With that, she got to her feet, pushed by me, and ran upstairs. Of course, I ran after her, but was stopped in my tracks by her bedroom door slamming ...n my face. From behind it, I could hear her sobs. “Go away, leave me alone,” she cried. “What the hell is going on with you two,” came a voice over my shoulder. It was my father. “You don’t usually fight like this. I’m disappointed in the both of you.” Much to my annoyance, he had decided to take the next three weeks as a vacation from work. He. His voice is so hushed now he almost whispers: "Best if you kneel for me, princess."She does as he says, slides her bum from off the bed and kneels before him, her coat still draped heavy about her shoulders. She cannot bear to look, shuts her eyes as tight as she can. The sound of his trouser zipper gives her focus, a thing she has struggled to achieve since arriving here. Something brushes her lips, and then to the side, over her cheek and the clean edge of her jaw, to her chin. She knows it. I like making the old people laugh. It’s a good thing.’ ‘Violet is a lucky woman,’ Marilyn said. ‘She says so. I think she’s full of shit, myself, but then I always have. Even when she was a charge nurse busting my ass for juggling coffee cups in the dining room, she was full of shit then. I saw her at leather night over at the Egyptian Room, and she bought me a beer. I think it was a Mea Culpa of some sort,’ Trinity put her hand on Marilyn’s Cadillac. ‘I was sort of embarrassed, but I was. When it was finished, I almost deleted it and started over because it is so far off the beaten path (I just could not hit ‘Empty’ on the recycle bin for some reason). I have no doubt that the second version would have felt fake and contrived and I thought I owed you, my reader (as well as Sara and Rachel), more than that. So I have decided to post Chapter 9, as is, with all its warts showing. Another interesting development is the lack of sexual content in this chapter and I wonder if that.