"Then the answer is no," I said. "Jen listen to me hon. Nobody is going to buy a home of any kind in a site with abandoned houses everywhere. If I do ...his I would have to commit to enough houses to have a decent looking neighborhood. If I develop all of them, there is still going to be an abandoned cotton mill in the middle of it."Okay what if I told you the cotton mill is going to be bought by the state?" she said."That might make some difference, but not enough to tip the scale." I said "What. “We should test it out to make sure it keeps working. Have you done the chemicals?”“Oh yeah. I put those in a long time ago. Almost two hours now,” Bill looked at his watch.“Perfect,” Erica said. “You finish your beer, and I’ll go get changed.”“I don’t have a suit,” Bill complained to Erica’s retreating back. Too late, she was already in the house.Bill was almost finished his beer when Erica reappeared carrying another tall one for him and a highball for herself. Erica could feel his. Before me was a naked woman. I had only seen her once or twice but I recognized her as one half of the new couple. Her hands were tied together over her head and attached to a big eye-bolt in the ceiling. There was no slack in the rope at all. She was straddling a tall sawhorse. Her feet could not reach the floor even with the help of the weights strapped to her ankles. Her crotch had formed to the shape of the two by four that it rested on.As I approached her I asked who had done that to her. She wanted Aswani to take on all three men at the same time while everyone watched. She became verbally abusive to Tuan and his whole family when he refused to participate.Judith tried to calm Constance by telling her, "Honey, you just can't keep treating people like this." Why not!" Constance shouted. "Who's going to stop me? One of these sniveling men? That wimp Nguyen? You? I can do what I want, when I want, to whomever I want!" With that outburst she slapped Judith and stormed out of the.