If you love someone, send them to New York — because it's heaven.
If you hate someone, send them to New York — because it's hell.
If you love someone, send them to Los Angeles — because it's heaven with palm trees and movie stars.
If you hate someone, send them to Los Angeles — because it's hell with 110-degree heat, gridlock traffic, and dreams that die faster than a junkie on Skid Row.
If America is one giant public restroom, then every ambitious asshole of every skin color wants to come here and take the shiniest stall on the Walk of Fame.
And LA?
No question — it's the sparkliest, most piss-stained toilet in the whole damn building.
July 1, 2010.
Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles.
Leon Smith woke up face-down in a puddle of something that smelled like piss and broken dreams, right behind the old Hollywood & Highland complex. His head felt like it had been used as a bongo drum by a mariachi band. One second he was a nobody scrolling through webnovels in 2025, the next second — bam — he was here, in this rotten capitalist fever dream, wearing the same ratty jeans and faded Metallica shirt he'd died in.
No golden finger.
No system prompt.
No "Ding! You are now the richest man in America!"
Just a beat-up acoustic guitar lying next to him like it had followed him through whatever wormhole had spat him out. And zero dollars. Zero friends. Zero clue.
For the first two weeks he was just another ghost on the boulevard — sleeping in alleys, eating half-eaten tacos from trash cans behind Roscoe's, singing off-key Bob Dylan covers for pocket change while tourists stepped over him like he was dogshit on the star of Michael Jackson.
He looked like shit. Unshaven, sunburned, eyes hollow. But underneath the grime? Clean him up and the man could've been a young Brad Pitt who'd just crawled out of a dumpster fire.
Tonight, July 15, the temperature was still kissing 90 degrees even at midnight. Leon was slumped against the wall outside a neon-lit strip club called "The Pink Kitty" on Sunset, guitar case open for tips, strumming half-assed chords and mumbling lyrics nobody cared about.
That's when she walked out.
Blonde. Curvy as fuck. Fake tits that still somehow looked expensive. Fishnet stockings ripped in all the right places, six-inch heels clicking like gunshots on the sidewalk. Bonnie — though he didn't know her name yet — had just finished her shift and was counting a disappointingly thin stack of ones.
She stopped. Stared.
"You look like Brad Pitt if Brad Pitt lost a fight with a garbage truck," she said, voice raspy from cigarette smoke and yelling over bass drops all night.
Leon looked up, flashed the most charming deadbeat grin he could manage. "And you look like the only good thing I've seen in two weeks of pure hell, sweetheart."
Bonnie laughed — short, sharp, tired. "Smooth. Real smooth. Most guys out here just ask for head or money. You at least got a line."
She eyed the empty guitar case. "How much you make tonight?"
"Eight dollars and a half-smoked Newport."
"Jesus Christ." She shook her head, but there was something in her eyes — pity mixed with hunger. She'd been in this city long enough to know pretty faces didn't last long on the street. "You got a place to crash?"
"Does the sidewalk behind the Arclight count?"
Another laugh. She looked him up and down again, slower this time. "I got a shitty studio in Van Nuys. Couch pulls out. You cook, clean, or fuck good, I might let you stay a couple nights. But if you're a leech, I'll toss your ass back on the boulevard faster than you can say 'Hollywood ending.'"
Leon stood up fast — too fast, world spun — but caught himself on the wall. "Baby, I'm housebroken, I give world-class foot rubs, and I've been told I eat pussy like it's my last meal on death row."
Bonnie raised an eyebrow. "You talk a lot of shit for a guy who smells like he bathed in taco grease."
"Give me ten minutes in a shower and I'll smell like the man of your dreams."
She sighed, already knowing she was about to make a terrible decision. "Fine. But you're buying the beer on the way. With what little you got."
Leon scooped up the eight dollars and the half-smoked cigarette like it was treasure. "Deal."
If America is one giant public restroom, then every ambitious asshole of every skin color wants to come here and drop the biggest, nastiest log they can.
And New York?
No question — it's the filthiest fucking toilet in the whole building.
Fifteen minutes later they were in her beat-up Honda Civic, windows down, hot wind whipping her blonde hair while she drove like a maniac through the Valley. She kept glancing at him, half-amused, half-horny.
"You got a name, pretty boy?"
"Leon. Leon Smith."
"Bonnie. Bonnie fucking Parker — no relation to the gangster, though I rob assholes for a living too."
By the time they pulled up to her rundown apartment complex off Sepulveda, Leon's cock was already half-hard just from the way her tits bounced when she slammed the car door.
She let him shower first. When he stepped out with only a towel slung low on his hips, water dripping down the deep V of his abs, Bonnie was waiting in the bedroom doorway wearing nothing but a tiny silk robe that barely covered her ass. Her nipples were already stiff peaks poking against the thin fabric.
"Goddamn," she breathed, eyes raking over him. "You clean up like a fucking porn star."
Leon smirked, dropped the towel. His thick cock sprang free — long, veiny, already rock-hard and leaking a shiny bead of precum at the tip. "Told you. Ten minutes and I'm ready to ruin you."
Bonnie's robe hit the floor. Her fake tits were perfect handfuls, pink nipples begging to be sucked. Her pussy was shaved smooth, lips already glistening wet. She dropped to her knees right there on the cheap carpet like a pro.
"Fuck, look at this pretty cock," she purred, wrapping both hands around his shaft. She stroked him slow and tight, thumb swirling over the slick head. Then she opened wide and took him deep — no teasing, straight to the back of her throat. Wet, sloppy sounds filled the room as she bobbed, gagging herself on his length, spit dripping down her chin onto her tits.
Leon groaned, fisting her blonde hair. "That's it, baby. Suck it like you mean it. Choke on this dick."
She moaned around him, vibrating his cock, one hand cupping his balls while the other pumped what she couldn't swallow. Tears ran down her mascara-streaked cheeks but she never stopped — deepthroating him like a champion until he was throbbing and ready to explode.
He yanked her off with a wet pop. "Bed. Now."
Bonnie scrambled onto the mattress on all fours, ass up, back arched, pussy dripping down her thighs. Leon climbed behind her, slapped her ass hard enough to leave a red handprint.
"Shit yes—!" she gasped.
He rubbed his fat cockhead up and down her soaked slit, teasing her clit, then slammed in balls-deep in one brutal thrust. Bonnie screamed, walls clenching around him like a vice.
"Fuuuuck, you're huge—!" she cried, pushing back onto him. "Stretch me out, baby!"
Leon grabbed her hips and started pounding — hard, fast, filthy. The sound of skin slapping skin echoed off the thin walls. Her fake tits swung wildly with every thrust. He reached around, pinched her clit, rubbed it in tight circles.
"You like that, you dirty stripper slut? Taking stranger cock the same night you meet him?"
"Yes—! Fuck me harder, Leon! Use my pussy—!"
He flipped her onto her back, hooked her legs over his shoulders, and drilled even deeper. The cheap bedframe slammed against the wall in rhythm. Bonnie's eyes rolled back, mouth open in a silent scream as she came — pussy gushing around his cock, squirting all over his abs.
Leon didn't stop. He kept railing her through it, chasing his own release. "Gonna fill this greedy cunt—!"
"Do it—! Cum inside me—!"
With a guttural groan he buried himself to the hilt and unloaded — thick, hot ropes of cum flooding her spasming pussy, so much it leaked out around his shaft and dripped onto the sheets.
They collapsed, sweaty, panting, hearts hammering. Bonnie lit a cigarette with shaky fingers, took a drag, then passed it to him.
"You're still a stranger," she laughed breathlessly, cum still leaking down her thigh. "But holy shit… you fuck like you owe me three months' rent. Stay a week. Hell, stay a month."
Leon took a long drag, that wicked post-nut grin spreading across his face.
"Baby, I never owe a woman money… but I'll keep making it worth your while every single night."
He was still balls-deep inside her when the cold, mechanical voice suddenly rang straight into his skull for the very first time.
[Good luck, piece of shit. May Satan have your back!]
Leon sat bolt upright, still buried in Bonnie's dripping pussy, heart hammering with pure glee.
Bonnie cracked one eye open, too fucked-out to care. "The fuck's wrong with you?"
He stared into the dark, laughing low and dirty.
"Nothing, baby," he whispered, slowly grinding his still-hard cock inside her again. "Just got the best fucking news of my second life."
Outside, LA traffic hummed. Sirens wailed. Another gunshot popped down the block — just another Tuesday night in paradise.
Leon Smith, freshly transmigrated, freshly balls-deep, and now looked down at the blonde stripper still clenching around him and grinned like the devil himself.
"City of Angels?
More like City of Suckers… and I'm about to fuck every single one of them."
===================================
July 10, 2010.
Brownsville, Brooklyn.
This place is a world apart from the glittering, decadent Manhattan they call the heart of the empire — dirty, broke, and split right down the middle.
"Leon, I honestly don't know what the fuck you bring to the table besides that one talent. We can barely afford groceries, and I don't even have money for new panties!"
A woman's shrill yelling spills out of a rundown detached house on Newport Avenue, loud enough to hear from the sidewalk.
Nobody in the neighborhood bats an eye. Gangbangers, domestic violence, and drug use are just part of the local culture here.
"Chill out, Bonnie. I'll figure out a way to make money. Just needs a little time."
The young white guy sprawled on the couch, blowing smoke rings, is Leon Smith. With his sloppy clothes, he looks exactly like the thousands of other bottom-of-the-barrel white trash around here.
Except he's actually a transmigrator.
He crossed over into this rotten capitalist world almost a month ago.
What pisses him off most? In every novel he's read, the protagonist gets some insane golden finger. Him? Zero. Nada. He woke up on the streets with literally nothing.
You could call him a "street artist," but really he was just another homeless bum, no different from the stray dogs on Kensington Avenue.
Only ten days ago did he sweet-talk this woman into letting him move in. Barely had a roof over his head.
"Enough! You lying sack of shit! I must've been out of my goddamn mind picking your ass up off that park bench!"
The blonde, Bonnie, strips off her clothes, revealing her full, curvy body, still cursing at him the whole time.
Leon's used to the abuse. He's basically given up and gone full deadbeat.
In this rigidly classed capitalist hellhole, bottom-feeders like him have zero upward mobility left.
You can't out-hustle Latino workers at McDonald's, can't out-crime the Mexicans, and even "zero-dollar shopping" doesn't work when you don't have the premium Black skin that scares people off.
So he just lets it wash over him — left ear in, right ear out. He reaches down, grabs an empty bottle, shakes it. "Fuck! Out of booze again."
"Yesterday I only made less than two hundred bucks in tips," Bonnie sighs. "At this rate I won't even be able to pay rent here. And you eat like a fucking pig!"
Leon totally gets why she's pissed. He just can't do shit about it.
She's a pole dancer at a late-night club. Used to pull Silicon Valley money, living that flashy, wild life.
But the 2008 financial crisis is still choking the country in 2010. People are clutching their wallets tight. Nobody's blowing extra cash on a stripper's fishnets.
"Maybe you should dress even sluttier," he offers. "Girls in this country can walk around in bikinis now. Nobody's gonna pay to watch a conservative show inside a club."
Conservative?
Bonnie stares down at her outfit — the total fabric could barely make one glove.
You're calling this conservative?
She pays for his food, his rent, even his dick, and this is the thanks she gets? Her rage shoots up another notch.
This man is a total piece-of-shit ingrate — except for that pretty face.
"Shit! I'm done! I'm warning you — if you don't chip in on rent this month, even a little, I'm kicking your ass out immediately!"
Leon shrugs, stands up fast. He's seen this meltdown a hundred times.
His fingers slide along her neck, massaging gently as he murmurs, "Trust me, baby. I never owe a woman money."
"I know it's been rough. Tonight I'll make it up to you real good~"
Suddenly his fingers press harder. Bonnie's legs go weak — she almost drops right there.
"I'm gonna head out, walk around, soak up some vibes, hunt for inspiration. When I get back, you'll be seeing Jackson's handsome smile on those twenties."
"Fine, you asshole… Just stay safe, okay? Gunshots don't stop from Manhattan Beach to Brownsville every night I walk home from the club."
The asshole's soft attack works every single time. She caves again.
"I will. Oh — can you spot me seven bucks?"
"What for this time?"
"Just in case I get robbed. At least I'll have something to hand over to those damn niggas so they don't put a bullet in me."
Bonnie sighs, defeated. She'd sworn she wasn't giving this deadbeat another cent.
But the thought of him getting hurt makes her hesitate. She pulls seven dollars out of her purse anyway.
Why exactly seven? She has no fucking clue.
"Wait for my good news, baby~"
The second the cash is in his hand, Leon moves faster than a rabbit dodging a hawk. He snatches the beat-up acoustic guitar that's been with him since day one of the transmigration and bolts out the door.
Five minutes later he's at the corner gas-station convenience store. He drops every last 7.25 dollars on a pack of Marlboros and lights up with pure satisfaction.
Inspiration? Making money? All lies.
"Fuuuck~" He exhales the word along with the smoke and laughs at his own shamelessness.
A lot of his past-life memories have gone fuzzy since crossing over. No easy information arbitrage to get rich overnight.
A broke, no-degree nobody at the very bottom trying to climb the frozen American class ladder? Pure fantasy — unless washing dishes suddenly prints money.
Born a workhorse? Then accept you'll die a workhorse.
While Leon is deep in his little existential crisis, a strange voice suddenly rings inside his head.
[Shameless Entry Refreshed. Current Entry: Con Artist.]
[Monthly Inspiration Refresh Activated. Refresh date: the 11th of every month. Keep unlocking shameless entries for more refresh chances!]
[Entry lost = inspiration refresh paused until new entry appears.]
[Good luck, you magnificent piece of shit. May Satan have your back!]
"WTF? Shameless entries?"
Leon stands frozen in the night, cigarette dangling, staring blankly into the darkness.