The Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Infant

Alicia is twenty and was born with a withered hand. Her mother abused drugs when she was in the womb and her fingers never developed. Her left hand is a stub with tiny baby fingers that look like toes. Her mother continued to abuse drugs throughout Alicia's life. She was raised by her grandmother and her parents divorced when she was young. She grew up homely and neglected. Her father cleaned up and started a new family. She has two younger half-brothers, whom she adores. Phillip and Ethan are eight now. They live across town, in St. Johns.

When Alicia was in her teens she started to blossom and grew a figure. She was petite with long dark hair and brown eyes. Still self-conscious about the deformed hand she hid it in long sleeves or behind her hip. Young children can be cruel. The brutal teasing will ring in her ears and night thoughts forever.

But one sweet, kind boy noticed her. She was fourteen when they fell in love. He liked her quiet way and vulnerability, and his eyes lighted on her budding figure. She wasn't homely anymore. Someone liked her. He was a good-looking boy and he smelled nice. Not good in school. An outcast like her, a boy from the neighborhood, but he was a hard worker. He got a job at a smoothie shop and hustled. They promoted him to assistant manager. Then he got a new job, a better one, waiting tables in a nice Italian restaurant. The customers liked him. He was polite and quick and had good people skills. He smelled nice and had a knack for sensing what people needed, how they wanted to be spoken to. The street smarts and basic intelligence and natural charm made him a crackjack waiter. He found he could make $35,000-$40,000 a year, most of it under the table. David and Alicia moved in together. They were nineteen now and the world was perfect. He was the only boy she had ever slept with, the first time under blankets on his mother's living room floor.

Alicia hadn't had the best upbringing, with her mother in and out of prison and her grandmother just overwhelmed trying to hold down a job and keep her raised. Alicia had trouble reading and writing and dropped out of school. The peer pressure and contemptuous looks made that an easy decision. As much as she loved David, who'd lifted her out of loneliness and the hard life of waiting for her mom to make parole, a part of her thirsted for bling and excitement and something more. They bickered and sniped at each other. She chafed under his expectations. He nagged her because she didn't keep house like his mom.

Her friends were other girls like her, dropouts and disaffected, a little ghetto in their outlook. They all wanted bling and excitement and attention. They discovered as young women budding into women, young women without careers or families or education, they had one power in life and one asset: their sexuality. One of the friends started dancing in a club. The City of Portland has more strip clubs per capita than any city in the country, and when you add in the lotion studios and adult shops and glossy magazines offering the true girlfriend experience, it is a thriving cesspool of distorted desire and easy money. The lure of easy money, it has a very strong appeal.

Alicia tried out at a juice bar and started dancing four nights a week. She bought some lucite five-inch high heels and a stripper pole for her bedroom, to practice her moves. One night she took home $750 in cash. She spread the bills out on the living room floor in a pile and sorted them. Her only other job had been a couple of years ago at Twenty Below, for minimum wage. This was the most money she had ever had in her hands at one time. The next night she made five hundred.

Everything was cool, except everything changed. She got her hair frosted and bought herself new braces. She'd always been self-conscious about her teeth, her weak chin. It was exhilarating to have the admiring eyes on her. It was exhilarating to be able to shut down the creeps with one withering glance, knowing the bouncer and the bodyguard had her back. She was the queen in this new world, the star.

At home though the strain colored everything. David struggled to deal with her new independence, the thought of those other men looking at her, the thought of the temptations and distractions that came with that kind of money and that lifestyle. They both had dabbled in drugs throughout their disaffected lives, weed and a few pain pills, but the other girls liked to party, and party hard, and they had the money to do it and they didn't have to go to work until 8 p.m.

And then Alicia found out she was pregnant.

They hadn't planned it but part of her had always wanted to have a baby with David. Once before when she was sixteen they'd gotten an abortion, but this time it felt right. At least mostly right. They were fighting a lot now, over the dancing and money and housework and his video games and what time he or she got home. Maybe a baby would make things better.

She took a break from dancing and had the baby. It was a healthy pregnancy and they had a beautiful baby girl. She nursed and the baby thrived. David was a wonderful, attentive father. Her adored his daughter, would hold her and kiss her soft cheek and talk to her in a soothing whisper.

Alicia lost the baby weight quickly, thanks to nursing and working out on the pole at home. They moved into a nicer apartment and got the baby some new things. When Merrylin was four months she went back to work, this time at Starz Caberet, an exclusive gentlemen's club on the Westside of town, in the suburbs just off I-5.

Two months went by. More piles of cash. More late nights and unwashed plates on the living room floor. The diaper pail overflowed. David's mom came over to visit and he was frantic with embarrassment. He lit into Alicia when she left, another loud and bitter fight. The baby cried for 45 minutes when she left for work. Merrylin wanted to nurse and was inconsolable. She cried herself to sleep, exhausted and screaming. When she woke up it was a little better and she ate a jar of baby food, the squash, her favorite.

Nobody knows what happens now. It's easy to be sucked in to the "glamour," the attention, the lifestyle. The new found imbalance of power at home changes everything. Now every argument is full of unstated hurt, and the temptation is great to tune it out or just escape it for a while. Every night she gets invitations, come-ons, offers, pitches, flattery and promises, and another pile of money. Women in the sex industry grow old quickly. There are a thousand ways to fall off the track or into the abyss. It's possible to have a healthy post-modern relationship with that environment and that milleu, but Alicia hasn't had the best start in life. She doesn't have the best emotional and spiritual resources for the decisions she's making, for the situations she finds herself in.

Merrylin needs her. She wants to nurse. Alicia has a little family at home, falling apart in the saddest possible way.