“It’s going to be great!” Dawn said, blowing her own, discordant trumpet.
“With Annabel as your inspiration?” laughed Enid, rudely.
The other writers glared at her. Gareth tried to stifle a chuckle.
Dawn continued, “Well, the thing is, I’ve set the mood, the kissing’s out of the way, the clothes have come off. Now how do I describe ‘it’?”
I almost choked on my orange juice.
“Ah yes, ‘it’!” cried Rafe. “The classic challenge!”
“Why do you have to describe ‘it’ at all?” asked Enid.
“To show the deep connection between the characters.”
“But surely the mood, the kissing and the nakedness show that.”
“It’s not enough. Modern books go further. I want to be modern!”
“It’s all about setting,” offered Montgomery. “‘He put his pulsating organ inside her humid vagina’ sounds clinical. However, set the scene by a misty lake during a devastating sunset, and the same words can sound ... enchanting.”
That little offering seemed to impress Dawn, who gazed at him lustfully. Shudder.
“I always use analogies,” said Rafe. “Never mention organs or dicks or cocks or knobs or penises or peckers or willies or wangs or schlongs. Describe a firework going off outside or recall a hot dog getting battered at a chip shop.”
“Does ‘battered’ really have the right connotations for sexy time?” asked Gareth.
“I like to find a unique perspective,” offered Danger.
“There’s no sex in Foot!” scoffed Dawn.
“I have written other things you know.”
“Such as what?”
“Ideas, romantic shorts, sample chapters ...”
I was surprised that Danger had any perspective on sex whatsoever; I always saw him as asexual (when I saw him at all).
“For example,” he continued, “I switch the focus to the lamp, or the condom, or the pubic hair. I once described the experience of a pube, thereby avoiding the awkwardness of having to describe ‘it’.”
“A very clever idea,” thought Dawn.
“Shall I tell you?” asked Annabel, wriggling in her seat, as if she was the oracle of writing love scenes.
“Please do!”
“Flowers and horses!”
“What?”
“That’s the key to a good love scene. You liken the woman to a flower, and the man to a horse.”
“What if it is two men?” asked Danger.
“I always pick a different flower for each woman. You have to get to know a character before you can really feel her flower. The heroine in Falling for Flatley is a dahlia, whereas the china doll is more of a dandelion.”
“Wait,” interrupted Gareth. “The doll and the gnome do it?”
“And what flower are you?” asked Montgomery, with a little drool dribbling over his slug-like lip. Dawn shot him daggers and then fired the remaining ones at Annabel.
Annabel flushed and gazed at Rafe, who looked away quickly. She avoided the question. “And you pick a horse, or horse-like creature, for the man.”
“Horse-like creature?”
“Yeah, sometimes a unicorn or a donkey.”
“And then you just describe the sex?” asked Dawn.
“No, of course not, you have to use imagery.”
“Imagery? Such as what?”
Annabel kindly gave an example. “His passion galloped toward her — oh my! She blushed ...” Then she stopped sharing and glared at me.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Why are you doing your eating lemons face?”
“What?”
Gareth chipped in, “She’s right, you’re doing your Brussels sprout face.”
Was I?
“Do you have a problem with my idea?” demanded Annabel.
“No,” I lied.
“Be honest!” she shouted.
“Well, okay … it’s your use of ‘Oh my!’”
“You think I should have put it right at the beginning?”
“Or ...” I gulped. Be brave Dee. “... Not at all.”
“Not at all?”
All eyes were on me. I took a deep breath. “I’m just not sure that there’s any place for ‘Oh my!’ in modern erotic writing.”
“How many romance novels have you written Dee?” she squeaked.
“None,” I said, softly.
“So, can I continue?”
I nodded.
Annabel straightened up and took a deep breath, then continued. “Oh my! His passion galloped toward her and she blushed like a shrinking violet, but he caressed her toe with the top of his finger and then he lunged, pulling back her petals and pounding her with his rock hard man-part, like a stallion.”
Dawn, Montgomery and Danger seemed awed by Annabel’s spontaneous prose. The rest of us looked deeply embarrassed.
“Toe?” queried Gareth.
“I loved the use of ‘lunge’,” appreciated Montgomery.
“And I liked the use of ‘man-part’,” explained Dawn. “‘Cock’ would have been too vulgar for such a beautiful paragraph.”
“Nice try, people,” said Enid.
“What?”
“I can smell a practical joke when I see it.”
“Practical joke?”
“Very funny. You all decided to make up a really bad sex scene, to wind me up. I was almost convinced ...”
Annabel looked as though she’d been slapped in the face. “You think my love scene was bad?”
Gareth gave me an amused look. I rapidly averted my gaze to avoid laughing. There’s nothing like badly timed eye contact to trigger an inappropriate laughing fit.
Montgomery leapt to Annabel’s defence. “Enid, humiliating Annabel might seem like a sport to you, but we won’t stand for it.”
“What didn’t you like about it?” pleaded Annabel.
“What did I like about it?” Enid replied.
“I used to be upset by your reviews, but now I can see that you’re just a spiteful, bitter old woman,” scorned Dawn.
“You think you’re an expert but you’re not! I won’t stand for it. I don’t care what you think!” cried Annabel, almost in tears. Then hurriedly, “Do you think it would be better if I changed the stallion to a unicorn?”
Enid rolled her eyes.
“Annabel, I really appreciated your help,” said Dawn, trying to calm her.
“You did?” squeaked Annabel.
“We all did,” said Montgomery. “Didn’t we?”
I found myself grunting in agreement along with the rest of them. As right as Enid was, I didn’t see any point in upsetting Annabel further.
“You’ve got a talent, Annabel!” said Dawn, mistaken.
“Why don’t you have a try?” Annabel suggested.
Dawn shuffled awkwardly in her seat. She glanced at Enid, looking decidedly afraid.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you on the spot. It’s too soon,” said Annabel, which naturally, Dawn perceived as a challenge.
“No, no, it’s not too soon. I’m sure I can come up with something.”
All eyes were on Dawn.
“Just remember, horses and flowers,” said Annabel.
“Horse and flowers. Right. Um ...” Then she took a deep breath. I braced myself. “He hopped into bed like the big donkey that he was and her snapdragon gobbled up his big-ass sword.”
“Um ...” chirped Annabel. “Yes, it’s getting there.”
“That’s why you’re all so bad!” cried Enid.
The others glared at her like a circular firing squad.
“You’re not honest with each other. It’s just one big mutual appreciation society. Just tell her that her imagery doesn’t work. That’s all you have to do, Annie, or whatever your name is. Be honest with her.”
“You don’t think my imagery worked?” wept Dawn. “Why doesn’t it work? What’s wrong with it?”
“And while you’re here, pe
rhaps you could explain why you’ve got it in for poor Flatley?” demanded Annabel.
“Tell me, why do you not like ‘Foot’?” demanded Danger.
“Right, that’s it!” I yelled, attracting attention from the far corners of the room in my rage. “All of you, go home! I did not invite you here. You’re causing a scene, you’re ruining my lunch, and you’ve made my baked potato go cold.”
Enid decided to chip in, “It’s a shame that none of this excitement makes its way into any of your books.”
“How can you say the I Shot series is not exciting? There are loads of bodies!”
“A pig falls off a cliff — that’s exciting. Don’t you care about animals?”
“I’ll have you know that Emily Whistlefoot thinks ‘Hungry’ is very exciting!”
“Exiting,” said Montgomery. “She said ‘Hungry’ was ‘very exiting’.”
I grabbed Enid and held her firmly by her upper arms. “Stop baiting them!”
She nodded, looking a little scared.
“All of you, out!” I commanded.
Nobody moved.
Eventually, Gareth stood up. “Right!” he shouted, in his deepest, most compelling voice. “Dawn, does your husband know that you’re here? I mean, here, with Montgomery. Incidentally, shall we talk about how he got that tan? Annabel, why don’t you stay and we can talk about how much Rafe means to you? How about that, Rafe? Is that a conversation that you’d like to have? Danger, did you find a Netta Lewis clip to wank off to?”
Suddenly, there was a mass exodus toward the door. The writers stumbled over each other as they hurried to leave, stampeding like a herd of elephants. The floor rumbled and warped. All five of them tried to get through the doorway at once, creating a bottleneck. Sometime later they realised that they needed to exit one at a time.
“Now that was exciting and exiting,” remarked Enid.
I gazed at Gareth with amazement. I always knew that he was perceptive, but it was years since I’d seen him behave so assertively.
Enid looked impressed too, but probably not in the way that I did. My way was the ‘Oh lover-boy, please take me right here on the table’ kind of way. I tried to calm my libido. There were murders to investigate. I fanned myself with a napkin, pretending to be angry about the writers’ invasion.
“Indies,” scoffed Enid.
“Excuse me! I’m an indie!”
“It’s just the latest fad — a bubble. My sister-in-law is in publishing. She said this Kindle malarkey is just a gimmick that will wear off, like tamagotchis.”
“Tamagotchis?”
“Yes. Except tamagotchis required less feeding. I’m waiting for the fad to pass, and then I’m going to release my novel.”
“Oh, I didn’t realise you’d written a novel.”
“I haven’t, but I will do soon. My sister-in-law is very excited about reading it. It’s just as Peter Pearson says — the problem with indies ...”
“Who’s Peter Pearson? The name sounds familiar.”
“He runs one of the big publishing houses in London.”
“Oh yes, that’s right. Which one?”
“I can’t remember. Anyway, he wrote a very apt article this week about indie writers and the lack of a net to catch the bad ones.”
“Unlike having friends in publishing,” I muttered. I was beginning to understand Enid Kibbler. She wasn’t a literary traditionalist, she was just run-of-the-mill jealous.
“So, Enid,” began Gareth. “What can you tell us about Amanda Kenwood’s death?”
Personally, I’d have been more subtle, but Gareth’s method was already in play, so I’d have to see where it took us. Besides, how could I object when he had been so masterful?
“One of you did it,” she said, being unexpectedly direct.
“One of us?” I asked, pointing to me and my husband.
“No, not him. You, or one of the other writers.”
“So you saw the connection between the stories?”
“The whole Kindle community has seen the connection between the stories.”
“What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you heard? Your anthology is at number fifty-seven in the Kindle book chart.”
“Are you serious?”
Goodness gracious me! A book that I had contributed to, was in the Amazon top one hundred! Wow! This was the moment I had lived for. One of my life’s ambitions had been achieved. Woohoo! And here I was, finding out about it, with the man I loved by my side! Could the moment be any better?
Well, I guess the murders, animal cruelty, impending cannibalism and imminent divorce put a dampener on things, but heinous crimes aside, this was very pleasing.
I realised that I was sitting there with a massive grin on my face and I tried to readjust it. Instead, I ended up with a weird forced frown. I decided the best thing to do, would be allow a little smile to prosper — get the happy out of my system. So, I let my muscles stop straining to hold down the corners of my mouth. However, it wasn’t a small smile that escaped but a massive grin. Suddenly, I found myself laughing, and not just giggling either, but a deep, belly laugh.
I was painfully aware that I was sitting in a café, talking about murder and laughing like a maniac. Gareth grabbed my thigh to try and calm me, but it just made me even more excited and I hiccupped.
What had come over me? Nervous energy must have built up over the past few weeks. Now suddenly the dam had burst and the stress was escaping in the form of this insane laughter.
Enid stared at me, looking concerned.
“It wasn’t me,” I said, defensively.
“Please ignore my wife. She’s been through a lot lately.”
“So it would seem.”
“Why are you so sure that it was one of the writers?” he asked.
“Didn’t you hear what I said? The book is at number fifty-seven.”
“And you really think that’s because of the copycat?”
“Of course it is! The book was terrible.”
Finally, I found my tongue. “She’s right, the book is terrible.”
Then the reality of the situation hit me. I might have a story in the top one hundred, but it was dire. It was an unfinished first draft that had been named by somebody else, and what’s more, it was filed amongst some of the worst stories ever written. I was going to be a laughing stock. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like smiling anymore.
“I’m sorry Enid, I don’t know what came over me.”
“Do you really think any of the writers could have known that Amanda’s murder would lead to sales?” Gareth asked Enid. I remembered his earlier assertion that publicity could not have been the motive.
“But it’s not just Amanda’s murder, is it? All sorts of peculiar things have been happening. The murder was the first thing that was high profile enough to draw people’s attention to the pattern. People are buying the book because they want to know what’s going to happen next.”
“Do you really think any of them would stoop that low, just to get into the charts?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Enid, “I do. If it’s not one of the writers, then it’s somebody who cares very deeply about one of them.”
Chapter 15
Back at home, there were things I needed to ask — things I hadn’t been able to ask on the tube. Somebody had a lot of explaining to do.
“What were you doing there?” I asked my husband, taking a beer can out of his hands before he could open it.
“Where?” he asked, trying to grab the can back from me.
“You know where.”
“Café Revive?”
“Yes. Café Revive!”
“Okay, don’t freak out ...”
“What have I told you about starting sentences with ‘Don’t freak out’?”
“I’ve been following you.”
“What?”
“Since you started entertaining suspects.”
“You mean you’ve done this more than once?”
�
�Only thrice,” he said casually, as if that was a small number of times to stalk your ex.
“Thrice? When were the other times?”
“Annabel.”
“You were there when I met Annabel?”
“Yes. And by the way, the Macarena was hilarious.”
“You were there when the barman danced?”
“Yes.”
“But when I described it you pretended to be surprised.”
“I had to, otherwise you’d have known that I was following you.”
“You deceived me!” I cried. “Hang on; is that how you were so good at remembering what Annabel looks like? It was because you’d seen her with me?”
“Yes.”
“So it wasn’t because she’s ‘memorable’ ... because she’s ‘fit’?”
“No.”
So perhaps he didn’t fancy Annabel after all. He hadn’t remembered her because she was beautiful, he remembered her because he’d been stalking me — thank goodness. I beamed at him, but then remembered that I was angry.
“When was the other time? Were you there when I met Rafe? Were you there when Danger and I followed Netta?”
“No, because I didn’t know you were going to do those things.”
“So you would have followed me if you had known?”
“If I had thought you were in danger, then yes!”
“When else did you follow me?”
“Emily Whistlefoot.”
“Why?”
“In case she was the killer.”
“But Emily’s just a sweet teenage girl!”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know that when I followed you, did I?”
“So did you leave, once you saw how harmless she was?”
“No, because you should never underestimate the enemy.”
I wasn’t sure how to feel. On the one hand, I felt that Gareth following me was a horrendous breach of trust. On the other hand, it showed deep concern for my safety. If I’m honest, my self-defence skills are a little scant. I probably couldn’t have defended myself if one of my coffee dates had tried to kill me. The liaisons had been unwise and Gareth had had a good reason to be concerned.
“Why didn’t you just ask if you could come with me?”
“We’d broken up.”
He had a point. Had he offered to come with me, I would have felt conflicted and almost certainly refused. Even so, did that justify skulking around in secret?
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