Cheating Life (short story, speculative, NSFW)

[Wraygun]

I'd love to know what you think of this story - it's the pride of my
short story collection, and I think it's probably closest to where I'd
like my style to stay. In particular, I'm curious if the longer,
expositional opening is off-putting or interesting.

Caveats: The story runs novella length (about 55 printed pages), and
contains some adult-oriented scenes (its primary setting is a brothel,
and there is a touch of gory violence near the end). Also, stray from
the below link at your peril. This story is posted at my erotica/
horror blog, so you can expect anyplace else you go to be even more
NSFW (in a texty format - there are few illustrations).

Cheating Life: http://lilsveyl.wordpress.com/2007/07/15/cheating-life-r-i1/