Molly O'Malley sat with her back slumped awkwardly against a dumpster in an alleyway, not more than three blocks from the club.

She knew in her heroin-induced fog that she was extremely late for work. She knew there would be hell to pay from her boss and the other girls. But at that exact moment, invading another vein with her sweet and loving tar was the primary thought.

Her boyfriend and fellow addict Dustin had met her as she was just leaving from her ragged little hovel off of St. Ann street. She was lucky to have even that to call home, and she knew it.

It was hardly more than an ugly, weathered, grey and baby shit yellow shed. In fact, it was a shed. The owner had simply renovated it into a studio. The roaches were nearly as large as she was. The little bathroom was a tiny shower and toilet that came out of a camper and Pete, her landlord/ trick, had rigged it up in one corner with a curtain to cover it for a generic sense of privacy.

Other than her nifty little potty room, the entirety of the room was a lumpy full-size bed, a scratched up dresser with a drawer front hanging loose and haphazardly from one corner. A mirror was leaning up against the back, an ugly ragged crack running diagonally from corner to corner like a horrendous scar. It was the sad victim of a temper tantrum Dustin had one day during withdrawal and threw a heavy ashtray toward Molly. Luckily she ducked out of the way, or it most likely would have brained her to death!

But it was home, that she supposed. Even with Dustin's occasional fits and taking the four-hundred-dollar a month rent out in a trade with hairy Pete, as she called him. He had more hair on his back than most animals she'd encountered. He was disgusting. But for two half-hour sessions each month, she could and would stomach it.

To try and put a little of her own touch into it, she strung golden fairy lights all about and tons of Mardi Gras beads and shiny, feathered masks covered the walls and other spaces. An ugly, overturned milk crate was her bedside table, upon which sat an orange lava lamp and her cheap ashtray. A plastic one after her too close to a near-death experience with the last one.

A mini-fridge and microwave sat on a shelf that Pete had built from the edge of the curtain hiding the miniature bathroom to the wall near the door. A second shelf was built above. Molly assumed for food and dishes and such things. She found it to be much better at holding her works and drugs. She kept a white cardboard box upside down over her most prized and loved possession. No roach droppings allowed there!

Without it- she wasn't sure life would be worth living. Dustin was good looking, but not the greatest guy around. But the addiction had her so jumbled up, making good choices seemed like climbing Mt. Everest.

So she dealt. Sometimes he brought the stuff making it easier to put up with. But when he was jonesing for some heroin, he was like to a demon spawn possessed. Roaring like a dragon with rabies, he would drive her out to turn a trick or dance for their fix. Then she was his Sweet baby again.

She felt angry at times because why couldn't he sell his griping ass once in a while? Always her, simply because she was a female. The fucking asshat! But once she had the dope in hand, her anger tended to subside. For Molly was about to become comfortably numb. About to go back to the closest thing to floating in her mother's womb once again, safe and warm.

So when Dustin gave her a kiss, barely able to find her lips as his eyes hung at half-mast in the opiate nod in which he was held hostage, she didn't care.

  Or as he left her on Bourbon street without a word, to turn into an open door of another club to the call of one his worthless buddies, she still cared not.

What he did, he did. What Molly did, she did. It was really quite simple. They were together as fellow junkies, there wasn't room for lovey-dovey romance.
One might wonder why they bothered to stay in any kind of relationship at all. And it would be a good question. Neither one had a good answer, because they simply didn't know. It was just another habit. An addiction between two individuals that were already caught up in multiple addictions. And like their other habits, regardless of how awfully self-destructive the relationship dynamic was, it was part of who they had become. Molly and Dustin, Dustin and Molly. Like a beat-up pair of shoes. One was the other side of the other. No matter that he was abusive and treated her terribly. Or that he was unfaithful and downright cruel about it. Molly felt like she didn't deserve any better. She was a stripper
and a whore for the very dope that went into their veins. So she didn't show off the other guys. It was was a source of shame for Molly, therefore she took the abuse believing she was not worth better.

And all it took was another fix to mask the pain it all left in her guts and heart. She knew she was fully wrong, fucking Lucky over right now as she sat on the dirty, grungy and downright filthy alleyway. She had decided to do up a bit more to make it easier to face Gel and Lucky and the jerk who owned the place if he was there. She was pretty sure that she wouldn't get fired because she was well received by the clientele and had a special reputation for her look and skill. Any of the places down here would employ her gladly. Addiction is damned!

Everyone claimed that she looked like an older (but barely, to be honest) version of Claudia, the little girl from the movie "Interview with a Vampire" with her tiny little frame and mass of curls. And boy, she could work the pole something fierce! But to Molly, the fact that her reputation was built on a likeness to a child, proved her point that men were deep down fucked up perverts. She would give them the fact that she did resemble Kirsten Dunst. Enough so, that people would react even when she was far from the club scene.
But obviously the Kirsten Dunst of the Spiderman days, not the child from Interview with a Vampire day. And that was the one that guys came to see.

  Each dancer was to have three "Personas" that they used for performances. Molly had the sixties look, with a hot pink micro-mini button-up dress and silvery thigh-high boots with six-inch platforms. She called it her Twiggy with a wig Persona. Beneath the tiny dress, she wore a hot pink lace cover-up that came open with the untying of one thick gold ribbon. In which she would drop to the floor, leaving nothing but a hot pink lacy thong. Her second Persona was "Tiny Dancer" with the infamous song playing. It was her hardest routine, for she actually did the real professional dance. She would be dressed in a royal blue ballet outfit with silver stars. Her thick, curly mane would be French braided and she would do a combination of ballet and modern dance mixed with the pole. The outfit was designed for easy removal. Whereas she simply had to unsnap the ballet tutu and fling it aside. She then appeared to be encased in a leotard and tights, but looks could be deceiving. For a zipper ran from the left wrist where she could unzip up her arm, then crossways across and down, making it sultry yet easily removable. She'd then be left with sparkly silver tights that went high onto the thigh and were crotchless. After a bit more dance and pole action, a quick unsnap of each side of the tights left her in a thin silver strip of sequins across her tiny hips and another strip between her legs. It was a mesmerising performance. But for reasons she wasn't comfortable with it was her "Claudia" performance that she was renown for all throughout the New Orleans club scene.

Dressed in a ruffled nineteenth-century white dress with white panties with the lace on the bottom that little girls wear. Pink ribbons decorating the bodice of the dress and panties. Her hair done in perfect ringlets, her mouth uncomfortable with the fake vampire teeth she had to tolerate. She felt more like Shirley Temple than anyone or anything remotely sexy. Trying to dance the stripper pole in pink-flowered tights and white patent leather shoes. But as ridiculous as it all seemed to Molly, people loved it! The only upside was she didn't have to get nude in the act. She would remove the dress and that was all. Money was stuffed in handfuls down the stupid panties, so Molly put up with the travesty as she called it.

Gads, she hated that part. She crossed her legs Indian style, the heat mixing with garbage in trash bins behind businesses. A stray cat with black and white markings leapt out of one, startling her. She giggled as she realised it held the remnants of what appeared to be a nice piece of a po-boy sandwich.

"I feel you their poor boy. I need some of that there po-boy myself, big guy! Guess I will just have to settle for this here goody bag, eh fella?"

Molly locked her pale green eyes with the tom cat's golden eyes, as he appeared to appraise her intent. He seemed to decide she wasn't a threat and once again  commenced to finish eating his find and ignored her altogether. And Molly too returned the favour, going back to preparing her shot. Into the spoon went a chunk of tar about the size of a pencil eraser. She added some water from her bottle, heated the bottom of the spoon until the concoction sizzled slightly and melted together. She was getting antsy, her body and brain in tandem with desire for the glory in that spoon. A piece of cotton went in next, into which the needle sank once she carelessly flicked the cap off. Pulling the heroin up into the syringe, her need to be amplified watching the brown liquid fill it up. She held the syringe between her teeth as she felt for a solid vein. Deciding on her left arm's underside, she didn't hesitate to sink the tip of the needle into the chosen spot. She pulled back the plunger a bit and YES! The lovely blossom of red blood came back in a beautiful flash. She was in. Now the drug was pushed into the waiting vein.

There were no words to describe the ecstatic feeling that overtook her body and mind. Her very soul! It was indescribably delicious. Utopia, Euphoria, Bliss, Nirvana, Heaven or anything perfect. That was the place she now inhabited. She had pulled the needle out and it rolled several inches to her side as her head sunk forward in a lovely nod. After several minutes of floating in the foggy land of nod, all thoughts of working drifted far away. She now inhabited a new realm. She could hear the sounds of her glorious new domain, but her eyes were too heavy to open. Molly just drifted, and she felt the now blissfully fed kitty crawl into her lap. She sunk a hand gently into its warm silly fur and it began a soothing rumbling purr. They both occupied the special land of nod.