There's nothing attractive here. Nothing worth keeping. Nothing worth fighting over, fighting for. Once perhaps, but not anymore. There was a time when this all had the kiss of promise in it. When this was a blessing like sweet rain, so powerful as to make all the world new again. But not anymore.

In him I saw all that I could be. Potential realized and the past cut away. A two-for-one deal, and it was magnificent. A way out, and a way in, all wrapped up nice and tight. In his gaze I was more, better, lighter than I had ever been. And I became that ... that great thing. If only for a moment.

You gotta understand that under those lights, that pounding bass, there was little talk of the future. You were in the moment, always so firmly planted in the now, because it was all that was real, all that was tangible. You had to grab it and wring the life out of every single second. And besides...there was no where else to go, for any of us. Beyond the stage and the crowd and the little family bound by sweat and glitter and secrets, the world was hazy, cold and dark. A nebulous thing. With its own rules and its own bonds and its own unavoidable consequences bound up with actions like these.

Back in those days I was all about consequences. About opportunities lost, plans unfulfilled, dreams unrealized. It was hard not to be when everyday you were made less...was hard not to be when *that was the whole point.*

It was the linchpin in the whole operation...lessening you, I mean. You see, you couldn't look at you wife or your sister the way they wanted to look at me. In that job you accepted pretty quickly that the men coming in through those doors are all conditioned to treat women a certain way. With a pinch of respect, a smidgen of devotion, a touch of something akin to immeasurable awe. It determines what they find acceptable in regards to us. What they allow themselves to do, allow themselves to seek out. And just to be clear: ogling barely clad young girls while you had a wife and two kids at home....a definite no-no on the list of acceptable behaviours. So to overcome that...that natural barrier....in their minds, we girls had to become deviants of a sort....untouchable goddess or worthless whore....which ever one removed you from the right to be treated like everyone else.

Mind you, it all wouldn't have been so bad, if what most chose to make you wasn't so much less. If the intention, the necessity, wasn't to lower you so fully that they would be elevated just by standing next to you.

And so, most nights, in keeping with my appointed role as worthless whore #1, with every appraisal of their leering eyes, and every touch of their pawing hands, they diminished me. I could feel it...could literally feel myself shrinking. You can't imagine how that feels... people cutting you down just by looking at you.

This wasn't how the story was supposed to go, was it? Where were the baubles, the trappings, the happiness hiding just around every corner? Here, there was no white horse, no fairy godmother, no magic slipper...and when the Prince called, Rapunzel let down a helluva lot more than just her hair.

Thankfully, the dancing kept most of those thoughts at bay, locked them away behind a wall rarely breached. Concentrating on movement, fixating on fluidity, narrowed my attention so fully as to block out all else. Focusing on aligning yourself just right, on uncoiling just so, subsumed the shame and the guilty and the little niggling thought that even the money wasn't enough to account for this. This groping, this drooling, this obvious manipulation of man's basest instinct. And anything it didn't, the coke swept clean away. Tabula Rasa after all.

But even all that never really changed the very rules of the game...the roles of the players. Pawns and Kings. And your place, your rules, your very point in that world all translates, you know. Slips so quietly into your consciousness that you're never really sure it's there. When it arrived. When it made itself so comfortable in the recesses of your Self. But, it's there nonetheless. Stealthily shadowing your movements, silently dictating the terms of your understanding. Telling you how small you are, how insignificant, how you're no more than what they pay you to be.

And so with every shimmy and shake I watched my childhood dreams slip through my outstretched hands, to be replaced by something I didn't recognize, didn't choose, didn't want to be. The invincible girl who could do anything, be anything. Where was she going?

And I rebelled against that loss. With everything in me, I fought like hell. But fighting for yourself so hard saps the spirit and weakness the will, and laid me open to the one tactic I had never even envisioned would be my undoing....kindness.

And I could kick myself for it now, for being so needy...for wanting it so badly. Wanting him so badly.

Him. Sitting there, looking like night. All leather, and charm and cheap smelling cologne. But his gaze...it had texture. Shading in the grey areas. Expecting and finding dimension.

Seemingly, to him, I was more. We talked, we laughed, but when he asked questions he expected answers....wanted answer...my answers. And that was it. That interest, that expectation, was all it took to bind me to him so fiercely that I would done anything to keep it going.

I was somebody to him. Somebody with an opinion and a voice and a worth sure as anyone's. He saw me as I needed to be seen and in his arms and through his gaze he gave me back to myself. And I in turn clung to him. From that moment on, I revelled in him. Used his confidence to sustain me. To propel me to inhabit those empty spaces.

Over time, he became the reason for everything. Even after Lindsey was born, and I had quit the dancing and the drugs....I got up in the morning because he thought I was good enough to. For the longest time simply for that.

But that's the difficulty, you know. The rub. To base yourself in the esteem of another. In their opinion, their prerogative. You are bound to their fickleness, ruled by their consequences, moulded by their intent. You become a character to them, a foil to their own story. And when they need you to take up another role in the drama that is their life, you have little choice but to comply because you're not the one with pen in hand. You never were.

I don't know what changed for him, why he needed to change what I was to him. When the sheen rubbed off. But when he asked...when he demanded, really....I gave him what he was so eager to take.

A pound of flesh.

And that was the price. The price I paid for that surety. To keep him with me. To keep the small flame alive. Even now, I don't know who I am without him. Because what he thought of me is what I thought of myself.

And I just gave it to him...that right to treat me by the rules of his own making. Let him set the limits, establish the boundaries of right and wrong. Just lay down my whole self, in every sense of the word...and gave it up.

And how can you blame someone for that? For pressing their advantage, for manipulating you to suit their needs. When you were the one who fostered that burden on to them in the first place. When you were the one who said, "hey you there, you, yes you, you know what you're going to do....you're going to make me." Like clay. Because at one time you thought they could do a better job than you were doing...had a better plan....and made it so much easier.

But, even I'm not that selfish. I may need him, crave him, accepted his costs, but for her the price is too high. My golden child. With her dreams unbroken and her potential unimaginable. And by god he will never encroach on that, never mar that, never met out to her some punishment he thinks I deserve. He will never raise a hand to her. No one will, not as long as I draw breath.

So I chose and now I'm here. My daughter's hand in mine. And she smells the way innocence does.

Later, I will go to Grissom's. Show up, dishevelled and dripping wet and drink hot tea as Lindsey sleeps the sleep of angels in his bed. But right now we have no where to go. No where to be and no one to be for.

And so we drive on with no destination in mind. This is no small task, let me tell you. Manoeuvring through sheets of rain. Driving with one hand clasped tightly between two smaller ones. Shoulder throbbing, head dizzy from colliding head-on with a piece of bedroom furniture. Shaking so fiercely as to make my teeth chatter. Shaking me up, shaking me free.

Her eyes are wide and scared. I can't blame her. She doesn't understand what she sees now...what has happened this night. But, it's ok, I do. For the first time, in a long time, *I* do. *I* know, *I* see, *I* assess, *I* decide. See, look, no strings.

And I'm smiling now. A huge shit eating grin that's actually making my jaw hurt more if that's possible. And it's not really warranted, I know. At least not yet. But I can't help it. I just cannot stop it. Because through the numbness and the fear and the scenarios of what tomorrow will bring, I realize what I've done...what I've given her. Because no matter what happens now, I have done it. Given her this gift,and shown her it was possible. Taught her by example. Because if there's one thing I leave her now...one shining truth...it will be this: in the end, no one makes you but you.