"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.