She claws at her arms because she can’t bring herself to cut them.  Over and over her nails scrape, rubbing the fair skin raw and pink until blood wells to the surface in tiny droplets.  Best to leave scabs.  Then tomorrow she can pick at them until her eyes glaze over and Boredom hoists her on to Sleep’s shoulders.

            The sting of her work keeps her barely awake, teetering on perception.  But she has done this so many times, so many nights, that the monotony lulls her into slumber.

            She blinks and finds herself awash with smoke and dim lights.  Music palpitates in the air, coursing through her skin until she feels it in her bones.  She doesn’t recall how she got to the club and she only vaguely knows where she is.

            Someone jostles her into a something sturdy.  A man, she realizes even before she raises her eyes.  He stares back, looking half-asleep, as though the club scene bores him too.

            Then his eyes glint with interest; he looks more aware, though his lids barely move.  Languidly he offers his hand, introducing himself.

            She moves to take his hand but her tongue fails her.  My name is . . .

            Another blink transports her to a dark space.  Claustrophobia tries to settle in—she hates small spaces and there is no way this room is larger than a closet.  But before she can feel fear she feels pleasure as a familiar—yet alien, as none are truly the same—hardness thrust into her.  Her face is pressed against the wall by a strong, large hand; another possesses nails that bite into her hips.  She tries to gasp.  Over and over the man moves into her, each push harder than the last and forcing air into her lungs until it explodes in a wail.

            She can’t hear her own screams.  The music is too loud.  Any moment someone could open that door and they would be caught, exposed—

            This time she comes to her senses kneeling over a toilet bowl, retching.  Her hair hangs around her face in damp, vaguely red tangles.  Roiling in her stomach causes her to lurch forward again but all that comes out are dry heaves.  She has nothing left inside.  The emptiness causes her abdomen to cramp up in protest, yet her muscles are weak with relief after rejecting the poison in her system.

            She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.  Blearily she looks around but can’t take her eyes off the floor.  Heeled shoes clack from stall to stall beside her.  The door opens to let in loud bursts of music but in here the vibrations are significantly less.

            Normally she doesn’t scratch in public, but her nails tear into her skin again.  A small sob works its way up her throat but can’t find its way out.

            But then she’s not kneeling anymore.  Her eyes open and she’s in a completely different environment.  There’s still music but it lacks the grinding rhythm of the club.  Now it is screaming torment across a vast living room.  Young adults and even some teenagers mingle around her.

            Someone loops an arm around her waist and pulls her to a thin, wiry body.  This man reeks of alcohol.  But she’s no longer feeling ill or desperate except for the wild streak of abandon.  She laughs and tangles her fingers in his shaggy hair, yanking him down for an open-mouthed kiss.  He responds in kind, so eager to get his hands on her that he spills beer on her dress.

            She moves to slap his wandering fingers but the world dissolves.  There is nothing, simply black voided bliss.  Distantly she knows she is being violated, but at the moment her universe is nothing but haze.  She prefers it this way.

            Yet it ends the same way it always does—with her in her room, clawing at her arms.  Scars are beginning to form beneath the wretched pink.  She picks at her scabs and suckles on the blood.  Tastes like copper; like fear and death and vibrancy all at once.  Solace.  Her one constancy.

            If she closes her eyes she knows what will happen; that she will lose time and collapse into bizarre disjointed moments of her life.  She is afraid and yet calm, for she never truly knows what one blink will bring her.

            Her eyes fall shut in anticipation.  She never realizes that she does not wake.