"We both just stood there, staring out at the ocean in silence. It wasstrange to realize that this was the longest conversation that I'd everhad with...Alice, and the longest I'd heard her talk without threatening,lecturing or trying to boss someone around. At the moment she almostseemed like a normal human being.Finally Alice turned to leave without saying good-bye, pausing just longenough to say, "I almost forgot. Dan collapsed and had to be taken tobed too." Three down," I whispered once. Cathy LOVED the private bathroom!My problems with the pimps weren't over. Mickens and Daddy Horse disappearing put me near the top of the street ladder, but there had been no witnesses to what happened. My girls weren't going talk either! Hannah bought a clue something strange was going on, but she liked her place as number four so if I said 'boo' she would have jumped and looked at Adriana for permission to come down.Things had always been ugly for the streetwalkers in my neighborhood, but the. " No. I still want to be friends." You fucking bitch." I felt bad saying it. I hoped it would hurt her even more.She placed her hand on my knee and pushed it down. I struggled, but let it drop. She moved and covered the distance between us. Her lips searched out mine. When she found them, she took them into her mouth hard and desperate. I knew she still loved me.I turned my face away. "Don't you have any self respect?" I asked."What?" she said. "I don't know what to say." You can say, I'm a. If she screwed up... the cost to Ted would be unthinkable.Ted's Mom and Dad had always wanted two children. A boy for his Father and a girl for his Mother. His Dad had gotten his son, but complications during the delivery insured that no girl would ever be forthcoming from their union. His Father had talked adoption, but to his Mother it just wouldn't be the same. She wanted her own daughter. She had never complained, but Ted could tell. She always called him Teddy, making it sound more like.