Cono’s Cigar Box

Posted on December 8, 2016 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

“A cigar box alone may have no meaning, but the Treasures inside tell a story.”

I go to bed real happy. It had been a real good honest day’s work. We’d sold three dollars and twenty cents worth of those little seed packets and after tomorrow’s sell day I know I’m just one step closer to having me a brand new geetar.

I wrap my money in a dish towel and stuff, tie it up with a string and put it in my box of specials hidden under my bed. Nothing like an honest day’s work to make a feller wore out. I put my head on my pillow and go straight to sleep, out like Lottie’s eye.

The first thing I do next morning after waking up is pull out my cigar box. My other specials are in there; my Devils Claw, toothbrush, Tiger, my pocket knife, my piece of boxing glove lace, my penny from Uncle Will. But my dishtowel of money isn’t there. I leave my room and find Aunt Nolie sitting at the kitchen table eating a biscuit.

“It’s gone!” I say.

“What’s gone, Cono?”

“All my money’s gone. It ain’t where I put it!”

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper

“Fanatics” Against Prostitution!

Posted on December 7, 2016 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

Greta, one of Sadie’s fellow prostitutes at the bordello, tries to comfort her after they learn members of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union are coming to town to Protest against vice. (From The Last Bordello)

Greta put an arm around Sadie. “I love you truly, truly, dear,” she sang.

“Stop it!” Sadie unclenched her fists long enough to wallop her palms on the table. “Your piping doesn’t help.”

Greta puffed her cheeks and blew out a huff. She placed her hands around her throat. “Geez, kill me now. You’re actin’ like you been slurpin’ asshole soup again.”

“Hypocrites, all of them.” Sadie’s face reddened. “Those protesters make me sick. Religious fanatics who can’t mind their own damn business, preach like they’re better than us.”

Her last comment, barely a whisper, I knew Sadie was thinking about her religious nut of a mother. She rarely spoke of her, but when she did, she referred to her as Lucinda the Lucifer. The woman had forced Sadie to recite Bible passages before allowing her to eat and preached the sin of men’s unbridled passion until her ears burned. Who wouldn’t run away after that kind of upbringing?

DreamHead

Posted on December 2, 2016 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

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The dream that inspired The Last Bordello.

Staring at Fear

Posted on December 2, 2016 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

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Madam Fannie Porter stares at fear. (From The Last Bordello)

I reminded my fingers to turn the knob slowly, quietly. I crept through the kitchen’s side door and held my breath.

A voice in the parlor. Not one of my girls. I tiptoed into my bedroom and made my way to the far wall. Wiped my sweaty, shaky hands on my dress. Removed the painting.

Only Reba and I knew about the coin-sized peephole Constructed long ago for keeping an eye on questionable customers. Exactly my eye level, as intended.

The voices would be clearer now. I inched the cork from the hole. Fighting for breath, I peered through the hole and into the parlor.

Stuck in a “Shining Closet”

Posted on November 30, 2016 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

From The Last Bordello: In Madam Fannie’s voice, she and her “girls,”and Meta – who was misled to the bordello – must wait out a storm in the crawl space under the stairs.

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I shifted my knees, trying to get comfortable. “Girls, if this is the worst that’s ever happened to you, I’d say you’ve lived a fine and easy life.” I knew better, of course.

“Etta’s leaving is much worse,” Sadie said, her hands shaking.

“Horsefeathers.” Lillie tucked her head between her knees and mumbled, “Worse is saying good-bye to your betrothed.”

“Carver will be back,” Sadie retorted. “Etta won’t.”

True. I couldn’t see Etta returning, which made it worse for Sadie. She and Etta had been as close as silk on a corncob.

I made note to speak privately to Sadie and the others. Under no circumstances were any of my fallen angels allowed to mention the names of the Wild Bunch or Etta’s connection with the gang.

Meta had Faded into the wall, her owl stare flickering in the lantern’s light. No doubt, she didn’t expect to spend her first night in San Antonio stuck in a bordello’s crawl space.

Like a Rodeo Bull

Posted on November 28, 2016 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

From The Last Bordello (1901). Madam Fannie Porter talks to Reba, her best friend and co-worker.

Miss Reba (as I picture her)

Reba’s voice brought me out of my doldrums.

She stood just inside the kitchen, her hip holding open the screen door. “Freshness growing from the ground up. Picked and served like He made possible.”

“You woke up from your nap.”

“Thought I died of a soft underbelly?”

“You? Hell, you might be eleven years older than me, but you’ve got more vim and Vigor than a rodeo bull. Just as stubborn, too.”

“Speakin’ a that. Tell ’em, Fannie. You don’t wants to beat a path around that ponderin’ bush. They needs to know.”

I followed her motion to come back inside. “You’re right, Rebie. We’ll tell them when they come down to eat.”

“We tells ’em? Ain’t no we about it. No, ma’am. That jawin’ session be yours.”

This time, it wouldn’t be a regular house meeting that consisted of reminders about chores that needed doing, client appointments, and Reba’s nagging them to douche and keep their pee-shes clean. This powwow would be different.

Entering the Insane Asylum

Posted on November 27, 2016 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

The Pungent smell of an insane asylum.

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From The Last Bordello (voice of Sadie):

My limbs shook. My knees buckled. The men in white held fast to my elbows and pulled me toward a thick wooden door. When opened, the fragrant air vanished and was replaced with the malodorous smells of urine, vomit, rubbing alcohol, and something else I couldn’t quite place.

I saw only a few women, one being dragged in another direction. “Not surgery, not surgery!” the woman wailed.

The driver unlocked another door and pushed me into a small room that contained a stained mattress on the floor and a bucket for excrement. He told me to sleep well. I heard him laughing down the hall long after they had locked the door.

I thought it was a cruel joke, that my mother had followed behind and would now take me home with an “I told you so.” Before the tears had a chance to come, someone unlocked the door again.

Sadie, before becoming a prostitute

Posted on November 25, 2016 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

At age fifteen, Sadie Sated Timothy – from The Last Bordello.

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It started the day Timothy and me sat on a gentle slope on the banks of Geronimo Creek between the honey mesquite and Texas spur grass. He’d snuck a bottle of whiskey from home and had been thoughtful enough to bring crackers and a small chunk of cheese to our Sunday afternoon picnic. I was smitten with the boy, the twin to my best friend, Kat.

He spread the blanket and, for the first time, I spread my legs. The weight of him, slight as it was, felt like a made-to-fit blanket.

He was finished before I had the chance to feel him inside of me. “I might only be fifteen,” I said, laughing. “But I don’t think that’s what it’s supposed to feel like.”

Offended at first, Timothy managed a grin. “Then I guess we need to try it again.”

Then I caught sight of the ugly housedress that Lucinda, my so-called mother, wore almost daily. Ugly like her character. Ugly like her words. Stupid like her Bible-mouth that preached how Jesus would protect her yet Lucinda wouldn’t get up on a ladder if her life depended on it.

She split us apart, yanked me up by the hair, and ruined my favorite dress as she dragged me home.

“You miserable bitch,” I screamed. “Just because you couldn’t keep my father at home doesn’t mean I have to be a spinster. I love him! Love him! Any time Timothy wants me to pleasure him, I’ll be willing and ready.”

Lucinda slapped me. I slapped back, harder. She fell on the warped flooring of our kitchen and dabbed a finger at the corner of her bloodied lip.

For the next two weeks, we didn’t speak. Still, I heard her mumble on occasion, “Ticktock, ticktock. They’ll put you under key and lock.” I didn’t pay attention to those words. I should have.

The Last Bordello – visuals of settings in the novel

Posted on August 17, 2016 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

Research, research. I think it’s the reason I write historical novels. Here are some places that are mentioned in the novel set in San Antonio, Texas, 1901.

Menger Hotel (lots happens here)

County courthouse

Brackenridge Park

Otto Koehler’s house

Southwestern Insane Asylum

Buckhorn’s Saloon

Alderman Richter’s Bakery

San Pedro Park

Meta’s homestead

And, believe it or not, the original location of Fannie Porter’s bordello at the corner of Durango and San Saba. (a bit different now!)

The Last Bordello – What it is, and isn’t

Posted on August 17, 2016 by Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author

My novel, The Last Bordello, is not merely a who-dun-it. It’s a story about powerful women on opposing sides of a coin (or a bordello chit).

Unable to obtain money in other ways, some women found prostitution to be their only means of survival.

The Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Suffragettes fought to improve the lives of all women. At the time, they were seen as an opposing force to the ladies of the night. But were they?

The Last Bordello depicts the struggle of both sides.

Carolyn Dennis-Willingham

author perfectly flawed

Category Archives: Novel