Prologue: The Doll:

Once upon a time, in the (depending on where you live) far off land of Brooklyn, New York, a beautiful girl by the name of Roxanne Romano was born. She was conceived by Italian-American parents who loved her most dearly, but unfortunately were unable to display quite the same caliber of affection towards each other. The young, innocent girl was raised in the Little Italy until she was almost at twelve years of age.

However, on one fateful afternoon, Roxanne would make her return from school to find her mother bleeding out on the king-sized bed to the point of completely soaking the sheets - a lead bullet the size of a rigatoni embedded in her bosom. Her father was lying unconscious just beside her, the gun responsible loosely held in his hand, and a few empty rum bottles lying near him and sitting upright on the nightstand. It had obviously been a murder immediately followed by a suicide.

With nowhere else to go, the traumatized Roxanne was relocated to the Crescent City of New Orleans, Louisiana to live with her grandmother. She treated her well and pushed her to get the best education she could possibly obtain, though that all changed on one particular night following her graduation from high school. Her highly Republican, pro-life grandmother had caught wind of an abortion she had received following a reckless bedroom romp at a friend's mixer during the year, prompting her to throw her out of the house into the harsh and dangerous world.

Walking somberly through the wet, stormy streets of the French Quarter, Roxanne was utterly baffled as to how a simple procedure could infuriate her grandmother so heavily. Lonely, depressed, hungry, and completely lost as to what to do or where to go next, all she could think to do was take refuge under the awning of a closed restaurant. Her voyage into the depths of her conscious was abruptly cut short following the forced creaking open of a door from somewhere in the darkness up the street. Roxanne could just barely make out a lanky man as he stormed out of the place, casting a bright patch of light on the cobblestone streets due to the open door.

"I cannot believe I was nearly sucked into all this voodoo bullshit!" The man cursed loudly, tossing a small, light object onto the ground into a nearby puddle and releasing an audible splash, "I'm outta here!"

A balding, middle-aged man with a slightly stockier build stepped out after his customer, pursuing him into the shadows but only with his eyes. A quick flash of lightning allowed Roxanne to confirm his race as black, and make out the words 'Logan Lewis' on his name-tag.

"Hmph! His loss! Least I made a decent fortune off of him!" Logan chuckled with glee, a second flash of lightning revealing a mischievous grin on his face as he flipped through a short stack of bills in his hand, "Eh, but on the downside, it's all soaked! There ain't no way I'm gonna resell this!"

The voodoo master eventually stepped back into his establishment, though Roxanne could've sworn she saw him cast a glance in her direction before he slammed the door shut without a word. Cautiously and curiously, the mentally wounded young woman fast-walked through the blinding rain that lightly stung her with each massive drop, using the sporadic flashes of lightning to find her way to the item's landing site. She finally managed to find the object floating in the puddle and reached for it, but a particularly loud boom of thunder caused her to withdraw her hand for a second. Finally picking the surprisingly soft object up, yet another bolt of lightning illuminated it for her, revealing the item to be a generically designed voodoo doll.

After looking around for a spell, Roxanne brought the doll back to the awning where she had been sitting under - utterly dejected as she squeezed the water out of it and continued to ponder what her next move should be. She had no money, and nothing on her to sell in order to make some.

... Well, except for the doll. But as established earlier, nobody would buy it in its current condition. And besides, it wasn't like all that many people believed in voodoo in the first place (with Roxanne herself as one of many who didn't).

The only thing Roxanne truly possessed as of late was the very body that had carried her through all the years leading up to now.

"Wait a minute! That's it!" Roxanne thought aloud, a boom of thunder preventing anyone who may have been nearby from hearing her epiphany.

It was an in-genius idea for someone in her current situation. She would sell her body to lust-driven male sinners in exchange for finances. After all, it wasn't as if she hadn't already done so a good month ago. It would be a plan to carry out for however long she needed to carry it out.

Even with her plan ready to be enacted, however, Roxanne was simply in too gloomy of a mood to enact it right away, due to pre-existing circumstances. Hanging her head, her eyes trembled and before she knew it, they began to leak as profusely as the ebony clouds overhead. Breathing irregularly and sniffling ever so quietly, she clenched her new voodoo doll to her chest and cried for as long as she felt the need to, not noticing any repercussions of manipulating this doll within her peripheral vision.

And oddly enough, that very doll was somehow beginning to provide her with a strong illusion of personal security.


A/N: So there's the prologue for you! Now since prostitution does play a role in the story, you can definitely expect sexual content to be present. None of it is overly graphic or raunchy, but I know not everyone's comfortable with it. If you're okay with scenes like that, then aprez vous! But if not, then you'd best stop here!