If you haven't read Chapter 1, and you really have too much trouble figuring out what is going on, well, you know what to do. But Chapter 2 is probably a little more fun than Chapter 1, so if you got here without reading Chapter 1, why not just give it a go?
β β β β β β / β β β β β β β β β
Holy fuck.
Hoooooooooooly fucking fuck.
Dilara reads the email a dozen times, heart pounding.
Finally she thinks clearly enough to check the website: only about five percent of the women who get a Spyke interview are invited for an in-person interview. And fewer than five percent of the women who get an in-person interview are invited to become "applicants" at El Purgatorio β where they eventually meet Raoul, and he only invites
half
of
them
to become (in the website's terminology) one of the "candidates" at El ParaΓso, and a lot of
them
don't even get to become one of his actually lovers.
So there's still a long, long way to go.
And β she reminds herself β it's just for fun.
And there's no way she's going, even if they invite her.
(That's what she has to tell herself to stay calm.)
And surely they won't even invite her. There's no way she's pretty enough.
But maybe she can get an in-person interview at least: she would very happily take that two thousand dollar stipend!
β β β β β β / β β β β β β β β β
Dilara thinks long and hard about where to do this interview. She cannot possibly risk her parents catching her. But outside of her home....
Finally she hits on a plan. The following Saturday, she gets up early, puts on some lacy underwear that makes her feel confident, then her most daringly short shorts (just in case they ask her to stand up or something) and a tank top with tiny straps so that her shoulders and bra straps will be clearly seen on the videochat.
In order to get out of the house without unwanted parental comment, she puts her baggiest sweatpants and sweatshirt over it all.
She drives to a Union Busters CafΓ© all the way in Santa Barbara, just trying to be sure that no one she knows will run into her, and then, after shedding the sweatshirt and pretending to read for about an hour, she sits in the car in the parking lot waiting for that bubbly Spyke ringtone.
When it finally sounds, she starts as if something really surprising had happened, and takes a few moments to gather herself before pushing the little green button to accept the call.
Carla: Hi! You must be Dilara.
Dilara: Yes!
Carla: Pleasure to meet you, Dilara, I'm Carla.
Janet: And I'm Janet.
Dilara: Nice to meet both of you!
Carla: Thank you. Is it okay if we call you Dilara?
Dilara: Sure! That's what people call me!
Carla: Great. And you selected English as your preferred language. Is that correct?
Dilara: Yup!
(Having completely forgotten that she "doesn't really want to" become one of Raoul Cock's lovers, Dilara fails to notice that something competitive has awoken inside her, enabling her to smile brighter smiles than she's ever smiled before, to show herself more cheerful and sweet than she's ever shown herself before.)
Carla: Okay, good. And you know that this interview is being recorded, and that only people who work in the El ParaΓso admissions teams will be able to view it, right?
Dilara: Yup! I understand that! Thank you!
Carla: And it will be automatically deleted in four months, and no one in the world will ever be able to see it after that unless you've made your own copy and choose to share it.
Dilara: Okay!
Carla: Good, then, that's the legal stuff out of the way and we're ready to get started. Janet and I are both on the Charming admissions team, as I explained in my email. We just want to get to know you a little bit. As you probably know, we do a lot of these virtual interviews, and we meet a lot of wonderful, beautiful young women who we'd love to invite to El ParaΓso, but we don't get to invite very many of them, so you should not get too excited yet
Dilara: Yes, I understand!
Carla: Okay, good. Do you have any questions before we begin?
Dilara: Um, no, not really. I thought you would have the questions!
Carla: Oh, we definitely do. But I guess you've read the webpage then and probably lots of other stuff on the internet?
Dilara: Oh, yeah. Lots of stuff.
Janet: You have to be careful, though. Not everything on the internet is true. A lot of people enjoy making up scandalous things, or pretend to know things they don't really know to get attention.
Dilara: Okay. But I've read the website and everything too. But is the CIA stuff true?
Janet: Some of it is true. He did infiltrate organized criminal organizations with the CIA.
Dilara: Wow!
Janet: Yeah, pretty impressive stuff. He's a very impressive man.
Dilara: Yeah. Wow.
Janet: And if you ever get to see him in person, you'll be blown away by how good looking he is. I mean, tall, handsome, confident, charming....
Dilara: I really hope I get to meet him!
Carla: Right. Good. So let's get started. The first thing is, you're so young, it seems like you've only been eighteen about a week. Why do you think you're ready to be a mother?
Dilara: Oh, that's a good question. Honestly, I probably wouldn't be ready for a normal guy. I would need, like, a job and money and a house and stuff. But with Raoul, you know, he will provide all that. I mean the money for it anyway.
Carla: Right.
Dilara: So in that case, if I can trust that a guy is going to be able to take care of me and a baby, of course I'm ready to have a baby. The sooner the better, right? I mean in terms of the baby's health and so on.
Janet: I like that. You're already thinking about things like the baby's health. If you do have a baby with Mr. Cock, and you get the trust funds, you know you'll have a regular income of about three hundred thousand dollars a year until your child turns eighteen, and then after that you and your child will each have about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, right?
Dilara: Right.
Janet: The actual numbers change according to inflation, but that's roughly where they are right now.
Dilara: I saw that on the website.
Janet: Very good. So during those eighteen years while your child is growing up, what do you think your life will be like? How do you envision living?
Dilara: Like in terms of my house and stuff?