Reclining, cringing into the perfumed, designer cushions, piled on the hardwood floor. High ceilings.

50" flat screen television, muted. Amidst the unopened DVDs, never to be watched, video games which will never be played, books whose covers will never be cracked, are a litter of ashtrays, chock-full of cigarette butts, burnt past the filter. Burnt clothes and carpet are just another hazard of trade.

Adjoining bathroom emits noise of the girls chattering.

What the fuck am I doing here?

Bad idea. A mistake of the highest order.

Glance at a purse laying to the right of me.

Shoot my eyes to the giggling door.

I’d say they are immobile at this point, not that it would matter.

Make up, lotion, crumpled tender, short straws, address book, 3 shimmering bindles (I’m guessing two white, one black {2 coke, 1 smack}), and a bottle of Xanex.

I take out one long Xan bar, swallow with Grey Goose and cranberry looking much like pig’s blood in this light.

Toss the bag on the floor. Disgusted.

With myself, of course.

FUCK IT!

I get up. The door slightly resisting, then opening upon precisely what I expect. The smell hits me. Takes me by the throat and thrusts an angry hand into my chest. Alex, stares through mascara rimmed blue pinpoints, surprisingly coherent. A tiny pink t-shirt clinging to her shapely figure.

She sits inside the empty bathtub.

Pixie, straddling the side of the tub, looks up at my scowling figure. Murky, brown sugar eyes.

Alex resumes searching through a purse identical to the one in the other room. Coal miner cough, trashes out of Pixie’s frail junked figure. She finally manages a "hey you!" as she puts the heroin-trailed tinfoil onto the porcelain. Standing up, using the wall for support, she smears the black residue of stolen comfort onto newly painted walls.

Drapes her chopstick arms around my shoulders.

Alex looks at us slightly perturbed.

Sloppy hot kiss on the mouth.

Giving me the taste.

That burnt funeral, funneled down her throat into deeply scarred lung tissue. Lingering.

No matter how precise you are, how skilled with a lighter and sheet of tinfoil like mosaic tile, some will escape you.

You can’t have it all.

Her tongue, slipping around my head. My yellowed teeth gnashing hers, she delivers it to me.

The want.

I laugh. How could I not?

Seen it a million times, lived it twice that over.

I lead her back to the bath edge.

"Open a fucking window!" I spit in feigned disgust.

"Hold on, asshole." Alex says, dipping a red straw into the little black grinder. Cocaine: her only proponent amidst the stultification of heroin clouds and too much disposable income.

The tiny window above the bath is opened, not making the slightest dent in the pall of burnt opiate.

I take a seat on the counter parallel to the bath and watch them smoke. My fists clenched, sweating. I feel that demon creep into my chest. Diablo Pathetikos, whose generally apathetic disposition, with this full sensorial provocation, screams NEED.

They were oblivious.

Pixie: "He didn’t even show up. I was there for three hours and now I have to go back there on my day off to return the camera."

Alex: "They said I would have to come back in three weeks. My dad is having a friend from his firm represent me. I fuckin’ hate court."

Same room. Both speaking. Different world.

They were oblivious, and they were obvious.

The first princess, lost in her private art school delusion. And the second, a victim of elevated awareness; Alex knows her father, the lawyer, would never let her serve time for the myriad of moral and legal transgressions she lives. She is a victim because the police are not so resigned to this fact.

I am my own problem now, but this world comes roaring back at me like a bullet from a stolen 45. The phone calls come in mere hours after my arrival at LAX.

It seems as though they have become one being in my absence. One monster.

They want to drain me, not just my cock but a mouthful of my essence.

They miss having something to hold onto that does not disintegrate with the touch of their grimy, manicured nails.

They love to watch me fall.

I cultivated these relationships for a very specific purpose and now they come back to haunt.

I have had them both and will, no doubt, have one or both tonight.

But the tight, eager for abuse, curves are not the focus of my attention. Made the choice, left it all behind because I demand more. Put a knife between my teeth and jumped ship.

It isn’t bliss, but the bank account drains slowly and morning ritual doesn’t necessarily lead to death in a public restroom.

Here I am, staring my abandoned corpse in the face and can’t help but contemplate rolling the lump in its casket and fucking its diseased ass.

"This is absolutely fucking absurd...I don’t... what the fuck am I doing?" I mutter, realizing I haven’t exhaled for two minutes.

I am expecting something to sink into their narcotic-ravaged craniums. Some notion that this environment may not be entirely wholesome.

I expect them to realize that I am not as strong as I pretend.

I expect too much.

They don’t notice what they are doing, let alone the vicious inner struggle of another. Besides, when all is said and done, I decided to walk in here.

Decision is an ugly word, isn’t it?

"Leave," I whisper, not knowing who the word is intended for.

The girls, in unison, "what?"

"Please leave the room." I have decided, I am speaking to them. It clicks. Finally. They glance at each other, a glimmer of recognition. Setting down the makeshift tools of body mass destruction, they leave.

I shiver.

Tinfoil straw in mouth, plague in my lungs, I think of the word "recovered." Laughing my hit out, I run for the toilet. Q