.

She lay in a damp motel room. Sprawled out. The dim naked light bulb throwing a shadow of light across the room. The wallpaper strips worn down to reveal rotting wood in some places, protected by years of sickly yellow tobacco smoke in others. There lay upon the bedside locker a lamp, it's pink lampshade hiding the smashed bulb within, the remaining glass shards clinging to the fixture, it hadn't given light in near twenty years but noone would put it out of it's misery. Beside the lamp sat a frost glass ashtray, cigarette butts and piles of ash built up. Under the bed lay bottles that had yesterday held $2 wine, they now held nothing but the remnants of a Wednesday night spent trying to forget the evening preceding it. A rusty bucket beside the bed held a month's nights of vomit.

The bedside locker was empty except the first drawer. A tattered bible sat there, worn but covered in dust. Placed there by Gideons for her and other lost souls to reach out to it. but it had lain unused for years. Maybe it longed desperately for love, maybe it longed to forgive her acts, her sins, her failures, her thoughts; but it doesn't matter, 'cause the drawer was shut and she was unconcious.

The door was locked from the inside by a chain lock, the key lock long torn out. It was room 206, on the second floor.

A scrawny, bruised and battered pale leg dangled from the bed, the foot caked in dirt and dry blood.

The curtains were drawn to the outside world, no light seeped through; it was winter and the sun had yet to rise.

On the floor lay an old-fashioned black phone that connected only with reception.

Her right arm blocked the dead light from reaching her tired sleeping eyes. Her nails were short, dirty and yellow, her hands were long, thin and beautiful, her knuckles were scarred, purple and swollen.

Her left arm lay by her side, palm facing the ceiling.

A bathrobe, stockings and a dress lay strewn across a wooden chair by the door.

She wore no clothes, not even underwear, just a thin ratty mustard-yellow blanket that barely protected her modesty; not that it mattered, noone was watching, not that she cared anyway, though.

She lay in this way, dead but for her lungs shallow breathing until a knock on the door broke the musty silence. She woke hazily and pushed herself into a standing position. She reached for the robe and mechanically went to the door, and opened it without undoing the chain.

there stood a middle-aged man squeezed into dirty overalls and a stained wife-beater. He reeked like she did: the whiskey, tobacco, sweat.

Upon seeing him she undid the chain. He grunted as she derobed and shut the door.

But don't feel sorry for her. She's as guilty as he is. Well, that's what we've been told. She's dirty and deserves what she gets. Filthy little slut.