000097 #worm Other things happened--like when the witches and I were in the old apartment, going through some things--I think this was right along when the bead turned up--and one of Helena's other neighbors came along. Sun, she called herself. She was either a stripper or a prostitute or both, I honestly don't remember which. She had a threadbare white dress and a voluptuous if slightly tired body. She had blond hair that looked like it remembered being brown. She was making conversation, and the tall witch chided her, or perhaps just teased her, for trying to make conversation. She offered to show us her tattoo, and the tall witch made fun of her a little bit for that somehow, too. I said, yeah, show us the tattoo. So she lifted up her little old dress, and showed us her inner thigh. There was a tattoo on it, all right. I don't even remember what it looked like. But I do remember that inner thigh, looking so--so--tough yet vulnerable, so delectably soft yet weathered that I wanted to stare at it, drink it in with my eyes all day. But I couldn't, of course; she put her dress back over it, and the conversation went on, under the humming thrumming slanting sunrays of Denver. Helena and the witches gently made fun of her more, later, when she was gone, but I have another secret--I really liked her, in fact some part of me loved her and still does and always will.