The Bitter Suite I & II: Meeting Ms. Leading/Through The Dime

The Bitter Suite I & II: Meeting Ms. Leading/Through The Dime
She had the summer’s smile with winter’s skin; she moved
A silhouette to serenade the soul
She spoke with words beyond me and slowly I pulled away
To receive a gesture implying an answer I didn’t have
So I then smiled, responding, alarming
“Yes”

Her hands were the first that I’d ever felt; she breathed
Her lips hid her tongue from the world; she danced
To the doors, endearing, she carried me
“What’s your name?”; conceding, “Ms. Leading”
She kindly suggests to her room
To rest my head, so I responded, unalarming

Where’s her heart, where’s her heart?
Mimicking the matriarch
He’s naive; blissfully
Ignorant and trusting but

Where’s her heart, where’s her heart?
Mimicking the matriarch
He’s naive; blissfully
Ignorant and trusting but now

[Part II: Through the Dime]

Gentlemen: Presenting the very lovely ladies of the Dime

(Step right in!) Let her hips guide your desire
(Hey, kid, get a job, hey hey hey hey, kid, get a job)
(They have ways!) To satisfy, to satisfy what you require
(Touch, taste, feel, two times, the Dime)

But the perks are more than price
And the guarantee is clean
(“They’re all clean!”)
(We know what the men all want)
And they know it isn’t free

Her history is left behind
The ignorance has room to breathe
They play a part and act a scene
The prejudice, the guilty

(Take a chair!) You’re not alone, the bed’s your home tonight
(Hey, kid, hey kid get a job, hey hey hey hey, kid, get a job)
(Wait right there!) We’ll magnify and maximize your inner fire
(Touch, taste, feel, two times, the Dime)

‘Cause if you boys are nice
The ladies here are clean
(“They’re all clean!”)
(We know what the men all want)
And they know it isn’t free

Her history is left behind
The ignorance has room to breathe
They play a part and act a scene
The prejudice, the guilty

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Hunter encounters Ms Leading in the City, is lovestruck, and accidentally agrees to sleep with her. She guides him through the Dime to her room upstairs, passing by while the Pimp downstairs gives his sales pitch.

What’s in a name?
‘The Bitter Suite I & II: Meeting Ms. Leading/Through The Dime’. Two songs for the price of one, all in one suite! The song names are pretty self-explanatory, so let’s focus on ‘the bitter suite’.

• A suite is a collection of musical movements that together form a single composition; narratively, all the bitter suite pieces are connected in concept, and the name of this collection is the ‘Bitter’ suite.
• It’s a play on ‘bittersweet’, which likely originates from the Dear Ms. Leading demo song Satisfaction ‘The feeling of bliss is welcomed when I’m weak / Yet bliss is bitter sweet / Until you can find someone who understands / The weakness that you feel’. Not sure how much of that carried to the acts, but the bitter suites collectively are pivotal moments where people are feeling very weak, but find hope or happiness though deceptions offered to them (by TP&P and his institutions, specifically). It’s sweet because it feels like a perfect solution, it’s bitter because it’s actually not. (You could probably take ‘bitter’ as a shorthand for the idea of ‘betrayed by lies’?)
• A bitter ‘suite’, with ‘suite’ being read as the room where events are occurring (so the Dime, Ms Leading’s room, etc). A lot of exploitation happens in these settings, so it’s fair to characterise the doings here as bitter, with the Bitter Suite songs providing the most archetypal example of why.

Whose viewpoint?
We’re back to Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:05 Instrumental
AGUHGUHGUHGUHG OOO AGUHHH OOO OOO PRETTY LADY!! Hunter notices Ms Leading in the square, and is simultaneously dumbstruck and entranced by her beauty.

>She had the summer’s smile with winter’s skin; she moved / A silhouette to serenade the soul
Lovely sibilance here. Ms Leading notices Hunter staring at her, smiles, and approaches him. Hunter is still completely gaga, unable to focus on anything except all the ways that she’s beautiful. Already we’re seeing some echoes back to Ms Terri — Ms Leading has the summer’s smile, Ms Terri was the sun (’where is the sun?’).

>She spoke with words beyond me and slowly I pulled away
Ms Leading flirts with Hunter, supposing him an interested client, but being ignorant of prostitution or of relationships in general, he doesn’t understand what she’s doing. This catches him off-guard and makes him a little uneasy. That he pulls away implies he moved toward her, too — I like to go so far as to think he reached to touch her, and her flirting sparked from this.

>To receive a gesture implying an answer I didn’t have
Seeing Hunter’s hesitation, Ms Leading directly but discreetly signs Hunter if he’d like to sleep with her. She’s looking at him expectantly, but Hunter has absolutely no clue what the question is, and so doesn’t know how to answer it.

>So I then smiled, responding, alarming / “Yes”
That doesn’t stop Hunter from going along with whatever this pretty lady is offering, though! To his slight alarm, after a long pause, his affection pushes aside his unease and he finds himself wanting her guidance.

>Her hands were the first that I’d ever felt; she breathed
Ms Leading takes Hunter by the hand to lead him along to the Dime. Hunter has never been in a relationship before, and is too busy considering the softness of her hands and being enchanted by her breathing to think about where she’s taking him, exactly. (After Ms Terri’s death, for Hunter to see someone who reminds him of her this much being alive and breathing probably feels a bit dreamlike/’is this real? This is real!’, to the point of being notable.)

>Her lips hid her tongue from the world; she danced / To the doors, endearing, she carried me
‘Her lips hid her tongue from the world’ -> Hunter’s thinking about her mouth now, for one, and probably about kissing or something, but more significant is this reference to tongues. It’s saying generally that the persona Ms Leading presents doesn’t match her actual thoughts or intentions, but from Hunter’s view the tenor is more ‘this beautiful woman has secrets, and I want to hear them all’. Like with Ms Terri.

‘She danced to the doors’ -> Ms Leading gracefully turns to present the double-doors of the Dime. As with in Inquiry, this is a dance — an invitation she’s giving with much performance and passion, but that is ultimately an act. Again, she’s mirroring Ms Terri, unwittingly endearing Hunter to her massively.

‘She carried me’ -> Ms Leading’s the one guiding Hunter into what’s happening. He’s clueless, but he’s comfortable letting it happen as he feels she’s acting in his interest. A third mirror to Ms Terri.

The takeaway from these lines is that Ms Leading reminds Hunter of Ms Terri, in her mannerisms, her beauty, and in how she’s interacting with him. Missing his mother, Hunter is weak to this and melts for Ms Leading without a second thought, glomming onto her.

>”What’s your name?”; conceding, “Ms. Leading”
As they stand outside the Dime, Hunter, eager to know more about this wonderful person, asks Ms Leading for her name. Ms Leading is reluctant to divulge this, and doesn’t seem entirely used to hearing that question, but concedes. And her name… is misleading.

Well, correct. That is what she’s doing and who she is, right now, to Hunter. She’s not being nice out of the goodness of her heart, she’s doing it to make some money. In general, she’s not really nice so much as practical, and her sunny attitude is definitely not a reflection of the coldness underneath.

(Like with Ms Terri and mystery, ‘mislead’ is our keyword to know when vaguer songs are about Ms Leading).

>She kindly suggests to her room / To rest my head, so I responded, unalarming / Yes
Ms Leading once again discreetly but directly invites Hunter to proceed for some bedtime. Hunter, having never learnt this math, fails to put the 2 + 2 together that she does not literally mean he looks tired after his journey and could use a place to sleep, but that this is a brothel and he’s saying “yes” to sex. Completely heedless, and feeling like a nap is a good idea, he agrees.

The long pause between these lines is pretty funny — you can hear the gears in Hunter’s head trying, and failing, to understand what’s happening. Not sure if it’s Hunter appending the reason to why she’d invite him to her room, or Ms Leading supplying a reason after a period of his confused silence, but if it’s the latter I’d have to figure she’s realised Hunter doesn’t entirely know what’s going on, but is proceeding since that’s the routine and what the hell, he’s going for it. (They’re about to walk through the damn brothel too though, which you’d think would be explanation in itself…)

>Where’s her heart, where’s her heart? / Mimicking the matriarch
Really strong lines. This is an omniscient narrator busting in on the scene, or given how pained it sounds, a retrospective comment on this pivotal moment by future Hunter. Kind of breaks one of my assumptions in reading to say that, but I like hearing it that way.

Ms Leading isn’t invested in what’s happening here — she’s just a professional putting on the charm with a client, same as Ms Terri. ‘But she plays fake affection, and carefully lacks objection / To her gentleman caller’s twisted desires’. There might be a literal element here, if Ms Leading and Ms Terri were ever both working at the Dime at the same time, in that she could be consciously learning from Ms Terri’s technique, but that feels like a bit weird to consider. (like, imagine the future conversations, ‘yeah, I did know your mom…’). Either way, Hunter responds to this mimicry as if it came from Ms Terri.

>He’s naive; blissfully / Ignorant and trusting but
Explicitly, Hunter has no clue what’s going on here. He’s too innocent to know what a brothel is, what a prostitute is, why Ms Leading would have invited him to her room apart from for a literal nap, so on and so on. He’s just happy to have met someone so kind and so like his mother, who he completely trusts within two minutes of meeting.

>Ignorant and trusting but now
Foreshadowing that Hunter will come not to trust Ms Leading.

>3:19 – 3:35 Instrumental
Ms Leading and Hunter enter the Dime, where girls, patrons, and TP&P are collected on the main floor. This marks the second part of the suite, ‘Through the Dime’, recounting what Hunter sees and hears as Ms Leading guides him across the main floor to the stairway up to her room. Hunter doesn’t break away to consider anything in detail, though, so these are just passing snippets of confusing ambiance for him. We probably stick around on the main floor longer than Hunter does, to hear the whole of TP&P’s speech.

Also an illustration of what the Dime’s main floor looks like: I envision a lot of patrons, a wooden interior, a stage, a bar, smoke wafting around, a generally upbeat but scuzzy atmosphere…

>Gentlemen: Presenting the very lovely ladies of the Dime
TP&P speaks here with the girls performing, giving his sales pitch to the collected patrons. Not too much to dig into with most of this, though it’s an incredibly cool scene.

Since this is also like our formal introduction to the Dime itself, might as well question what’s up with that name. Why the Dime? Well firstly it sounds cool, but it’s also in-character to TP&P. TP&P is motivated by money and greed; how fitting that he’d call his establishment after what he loves most. Love of money is the root of the evil.

It also makes me think of the phrase ‘nickel and dime’, to suggest that TP&P wants to wrench every penny he can from his customers, and work his employees for all that they’re worth, but in the opposite direction gives the implication that the product here is kind of cheap? Not sure if that works in a literal sense of the Dime’s prices, but metaphorically life and dignity are pretty cheap at the Dime.

There’s another element here — referenced several times, (’There was a silver circle sign / And she was standing at the door / We pressed our way right through the crowd’) the symbol of the Dime is a ‘silver circle’. Right, that is visually what a dime looks like. But that description is also what that (drumroll) PESKY MOON looks like.

I don’t know if there’s an intentional moon-dime connection here, but I can read that as the Dime being a place where the real self fades and fake personae (particularly self-injurious ones) become prominent, which would be extremely true of the workers here. So the implied name of the Dime: ‘where you lose your self’.

>(Step right in!) Let her hips guide your desire
Alright so off the bat the stuff going on in the lobby is explicit. Ladies moving provocatively, the whole shindig. That Hunter didn’t realise there was something going on here is beyond dense, but he’s lovedumb and sheltered, we’ll forgive him.

‘Step right in’ — there’s TP&P being very welcoming, forcefully welcoming, as always.

>(Hey, kid, get a job, hey hey hey hey, kid, get a job)
And he’s hiring! What a good suggestion. Could always use some cash. (Sounds like business is booming, too, and TP&P is looking to expand his little empire).

>(They have ways!) To satisfy, to satisfy what you require
You’re aching for something, right? There’s something you need that’s missing, right? Whatever you’re deprived of, no worries, let our pretty nurses do their stuff…

>(Touch, taste, feel, two times, the Dime)
A reprise that formerly described how awful and degrading the Dime was — now it’s a cheeky advertisement. Indulge in these pleasures… they’re so good, one taste and you’ll always come back!

>But the perks are more than price / And the guarantee is clean / (“They’re all clean!”)
Yeesh, but this place is kinda expensive! Of course, of course, but that’s just the guarantee of high-quality, trustworthy product in a high-quality, trustworthy establishment. Even in his Pimp guise, TP&P is invested in keeping the reputation of his business high, to inspire confidence in his customers while simultaneously having more reason to charge them greater prices. Important for keeping on the good side of the authorities, too, I’d imagine. (There were laws against the trafficking of persons into America for use in brothels, but no legislation forbidding brothels themselves at this time — doesn’t mean that local govts enjoyed being known as whore hotspots).

Also, raise your hand if you’re buying what TP&P is selling about the ladies all being clean. I’m not. Certainly makes the place feel like a smorgasbord, to imagine that they are, though. (You can feel the uproarious “WOOOO!” and raised glasses after the pronouncement that YEAH THEY’RE ALL CLEAN!!!)

TP&P’s little ‘conning’ theme plays through this verse — the crowd is excited, energised by his every promise.

>Her history is left behind / The ignorance has room to breathe / They play a part and act a scene
The individual personhood of the workers disappears in the Dime, and the clients regard them as nothing but props to use for their fun. The elements that may lead a person to hesitate before buying a room — perhaps knowing how the girl came to work in the Dime, who her family were, or her old likes or dislikes or goals — are gone, facilitating more business.

In line with the moon idea, the workers are forced to assume fake personae and lie every minute they’re in the Dime. TP&P knows full well the psychological effect this loss of self has on the girls, and how empty are the falsehoods he sells to the customers — and encourages it.

>The prejudice, the guilty
TP&P’s judgemental side slips out here. For this equation where people are willing to mistreat each other to work out in such a profitable way, there has to be an element of disregard for the personhood of the other — that is, a feeling of prejudice or moral justification for mistreatment toward an inferior. ‘She’s a whore who signed up for this, so what does it matter anyway,’ kind of mentality. I think TP&P is indicating both parties as guilty, though. ‘He’s a brute who chose to come here, so why should I give a shit?’

>(Take a chair!) You’re not alone, the bed’s your home tonight
He’s already addressed that you should totally pay for a girl because it’ll feel good, and disarmed the risk of illness, now he’s pressing on the angle of belonging and loneliness. You have plenty of friends right here, and a special companion for the night…

>(Wait right there!) We’ll magnify and maximize your inner fire
Feeling cold or empty? No worries, we’ll light that hearth inside of you. The use of ‘fire’ anywhere in the acts draws attention, but here’s it’s probably pretty straightforward. The Dime will ignite you with blazing, obsessive, violent passion, lingering after a warm loving encounter. Guys, it is really good sex.

>’Cause if you boys are nice / The ladies here are clean
Man TP&P is charismatic. As front of house, he’s great at corralling the patrons and getting a sense of fraternity going to just make it an appealing hangout spot, before even getting the girls in the picture. Because come now, we all know that the boys haven’t been nice, and we know you don’t mind that as long as you get your cash. Very funny joke, Pimp. Those girls are not clean.

Gotta keep those appearances going, huh.

Main floor’s having a wild fun time right now, what a character.

The Church and The Dime | Act II | The Bitter Suite III: Embrace