If you missed the first chapters here is where it begins... CHAPTER 01
Without further ado here’s...
In a swank studio towering the no man's land between Chelsea and Meatpacking, a half-dozen emaciated models stood scantily clad in tribal tropes. A tarted-up Polynesian warrior, an anorexic Asian hill tribe whore, and an attempt at a Samburu from the foothills of Mount Kenya represented by a six-foot-five fresh-faced beaut wearing only strings of beads. English art rock blared from the stereo. A mishmash of straw huts and brick slapped before the white cyclorama badly in need of post retouching leaned behind them. A photographer's third assistant balanced on a ladder hanging a soft lamp.
"No. Not like that. I said I wanted a toppee glow behind the jungle bunny, you fucking twit."
Jake Perry, an effeminate elf of a man, sat on a cushy leather couch, eating cereal, dictating notes from the unintelligible scrawl in his precious moleskin.
The third assistant turned to his exponentially grizzlier counterpart on the ground.
"Which one's the jungle bunny?"
The second assistant shrugged, equally confused by the order.
"Where the hell is Mioko?" Jake demanded as he tossed his cereal carelessly at the table.
"Oh just move the spot back to the left three feet, for fuck's sake," he hissed as he strutted past the digital techs and agency producers at the monitor. Jake glanced at the stylists working a busty Andean hunter-gatherer by the clothing racks. Both the model and the stylist smiled back.
"Just five more minutes Jake," the stylist apologized.
But by then Jake was already out in the client lobby.
Sweeping to the espresso bar, Jake found Mioko debasing a latté with artificial sweetener.
"Goddamn it, Mioko, I need you with me at all times," Jake said. "That's why I pay you."
Mioko tried for a smile, but her lips didn't particularly cooperate.
"I was getting you a coffee."
"I didn't ask for a goddamn coffee!"
"Yes, you did."
"Listen, sweetheart. You think I need a forty-three year old burnout as my bloody assistant? I throw you a fucking bone, and what do I get?"
A bone.
Was that what he'd thrown her?
Four years of answering the phone. Of doing his dishes. His laundry. His dog-sitting. Hauling cameras and lights and computers and hardware from rental house to shoot, from apartment to office, from airport to hotel, from location to studio, from Manhattan to Brooklyn to Rome to the damn volcanic mountaintops of the Azores islands. A thousand promises to help her with her own work, to facilitate her someday pulling the trigger for a client herself, if becoming a commercial photographer was even what she wanted anymore this far down Jake’s poisoned well. And even if she did still have aspirations, she was just as far from a finished commercial book as the day she serendipitously snuck Jake a peak at her portfolio in the elevator at Milk.
"I'm sorry, Jake." Mioko put down the empty sweetener. "You can always just call my name, or text if you need--"
"If what? I need to come to you?"
"I get it Jake, I'm sorry."
"Do you? Do you really?"
Jake snatched the coffee from her hands and pivoted back to the studio.
If Mioko looked as much the shrunken mess from the outside as she felt on the inside, the studio barista deserved an Oscar in pretending not to notice.
"Last warning!" She heard Jake call as he headed back to his camera.
Mioko looked at the floor, exhaling slowly, before retrieving her phone. It was 8:15am.
Alone on a subway car, Mioko ached from the endless pile of returns and emotional abuse. Was it only Tuesday? A deep hankering for an old pharmacological pal hit her, but she did her best to breathe through. Reaching into her bag, she retrieved a miniature bacon chocolate bar saved from the client-only craft table. She popped the paper top, but was distracted by a rush of air and sound. An MTA conductor pushed through the door connecting her car to the next.
She did her best not to look up at the conductor as he approached. She didn't want to put a face to it.
As he moved down the length of the car, she could feel it coming. He was veering in close to her, and as the pant leg of his uniform accidentally brushed the bare skin of her knee, Mioko's back straightened with a little jerk. Her face filled with a flush of exhilaration.
Mioko sped her stride as she passed the housing projects. Her eyes darted round the shadowy corners of Eldridge.
Not tonight, she implored in a loop till it started to echo like a mantra.
Please, not tonight. Not tonight.
The words were as familiar as an old show tune, her brain itching to remember the rest of the lyrics.
In her tiny converted darkroom, Mioko was secure. Her hands worked the enlarger and chemicals. The womblike glow of her red safelight. All concept of time and space dissolved as she clipped prints of Suffolk night-crawlers and Stanton Street junkies up on strings to dry. A well-dressed kid laying facedown on a plush sidewalk mattress, twiggy girlfriend wrenching his arm, trying to coax him from his comatose state. A crazed viking-haired man-child streaking past in a shiny blue prom dress. A wheelchair-bound junkie, applying dental glue to his upper partial.
Washing away exposed silver halide crystals from the negative, that woozy off-gassing glow enveloped her. She watched each image materialize, then halted development in the stop bath.
Even when she suffered the occasional acetic acid chemical burn, her darkroom was the only place where Mioko felt any control. She often wished someone would shut a padlock on the door from the outside. That she could wind away her days in dim red light, drifting from one exposure to the next.
She imagined the look on Jake’s face when he found out she was dead and couldn’t thumb his lunch order.
Mioko could only imagine herself missing one other person less than Jake from the shelter of her favorite entombed fantasy.
And that was Rube Carbia.
CHAPTER 02
CHAPTER 03
CHAPTER 04
CHAPTER 05
UPDATE: LOOKING FORWARD - CHAPTER 06
BEHIND THE KEYBOARD
Writing a novel is no easy feat and sometimes required a little multitasking. Here I was back in June of this year getting a few scenes in during one of my little guy’s t-ball games. The games are long... and points for showing up right?
There were plenty of times where I almost gave up on the writing. Lost my writing edge. Felt the work wasn’t worthwhile, or couldn’t find my way. Ten years is a long time But persevering was so worth it now that you’re all here reading and discussing the book. Thank you so much for your enthusiasm! Steem on!
Yours In The Chain,
Doug
.SPECIAL THANKS to my wife 
I am a Brooklyn based writer, film & commercial director, and crypto-enthusiast, my projects include @HardFork-series an upcoming narrative crypto-noir and my novel Dwelling will soon be premiering exclusively on Steemit, and you can check out more of my work at dougkarr.com, piefacepictures.com, and www.imdb.com/name/nm1512347
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