Been typing all day, on a Danny roll. So much easier to do than what I wrote for myself to say. Talking about the same incidents, just like his voice better. He’s all Let’s Do This Thing, woke up thinking about it this morning.
Tempted to go on to his next chapter, not doing the multiple hand written rewrites this time. Have it in notebooks that I’ve edited and copied over once. Reading it through after a spell check, fiddling around a little, but then moving on.
Haven’t given my character a name yet, didn’t need to when she was talking. Danny refers to her as the redhead, or Eileen’s friend (Eileen is Kitty’s AA sponsor), don’t know what to call her. Me. Not going to use my real name to publish it under - should I use Maureen Donegal?

Took a little time out, had a new job I thought I was doing really well at, sold like a demon, was always on time, both managers loved me. The designer called to find out when I was in because she’d heard such nice things from the staff was well as the clients. Showed up last weekend and she said she didn’t like that way the outfit I was given to wear looked on me. The next day I was fired. Wasn’t given a reason, I’m sure it was because I’m 5’1” and 60, although I’m told I don’t look my age.
So, I’m back to the book, and getting ready for the parole hearing I’m testifying at in a month. I understand the posts from the prologue of J’S GIRLS have been confusing, so I’ll go back to my original plan. Have typed fourteen chapters of the new book that will need to edited later, twelve for my character and two so far for Danny from J’S GIRLS who appears as a fictionalized version the cop I kept encountering in real life during the events surrounding the incident.

"That said, I went about pretending things were perfect. The antiques shop was a success, I met Riley there, I was standing at the door straightening the literature as he came in. No bells or whistles, but I knew he was interested in me.
He had politics written all over him. Grey suit, light hair and eyes, with no recognizable accent. Tall, leaning towards teddy bear but fit, probably played tennis. Not my type, but Hazel would love him. All this registered as I wrote the specs for the table he was supposedly interested in on the back of my card. Still thinking about a possible commission, I shook his hand as he told me his name. It was no surprise when he came back on Saturday, this time in a sports jacket and jeans. He passed on the table, too big he said, and then he asked me out for drinks after work.
Had plans, I lied, perhaps coffee on Sunday?
He suggested brunch, better still, and I agreed."

The next installment from the woman in the prologue of J'S GIRLS

"The doctor in DC suggested therapy. I said no. I thought I could leave it behind, that it was over and done with.
But wherever you go, there you are.
Mostly I watched TV, or lay around on the library sofa reading leather bound classics. There were two fat dachshunds always in need of walking, which I took over from Gladys, Hazel’s housekeeper, once my face had healed enough to be in public.
Poor Gladys tried hard not to look. So wanted to ask, so not wanting to react. The story was a taxi accident. Heard it often enough that I could believe it myself.
My first official function was Hazel’s Fourth of July party after the Potomac fireworks. A very late supper for twenty, I sat next to a curator from the Phillips who introduced me to a woman opening an antiques shop on Dupont Circle after Labor Day who was happy to hire me.
I went to work wearing one of those black suits with the snakeskin pumps, which toned down nicely with a string of pearls. It was then I began dreaming about New York. The winter light in my apartment, the black and white bathroom tiles, all my clothes stuffed into the closet. Maybe I was feeling safe enough to remember.
But there were no real memories; just flashes, glimpses, images."

Abridged version of the next sequence from the J'S GIRLS prologue

"I had a good look in the mirror as the cops clomped up the stairs. Stitches were required, my nose was broken; clearly I’d been raped, the detectives kept their distance.
My aunt Hazel swept into the hospital in the middle of the night while I was refusing to cooperate with the investigation. Backing me up, she insisted we would be leaving as soon as I was released from the hospital. Which was the following morning, against the doctor’s advice.
J had kicked in the TV and broken the boom box, scattering the pieces down the stairs, but there was still the bed and kitchen things which Hazel left for Goodwill. She let me keep the carved chest from India I used as a coffee table since it fit in the trunk with my clothing. I spread out on the back seat with my pillows and quilt attempting to get comfortable. Which was hard to do with two broken ribs, but the Lincoln, you know Hazel would rent a Lincoln, was a smooth enough ride once we were out of the tunnel.
And then I was gone."

The woman from J'S GIRLS prologue escapes New York the first time.

"The next day I went to the gym and bought groceries. Only once, when I checked for mail, did I think something might be wrong. Just a weird sensation I had as I looked into the box before going upstairs. Said hello to my neighbor who was in the hall with his nervous little poodle, then I unlocked the door and went inside.
Kicking off my shoes, I put away the groceries. Then I sat on the bed to roll a joint with some soap opera on the television. Taking a hit, I got up to get a drink.
Hey Sugar.
Where had he been hiding?
He reached for the joint.
How had he gotten in?
Without thinking, I handed it to him.
Why didn’t I try to escape?
He grabbed my wrist and twisted me towards him.
And then and then and then."

The following installment from the prologue of J'S Girls.

"I slept late. Smoked pot and danced around to music on the boom box in the dark by myself. I was spending my way through the coffee can money when the phone rang on a Sunday afternoon. Thinking it was my aunt Hazel; I answered it.
Hey Sugar and all that crap.
J.
Like nothing had happened.
He’d waited too long, his only mistake, I was done and told him so.
He didn’t like it.
I hung up.
I was an idiot.
When the downstairs doorbell buzzed an hour later, I ignored it. I also unplugged the phone. The evening news was on when I heard him come up the stairs. He banged on the door twice; I was on the other side of it silent and scared to death.
The moment passed and he was gone."

Things heat up with J and the woman from the prologue of J'S GIRLS.

"The next time J hit me I slapped him back and got a beating. I complained to Cleo and she warned me to do what I was told. Then he reached across the table at a Chinese restaurant to slap my face. I ran out and jumped into a taxi, and spent the next few nights with my friends on Mercer Street. They’d only seen me with him that first night, I never told them who he was.
A week passed.
Nothing. Not even Cleo called.
Already booked at Baby’s the following week, I went to work as scheduled. She knew about the fight, and although she was full of advice, I knew she was afraid of J. But my shift passed without incident, I took my money and went home.
Another week passed. No evening dates. No afternoons with Cleo. No ringing phone. I went to the gym, had my nails done, poked around a few museums pretending I had a normal life.
Because of the J problem, I didn’t work for a month.
It was great."

A sequential installment from the woman in the prologue of J'S GIRLS.

Reporting in, exhausted from the new job, but I appear to be good at it and once I’m used to standing 8 hours a pop and running up and down stairs, I kid you not, at least 30 times a day, it’ll be fine. I’m already writing during my lunch break, so the new Danny chapter is coming along.
The Parole Board situation is at a standstill until I speak to them in July, but I just met someone who swore he was in the jury pool back in 1984 for my assailant. At first I did not believe him, it was too weird, but he knew his name, described him perfectly and how he’d sat next to his lawyer taking notes.
But I suppose, given the circumstances, if I’d been in that jury pool, I’d remember his name and have a clear image of him and his notebook too. The case was all over the news especially after he escaped from the courthouse. Oops, did I forget to tell you that part?

"Within a month I was seeing johns at Cleo’s. Soon I was working other houses, sometimes there would be a couple of girls, but mostly I was alone. Once in awhile the madam would send me to see a client at his office. I had regulars who followed me from place to place. They paid for half hour chunks of my time, in an apartment with at least a balcony, if it wasn’t a penthouse.
I had a bad scare at the Hilton where I ran out of the room in just my coat and shoes as I stuffed the rest of my clothes into my pockets. I took the stairs a few flights down before stopping to slip on my skirt to get out of the building. He’d tried to strangle me with a telephone cord, and needless to say, he didn’t pay me. J was pissed, but not at the john. He smacked my face after I told him what happened."

The woman from the prologue of J'S GIRLS talks about working for J.

So you are out there, sometimes, as you might know, it's hard to tell.

"I knew Kitty, having arrested her a number of times, and she had a compelling, natural sweetness about her that survived turning tricks. Her main concern was for his safety since he had already been in a fistfight with J; hence the black eye he had been so secretive about a few weeks before. She started to cry as she spoke about them both carrying guns, she was convinced one of them would die.
She was also worried about her friends, in particular Mercedes, as J had threatened to hurt them too while he was hitting her. Interesting how she had a cracked rib and both arms were black and blue, but J had not touched her face. Although I could see the grip marks at the base of her neck where he held her during the beating."

Caroline from Chapter 4 of J'S GIRLS when she first realized her new partner Danny was seeing Kitty in the beginning of their relationship.

So, no comments for more than a week, maybe you’ re bored. Hope not, it’s been a rough month; I didn’t want to give a blow by blow of the drama. But I can tell you now, since it’s starting to lift, and it’s also part of the process.
First off, there was my meltdown about the impending parole hearing and visits to the DA’s office to prepare my victim’s impact statement. I have an appointment to meet with the Parole Board the first Friday in July. I won’t know if it will be enough to keep my assailant in jail until they decide in November, when he may or may not be released. My option then will be to relocate, but they won’t tell me one way or the other until he actually is free. Really.
In the meantime, I started a new job this week, and although I’m still counting pennies, the money will be coming in soon. Optimistic, and typing up the current story as I write it. And I’ll continue to post bits and pieces of J’S GIRLS, perhaps even some more Caroline tomorrow.

"Kitty says some are sicker than others, and she knows a lot of off the wall people. Including me with my dreaded people pleasing, and Tash, who is out of her mind all the time now.
You should have seen her yesterday, when those two cops were at the gallery wiring their equipment up through the security cameras. Garcia she knew and had done her routine on before, but the new girl, the tech named Bonnie, who Tash kept calling Bunny, got the full treatment. Big toothy grin when Bonnie saw the picture of Tash in her naked tattooed glory in the bathroom. Much more predatory than the smile Kitty had when Bonnie figured out that the handsome devil Serpico clone in those pictures in the office was her new boss Danny.
I knew Tash would do something, act out at some point, given how bad her dreams were the night before. Coming on to a cop, straight girl or not, was better than beating someone up. Me, for instance, even her pug, has been staying out of her way. So I let her tie me up and get it out of her system. But isn’t that what girlfriends are for?"

Fiona talking about her lover Tasha in Chapter 11 of J'S GIRLS

"Six weeks later he introduced Cleo and cocaine to the equation. Half street, half Jamaican, she slipped into the car with us one night and I found myself in the middle too high to care who was touching me. Then it was just a hop skip and jump to her apartment on Astor Place.
When he left, I was still there smoking a joint and sharing the bowl of ice cream she’d brought back to the bed when she locked the door behind him.
We didn’t have sex, Cleo and I, unless he was with us. She was part of the plan, but I didn’t get it. At least not until we went on a double date and Luis, the other guy who I thought was with Cleo, leaned across her and kissed me in front of J. I thought we were doing whatever it was among friends. I didn’t know money was involved until he handed J cash after Cleo and I rolled around with him while J left to use the bathroom.
And there you have it.
Why it’s called a trick."

The unnamed woman Danny goes to DC to interview speaks about how sex with J led her to prostitution, from the prologue of J'S GIRLS.

"She’s warming up again, gave me all the signals yesterday. Took the clip out of her hair. Nice smoochy kiss at the elevator.
Hooking up later, said she had something to tell me that’ll make me really happy.
Was on her way to get her nails done since the gallery is closed on Mondays. She’ll be getting waxed too, which is silly since I couldn’t care less about that.
Like it that she does though, that she wants to, for me.
Like that she’ll be picking up a new shirt in some color I’d never buy for myself. Doing right about now, I think.
The routine, our little reconciliation dance.
Her hair comes down, the body gets waxed; I get a new shirt and we have spectacular sex. Her way first, hungry and fast, then mine, later, slow and relaxed.
Oh yeah.
I mean, come on, what’s better than make-up sex?
Especially if you weren’t fighting, but just haven’t seen each other in a while?
But then, waiting for Kitty’s always worth it for me.
Rocks my world, that girl.
Still.
Kitty."

Danny talking in Chapter 9 of J'S GIRLS about Kitty the day after she came to his precinct about those photographs she got at her gallery.

"When he came home with me, there was some mad groping inside the door and then he stopped, insisting on wine and music. He picked Patsy’s old Crosby Stills and Nash album that I’d turned to as a kid for comfort when things got bad. It was perfect. Took his time, lots more kissing, and gave me my first earth shattering, lights flashing, think I’m having a heart attack orgasm, and I never got over it. And because we were both in our twenties, he turned the record over and did it again.
I was like one of those baby ducklings that fixate on the first thing they see moving…
Hell in a hand basket, my mother used to say about me.
Does it ever stop being about Mommy?
She never came to see me in jail, nobody did.
Except Danny, at least for a little while, in the beginning.
Oh, and Caroline, of course, but that’s another story."

Kitty talking about the first time she had sex with Danny in J'S GIRLS

"It totally baffled me, still does sometimes, what went on between them. But then, I don’t like men. I like Danny though; I get what she sees in him, but the very idea of what they do in bed skeeves me out. You know it’s got to be intense. For me it’d be like being assaulted. You can’t tell me it doesn’t hurt. But you can see what it does for her, especially when they’ve been away from each other for a while. That makeup sex, that being ravaged, and you know that’s what he does when she lets him in again. Frankly, between you and me, sometimes I think it’s why she holds him back, for the makeup sex. And I’m pretty sure when this little drama with these photographs is over, they’ll get back together and it’ll be fireworks.

But her way, always her way, you can count on it."

Fiona on Kitty and Danny's relationship in Chapter 5 of J'S GIRLS.

"We once had a cocker spaniel my husband swore would stop what she was doing to go sit by the door 10 minutes before I came home. It could be any time of day or night since I didn’t have a regular schedule; that dog just knew I was coming.
He is like that with Kitty; I watched it wash over him today about 5 minutes before she arrived in the squad room. That subtle shift of him becoming her lover as he sensed her presence downstairs the same way our dog used to do with me. He softened with one deep breath, and then stared at the door as he prepared to greet her.
She held back when their eyes met, but they smiled across the room at each other with a certain amount of heat…..It is not just sex, although their relationship is certainly sexual, but there is more to it. Love, yes, they definitely love each other, but the connection is deeper and more visceral. Even now, at 48 and 50, when their relationship works, they cannot keep their hands off each other."

Caroline on Kitty and Danny's relationship in Chapter 4 of J'S GIRLS.

Now that I’ve got you a little afraid, both the first novel and the new project are scary stories; tomorrow I’ll introduce another aspect to J’S GIRLS, the romance between Kitty and Danny.
In the meantime, I have now typed up nine pages from Danny’s new monologues, of which there are over a hundred pages, that may work better in J’S GIRLS instead. Need to proof it and think about places where pieces of it will blend nicely into the first novel. I also have an idea that ties in with this new work that Fiona can talk about in one of her J’S GIRLS chapters as well.
So, once again, I get to go back to a place I really enjoyed being, that little fictional world I created last year. I recently read Stephen King will put his novels away once he thinks they are finished and then get them back out six months later to is see if they need to be revised or rewritten. Can’t argue with that, he seems to know what he’s doing.

"I was on my way home the other night when this bottle-throwing derelict chased me down the street into a deli. The first bottle flew passed my head and crashed on the sidewalk about ten feet in front of me. Choosing to ignore it, I try not to engage in street drama, I didn’t turn around as the second bottle just missed my shoulder and I realized I might be a target.
It was still fairly early and lots of people were out, so I moved into a group of them as I hurried to get around the corner. Another empty bottle whizzed by, missing all of us but startling my companions. I was almost at the door of the deli where I knew the countermen had big knives and might protect me. I slipped inside and was halfway up the aisle before I saw my assailant. A white man, scruffy, maybe a junkie, in a tattered plaid shirt, he was swinging one last bottle over his head and screaming I’d stolen his radio."

Opening to the untitled new project I'm currently working on.

Been busy typing the untitled story, deep into the factual account of the incident; am about to start the part of going to see the line up. My counselor at the DA’s office says she’s happy I am looking at the future. Which is much better than how I was 2 weeks ago.
It was rough going for a while, things are still pretty rocky, but my attitude has changed. I think it’s because I’m writing again, although I couldn’t write because of the stress; the chicken or the egg thing, I suppose. Took some pictures down there today, and will post them on Maureen Donegal this week.
Had a revelation about J’S GIRLS, which apparently isn't quite long enough yet, word count wise. Danny is the cop in the new piece too and in it he talks about what led up to the situation in J’S GIRLS, and I now think, since nobody in publishing has read it, I should figure out a place to insert some of his new monologues into J’S GIRLS instead.

"Hate police stations. Always the same. Same sounds, same dinghy walls needing to be painted. Just like jail, same desperation. I was in the middle of a sale when Fiona called not an hour after she left to see Danny. Told Tash we should come right away, so as soon as I was done, we closed and went up. Tasha made a scene kissing Fiona then immediately freaked out over what was on the walls and the drawing the sketch artist did with Fiona.
Not that I can blame her, I had had better sense than show her what had come in the mail, but Danny’s stuff was even more horrible. Morgue shots with blue lips and hideous stitches, bodies wrapped in muddy plastic.
Took me a minute to realize they were the same girls.
Tash knew all of them, the three victims, she also knew the man in the drawing. Hissed at it.
Then I saw it, that awful drawing.
It was J.
I had to sit down."

Opening to chapter 7 of J'S GIRLS, where Kitty speaks about seeing the sketch which resembles J, who has been dead for many years.

My guess is Kitty, the last character I’ll be introducing, is be the one most readers will identify with; maybe not the men, but definitely the women. She is certainly the one I know best. And Danny loves her, which makes my little fictional world perfect.
She overcame a difficult childhood and has been in jail, as have both Fiona and Tasha, but turned her life around to become a successful art gallery owner. She had help, especially from Caroline, and Danny of course, but still struggles with her insecurities.
Her biggest problem is losing herself in her relationship with Danny, who tends to be overwhelming. Or perhaps not, it may be more about her evaporating, which is how he describes it, and why, in spite of how much she loves him, Kitty resisted contacting Danny about those terrible photographs she has recently been receiving at the gallery.

"They sat me down with a sketch artist and while I was describing the guy, I heard Danny and Caroline talking about how their fingers weren’t burned in Kitty’s pictures and how they weren’t wearing the jewelry they had on in her pictures when their bodies were found either.
I couldn’t get over how casual the cops were, especially Danny. I’d never really ever seen him in action before; he’s always just been Kitty’s boyfriend. He was even wearing a gun in a holster, and winked at me when he saw me staring at it.
Caroline was pointing out how the weird bruising on one girl’s neck had been caused by the pearls she had on in the images Kitty sent. And the ones on the other girl’s wrists were from the tasseled drapery cord she was tied to the bed with.
Oh, look at this, oh, look at that. I did too; I couldn’t help myself, until I thought I’d be sick. Then Tasha blew in with Kitty and turned everything upside down."

Excerpt from Chapter Five in J'S GIRLS as Fiona talks about bringing the photos Kitty received to Danny at the police station.