Excerpt: My Chicago Valentine

January 9, 1924

The week was long. The week was busy. The week was a disaster. The very first day I spent sleeping with women, well more like Molly, and unpacking. All I brought with me was clothes so it wasn’t much but still stressful. Molly let me be after that night, which was how I liked it. The rest of the week I spent up front with Felina learning the ropes. I had to learn how to reel in costumers, encage in conversation, and eventually sex. I mainly watched Felina do it, she was the best here. Other girls got their fare share of men but Felina had her pick. I remember asking her on my third day,
“How do you do it?” She watched the bartender pour a drink before she answered.
“I don’t know—” she turned and looked at me— “I like to think it isn’t me doing it,” she paused once more and fell into thought. After a minute she began talking again, “My real name is Charlotte. Felina was the name Molly gave me. It means cat-like or something. She said it would make men curious. Wonder what I was all about. I laughed at first, but after a whole week of going by Charlotte and getting 3 costumers I quickly changed my name. And I quickly found out she was right. So It’s not me out there, flirting with men, telling them they are amazing, letting them hear what their wives refuse to tell them. It’s Felina. Charlotte, the real me, would never have the guts to do what Felina does. You HAVE to become a different person. You NEED to become a good liar.—” by now her eyes were drifting along the room taking in the scene. She looked back at me, grabbing my face in between her thumb and fingers— “ If you don’t they will eat you alive. They will tear you apart, and Molly will fire you faster then you can say ‘Butt me’. This isn’t wonderland, E. And it will serve you well if you don’t forget it.”
I haven’t forgotten that. It was the best advice I’d ever gotten.

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[I am madly in love with this speech that Cameron gives Electra (my MC) so I thought I would share. haha]

“Just because your life isn’t the way you want it to be, doesn’t mean you have to be such a bitch. I know how you work, Electra. Your whole life is a lie. But you’re a great actress, and great actresses never falter during a scene. But I see right past you. I see everything you’re made of. You’re not happy—” he turned all the way around and took a step back into my room— “and actually I would bet everything that you wish you would have went back home with Seth. You’re falling in love with Harvey, because you think that’s what girls your age are supposed to do. You ran away from home because Seth told you to go. But he never said where, did he? So you just kept running. Just like you are now. Maybe not so literally, but your hiding in Harvey. He cares for you but do you care for him? Or is he just your only way out? So tell me E, when are you going to start living your life and stop living theirs?”