i like my town with a little drop of poison

She leads him into the entry way and doesn't pause before heading off down a hall.

Through a door, down a wrought-iron spiral staircase, through another door.

Tables full of knives on the right hand wall. An oversized butcher block table in the middle of the room. Pay no attention to the things nailed to the far wall.

Make yourself at home.

Doll's in the bar, doing her level best to take up an entire booth for herself.


(She went a few rounds with Donny--turned the tables on him this time--and worked a couple sentences. She thinks she's got the weirdness worked out of her system. She thinks.)


She's nursing a glass of bourbon, making liberal refills from the bottle on the table. There may also be some humming.

And away they go.

Through the door and down the hall, it's almost the way to the dungeon. But she opens a door on the left instead of right and leads Sweets into a fairly normal looking bedroom.

The color palette is darker than her main bedroom and louvered doors hint at a large closet. The posts and rails on the bed were clearly chosen with the chance for restraint in mind.

"Now where were we?"

Doll doesn't wait for an answer before she kisses Sweetheart.

It's been a month, give or take, since Jasmine.

Doll isn't sleeping too poorly. Getting absorbed in her work helps; so does the punching bag she found in the Bar's gym.

She's gone a few rounds with said punching bag, which explains why she's sitting in a booth with bloodstained knuckles--Doll doesn't believe in gloves--and a glass of vodka.

(The drink is more to give her something to do with her hands. She is still on her guard here.)

Doll's decided to avail herself of the bar's back yard and take her booze outside today. She's got a seat on a rock by the lake's edge, one bare foot trailing along the surface of the water.

It's a pretty advantageous spot, if you don't count the fact that it puts her back to the bar.

The session with Donny helped; they always do. She's still angry--at Chainsaw, at herself, mostly Chainsaw--but she's trying to be smarter about it. It's easy being smarter when she keeps her distance, which is easier Downside. It's harder in the bar--it is the only place she's ever met him, after all--but she likes this place (just not the upstairs).

So when a door led her here, she said "Fuck it" and stayed. Currently, she's got a very fine glass of whiskey and is sprawled across the bench in a comfortable booth.

[set a day or so after this]

( lend me a helping hand )

( it's so hard when you're living in the devil's playground )


Last updated: 11/27/08