From the Brothel The Diary of Molly McCash

By Laney Smith

Drunken nights, red lights, brutal fights, and lowered tights.

I've spent years, dancing on the stairs, decorating Miss Abby's stair rails. I've certainly "entertained" my fair share of gentleman. Men would always come and go, but a wench's brothel family - that's forever . . . Forever out to get over on you. Forever out to cheat you. Forever willing to steal from you. Forever vacant of heart. Forever waiting like vultures, starving to feast on the remnants of the hollowed corpse of a soul's dreams. Always, and forever!

I decided, after years of being a main attraction and a reliable profit for Miss Abby, that it was time to explore other brothel options. As the saying goes, sometimes, better the devil you know.

I never knew any way other than Miss Abby's ways. It is a big, ol' world and I felt familiar with that world. It had no idea! When you hit rock bottom, there should be only one way to go. Turns out, when I hit rock bottom, I have a knack for digging a hole - and sooner or later, I just might end up in that hole. No one would miss a whore, particularly one who is a "mick." I guess you could say if it weren't for missteps, why I'd never gain any ground at all. Somehow, I guess I always get where I'm aiming to go. Rocky as the road may be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fiery Vision Publishing
• Release date: May 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201725426

Book preview

Sophia Elaine Marie McGinty.

That was my birth name – the name my parents gave me. I was named after my mother and both of my grandmothers. Of course, I carried my father’s surname. The day of my birth was the day I was given an identity. . . for the first time, anyway. That was October 30th, eighteen-eighty-seven. Just twenty years ago.

I had seen a lot in twenty years. The world was waking and human beings were discovering a multitude of new ways to sin. Human beings had an insatiable hunger for that sin. That sin was what uprooted my family from our home in Dublin, Ireland and brought us to this new promise land. See, there was a stately gentleman who owned a mine – a coal mine, I believe it was. He approached my father with promises of riches, if only my father was willing to work the mine. My father didn’t care for the gent, said he smelled a rat.

My father was a lot of things, but naïve was not one of those things. However, after my father declined the man’s job offer and chased him away in no uncertain terms, my mother discovered she was with child, again. With the stresses of providing for his family, my father began to re-evaluate his decision.

My father was not naïve, but as I mentioned, he was a lot of things. He was hardworking, prideful, ambitious, and loving. I heard he could get wild and out of hand, at times – a scrapper with a weakness for a beautiful temptress - my mother.

I hated when my father had been to the pub. He came home, chasing after my mother, making her squeal and giggle. Those were the nights my mother sent us kids to bed, early – sometimes without as much as a bite to eat. I didn’t understand it all, then. Now, looking back, I realize Daddy was a bad, bad boy. My mother? Well, she got his blood running hot and she knew it, especially after he had been at the pub. She liked it when he was like that. She seemed to enjoy the way Daddy behaved. 

Common sense would dictate that my father needed to refrain from those drunken, wild nights he loved so much seeing as how they usually resulted in another mouth for him to feed. It seems a smart man would’ve avoided the excess temptations. Not my father! Not Liam McGinty!

I remember the day it happened. My mother sat there with her wet eyelashes and tear-stained cheeks, telling my father that he had put another baby in her belly. My dad wiped her tears and softly spoke promises that it would be OK, that she would be OK, that the baby would be OK, that we would all be OK. He promised he had a plan that would change our lives. He told her he was going to accept one of those mining jobs. He told stories of abundance and promised he was going to take care of us – all of us. I believe he meant that.

At eleven years old, I left Ireland with my family. Micks. That’s what they kept calling us. I noticed the way my father stubbornly clenched his teeth every time someone used that word. He hated that and more than once, I noticed my mother draping her bony hand over his clenched fist as it rested on his knee.

Don’t you do it, Liam, I remember her saying as she stared into his eyes. Think of the money . . . the opportunity.

Daddy drew a deep breath, practically suffocating on the pride he tried to swallow. He’d sigh and relax a bit, but his guard was up. His eyes shifted, constantly. His body shifted, prepared to protect his family. I was young, but even I could read his gestures. He was unsettled and nervous. In turn, that caused me to feel unsettled and nervous. His discontentedness only grew in intensity, once we were boarded onto the ship, bound for the new world. Daddy was a farmer and he liked having earth beneath his feet. He certainly didn’t care too much for being buoyant without as much as a grain of sand for as far as the eye could see. It turned out my father was not meant to be a sailor. He spent the twenty-eight days of our twenty-eight-day journey, hanging over the side of the ship, spilling his innards into the sea. That didn’t weaken him, however. In fact, it seemed to make the fighter in him meaner than ever before. I do remember a portly gentleman threatening to throw our family into the water after my father drew his fist back and let it fly after the gent cupped my mother’s bottom in his hand and gave it a hearty squeeze.

Daddy was not a man to mess with. He was spirited and he never backed down from any challenge. He made no apologies for his behavior, even when he had been at fault. The only exception to that was when it came to my mother. Daddy was a fool for her and though he had a fiery temper, he never unleashed his temper on her or us kids.

When the ship landed in the port in Pennsylvania, Daddy couldn’t get to the earth fast enough. We all wobbled and staggered, trying to adjust to stable ground, again. Immediately, Momma and us kids were sent to a plantation where we were expected to work. Daddy was transported to Mister Beauford’s coal mine. From that point, we only saw him once or twice a week. His skin was permanently stained. He was exhausted and his shirt had blood stains on it. That man aged a million years a week.

I remember it very clearly – the day we got word that Daddy had perished in a mining accident. My mother loved him to the point that she was willing to go out and excavate, in an effort to save him after the mine he was working in collapsed. No one wanted to help her and she just knew in her gut that Daddy’s stubborn streak was keeping him alive, waiting for her to find him there in that mine shaft.

After Daddy was gone for thirty-two days, Momma lost all touch with reality. Supposedly, she walked off into a lake and that was the end of it. She couldn’t bear life without Daddy. There we were, six orphaned kids. The three older kids, Seamus, Shannon, and Connor, were snatched up by an older widow by the name of Heloise Franopolis. I was at an inconvenient age – twelve. All the adoptive parents wanted kids younger or older than children my age. So, I watched Patrick and my youngest sister, Fionna, etching their images into my mind – knowing full well that this was the last time I would see them.

Since no one had any use for an untrained house servant, and I wasn’t old enough to serve a purpose for men, I was left to the shadows. That suited me just fine! I never forgot where I came from, or more importantly, who I came from. I thought of the way my mother got my father’s blood pumping by giggling and playing hard to get when he chased her around our cottage, back in Ireland. I knew the look my father had in his eye when he was ready to play. Orphaned and disowned, I put myself out there. I decided I would make Daddy proud. I inherited his wild and reckless ways. I entertained my first gentleman at thirteen. I discovered that Liam McGinty lived on. Then, I discovered there was money to be made for a woman with the kind of skills I possessed. I hoped Daddy would be proud!

ONE

At thirteen, I learned the lust-filled power a woman held over a man. I discovered the truth about all those times Daddy made Momma giggle. They were