After his summer at Ben's, Lee had developed a connoisseurs taste for good BBQ.  Few of the places he'd been previously seemed even comparable anymore and ever since then he'd been on a continuing quest for the best.  There was Top Hat in Little Rock, Bill Spoon's in Charlotte, Big Mama's in St. Louis, Poe's in Memphis, and Whitt's in Nashville.  Each one different.  Near his parents house and convenient when he visited was Dreamland.  He'd been to one in Alabama once, but this one didn't quite measure up.  Fat Matt's was OK too.  His favorite though had been Ollie's in Birmingham, but it had closed leaving a gaping hole in his life.  On the west side of Atlanta, hidden from most people's consciousness though, there was Leo's.  Once his second favorite, it was now number one.

His excitement called for a celebration and Leo's was just the thing.  Walking from his car, even from a half block away, he could smell the intermingling of the smoke from the hardwood fire and meat that had been on the receiving end of the smoke for several hours.  He'd once treated Ben to a lunch at Leo's and made the mistake of saying that it was his favorite.  Trying to salvage the comment by adding 'of commercial places' allowed both he and Ben to save face, though neither believed it.

As always Little Leo was back at the pits, checking meat, shoveling coals into the bottom, and throwing fresh wood on the fire.  His grandfather had started the place a long time ago, but nobody was really sure exactly when.  Leo, Little Leo's dad, took it over in the 60's.  Little Leo had grown up there and over the past few years taken over as his dad slowed down.  Little Leo's name wasn't really Leo and at a few inches over six feet and pushing 400 pounds he wasn't really very little, but the name had been coined when he first started helping his dad at age seven and he'd been stuck with it ever since.

After saying hello to Little Leo and receiving a grunt in reply, Lee joined Amy and Beth at a table in the corner.

"You look chipper." Amy said as he sat down.

"It's been a good day." Lee replied and then looking at Beth "You must be Beth." He said and shook her hand.  Where Linea had been more on the glamorous side, Beth was simply cute.  She had short brunette hair, brown baby-doe eyes and a few freckles.  She was very petite, including her breasts, which Lee noticed, were small but perky.  Actually, Lee thought everything about Beth was perky.

"I am." She replied with a smile.

"So why have you had such a good day?" Amy asked with a slight emphasis on the 'you'.  Just enough to remind Lee that she wasn't having a very good day.

"Well, this morning wasn't good, with the article and the phone calls you'd received, but things improved the rest of the day.  At least for me." He added quietly.  "After I got back to the office I went over the Lawrence vs. Texas Supreme Court Decision.  Besides including several elements that will directly help my cases, it spawned a number of ideas of other avenues for me to pursue.  Then this afternoon I called Ben and while we were talking I found myself sounding like you.  Making your arguments.  It suddenly hit me why I wasn't getting it before.  I couldn't understand why we should fight to legalize something that was already illegal and generally undesirable by a majority of the population."  Lee noticed a cringe on Amy's face, but kept going.  "I finally realized how screwed up things are now with the current laws.  It's not an issue of a good option versus a bad option, but a decision between two sub optimal options." He paused to breathe.  "Once I realized that, it didn't take long for me to understand that decriminalizing it is clearly the thing to do."

"One thing though." Amy interjected.  "A majority of the population says publicly that they are against it, because it's the politically correct answer.  Keep in mind that about 70% of the guys in this country will visit a prostitute at least once, and most of them a whole bunch of times and that somewhere over 4% of the women in this country will work as prostitutes at some point in their lives.  If you add these to the people not involved in it in any way who believe it should be decrim'd, you've got more than half the population.  ...And that's just today.  Once more people understand the issues, understand them the way you began to today, support will grow even larger.


"Agreed." Lee replied.  "In any case, I'm fully on board with you."

"It's about time." Amy smiled.

As they talked Little Leo arrived with 3 plates of his famous BBQ.  "I took the liberty of ordering for us." Amy said.  "Leo said he knew exactly what you wanted."

"Leo spoke words?" Lee grinned at Leo.  "Umph." Leo replied and walked back to his fires.

"How are you doing?" Lee asked Beth clearly referring to the attack she'd received a few weeks prior.

"I'm good." She said.

"Glad to hear it." Lee said.  "The way it was described to me, that was some deal you went through.  ...So, if you don't mind, can you tell me a little about your experiences?  How you got into this business, what you think about it, where the problems are.  Stuff like that."

Beth sat quietly for a minute, an unusual occurrence.  "Well." She smiled.  "I'm kindof a nympho.  ...When I was about 14 I'd get really horny and the first time I actually had to talk my boyfriend into it." She said.  "By the time I was 16 I realized that I could get guys to pay me to do it with them.  It wasn't much, but twenty here and twenty there started to add up.  I'd have done it with some of the guys anyway, but the money sure was handy.  After high school I tried a number of different jobs, but none were nearly as fun as this or paid anywhere near as much money."

"So you never worked the streets or for an agency or any of that stuff?"

"No way I'd do streetwork!" Beth replied emphatically.  "I did work for an agency for a few months my first year out of high school, but I didn't have any control over who my clients were and the agency took half the money.  One of the other girls and I struck out on our own about 5 years ago.  We put an ad in the paper and kind of covered each other.  We'd answer each other's phone and screen our clients really good.  We never scheduled at the same time so that, ...like, if she was meeting someone at a hotel, I'd drive her there and sit in the car.  She'd call when she was in the room and we had codes for how safe we felt.  If all she said was 'I'm here' that meant that she felt uncomfortable and I'd call back in about 20 minutes to see how things were going.  After a couple of months we had codes for everything." Beth laughed.  "No matter what though, I'd call her cell as soon as time was up.  Mostly to make sure everything was OK.  We did that for about 3 years, but she got tired of it and now works as a dispatcher for a trucking company."

Lee made a mental note to track Beth's former partner down and get her views on everything.  Now that she'd been out of the business for a while she'd likely have a better perspective on things, he thought.  "Do you still enjoy it?" he asked.

Beth looked at Amy and smiled.  "I love it!  But I'm kinda unusual.  First of all I just plain love sex.  Second, I've been able to set things up so that I only have clients that I really like.  I've got about 9 regulars and generally don't really see anyone new very often.  Also, I never see more than three in a week.  There's this one guy that I see every Monday afternoon.  He's so sweet." She smiled.  "He brings me flowers and stuff every once in a while." She paused.

"So how often do you see the others?" Lee asked a little sheepishly.

Con't

"Oh, most of them are once a month kind of guys, but a few are more like every other month or every 3 months.  My goal is to make a little over a thousand bucks a week, which I'm doing now.  If appointments start to slow down I'll post on one of the boards that if you're interested in possibly becoming a new client in the future that we should meet for coffee.  I tell them all up front that I'm not really taking anyone right now, but just prepping for the future.  That way nobody gets hurt if I don't want to see 'em.  If I like one or two I'll give them my cell number and we'll take it from there.

"So, how long do you expect to do this?" he asked.  With some math he'd figured out that Beth was 24, but she looked a lot younger and could easily pass for a high school student.  He thought again about how cute she was and, as distasteful as the concept was to him, could understand someone paying three or four hundred for an hour of bliss with her.  Especially if she really did enjoy it as much as she said.

"Well, at some point I'm going to start getting old and the money will begin to dry up." She smiled.  "I suppose then I'll have to quit, but I may do it sooner.  Maybe when I'm thirty or so I guess.  ...Amy's been helping me with planning for it.  I put about half what I make in a retirement plan and I'm going to school to learn about CAD programs and architecture.  I'll be done with that in a couple of years and hope to do that part-time until I retire from providing and then maybe go full-time."

"Sounds like you've got a handle on everything." Lee said.

"Hardly, but I'm in a lot better shape than most of the girls and I really like my life the way it is right now.  ...Well, except that I wish what I was doing wasn't against the law.  That'd certainly make it a lot safer."

"So." Lee paused briefly.  "Tell me about what happened and why you didn't tell the police."

"Well, what happened was simple.  This guy called and convinced me that he was OK, you know, not psychotic or anything, and I agreed to see him.  When he was getting ready to leave he put his arm around my throat and told me that he wanted all of my money.  Said he knew I had a bunch on me and wanted all of it.  I gave it to him and then he said that he knew I wouldn't go to the cops, but just to make sure he hit me with the back of his hand above my eye and said that there'd be more if I told anyone."

"So why didn't you go to the cops?  Wouldn't they ignore your being involved in a misdemeanor to go after this jerk?" Lee asked.  He already knew the answer, but wanted to hear it from Beth.

"No, they wouldn't bust me then, but I'd have effectively admitted what it was I was doing and they'd come after me in a few months.  They love to bust us because it's about the easiest thing they can do and most of 'em enjoy it.  Almost like sport." She paused. "Every once in a while some girl will go to the cops about something like this and every single time they're busted within a few months.  It ain't right.  I don't hurt anyone with what I'm doing."

"Besides not being able to report stuff like this, how else are you impacted by the current laws?" Amy asked.

"Well, that's the biggest.  You already know about the girls who've had problems getting jobs after they get a bust on their records.  That's just plain infuriating.  I guess the biggest thing is that because of it being illegal we have to do everything underground.  It makes it a lot harder to screen clients to weed out the bad ones, everything is kind of clandestine which adds more danger." She paused.  "We used to have a lot of problems with the cops shaking us down, but that's slowed down a bunch over the past couple of years.  I think that driving it underground has also had a huge impact on it's association with drugs.  Oh, there's also the money thing.  Everything's done with cash which means that we all usually have a lot of it in our apartment and the jerks like the guy who got me know that.  Everyone's scared to go to the bank making a bunch of thousand dollar cash deposits."

"Can you tell me more about the shake downs from the cops?" Lee asked.  "Were they just harassing you guys or threatening you or what?"

"Well, it was basically payment for looking the other way.  The most common deal was we provide free services to them and they don't bust us."

"Extortion." Lee said quietly.  "Can you or any other girls identify the cops who were doing this?"

"Nobody would, including me." She said.  "It happens in every city.  I doubt you'd be able to find a massage parlor or escort service who's not giving freebies to a bunch of their cities finest." She said the last part with a pinch of sarcasm.  "As long as it's illegal the cops have us over a barrel and they know it.  They know we're not hurting anyone so they don't have any guilt about letting us continue as long as they get their portion."

Lee thought for a moment.  Her last comments really infuriated him.  He knew stuff like this went on, but hadn't thought about it in such black and white terms before.  "If we take this thing all the way we're going to need some folks to testify in some courts and possibly to the legislature about what life is like as a provider.  Would you be willing to do that?"  Lee asked.  "Not to name any names or anything." Lee interjected quickly.

"Can I do it anonymously?"

"Well, yeah, but it'd have a much greater impact if they can see your face and know your name.  But I understand where you're coming from."

"Oh Amy!" Beth suddenly shouted as the thought came in her head, ignoring the conversation she'd been having with Lee.  "Did you ever hear back from that cop friend of yours?"

Lee looked at Amy and her expression told him that she'd rather him not know anything about what Beth had just brought up.  

"He said it wasn't anything to worry about." Amy replied to Beth with a slight smile.  "Oh, are you still planning to go home this weekend?" she asked Beth trying to divert the conversation.

"What cop friend?" Lee asked.  "What else has happened?"

"It's nothing." Amy said.  "Some guy gave me a note suggesting that I stop doing anything."

"Why are the cops involved?" he asked.

Amy looked at Beth, not in an accusatory way, but just to delay while she thought about what to say to Lee.  The look Beth gave her left no doubt that if she didn't fill him in, Beth would.  "This morning about 15 minutes after you left Judge Beans a guy came in and handed me a note that said "Go no further."  Amy said.  "Chuck Forstman is a cop I've known for some time and he happened to be in there at the time.  Just to be safe he took the note down to the lab to get it fingerprinted, but there were none on there.  He said that he doesn't think there's much to worry about at this point, just to be careful."

Lee looked at Amy waiting for more and then looked at Beth for confirmation that he'd heard it all.  The look on Beth's face told him that he hadn't.  He looked back at Amy.

"Did they ever find out who delivered the note?" Beth asked.  They both looked at Amy.

"His name is Daryl Moore.  He does odd jobs for people like delivering messages and stuff.  They said that he occasionally does it for some organized crime groups, but they said that this time it had nothing to do with them.  They asked him who he was working for, but he wouldn't say and they don't have enough cause to do any more at this time."

Lee gave Amy a stern look of disbelief.  "Amy, this is nuts.  It's stupid for you to keep going."

"I can't let stuff like this scare me off.  The cops even said that they don't think I have anything to worry about at this point."

"I've spent most of the afternoon trying to talk her out of it." Beth said to Lee.  "She's stubborn.  Even after the phone call ...She just got more determined."

"Phone call?" Lee looked at Amy.

Amy gave Beth a stern look  "Just a continuation of the calls from earlier this morning.  Stop worrying so much."

"Amy... " he started to say when his phone rang.  The callerID was from Ben.
...just a sec, it's Ben."

Amy and Beth watched as the expression on Lee's face turned quickly to one of shock and horror.  "Which hospital?" they heard him ask.  Amy knew that his mom had been in the hospital briefly and feared that something might have happened to her.  But, Ben wouldn't have been calling about that.  The conversation didn't last long, but clearly had a huge impact on Lee.  "I'm on my way." Lee said and then hung up.

"That was Ben." Lee said when he hung up and began to stand.  He stood for a moment thinking before he could say anymore.  "Pam's in the emergency room at Fulton County.  Apparently from an assault or something.  Ben's trying to see if he can get a plane to bring him up, but didn't think he'd have much luck so he'll have to drive and said it'd be about 4 hours.  I'm going over now."

"Do you want me to go with you?" Amy asked.

Lee thought for a brief moment and then quickly answered yes.  Beth asked if there was anything she could do, but at the moment Lee just wanted to get to the hospital as quickly as possible.

Lee and Amy rushed into the emergency room and a nurse told them that Pam was in surgery and should be out in about 30 minutes.  They went to the waiting room and sat in silence.  Amy watched the anguish on Lee's face.  Sometimes the amount of compassion he seemed to have within him seemed unlimited.  There was something else though.  She knew that he thought of Ben like a father and assumed that Pam was like a sister to him, but the way he'd acted the past 30 minutes made her wonder if there wasn't more to it than that.  She began to feel uncomfortable and a little maybe even a little jealous.  The jealousy passed quickly though when she thought about what Pam had just gone through.  She began to feel guilty for thoughts... but they returned.

After nearly an hour the doctor came in and asked for Pam Meadows family.  Lee explained who he and Amy were and tried to reach Ben on his cell, but there was no answer.

"She'll be fine." The doctor said.  "The worst damage was to her left shoulder which was broken in two places.  I put a couple of pins in and she'll be immobilized for a few weeks, but it should heal completely.  Other than that she's got a lot of bruises and a few might take up to a couple of weeks to heal.  She's really lucky."

"How soon can we see her?" Lee asked.

"Well, technically you can't until her dad gets here." He said.  "But let me see what I can do."

Lee and Amy waited another 90 minutes when a nurse came in a told them what room Pam was in.  "Give them about 15 more minutes and then you can go up." She said.

Lee began pacing the room.  Amy finally reached out and grabbed his hands in hers.  "She'll be OK." Amy said.  Lee looked into her eyes and quietly said "Thanks."

As soon as the 15 minutes were up they headed upstairs and found her room.  Lee hesitated for a moment outside before they walked in.

"Jessica!" Amy shouted and began to cry.  "Oh Jessica."

Lee stared at Amy not sure what to say.  She noticed the confused look on his face, but didn't know what to say.  'Pam Meadows was written on the whiteboard over Pam's nightstand.  Amy looked at the bed again to make sure and there was no doubt in her mind who was in the bed.  She looked at Lee and there was no indication at all that this wasn't Pam.

"Jessica?" Lee asked.

"I didn't know her real name." Amy paused.  "I only knew her as Jessica." She said with tears still falling down her cheeks.  "I love her so much.  She's so sweet. ...She'd do anything for anybody."

"Amy." Lee said forcefully with some anger creeping in.

"She's a provider Lee." Amy replied.

Lee stood in shock.  He looked at Pam for a few moments and then at Amy.  "You're sure?" he asked.  "You're sure you're not confusing her with someone else?"

"I'm positive Lee." She replied.  "She's actually good friends with Beth."

Lee stood silent again.  "Why?" he finally said quietly looking into Amy's eyes.

Con't

Amy stood quietly before replying.  "Mostly for the money." She finally said.  "She wanted independence from her dad, wanted to go to school, wanted a nice apartment, wanted enough money to buy some things."

Lee thought for a moment.  He looked at Pam. "How long?" he asked Amy.

"About 2 years, I think." Amy replied.  "She and about a dozen other girls at the school run their own agency.  They take turns answering the phone and doing the admin stuff.  About half of them are pretty hardcore and likely would be involved in it anyway, but Pam and a couple of others didn't seem like the type.  I've tried several times to get her to stop and about 6 months ago thought I'd succeeded, but she said that it wasn't any worse than other jobs she'd had and the money she was earning was too much to pass up.  ...I didn't have a clue who she was Lee."

Lee sat down in a chair and looked at Pam.  "If Ben had known, he'd have given her every penny he owns to keep her from doing that."

"She didn't want that Lee.  She's an adult.  She wanted to live her own life." Amy paused.  "I didn't know who her dad was, but I do know that she loved him with every part of her being.  She told me several times how heartbroken he'd have been if he'd found out."

"It'll kill him." Lee said.

"He doesn't have to know." Amy replied.

"Even if I wanted to keep it from him, I wouldn't be able to at this point.  The cops will already have started a case on it and you and I will have to tell them what we know.  ...Ben will find out."

They sat in silence for a few moments before a nurse came in to check on Pam.  She assured Lee and Amy that Pam was doing well and would probably wake up in about 30 minutes.  After she left Lee walked over and looked down at Pam.  "I..." he started to say when he heard the door behind him.

"How is she?" he heard Ben say in his deep voice.

Lee looked at Ben.  Ben looked concerned, but not really sad.  A tear began to run down Lee's face.  "Everyone says she'll be OK."  Lee finally said.

"Are you Pam's father?" they heard a nurse say as she peeked her head in the room.  Ben nodded.  "Well, she's doing really good." The nurse said assuredly.  "I'll have the doctor come up to talk to you as soon as possible.  It shouldn't be more than about 15 minutes.  ...She's lucky to have such good friends." She said as she looked at each of them and then left.

Amy felt kind of awkward.  "Lee, I'll wait downstairs." she said quietly and nodded to acknowledge Ben.  "I'm sorry about Pam, Mr. Meadows."

"No." Lee replied quickly.  He looked at Pam and then to Ben.  "Ben, this is Amy Callow." He said introducing the two of them.  

"I've heard a lot of great things about you Amy." Ben said shaking her hand.

"Ben, there's something I think you need to know before Pam wakes up." He said.

Ben looked at Lee.  His first expression was confusion, which soon turned to concern.  Pam started to shake her head at Lee to say that this wasn't the time, but chose not to.

"Ben." Lee began.  "When Amy and I first came in the room." He paused, thinking carefully how to say it.  "Well, I found out that Amy already knew Pam." He paused again.  "But she knew her as Jessica."

A look of confusion spread across Ben's face.  "She's been." he paused, not wanting to say what he was getting ready to, "She's been working as a call-girl." He finally got out.

Ben stared at Lee, then at Pam, then Amy, then back to Pam.  "You're sure?" he asked without much emotion.

Lee looked at Amy.  She knew that she was the one who had to answer that question, but felt extremely uncomfortable.  Lee and Ben were both looking at her.  She looked over at Pam and a tear began its journey down her cheek.  "I'm sure."

####

Sorry couldn't resist...lol

Now, that's not to say the content of this book is also bankrupt...I mean bookrupt.

Cheers!

A good writing style and a good enough imagination to spin real life like events into a story.  But the pacing of the story was slow and the placement of the most dramatic events was not well planned.  On the flip side, life is often not well planned and the events that were described in the story certainly happen in real life.

Can you provide more detail.  How would you change it?

Thanks,

JTH

The chracters just sort of met an a BBQ joint and then started engaging in dialogue back and forth.  You could have cut out some of the dialogue for one.  Second, you could have done character development better, all I got was that Lee loved barbeque and knew the best barbeque joints in several states.  Other than defining Lee as a person who loved BBQ and hung out with providers, you did nothing to flesh out the reasons why he, as a lawyer apparently, would be both a companion and a sympathetic ear for providers.  
 You did little to explain why Leo behaved the way that he did and why he was open to Amy and Beth but hardly gave Lee the time of day.  Leo knew what BBQ Lee liked to eat so there was obviously more complexion to their relationship than you brought out in your story.  
 More character development and more about why and how the characters became figures in the story.  Your dialogue should have been a prelude to some significant turning points in the story, it often just was there, without giving me any sense of why these people were toghether, what they got out of the relationships and where they were eventually headed - there was one exception, you did briefly allude to Beth's goal to make a lot of money providing and then retire from providing to something else.

I appreciate your comments.  The purpose of the dialoge is to give the reader some information about Beth.  EG, that she's not a streetwalker or drug addict forced into this by a pimp, but a real person who's chosen to do this.  Also to convey that some women do have sex drives.  I'll rethink how I accomplish it.

Have you read the other 10 chapters?  Thoughts?

Thanks,

First of all, I'd recommend that you should check your punctuation, particularly your dialogue.  You tend to write something like:

"Go to bed."  He said.

You should be putting:

"Go to bed," he said.

Also, I'd avoid words like "interjected" or "smiled" when describing dialogue.  Keep it simple and for most of the time just say "said" (which I know that you otherwise did).

Secondly, you have a couple of POV (Point of View) shifts, particularly towards the end.  The scenes begin from Lee's POV, so should stay that way.  Towards the end, however, you head-hop to Amy (I think it is).  Whilst you'll find that published writers sometimes do this, you should try to avoid it, as it can confuse a reader.

As far as your story is concerned, critiquing it is difficult for me because I haven't read the earlier part, but I would say the following as far as your scenes are concerned.  What I noticed is that are set in a bit of a vacuum.  Although you start off well by describing the approach to the BBQ restaurant, and you mention the smell of it etc, I had no sense of place as far as the restaurant was concerned (I take it that they were meeting at a restaurant).  What was it like?  Crowded?  Hot? What was the table like?  You don't need to go into oceans of description - just a pertinent line or two will suffice.  

You gave a bald description of one of the girls but after that I got no sense of what they were really like, and I didn't know what Lee was like, apart from the idea that he was a lawyer.  You may well have described him in detail earlier in the story, and it can be tedious if a writer keeps referring to his gorgeous blue eyes or whatever, but you could occasionally refer to his looks by, say, having him rake back his hair out of his eyes, or refer to his hands as he's eating or fidgets with the salt or peppermill etc.  That's another point - they're eating a BBQ but you never actually mention them eating the food - did they enjoy it?  Presumably the meal was interrupted by the phone call.  Was Lee p*ssed off because he had to leave it?  (Hopefully you're getting the picture.)

The same applies to the description of the hospital.  I'd like to see a sense of place there.  Engage all your senses when doing this - the smell of the place, was the ER in chaos, was the hospital pristine or the paint peeling off the walls??  

The other thing I'd suggest is breaking up the dialogue with references to what is going on between the characters, or what they're doing as they speak.  It makes for a more varied (and interesting) read.

So far as the dialogue in the BBQ scene is concerned, it came across as a bit flat, first of all because it was expositional, and secondly because there was no conflict or drama relating to it.  If you think about it, the lawyer doesn't necessarily have to be sympathetic towards these women.  It would add a bit of drama or conflict if he actually felt a little hostile - so that when he eyes one of them up when he meets her, he could be both attracted and repelled at the same time - that would give him some inner conflict.  That could also lead to more drama when he later discovers that Pam/Jessica is a call-girl - this could all represent part of his "journey".  As it stands, all that dialogue relating to the law vs call-girls sounds (to me) a bit, well, apologistic.  You have to consider that if you are putting forward an idea, even within the framework of fiction, you should always have another character disputing it.  That way leads to a more interesting dialogue and better drama.

This is some of the stuff which occurred to me as I read your piece.  As you can tell, I read it through, so I hope this helps.  Please accept the criticism in a positive light as it is intended to be given as such.  Good luck with your story!  

Aphra, thank you very much for taking time to provide such great feedback.  It is very appreciated and hopefully Chapters 12 and beyond will be greatly improved thanks to you.  Any more criticism you care to provide in the future will always be welcomed.

JTH