Chapter 2 – Welcome to Valley City

The bus spat Chloe out into a cloud of heat and exhaust fumes.

The Valley City bus station was a sea of cracked asphalt and noise. Pigeons pecked among overflowing trash cans. A loudspeaker crackled and croaked announcements that no one understood. People pushed past each other in a loud and foul-smelling stream. Businesspeople with briefcases, tourists with cameras, homeless people with shopping carts full of trash. No one looked at her.

She took her cell phone out of her pocket and looked up the address. Fourteen blocks and no city bus went from here to there. Too far to walk, really, but she didn’t want to pay for a cab either, since she was on a somewhat tight budget. So she just went and walked anyway.

Valley City unfolded before her in all its dubious glory, like a threat and a promise at the same time. Billboards with half-naked women lined the streets, their bodies bathed in neon light. “Live Girls” flashed in pink. “XXX” in blue. The city made no secret of how it made its money.

Bars crowded the sidewalk next to liquor stores next to laundromats. A man in a dirty suit casually urinated on the side of the road. Two women in hot pants and high heels smoked in front of a strip club.

Chloe just kept walking, her eyes fixed on her cell phone, trying not to let it bother her. You live here now, get used to it.

After twenty minutes, the building appeared. An old facade covered with faded, dirty graffiti. The house number sign hung crookedly on the wall and was also completely scribbled over. A few windows on the ground floor were boarded up.

An old black man sat on the steps leading up to the entrance, staring blankly, a cigarette between his lips. He didn’t even seem to notice Chloe as she walked past him and pulled open the heavy front door, which squeaked on its hinges.

The hallway behind it smelled of mold, sweetly and disgusting, and the wallpaper hung in shreds from the walls. The floor was covered with stains whose origin she’d rather not know. Yikes.

According to the email, she was supposed to knock on the first door to the right on the ground floor, which she did. The door creaked open.

The man who opened the door was in his mid-fifties, with greasy hair falling in strands across his face. He wore a gray undershirt with stains and jeans that hung below his beer belly. His eyes scanned her from head to toe.

“You’re Chloe, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Nice.” His gaze wandered to her cleavage and lingered there. “Come with me.”

He turned around, shuffled down the hallway, then went up the stairs. Chloe followed him. The smell of stale smoke hung in the air. The floorboards creaked under their footsteps.

He stopped in front of a door that looked as if it would fall off its hinges at the next gust of wind. He fumbled for a key in his pocket and put it in the lock.

“Here it is. It’s not much, but it has a roof.”

The door swung open.

The room was barely bigger than a closet. A narrow metal bed frame with a worn-out mattress at one wall, a tiny window that looked out onto a brick building at the other. Pale yellow walls with peeling wallpaper. A small table, a mini fridge in the corner and a small kitchenette.

Chloe put her bag on the floor.

“The refrigerator usually works,” said the landlord, leaning against the doorframe. He lit a cigarette. “The air conditioning too, but you can’t use it for heating. But you won’t need that anyway.”

His eyes slid back to her cleavage.

“You’re pretty hot.” He grinned. One tooth was missing. “You want to start working here in Valley City, huh? In the industry, I mean.”

Chloe held his gaze, said nothing.

“Listen, it’s nobody’s business what you do,” he continued. “But I’ll tell you what, most girls looking like you moving to the Valley end up doing that kind of thing. You’re not the first. It doesn’t bother me at all, I’m a pretty open-minded guy.”

“I’m here to find work,” Chloe said neutrally.

“Sure, sure.” He laughed, bubbling, barely distinguishable from a smoker’s cough. “Got your first month’s rent with you? Cash?”

She pulled the envelope out of her bag and handed it to him. He tore it open, counted the bills roughly, and put them in his pants pocket.

“Good. The rules are simple. No noise, no problems. And if the police come knocking, you know nothing, right?”

She nodded.

“Great.” He pushed himself away from the doorframe and stepped into the hallway. “Welcome to Valley City, sweetheart.”

The door closed behind him.

Chloe stood motionless for a moment. Then she went to the bed and sat down on the edge. The mattress gave way under her weight, the springs squeaking.

She took Samantha’s photo out of her pocket.

She looked at it. Her sister’s eyes, smiling in the sun. The life she could have had.

Chloe put the photo back, took off her dress, threw it on the floor, and made the bed with a sheet before lying down. It was far too hot for a blanket.

The sounds of the city drifted in through the window. Traffic, voices, music from a bar, screams, police sirens. An endless din.

She closed her eyes. And shortly afterwards, she fell asleep.

~

Light crept through the dirty window and Chloe reluctantly opened her eyes. She pulled herself together and sat up so abruptly that the mattress squeaked in protest.

Her cell phone showed 7 a.m. It was her first full day in Valley City, and she couldn’t and didn’t want to waste any time.

She stood up and stretched. Her back cracked. What a crappy mattress.

The room looked even worse in daylight than it had the night before. The stains on the carpet were disgusting, and the peeling wallpaper looked like an unpleasant skin disease. Through the window, she could only see the brick wall of the neighboring building, less than two meters away.

See the positives, Chloe. That means at least no one can see in here.

She went to her bag and pulled out her rolled-up yoga mat. Cheap, turquoise, and already frayed at the edges from daily use. She had bought it two years ago when she started training. When she made the decision to do this.

The mat unrolled with a soft rustle on the stained carpet.

Chloe stood on it, feet hip-width apart, and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath through her nose until her lungs expanded. She held her breath and then exhaled through her mouth, slowly and deliberately.

In again.

Out again.

Keeping control over my body. Keeping control over my mind.

She leaned forward, placing her palms flat on the floor next to her feet. The backs of her thighs tensed in a familiar pull. She held the position, counting to ten.

Then she got on all fours. Hands under her shoulders, knees under her hips. She pushed herself up into the downward dog, forming a rough V with her body. Her shoulders started to burn immediately. Good.

She held the position, pressing her heels toward the floor until she felt a pull in her Achilles tendon.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Her breathing remained steady.

Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

She lowered herself into the plank. Her body was a straight line from head to toe, her abs tight as steel cables. Her arms trembled slightly. She ignored it.

The sequence was burned into her muscles, practiced hundreds of times in her old room in Oak Springs while the birds sang outside and the world was still normal. Warrior One. Warrior Two. Downward Dog. Cobra. Child.

In Valley City, there were no birds singing, only cars and people screaming outside her window.

She moved through the sequence with a routine that had long become muscle memory. No thinking. Just body, breath, movement being one.

After twenty minutes, she lay on her back, knees bent, feet flat on the mat, closed her eyes, and began the next part of her morning ritual.

Tense. Hold. Release.

The Kegel exercises were less meditative than the yoga. More technical. She counted: ten repetitions, hold for five seconds, pause for five seconds. Then again. And again.

In principle, it was not much different from strength training. Building the muscles she would need. Her research had shown her what was expected of performers. How long scenes lasted, how many takes, how physically demanding the positions were. She had prepared herself like an athlete before a competition.

Ten. Pause. Ten. Pause. Ten.

In the job she was about to take on, her body would be a tool. Nothing more. And tools had to be maintained.

When she was done, she got up and rolled up the mat. Her legs felt solid and grounded. She liked the slight exhaustion, the gentle burning in her muscles.

The shower she found in the bathroom behind a moldy plastic curtain was ancient. When she turned on the tap, the water came out in jerks, lukewarm and with pitiful water pressure.

She stood under it anyway, letting the water run over her back and shoulders, and added shampoo to her mental list of things she needed to buy as soon as possible.

After maybe three minutes, she got out of the shower, dried herself with the thin travel towel she had brought with her, and went back to the main room, if you could call it that. Drops were still running down her back. She put on underwear, jeans, tank top, sneakers and checked her phone. It was 8 a.m.

Time to build Chloe Hearts’ wardrobe.

She grabbed her bag with the rest of her savings and left the apartment. The hallway smelled of cigarette smoke, and when she stepped outside, Valley City greeted her with smog, but at least it was already quite warm.

On the way to the bus, she scrolled through saved screenshots on her phone. Pictures of performers she had researched and wanted to model her wardrobe after. Tight. Short. Eye-catching.

What would Chloe Heart wear?

She drove to the nearest mall, and when she arrived, one of the stores immediately caught her eye. Bright window displays, neon colors, lace, glitter, price tags screaming “bargain”.

Perfect.

Inside, it smelled of cheap perfume and plastic. A few other customers were rummaging through the racks, and Chloe simply joined them.

She grabbed a black mini dress and held it up to herself. Too conservative. Besides, she already had a similar one. Back on the rack.

Ha! This red one was better. Shorter, with a plunging neckline. She put it over her arm.

Moving on. Those skinny jeans looked nice. She checked the size and nodded. Short denim shorts, in blue and black. Crop tops, four of them in different colors. A shelf with high heels caught her fancy and she pulled out a few pairs, size 6, slipped them on, and walked a few steps down the aisle. The heels were high but stable. That would work.

“Can I help you?” A saleswoman in her early twenties came over to her with an overzealous smile.

“No, thank you. I know what I want.”

The lingerie department was at the back. Lace, sheer, and push-up bras. She grabbed a few. Black, red, a set in white. All cheap, but it just had to look good, not last long.

In the changing room, she tried on the red dress. She turned around, checked the fit. The hem rode up when she moved. She grimaced but nodded with satisfaction, this was what she was after.

She leaned forward slightly. A huge neckline. She turned her hips and saw how the tight fabric emphasized her curves.

In the mirror, she didn’t see Chloe Thompson. She saw the product she was putting together. Chloe Heart.

At the checkout, she piled everything on the counter. The saleswoman scanned the items, one eyebrow slightly raised.

“This will look great on you!”

Chloe smiled a broad, warm and inviting smile. “Thanks!”

Three blocks away, she found a convenience store where she bought a budget smartphone and a prepaid SIM card, then headed back to her apartment while planning her next steps.

Chloe Heart had a wardrobe, now she needed a social media presence, and Chloe wanted to tailor it to the market. And for that, she would have to do some research.