Tanya loved the needle. She was eighteen years old and looking for oblivion.  There was something about 
the cherry blossom of blood flowing into the clear vial as the plunger pulled back, that excited her. Her 
boyfriend Alex was her first connection.  Alex always found the junk. He knew people. All the wrong 
sorts of people. It never took him long to score. In those early days, the two of them could hold out until 
late in the day. It was almost romantic, the way they shared the ritual of preparing the drug. Setting up the 
works by candlelight. Tanya would sit naked on the kitchen counter, and slide the thin, cold tube of steel 
into her arm. It would make her vomit, that first rush from the hit. It would make her come. She learned 
to associate the two sensations.  Alex liked to watch her convulse. Her thin, pale body shaking with 
repeated spasms of sickness and pleasure. Sometimes she would be overcome, falling to the floor. Her 
black hair would become matted to the sides of her face, her body slick with sweat and vomit. Alex would 
stand over her and masturbate, adding his seed to the viscous fluids on her body as she faded in and out of 
consciousness. The junk bound them together. They were in love. 

She was a fan of Keats and Shelley, a devote of arch prose. She imagined herself as the tragic heroine of 
her own passion play. 

Tanya started collecting tattoos. Her first was an elaborate arabesque. Interlocking lines of crimson and 
black flowing from the base of her spine above the cleft of her buttocks and ending between her shoulder 
blades. It took seven hours to complete. She had to take a break to fix up in the middle of the session. The 
jab of the syringe just one more puncture of her self. After that, she developed a fetish for all kinds of 
needles. She learned how to mark herself up. Her first effort was a simple, double line of  black dots  
marching up the skin of her forearm. When she felt nervous, whenever Alex was late, she would pass the 
time playing connect the dots with safety pins. She kept herself thin. She avoided daylight. 

One night, Alex didn't come home. Tanya waited in the apartment, sitting in the dark. She ran out of pins 
and started to shake. She drank from a bottle of vodka, trying to stay calm. Eventually, she passed out, 
little crimson drops slipping out of her body and staining the fabric of the couch. 

Tanya woke up sometime later, feeling sick, this time from a lack of junk.  She looked out the window. It 
was still nighttime. As far as she was concerned it was always nighttime. She was still alone. She put on 
her favorite coat and left. She never saw Alex again. 

Youth is it's own currency. Tanya knew this with a junkie's insight. She had herself to trade. She walked 
downtown. It didn't take her long to find what she was looking for. She went up to the first hustler she 
saw and showed him her arm. He brought her inside the hallway of a building. She knelt down, opening 
her mouth. He took out his cock, slipping the stale tasting flesh between her lips. She gagged a bit at first, 
then caught a rhythm. The hustler came in a weak spurt, dribbling his come over her tongue and coating 
her lips. It wasn't important. The tiny glassine packet he handed her afterwards was. 

For the next few weeks, Tanya shuttled back and forth between her apartment and the downtown. She 
fucked strangers, letting them do what they wanted with her body. Her mind was retreating to a small 
place inside of herself. At the end of the month she came home to find that her key didn't fit in the door. 
She slept in the hallway. The next day she attached herself to the first man on the street who offered her 
what she needed. He turned her out. She didn't care. 

She shivered on street corners. The other girls didn't like her. She looked sick. She had trouble getting 
work. Her pimp cut her loose when she stopped bringing in enough money. With nowhere to go, she 
walked from block to block. She was grateful when the car pulled up beside her. Tanya got inside. He 
drove her to a quiet place. He held a small vial of clear liquid under her nose. She inhaled, a sharp, 
chemical tang filling her mouth and throat. Something happened to her, like a series of flashes going off 
in front of her eyes. Saliva dripped from her mouth, spooling onto her breasts. Somehow her clothes had 
come off. 
He was licking her neck. His tongue like a cat's, rough and pointed. Her head lolled to the side. His cock 
was out, squishing wetly between his fingers as he worked it in his fist. Something was penetrating her, it 
hurt. She looked down between her legs. There was something metallic protruding from the lips of her 
vagina. He was pushing it into her with his free hand. It went all the way into her. Something loosened 
inside of her, causing a sudden lubrication. Her body shook with a violent orgasm as she simultaneously 
ejected a stream of bile from her mouth. On the seat next to her, the man worked the ice pick into her 
vagina, hardly reacting as she passed out. Her last thought was of how beautiful it was to be penetrated 
this way, by a giant needle.
