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?