You are being provided with a book chapter by chapter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chapter. After reading the chapter, 1. shorten the chapter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any important nouns in the chapter. 3. Do not translate the original language. 4. Keep the same style as the original chapter, keep it consistent throughout the chapter. Your reply must comply with all four requirements, or it’s invalid.
I will provide the chapter now.

35
I loved the dry heat of Las Vegas. I loved the way everyone believed in luck and
the dream. I had always enjoyed it there, even back when Paris Hilton and I were
kicking o our shoes and running through casinos. But that felt like a lifetime
ago.
My residency started right after Christmas in 2013. The boys were seven and
eight. In the beginning, it was a great gig.
Being onstage in Vegas was thrilling at rst. And no one let me forget that my
residency was a landmark deal for the Strip. I was told my show drew young
people back to Sin City and changed the landscape of entertainment in Las
Vegas for a new generation.
The fans gave me so much energy. I became great at doing the show. I got so
much condence, and for a while, everything was good—as good as it could be
when I was so tightly controlled. I started dating a TV producer named Charlie
Ebersol. To me, he seemed like marriage material: He took great care of himself.
His family was close. I loved him.
Charlie worked out every day, taking pre-workout supplements and a whole
bunch of vitamins. He shared his nutrition research with me and started giving
me energy supplements.
My father didn’t like that. He knew what I ate; he even knew when I would
go to the bathroom. So when I started taking energy supplements, he saw that I
had more energy onstage and that I was in better shape than I had been. It
seemed obvious that Charlie’s regimens were a good thing for me. But I believe
my father started to think that I had a problem with those energy supplements,
even though they were over-the-counter, not prescription. So he told me I had to
get o them, and he sent me to rehab.
He got to say where I went and when. And going to rehab meant that I
didn’t get to see my kids for a whole month. The only consolation was that I
knew it was just for a month and I’d be done.
The place he chose for me was in Malibu. That month, for hours a day, we
had to do boxing and other exercises outside, because there was no gym.
A lot of people at the facility were serious drug addicts. I was scared to be
there by myself. At least I was allowed to have a security guard, who I’d have
lunch with every day.
I found it dicult to accept that my dad was selling himself as this amazing
guy and devoted grandfather when he was throwing me away, putting me against
my will into a place with crack and heroin addicts. I’ll just say it—he was
horrible.
When I got out, I started doing shows again in Vegas like nothing had
happened. Part of that was because my father told me I had to get back out there,
and part of it was because I was still so nice, so eager to please, so desperate to do
the right thing and be a good girl.
No matter what I did, my dad was there watching. I couldn’t drive a car.
Everybody who came to my trailer had to sign waivers. Everything was very, very
safe—so safe I couldn’t breathe.
And no matter how much I dieted and exercised, my father was always telling
me I was fat. He put me on a strict diet. The irony was that we had a butler—an
extravagance—and I would beg him for real food. “Sir,” I would plead, “can you
please sneak a hamburger or ice cream to me?”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry,” he would say, “I have strict orders from your father.”
So for two years, I ate almost nothing but chicken and canned vegetables.
Two years is a long time to not be able to eat what you want, especially when
it’s your body and your work and your soul making the money that everyone’s
living o of. Two years of asking for french fries and being told no. I found it so
degrading.
A strict diet you’ve put yourself on is bad enough. But when someone is
depriving you of food you want, that makes it worse. I felt like my body wasn’t
mine anymore. I would go to the gym and feel so out of my mind with this
trainer telling me to do things with my body, I felt cold inside. I felt scared. I’ll be
honest, I was fucking miserable.
And it didn’t even work. The diet had the opposite eect of what my father
wanted. I gained weight. Even though I wasn’t eating as much, he made me feel
so ugly and like I wasn’t good enough. Maybe that’s because of the power of
your thoughts: whatever you think you are, you become. I was so beaten down
by all of it that I just surrendered. My mom seemed to go along with my dad’s
plan for me.
It was always incredible to me that so many people felt so comfortable talking
about my body. It had started when I was young. Whether it was strangers in the
media or within my own family, people seemed to experience my body as public
property: something they could police, control, criticize, or use as a weapon. My
body was strong enough to carry two children and agile enough to execute every
choreographed move perfectly onstage. And now here I was, having every calorie
recorded so people could continue to get rich o my body.
No one else but me seemed to nd it outrageous that my father would set all
these rules for me and then go out and drink Jack and Cokes. My friends would
visit and get their nails done at spas and drink fancy champagne. I was never
allowed into spas. My family would stay in Destin, a pretty beach town in
Florida, at a ridiculously beautiful condo that I bought for them and eat good-
tasting food every night while I was starving and working.
Meanwhile, my sister was turning her nose up at every gift I’d given the
family.
I called my mom one day in Louisiana and said, “What are you doing this
weekend?”
“Oh, the girls and I are going to Destin tomorrow,” she said. Jamie Lynn had
said so many times that she never went there, that it was one more of those
ridiculous things I’d bought the family that she’d never wanted, and it turned
out my mom went there every weekend with Jamie Lynn’s two daughters.
I used to love buying my family houses and cars. But there came a point when
they started to take things for granted, and the family didn’t realize that those
things were possible because I’m an artist. And because of how they treated me,
for years I lost touch with my creativity.

You are being provided with a book chapter by chapter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chapter. After reading the chapter, 1. shorten the chapter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any important nouns in the chapter. 3. Do not translate the original language. 4. Keep the same style as the original chapter, keep it consistent throughout the chapter. Your reply must comply with all four requirements, or it’s invalid.
I will provide the chapter now.

CHAPTER 35
Patricia fell on her daughter, shaking her shoulders, slapping her
cheeks.
“Korey!” she screamed. “Korey! Wake up!”
Obscenely, they kept going, latched together, pulsing like an
engorged sack of blood. Korey gave a small mew of pleasure and one
hand drifted down, ghosting lightly across her stomach, toward her
pubic hair, and Patricia grabbed her wrist and yanked it away and
Korey began to squirm, and Patricia had to get James’s head out
from between her daughter’s legs, and she looked down at him, and
her stomach gave a warning flop. She was going to throw up.
She clamped her lips together, let go of Korey’s feverish wrist, and
tried to haul James away by the shoulders, but he struggled to stay
latched to her daughter. Feeling like an idiot, Patricia grabbed a
soccer cleat from the floor and hit him in the head with its heel. Her
first blow was a silly, ineffectual tap, but the second was harder, and
the third made a knocking sound when the cleats hit bone.
As she struck him in the head with Korey’s shoe over and over
again she heard herself repeating, “Get off! Get off! Get off my little
girl!”
A sucking slobbering noise ripped through the quiet of the room,
the sound of raw steak being torn in two, and James Harris looked
up at her like a country cousin, mouth hanging open, something
black and inhuman hanging from the hole in the bottom of his face,
dripping viscous blood, eyes glazed. He tried to focus on Patricia, the
shoe held back by her ear, ready to bring it down again.
“Uh,” he said, dully.
He belched and a line of bloody drool dribbled from the corner of
the proboscis hanging beneath his chin. Then it began to curl back up
on itself, retracting slowly into his gore-slimed mouth.
My God, Patricia thought, I’ve gone insane, and she brought the
cleat down again. James Harris rose, seizing her wrist in one hand,
her throat in the other, and he threw her against the far wall. She
took the impact between her shoulder blades. It punched all the air
out of her lungs. It loosened the root of her tongue. Then he was on
her, breath hot and raw, forearm across her throat, stronger than
her, faster than her, and she went limp in his grip like prey.
“This is all your fault,” he said, voice thick and slurred with liquid.
Blood coated his lips, and hot specks of it sprinkled her face. And
she knew he was right. This. Was. All. Her. Fault. She had exposed
her children to this danger, she had invited it into her house. She had
been so obsessed with the children in Six Mile and Blue that she
hadn’t seen the danger to Korey. She had driven both her children
right into James Harris’s arms.
She saw a lump move down, down, down his throat as he
swallowed whatever apparatus it was he used to suck their blood.
Then he said, “You said this was between us.”
She remembered saying that in the car earlier, and she had only
meant to stall him, to buy more time, to keep his guard down, but
she had said it, and to him it had been another invitation. She had
led him on. She deserved this. But her daughter didn’t.
“Korey,” was the best she could manage through her constricted
windpipe.
“Look what you’re doing to her,” he hissed, and wrenched her head
to the side so she could see the bed.
Korey had pulled her arms and legs in on themselves, retracting
into a fetal position, muscles twitching, going into shock. Blood
spread on the mattress beneath her. Patricia closed her eyes to let the
nausea pass.
“Mom?” Blue called from the hall.
She and James Harris locked eyes, him totally nude, his front a bib
of blood, her in her nightgown, not even wearing a brassiere, the
door standing a quarter of the way open. Neither of them moved.
“Mom?” Blue called again. “What’s going on?”
Do. Something, James Harris mouthed at her.
She reached up and touched her fingertips to the back of the hand
that held her throat. He let go.
“Blue,” she said, stepping through the door and into the hall. She
prayed that the flecks of Korey’s blood she felt on her face wouldn’t
show. “Get back into bed.”
“What’s wrong with Korey?” he asked, standing in the hall.
“Your sister’s sick,” Patricia said. “Please. She’ll be better later. But
she needs to be alone right now.”
Having determined that this was nothing that required his
attention, Blue turned without speaking, went back into his
bedroom, and closed the door. Patricia stepped back into Korey’s
room and turned on the overhead light just in time to see James
Harris, naked, squatting on the windowsill. He held his clothes
balled up against his belly like a lover fleeing an angry husband in
some old farce.
“You asked for this,” he said, and then he was gone and the
window was just a big black rectangle of night.
Korey whimpered on the bed. It was the sound of her having a
nightmare that Patricia had heard so many times before, and in
sympathy she made the same sound back. She went to her daughter
and examined the wound on her inner thigh. It looked swollen and
infected, and it wasn’t the only one. All around it were overlapping
bruises, overlapping punctures, all their edges torn and ragged.
Patricia realized this had happened before. Many times.
Her head was full of bats, shrieking and bumping into each other,
tearing all coherent thought to tatters. Patricia didn’t even know how
she found the camera or took the pictures, how she got to the
bathroom, how she stood in front of the sink running warm water
onto a washcloth, how she bathed Korey’s wound and put on
bacitracin. She wanted to bandage it, but she couldn’t, not without
letting Korey know she’d seen this obscene thing. She couldn’t cross
that line with her daughter. Not yet.
Everything seemed too normal. She expected the house to explode,
the backyard to fall into the harbor, Blue to walk out the door with a
suitcase to move to Australia, but Korey’s room was as messy as
usual, and when she went downstairs the sailboat lamp burned on
the front hall table like normal, and Ragtag raised his head from
where he napped on the den couch, tags jingling, like normal, and
the porch lights clicked off when she flipped the switch like normal.
She went into her bathroom and washed her face, hard, with a
washcloth, scrubbing and scouring, and she tried not to look in the
mirror. She scrubbed until it was red and raw. She scrubbed until it
hurt. Good. She reached up and pinched her left ear until it hurt,
twisting it, and that felt good, too. She got into bed and lay in the
dark, staring at the ceiling, knowing she would never sleep.
It was all her fault. It was all her fault. It was all her fault.
Guilt, and betrayal, and nausea churned in her gut and she barely
made it to the bathroom before she threw up.
—
She made every effort not to treat Korey differently the next
morning, and Korey seemed no different than she was every
morning: sullen and uncommunicative. Patricia’s hands felt numb as
she packed Korey and Blue off to school, and then she sat by the
phone and waited.
The first call came at nine, and she couldn’t bring herself to pick
up. The machine took it.
“Patricia,” James Harris’s voice said. “Are you there? We need to
talk. I have to explain what’s going on here.”
It was a cloudless, sunny October day. The bright blue sky
protected her. But he could still call. The phone rang again.
“Patricia,” he said to the machine. “You have to understand what’s
happening.”
He called three more times, and on the third, she picked up.
“How long?” she asked.
“Come down and listen to me,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything.”
“How long?” she repeated.
“Patricia,” he said. “I want you to be able to see my eyes, so you
know I’m being honest with you.”
“Just tell me how long?” she asked, and to her own surprise her
voice broke and her forehead cramped and she felt tears in the hinge
of her jaw. She couldn’t close her mouth; there was a howl inside that
wanted to get out.
“I’m glad you finally know,” he said. “I’m so tired of hiding. This
doesn’t change anything I said last night.”
“What?”
“I value you,” he said. “I value your family. I’m still your friend.”
“What have you done to my daughter?” she managed.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said. “I know you must be
confused and frightened but it’s no different than my eyes—it’s just a
condition I have. Some of my organs don’t work properly and from
time to time I need to borrow someone’s circulatory system and filter
my blood through theirs. I’m not a vampire, I don’t drink it, it’s not
any different than using a dialysis machine, except it’s more natural.
And I promise you there’s no pain. In fact, from what I can tell it
feels good to them. You have to understand, I would never do
anything to hurt Korey. She agreed to do this. I want you to know
that. After I told her about my condition she came to me and
volunteered to help. You have to believe I would never make her do
something against her will.”
“What are you?” she asked.
“I’m alone,” he said. “I’ve been alone for a very long time.”
Patricia realized it wasn’t repentance in his voice, it was self-pity.
She’d heard Carter feeling sorry for himself too often to mistake it for
anything else.
“What do you want from us?”
“I care for you,” he said. “I care for your family. I see how Carter
treats you and it makes me furious. He throws away what I would
treasure. Blue thinks the world of me already, and Korey has already
done so much to help me that she has my eternal gratitude. I’d like to
think we could come to an understanding.”
He wanted her family. It came to her in an instant. He wanted to
replace Carter. This man was a vampire, or as close to one as she
would ever see. She remembered Miss Mary talking in the dark all
those years ago.
They have a hunger on them. They never stop taking. They
mortgaged their souls away and now they eat and eat and eat and
never know how to stop.
He’d found a place where he fit in, with a nearby source of food,
and he’d become a respected member of the community, and now he
wanted to have a family because he didn’t know how to stop. He
always wanted more. That knowledge opened a door inside her mind
and the bats flew out in a ragged black stream, leaving her skull
empty and quiet and clear.
He had wanted old Mrs. Savage’s house, so he took it from her.
Miss Mary had endangered him with her photograph, and he’d
destroyed her. He had attacked Slick to protect himself. He would
say anything to get what he wanted. He had no limits. And she knew
that the moment he suspected she knew what he wanted, her
children would be in danger.
“Patricia?” he asked in the silence.
She took a shuddering breath.
“I need time to think,” she said. If she got off the phone fast he
wouldn’t hear the change in her voice.
“Let me come there,” he said, his tone sharper. “Tonight. I want to
apologize in person.”
“No,” she said, and gripped the phone in her suddenly sweaty
hand. She forced her throat to relax. “I need time.”
“Promise you forgive me,” he said.
She had to get off the phone. With a thrill of joy she realized she
had to call the police right away. They would go to his house and find
the license and search his attic and this would all be over by
sundown.
“I promise,” she said.
“I’m trusting you, Patricia,” he said. “You know I wouldn’t hurt
anyone.”
“I know,” she said.
“I want you to know all about me,” he said. “When you’re ready, I
want to spend a lot of time with you.”
She was proud of the way she kept her voice calm and steady.
“Me, too,” she said.
“Oh,” he said. “Before I go, the damnedest thing happened this
morning.”
“What?” she asked, numb.
“I found Francine Chapman’s driver’s license in my car,” he said,
his voice full of wonder. “Remember Francine? Who used to clean for
me? I don’t know how it got there, but I took care of it. Strange,
right?”
She wanted to dig her nails into her face, and rake them down, and
rip off her skin. She was a fool.
“That is strange,” she said, no life left in her voice.
“Well,” he said. “Lucky I found it. That could have been hard to
explain.”
“Yes,” she said.
“I’ll wait to hear from you,” he said. “But don’t make me wait too
long.”
He hung up.
Her one job as a parent was to protect her children from monsters.
The ones under the bed, the ones in the closet, the ones hiding in the
dark. Instead, she’d invited the monster into her home and been too
weak to stop it from taking whatever it wanted. The monster had

After fleeing from Eddie and his violent tendencies—marked by an attack with a pineapple—our protagonist finds herself face-to-face with Bea Rochester, a woman presumed dead but very much alive, locked away by Eddie. Bea, unsurprisingly unbothered by recent events, declares her need for a drink, leading them to the kitchen in search of wine, glossing over the chaos with an eerie calmness. Their interactions are charged with tension, a mix of awkwardness and underlying strength, as they navigate their new dynamic. Bea appears as a pillar of composure, selecting wine with the familiarity of the home’s true owner, underscoring a stark difference between her and our protagonist, who feels out of place and an imposter in the lavishly eerie setting.

The dining room scene is set with an almost gothic eeriness, where the two women, looking like “medieval queens,” discuss their next moves over wine amidst the storm raging outside. The conversation reveals Bea’s knowledge of Eddie’s infidelities and suggests a deeper, more complex relationship between all characters involved than initially perceived. Bea hints at Eddie having ensnared both women in a sinister plot, with our protagonist caught in a web of deception and murder surrounding Eddie’s affair with Blanche. Their dialogue unwraps layers of betrayal, with Bea weaving a narrative of Eddie’s machinations leading to Blanche’s supposed murder and Bea’s own imprisonment. The protagonist struggles with these revelations, questioning the truth and grappling with a sense of identity amid the chaos.

As they delve deeper into conversation, Bea’s composed veneer flickers, revealing cracks in her story that the protagonist keenly observes, challenging Bea’s account of events. The protagonist’s suspicion grows, recognizing the potential falsehoods in Bea’s narrative. It’s clear that there are secrets yet to be unveiled, pointing towards a twisted love and a complex web of lies binding Eddie, Bea, and the events leading up to the present moment. The chapter teases an unraveling mystery, leaving readers questioning the true nature of the relationships and events described, setting the stage for a confrontation with the harsh truths lurking beneath the surface of the Rochesters’ seemingly perfect facade.

Chapter 35 of “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” by Anne Brontë, titled “Provocations”, captures the escalating tensions and emotional turmoil experienced by the protagonist, Helen. As Lady Lowborough’s departure approaches, her behavior grows more bold and insolent towards Helen, especially in her interactions with Helen’s husband, Arthur. The chapter illustrates Helen’s inner conflict and struggle to maintain dignity and composure in the face of betrayal and provocation.

Lady Lowborough’s overt displays of affection towards Arthur, in Helen’s presence, are designed to contrast with Helen’s supposed indifference, inciting Helen’s jealousy and anger. Despite the urge to react, Helen strives to remain indifferent, recognizing that showing her distress would only gratify Lady Lowborough and Arthur. This dynamic intensifies Helen’s internal conflict, her disdain for Lady Lowborough, and her wavering feelings toward Arthur, whom she could forgive if he showed repentance.

Helen’s resolve is tested further when Lady Lowborough directly confronts her, arrogantly claiming that she has done Helen a service by reforming Arthur’s habits. Helen manages to contain her fury, relying on her self-control to avoid lashing out.

The chapter also introduces Mr. Hargrave, who makes veiled advances towards Helen. Despite his professions of sympathy and admiration, Helen remains guarded, recognizing the potential complications his attentions could bring.

In her dealings with both Lady Lowborough and Mr. Hargrave, Helen exemplifies the struggles of a woman fighting to uphold her principles and autonomy against societal expectations and personal betrayals. Her efforts to navigate these relationships, while maintaining her integrity and self-respect, reflect the novel’s broader themes of gender, morality, and resistance against oppression.

Through “Provocations”, Brontë delves into the complexities of human emotions, social constraints, and the quest for personal redemption. The chapter sets the stage for Helen’s continued resilience and determination to create a life defined by her values, despite the challenges she faces.