City of Girls

Vivian arrives dutifully for her appointment with Dr. Kellogg. He strikes her as nondescript: “He was the kind of man whose face you forget even when you are standing right in front of him, looking directly at his face” (75). His pedantic, methodical approach to making love makes it difficult for Vivian to keep from laughing out loud. Afterward, Kellogg insists on giving her money, which she reluctantly takes. When Vivian meets her showgirl friends afterward at a diner, they agree to spend the money on a day trip to Coney Island. The group arrives back at the theater with only minutes to spare before their performance and nobody else the wiser about Vivian’s adventure.

Now that Vivian has developed a baseline level of sexual experience, she’s eager to join Celia on her forays into New York’s nightlife. She says, “The two of us went digging for trouble with a shovel and a pickax that summer, and we never had the slightest trouble finding it” (90). They have sex with a variety of men, routinely get drunk, suffer from hangovers the following morning, and are ready to repeat the process the following night. Vivian revels in her newfound freedom to do exactly as she wants, whenever she wants.