Queenpin

Because she was solid gold, fourteen-carat, barely burnished despite twenty years of hard molling. But beneath it, I knew, beneath that gold and stardust, she was all grit and sharp teeth gnashing, head twisting, talons out, tearing flesh. She was all open mouth, tunneling into an awful nothing.

You have to decide who you are, little girl, she told me once. Once you know that, everyone else will too.

If you didn't feel it on your body long after he'd left, was it really worth laying for him? I wanted to feel that.

time to put on your miner's hat and headed toward the bright light.

Then I thought maybe she did know but didn’t want to look at it. Maybe she did know but there’s all kinds of lies you tell yourself when you want to.