Tipping her head Jack gazed with heavily lidded eyes at the man who shared her bed. Pulling the stained sheet from around her painfully thin body she reached over the man's prone form to a pack of Players cigarettes on the bedside table. She sat back playing the smoke through her lips, relishing the acrid burn in her lungs. Tossing the soiled bedding aside she crossed the room to stare at the dim city lights through the open patio door. She smoked her cigarette to the filter and lit another. Stepping onto the patio she let the cool salt breeze bathe the man's smell from her body. Unashamed of her naked state she lounged on a cheap plastic patio chair. She was startled out of her reverie by the sound of the big man snorting in his sleep. Relinquishing her perch on the patio and reentered the room. She stepped gingerly across the filth-encrusted carpet and retrieved the man's wallet from the bedside table. She removed two worn one hundred credit notes and replaced the wallet. The man woke suddenly and grasped her wrist.

"Where do you think you're going" he grunted, his voice thick and his breath rank with bourbon.

"I'm leaving" she retorted yanking her wrist from his meaty hand, "I've taken the liberty of removing what you owe me from your wallet" she flashed the notes in front of his face though he took no notice.

Rolling over with a throaty belch the man took no more notice of her as she left his bedside and dressed in the flimsy garments she'd came in. She adjusted her transparent top over her newly augmented breasts and righted her skirt on her boyish hips. She fingered the scars that ran just in the fold where her breasts hung on her chest. At her ribs clearly defined under pale, sickly skin.

Riddick....

His image at once came to mind as she stared down at her emaciated form. He'd seen through her disguise. He'd been the first one to notice anything about her body even if it was only to mention that she might attract the attention of the planet's starving creatures.

Riddick...

She'd been in awe of him since the first time she'd seen him; chained like an animal in the cargo bay. She'd taken him in, absorbed his presence. She'd drank in his movements. Studied every motion, every contraction of his body. Studied the curve of his muscles, the texture of his skin. Played in her mind in the shadows in his eyes. Even before the fateful night many years later when he'd finally taken her to his bed, she'd mapped his body in her mind. She knew exactly how he would feel. She knew the stubble of his head; the short curls on his chest. The scars on his back, wrists and legs. Tracing them in her mind before tracing them with her fingers. She'd loved him from that first moment, loved him so strongly, so fiercely. And he'd betrayed her. She'd awoken one morning to find him gone. She'd sat on the bed and stared at the room that they had shared, one that was now void of his presence. He'd taken his things and stole away in the night leaving Jack with nothing more than his memory on the sheets in her loins and in her soul. He'd made her ugly, ugly like him when he'd abandoned her. He'd created a monster then, one that began to consume her.

Jack grabbed her purse and jacket and left the room with one last look at the man on the bed. He lay with his back towards her now and in the dim light his broad shoulders and closely cropped hair might have passed for the lover she'd once knew. Her tastes were discriminating now; she only fucked men that looked like Riddick. At first it hadn't mattered. She'd saved enough to augment her body, and buy a cheap place to stay, one that didn't still smell like Riddick. At first she'd fuck anyone who could afford to and some that couldn't. But soon they became men with caramel skin that warmed in dim bedroom light. Men with scars. Men with short stubble that tingled under her palm. Men whose broad shoulders and powerful forms threatened to crush her in the throws of passion. She only loved men she could abandon in the morning. And she only loved for money.

Jack welcomed the cold of the street and the darkness that enveloped her. She welcomed the grit beneath her feet and the rank stench of the alleyways where she found them. The ones that would take her for the evening and make her theirs. Men that wouldn't care if she called out another's name and beat on their chests and backs with her ineffectual fists cursing a man they did not know. Their faces blended together in her mind. His face was little more than a blur now among the rest. So many faces. So many men who resembled a man she'd come to love and to hate.

"Jack?" the voice echoed for a moment before hitting home. She lifted her eyes to the man who stood before her, "you free tonight Jack?" She nodded and tucked her arm in the crook of his elbow. He wasn't Riddick, but she could pretend and tonight he was taking her home.

"Outside"
by Staind

From the album Break the Cycle.


And you
Bring me to my knees
Again
All the times
That I could beg you please
In vain
All the times
That I felt insecure
For you
But I leave
My burdens at the door

But I'm on the outside
And I'm looking in
I can see through you
See your true colors
'Cause inside your ugly
Your ugly like me
I can see through you
See to the real you

All the times
That I felt like this won't end
Was for you
And I taste
What I could never have
It's from you
All the times
That I've tried
My intentions
Full of pride
But I waste
More time than anyone

But I'm on the outside
And I'm looking in
I can see through you
See your true colors
'Cause inside your ugly
Your ugly like me
I can see through you
See to the real you

All the times
That I've cried
All this wasted
It's all inside
And I feel
All this pain
Stuffed it down
It's back again
And I lie
Here in bed
All alone
I can't mend
But I feel
Tomorrow will be OK

But I'm on the outside
And I'm looking in
I can see through you
See your true colors
'Cause inside your ugly
Your ugly like me
I can see through you
See to the real you