I took the elevator to the fourth-floor chambers. Since I’d left, it had become dirty and poorly maintained, with bits of litter and dirt on the floor and fingerprints on the controls. It was obvious that some of the girls—freed from restrictions—had been living in the luxurious quarters. Several of the lights were out, and the hallway door hesitated to open until I coaxed it with my hands. The room I’d occupied on the night of my escape was sloppily prepared, with the bed covers thrown on the mattress carelessly and the closet floor covered with rumbled uniforms of all kinds, some of them ripped and reassembled into patchwork compositions—sleeves and bodices connected in unorthodox ways. Undressing, I put on a pink lingerie set that seemed somewhat clean, dumping the dirty clothes from th
