Prologue

She calls the man Vilkacis, which he likes, but only because he doesn’t know what it means. Just a few stripes, he said, and she agreed, because all the girls do it, and he gave her a secret word to say, if she wanted him to stop. It was nothing, the first time, and the time after that: three quick stripes, which hardly hurt at all. He was kind, and called her beautiful. He gave her twenty extra and some medication that made the little pain go away altogether.

The third time he did hurt her. And she said the secret word, but maybe she didn’t say it right, or maybe he changed it, because he didn’t stop; he went on and on, and even when she screamed the secret word and begged him – begged him – he wouldn’t stop. It took a lot of medication to make the pain go away that time.

It seems foolish now, but then, she didn’t know the name for this medication. Later, on the street, she learned to ask for scag, smack, candy, the goods, because on the street it’s all about business. But when it’s on the spoon and you’re cooking it down, you can call it people’s names: Henry, Helen, Brother, Boy – like family. And when you’re fixed up, and everything seems washed in mellow light, she’s Golden Girl. But not for long, because heroin is a Judas, a bad friend who betrays you. It is a cruel lover who goes away and makes you crazy for him. You need it more than you need oxygen, it screams in your head, Feed me! Feed me!

Her friends call it the monkey on your back. They’re wrong. It is wild, ferocious; a beast which howls and claws and tears your flesh. The pain of the whipping and the need for the drug got tangled up together a long time ago, and now she can hardly tell them apart. Except when the need returns.

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