that little leg pouch. 

That first night out I felt so overcome by nervous anticipation. I was excited to do something so out there, I was excited to feel something. I wanted to be experienced, to be felt. Francine actually took me to the street I'd be standing on and waited there with me, and for me when I got back. While we waited for someone to come she tried in her own subtle way to talk me out of it. Francine was 40 back then, so she'd lived my life twice already. You could tell by her entire demeanor and how she treated me that she had kids of her own somewhere. She's been a mother to me through this entire process and I'll never forgive myself for staying in this business because it hurts her so much. “You know, we're all here by choice,” she said looking towards the full moon. We had taken a break from standing and we sat on the sidewalk underneath the yellow streetlight. The yellow light seemed to avoid her, and it shone fiercely onto me. It reflected off of my jacket and into my eyes, like I was covered in rhinestones.

She then put her head on my shoulder. “We always have a choice, no matter how dark the world feels, Eleanor. Sometimes you just have to have the courage to admit that it's too hard. Then you let it fester for a while, and when you feel up to it, you take the lessons you learned and you take the world by storm. It's ok to feel defeated without destroying yourself. You can make a life for yourself I promise. You just have to work through the darkness. It's not good to run, you know that right?” I sat there wanting to prove myself to The Lion so badly, it all went through one ear and out the other. “I know,” I said. She knew I was too far gone. To this day though she hasn't given up on me, and she always gives me glances or calls me to tell me to look at whatever phase of the moon. Leaving just isn't that easy, choosing your own path isn't that easy. Where would I be if it wasn't for The Lion? 

A rusted car on life support eventually came by and picked me up... I sit up and start to drain the water from the tub and I sit there, watching the water slowly decline into the drain in its tornado spiral. That day was the last time I cried. I wish I could still cry, I really do. Look at what I've done, how many women I've seen come into this business. My body urges me to cry, it begs me to cry. I can just imagine Madeline out there tonight… My face begins to feel flush and my stomach feels twisted, like how when you're a kid and you just know you did something wrong. It's that throw up feeling, that feeling of being trapped in the inescapable consequences of your actions. My intestines feel like they're being squeezed by barbed wire. There's no rewind, there's no do over, this is it. This is it for all of us. I run to the toilet and let it all out. My body drapes over the ceramic and once I'm done, I collapse backwards and let my head rest against the wall. I try to force the tears out by making all sorts of contorted faces, but my eyes are backed up with emotional constipation. 

I end up drying off and heading into the kitchen. Not hungry. I sit down in front of the TV. Nothing to watch. I collapse laying flat, naked on my living room floor. I hold myself in a fetal position. I shouldn't be acting like this. Where's the spine I once had? Why can't I just tune this all out like I normally do?! I shiver and shake as the air conditioning kicks on. Everything is so silent, and my thoughts are too loud. Suddenly a knock reaches my door. *Knock, knock, knock.* *Knock, knock, knock!* Who knows, maybe it's someone to save me. I stand up and put on my pink towel. I eventually reach the door and I'm greeted with a bouquet of caladiums. The man walks away and I bring the plants into my apartment, putting them on the kitchen counter. A note rests among the leaves. “To my #1, my Ms.2000, I'll never tire of your addition to our ever expanding family. If this entire operation was a body, you'd be the lungs, because you constantly breathe life into all of our lives.” - The Lion