Read Online Iona Portal by Robert David MacNeil - Free Book Online

She was naked, and the tangle of unwashed walnut-brown hair tumbling down her back did little to conceal the protruding ribs of her gaunt body.  Her pale, emaciated limbs—marred by overlapping bruises and streaked with grime—gave her the ghostly appearance of a death-camp survivor. 
    Tears still trickled down Sylvia’s cheeks, but her concentration was fixed on the familiar ritual before her.  Opening the crumpled, brown paper bag she kept beside the mattress, her trembling fingers carefully removed its contents, placing each item on the floor between her feet.  Beside the packet of white powder bequeathed by her latest visitor, she placed a blood-smeared syringe and needle, a spoon with a bent handle, a cigarette lighter, a half-empty plastic bottle of water, a wad of cotton, and a length of electrical cord.
    As she set the items neatly in place, the voice in her mind began to speak again.  The voice had been speaking to her off and on for several days, growing more and more insistent… warning her, telling her to get away.   She knew it had something to do with the dream.
    The last few nights Sylvia had had the same dream.  A nightmare.  In the dream something terrible was happening to her.  She was being ripped apart.  There was blood and smoke and fire and death.  People were crying in pain.  All around her little children lay on the ground screaming… and dying.  The dream made no sense to her, but she knew what it meant.  She knew if she didn’t escape, she was going to die. 
    She emptied the packet of white powder into the spoon.  With the syringe she drew water from the plastic bottle, and carefully squirted it into the spoon around the heroin.
    The voice in her head was speaking more urgently now:  Get up, Sylvia.   Run.  You must get away… now!
    But an escape attempt would take so much effort.  Her body hurt all over.  The pain was constant now.  And they would beat her again.  And besides, it just didn’t matter.   Hardly anything mattered anymore.
    Sylvia had just been raped, and even that didn’t matter.  Over the past six months she’d grown used to that.  The only thing that mattered was that she’d been paid.
    That was an unwritten rule in the house.  They called Sylvia the freak … the freak in the back room.  She was there for anyone to use, at any time.  But when they used her, she had to be paid.  And they paid her in the only currency that mattered … heroin.  She needed heroin at least four times a day.
    She flicked the lighter a few times and held the flame under the spoon, steadying her trembling hand against her knee.
    Waiting for the mixture to boil, Sylvia looked down at her body.  She hardly recognized herself.  She’d always been proud of her body.  She had liked the way people looked at her.  Her senior year in high school some friends talked her into entering a beauty pageant, and she’d won second place.  But she never really wanted to be a beauty queen.  Her dream was to be a teacher.  She loved kids.
     And she’d been smart.  She graduated from high school near the top of her class and was accepted at NYU.  Her first two years in college she studied hard and earned a 3.5 average… but her third year she met Botis.
    She was at a party at a friend’s apartment when Botis tapped her on the shoulder.  That night she smoked her first joint with him.  “Come on, Syl,” he smiled, “You’ll like it!”
    After that she saw Botis more and more frequently.  They would sit and talk for hours, and he always brought drugs, all kinds of drugs.  She hadn’t known there were so many.  Over the next few months a whole new world opened up to her.  And she thought she was in love.
    Botis was unlike anyone she’d ever met.  He seemed young, almost a teenager, but he assured her that he was much older than he looked.  He was dark and mysterious, and always wore black.  And he was brilliant… he seemed to know everything.   His