A woman knows by intuition, or instinct, what is best for

Host: The city night shimmered like a restless ocean of glass and neon. High above the streets, a penthouse balcony caught the last whisper of wind from the bay. Inside, the air hummed with the faint jazz of a record spinning lazily, the kind of music that felt both intimate and infinite.

The room was half-lit — gold from a lamp, blue from the skyline, everything caught between shadow and glow.

Jack stood by the window, his reflection fractured by the glass. His grey eyes were pensive, his voice low and gravelly, as if he’d been talking to the night before she arrived.

Jeeny leaned against the marble counter, a glass of red wine in her hand, her hair loose and dark, her presence both fierce and soft — like something that belonged entirely to herself.

Jeeny: “Marilyn Monroe once said, ‘A woman knows by intuition, or instinct, what is best for herself.’”

Jack: (smirking faintly) “Instinct. That’s what people say when they don’t have data.”

Jeeny: “That’s what people say when they’ve forgotten how to listen to themselves.”

Jack: “Listening to yourself doesn’t make you right, Jeeny. It just makes you confident.”

Jeeny: “Confidence is often the first truth that logic can’t explain.”

Host: The record crackled softly, a trumpet sighing somewhere behind them. The city lights pulsed like a heartbeat — steady, glowing, alive.

Jack poured himself a drink, the ice clinking with precision.

Jack: “Instinct’s unreliable. It’s romanticized guesswork. People call it intuition when luck happens to agree with them.”

Jeeny: “And yet, every great leap in history — art, discovery, love — began with a feeling, not a formula.”

Jack: (turning toward her) “And every disaster did, too.”

Jeeny: “Because people confuse fear for instinct. Real intuition isn’t panic. It’s clarity.”

Host: She took a slow sip of her wine, her gaze unflinching. The air between them shimmered — part challenge, part electricity.

Jeeny: “Women especially learn to hear it because we have to. The world teaches us to doubt our own voices, so intuition becomes our rebellion — the only compass they can’t take from us.”

Jack: (nodding slowly) “So it’s survival.”

Jeeny: “It’s more than that. It’s memory. Generations of women learned to read the room before the danger entered it.”

Jack: “You think instinct can replace logic?”

Jeeny: “No. I think it completes it. Logic is what you use when the world is clear. Intuition is what saves you when it isn’t.”

Host: The wind slipped through the half-open window, carrying the faint hum of the city below. Jeeny’s hair moved with it — a small motion that felt like freedom refusing to be still.

Jack: “You make it sound mystical.”

Jeeny: “It’s biological. Emotional. Spiritual. Pick your term — the body keeps an intelligence the mind can’t measure.”

Jack: “Then why do people still make the same mistakes? If intuition’s so wise, shouldn’t it keep us from heartbreak?”

Jeeny: (smiling sadly) “It doesn’t stop heartbreak. It just tells you which ones are worth it.”

Host: The music deepened — a saxophone crying softly now, as though echoing something unspoken in the room.

Jack: “You really believe Marilyn knew what was best for herself?”

Jeeny: “I think she tried. I think she knew what she needed — the problem was the world kept convincing her she was wrong for wanting it.”

Jack: “So instinct doesn’t save you from the world.”

Jeeny: “No. It saves you from becoming what the world wants you to be.”

Host: Her words lingered — fragile, luminous — like perfume caught in air. Jack stared at her for a long time, his pragmatic certainty wavering beneath something older, something unnamed.

Jack: “You ever followed your intuition into the wrong place?”

Jeeny: “Every time I ignored my mind to follow my heart, it hurt. But every time I ignored my heart to follow my mind, it killed something in me.”

Jack: “So pain’s the price of authenticity.”

Jeeny: “Always. Because living truthfully means living vulnerably.”

Host: The city lights flickered, a plane crossing the sky like a comet. The reflection danced across the glass — Jack and Jeeny side by side in its fleeting blaze.

Jack: “You know, it’s funny. Men call it ‘strategy.’ Women call it ‘intuition.’ But half the time, it’s the same thing — pattern recognition born from experience.”

Jeeny: “Yes, but we use it differently. You use it to control. We use it to connect.”

Jack: (half-laughing) “That’s poetic. Dangerous, but poetic.”

Jeeny: “It’s survival poetry, Jack. The kind written with blood and beauty.”

Host: Her tone was soft, but her eyes were fierce — the kind of gaze that saw through pretense. Jack looked away, toward the skyline, where towers blinked in the fog like quiet lighthouses.

Jack: “I envy that kind of certainty. I second-guess everything — every decision, every thought.”

Jeeny: “Because you were taught doubt was intelligence. I was taught that doubt keeps me alive.”

Jack: (quietly) “So instinct for you isn’t luxury. It’s armor.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s skin. The truest layer of me.”

Host: The record clicked softly, the end of the song spiraling into silence. Only the hum of the city remained — distant, constant, like the pulse of time itself.

Jeeny moved to the window beside him. The reflection in the glass merged them for a moment — two faces, different philosophies, bound by the same searching.

Jeeny: “You know what I think Marilyn meant, Jack?”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “That a woman’s instinct isn’t about knowing everything — it’s about trusting herself even when no one else does.”

Jack: “And when she’s wrong?”

Jeeny: “Then she learns without apology.”

Host: A car horn echoed faintly below. The wind carried the scent of rain.

Jack: “You really think intuition can lead the way in a world built on reason?”

Jeeny: “Reason builds the road, Jack. Intuition decides where it leads.”

Host: He turned to her fully then — the distance between them smaller than the space between heartbeats.

Jack: (softly) “Then what’s your instinct telling you now?”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “That you already know.”

Host: The silence after her words was alive — not empty, but charged with everything unsaid. The city glowed around them, endless and intimate.

Jack set his glass down, eyes lingering on her face as though the answer were written there.

Jeeny stepped closer, her voice barely more than breath.

Jeeny: “That’s the thing about intuition. It doesn’t argue. It just knows.”

Host: Outside, the rain finally began — slow, rhythmic, cleansing. The lights of the city blurred through it, turning the world soft and new.

And in that moment, Marilyn Monroe’s words became something more than philosophy — they became presence:

That intuition is not the opposite of intellect, but its silent partner,
that the soul often knows before the mind understands,
and that a woman’s truth is not something she learns — it’s something she remembers.

Host: The record began again.
The rain kept falling.
And in the quiet glow of the city,
Jeeny’s instinct — and the truth of it —
finally found its way home.