New black Leather-bound Journal. Locked in top drawer of her office desk at home. Long fluid handwriting, using a black inked fountain pen. Some pages can be seen to be torn out. Some contain pencil sketches or scrawled ideas. Red ribbon keeps mark of current page.

Frailty, thy name is woman

It felt good to watch the old version of you burn. How pathetic those words, how weak I sounded. I read back and do not recognise that person I had become. Corroded by love and sentimentally weak. Now I see how feeble and fragile that emotion makes a person. Look at my mother? That was me. I sold my business. I should have kept it. I got married. I biologically reproduced. I shouldn't have inflicted that on anyone. I almost didn't graduate. I left College and SIK, without a bang. I let lie a lot of old sleeping dogs, I may revisit to get some satisfying closure. Who was I kidding? I wasn't sure if that part was the real me, or this part. What's clear is there cannot be a balance, the truth always comes out in the wash.

Anyway, I rooted out the rot, drowned it with whisky and set fire to the remains. Will they forgive me? Probably not but they're better off without that person.

After the real me emerged, I felt that addictive relief of the steady decline into the void, the fun ride down the spiral slide, as I flew further and further away from my old life. Responsibilities and weakness peeled from me like layers as I approached the bottom, and those beautiful hot flames got rid of the rest, until I was as intended. Raw and naked, I revelled in those depths for a good year, recovering. I grew stronger and here was my old friend to help me out, anger.

At times I could feel Ethan trying to lift me out of that pit, but I resisted, punished him for it and fought back until even he, of ultimate patience gave up. Luckily the children distracted him from trying to save me, because I would have took them down with me. He had to distance himself and them from me, and I let them go, part of me breaking, a weight would take over me if I let it, but a new part emerging to banish the sadness.

Back at home, with the old crew, I was accepted back where I belonged with open arms, only to revisit those old haunts which made me as a teenager. I tried hard to wipe the stubborn memories of Ethan from my mind, using a variety of methods I wouldn't like to reveal, but it took longer to anticipate. Even now I dream about our old house on the beach, the old life. I think he would accept me back, but I don't want to hurt him again. These meagre handful of people I care most about are the people I distance myself from, because they are the ones I am scared to hurt. So I simply don't see them.

After about a year, I felt the pull of Hathian, the place where I had made a small fortune, and which seemed to be fortunate for a person of my abilities. I wasn't sure why but I felt able to mix between the lowest and the highest of society, an actress of the worst kind, I would manipulate the situation to my advantage. So I returned, under the guise, I would be closer to my children. Alright, they had something to do with it, maybe I believe I could change in future, and I want them to remember me.

First thing I did was go to the safe I had installed at the old safe house for Black Orchid girls. Where I would hide them when they first arrived in the crates. The pleasure at finding 5 passports in those depths made me realise I had made the right decision, I might have sold Black Orchid, but I had a ticket back in. I knew one of the girls still worked in Hathian, she had tried to escape the Agency when I went awol, thinking she was safe. Slut had even had the cheek to get herself a little job and shack up with some lowlife, as if she were entitled to the good life. She was my illegal slut, and I wanted to claim her back. She had been my best earner, and now some other fucker was earning from her in more ways than one, after some surveillance.

Did I expect what happened next, to happen? No. Maybe I had rushed things in my excitement. I didn't anticipate him to be a threat. I thought they were weak. He surprised me, thats for sure. I had his card marked as a backstreet lowlife, basking in the glory of his business which I didn't expect made a lot of money, to use one of my sluts, even employ her as some kind of glorified admin.

The fucker will pay, I hate him. I gained a lot of things from my failure. Faint rippled scar tissue. Sensitive eyes. Humiliation was the worst. But I bided my time, I learnt his weaknesses. Its amusing to know that old weakness I was afflicted with, is his biggest flaw. He is in love. I can use that.