Joyce's memories of running away from home were vague. She remembered running like hell with her father and mother following, but she was not really sure how it happened. Sometimes she thought it was on a snowy day, sometimes she thought she had swam in the ocean to get away, sometimes she thought both were true and sometimes she thought she had just walked out in the middle of the night while everybody else was asleep.

She really missed her analyst when she started thinking about those things. He'd probably help her find out in her messy mind what really happened. Maybe she'd be hypnotised. It would not have been the first time. Her mother used to say she got addicted to hypnosis and that was what ruined her brains so she could not remember things straight. Mother never accepted advances in the study of the human mind like hypnosis, and mother never accepted that it was not hypnosis what her daughter had been addicted to.

Anyway, that was all past now and no good being thought about. But as she stared out the window onto the high wall that was the only view she could get at that window, she had nothing else to think about. Staring at that wall somehow was like hypnotising herself. Think of a blank screen. She didn't have to think of it. So she stared and stared at the wall that was no more than three feet away from her for long hours, and just thought of everything and nothing.

She didn't exactly remember it, but looking at the size of her belly now she could assume the reason she left home was that the family would never accept her pregnancy. She wondered what the hell happened to Brian. She wondered what the hell happened to herself running away from all she knew, to a place she could never meet him again, just to avoid a family problem.

That was all past. No more beautiful home with mom and dad and little sister Anna, no more butler or chauffeur, no more analyst, no more Brian. She lived in another world now. There was only this house, this weird house with no furniture and all these people living in it. She thought only women and girls lived there. Sometimes she saw a man, but he could very well have just slept with someone that night. Joyce did not really know the people in the house, she did not know who lived there and who just visited very often.

She thought they were all hookers, but she couldn't be sure. She knew she was not. She knew there were all these parties, almost everyday, she heard music and people laughing, but she never went to the parties. She really didn't know the people there. Mostly they were girls her age. There was one older and very fat lady who Joyce thought was the owner of the house. She had never talked to the fat one. She never talked to anyone: She just got inside the house at the beach, went on living there. Nobody seemed to notice her or at least care about her. She just lived there. And she had no idea as to why there was no furniture.

The only friend she had made there was Pamela. She was the typical bad girl. In her life Joyce had done all the bad girl things, but deep inside her she felt like the rich little princess. She just did not want to show that. Pamela was another thing. What she let on was what she was, and sometimes - most of the time - Joyce wished she could just be like her. It was to be like her that she had done all things she had. Pamela was like an idol to Joyce since she got in that house.

Pamela also didn't understand what went on there, had also arrived out of the blue, and as no one seemed to complain her being there, she stayed. She picked a man or other some times during those parties, but she was not a hooker, at least she claimed not to be. Joyce was not sure if she should believe her. But so what if she was? The only reason Joyce wasn't one herself was because of the baby on the way. Pamela told her several times some men found in exciting to have sex with pregnant women, but Joyce just didn't agree with that. Somehow it just seemed wrong.

Pamela had a child herself, the little girl was about six years old, but Pamela had never even bothered to choose a name for her. She was a happy and smart child, she was always laughing even living in a place like that - she looked like the most normal child in the world. She was very thin and white and had short black hair. Joyce played a lot with the girl and she told her she should let her hair grow, it was good hair and would look beautiful. But the child said she would then look like a religious fanatic. Joyce would just find it funny and forget about the subject. She was such a great child, but the mother just couldn't stand her.

Joyce loved the child, and she could not feel bad when Pamela told her how angry and nervous the girl made her. She said she even liked children, that was why she had one and would have more, but just that one - she said she was just not right. Pamela proposed to Joyce for them to change their daughters once Joyce's were born (and Pamela was so sure it would be a girl.) Joyce found that to be a really strange and wrong idea, but she gave it good thought so much Pamela talked about it. It might be a good thing, after all. With a baby you never know what his personality is going to be like, if you'll get along well, but the nameless child - in the few weeks Joyce had known her she had been more of a mother to her than Pamela had ever been.