“Okay. Monster story?”
“No.”
“Okay… Once upon a time there was a baseball player named Hank.”
“Nooooo.”
“A baseball player named Frank?”
“No baseball! Prince and princess. A kissing story.”
“Ah. What if the prince and princess aren’t allowed to kiss?”
“Why? Because of a curse?”
“Kind of.”
“Ooooh yes! Tell that one!”
“What if the prince is rude?”
“Like Beast?”
“Yeah, kind of. Except he wasn’t always like that.”
“Is he sad inside?”
“Yeah. And frustrated. Really, really frustrated.”
“How come?”
“Because he wants something he can’t have. That’s why people get frustrated.”
“But why can’t he have it?”
“Because the people who make the rules in the village won’t let him talk to the princess. Not in the way he wants to talk to her, anyway.”
“He can’t talk to her in secret? Like in the forest at night?”
“I mean. Probably not. If anyone found out about it, they’d both get in trouble.”
“What about letters?”
“What about them?”
“They can write magic secret letters! With magic pens! Like with invisible ink that they hide in the hole of a tree, and then they cover the hole with a rock!”
“Interesting.”
“And then after they’ve read the letter from the other person, they blow on it and it magically disappears!”
“Cool.”
“Or! Or! Or! The paper turns into butterflies! And the butterfly wings have the words they wrote on them!”
“I love that. That’s a really great idea, Bettina. Did you make that up just now?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I think we might have another writer in the family.”
She wrinkles her nose. “No thank you. I’m going to design shoes and handbags.”
“Yeah, that sounds like more fun. I really like the idea of the prince and princess writing secret letters though.”
She blinks slowly, and I can tell she’s getting tired. “Keep talking.”
“After the prince was mean to the princess when they saw each other at a ball, he wrote her a secret magic letter in invisible ink and then hid the letter in a hole in a tree and covered the hole with a rock.”
“What’d the letter say?”
“It said, ‘Dear Princess, sorry if I was a jerk yesterday. You were pretty, and it made me mad that I couldn’t tell you that or hold your hand or ask you to dance. Because of the rules about us not doing that.’”
She fakes a loud snore and then sighs. “Boring letter.”
“Well, he can’t put everything he wants to say to her in the first letter. He needs to make sure she’s the one who reads the letter first.”
“I guess.” She yawns. For real. Big time. And closes her eyes. This is happening.
I get up on my knees and kiss the top of her head. “Good night, buddy.”
“Night.”
“Hey. You know where your mom keeps the stamps?”
Suddenly her eyes pop open. “Yes! I’ll show you.”
“No, ma’am, you have to stay in bed. You were about to fall asleep—just tell me.”
She growls. “Fine. Top drawer in the desk in the kitchen. Under the phone. With the good gum.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
I want to ask her if she thinks the princess will forgive the prince if he writes her really nice letters, but her breathing is steady. She’s already asleep. I’d give anything to be able to fall asleep that easily.
Maybe after I’ve mailed the letter on my way home tonight, I’ll be able to sleep again.
21
Dear Fiona,
I hope this letter finds you well—and by well, I mean significantly less infuriated than you were yesterday. I’m very sorry about the way I’ve been treating you lately. It’s regrettable. It’s unforgivable, I suppose, but I am asking for your forgiveness. I won’t pretend to understand women, and I certainly won’t claim to understand you, but I do know that women like it when men apologize to them. So, I will say it again: I’m sorry.
I have been struggling with this situation we’ve found ourselves in. I have wanted to continue our conversation from the night we met. I’ve wanted to continue doing the things we’d started doing that night we met. But there are so many things I can’t say or do now that I’m your professor. As an anonymous letter writer, I can give you some idea of what I have planned for us once the year is over. If you’re open to it. As an author, I can share excerpts from my work in progress with you. Not for you to critique but to show you how much you meant to me—still mean to me.
When you’re done reading this page, destroy it—shred it or better yet, burn it. And then write me back. Don’t sign the letter. Don’t put a return address on the envelope. Mail it from a random mailbox.
Yours in problem-solving,
Me
P.S. Let’s limit name-calling in future letters to “F” and “E.” By name-calling, I mean the way we address each other with given names. If you’d care to give me some other nickname, so be it.
P.P.S. I still think you’re wasting your talent on that historical romance novel.
P.P.P.S. I really wanted to push you up against the door and kiss your beautiful, angry face. I will. One day.
Dear E,
Your handwriting is almost as terrible as your mood swings, and it would have been my instinct to destroy that letter even if you hadn’t ordered me to.
If you show me your work in progress, I will critique it.
I am currently still too infuriated to write about all the other feelings I have for you.
But I am open to this. Expect another letter soon.
Your problem and your solution,
Me
P.S. Your nickname for the past month or so has been Assface. If that is how you’d like me to address you, so be it.
P.P.S. I still think an overpaid, overrated, overly handsome best-selling author of thrillers has no business teaching creative writing at a prestigious New York university.
P.P.P.S. To my great horror, I really wanted you to push me up against that door and kiss my angry face too. I understand now that your appalling way of treating me in class has been overcompensation, but I don’t forgive you for it. I’ll kiss you again anyway. One day.
Dear Person Formerly Known as Assface,
Okay, I like this idea.
The letter writing, I mean. It’s very historical romance—are you quite sure you approve?
Don’t answer that. I want to like this, and I want to like you.
I’m not going to call you Assface anymore. Unless, of course, you start behaving like an assface again. Then I’ll have no choice but to refer to you as Assface.
I don’t like being mad in general, and I don’t like being mad at you in particular.
Actually, that’s not true. I really, thoroughly enjoyed being mad at you for nearly a month. For multiple reasons. But it has gone on too long. Our situation, your behavior, and my anger toward you has been very troublesome for certain lady parts. And while it may have done sensational things for my book and for my yoni (don’t ask), it is seriously messing up my heart chakra.
I also like the idea of burning these letters when we’re done reading them. I know you’re just being cautious, but there’s something ritualistic and magical about setting fire to something that’s important to you. Like, the fire transmutes the words from the paper to tattoos on your heart. Or something. While I won’t assume that the words of my letters will find their way onto or into your icy black heart, I don’t mind you knowing that there’s a good chance yours will be metaphorically etched onto mine. For creative inspiration purposes. Maybe I’ll have William write letters to Lucy in my very interesting and import
ant novel…
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my work in progress has been somewhat influenced by you (or my response to you, I suppose). I can’t say that it has even been a conscious thing. But regardless of how things have turned out, I’m still glad I met you. You have, in fact, been offering inspiration and constructive criticism on my Regency romance without even trying. How delightfully ironic!
Please do send me your work in progress. I’m very curious about it. I apologize for calling you an overpaid, overrated author of thrillers. And you actually are a good creative writing teacher. I think. I have no standards by which to compare you with. I do, however, stand by my assertion that you are overly handsome. Please give me a break with the handsomeness, thanks.
I saw you in Greenwich Village earlier today, from afar. You looked sad. You just walk around New York with sad eyes and a frowny face every day and night, don’t you? What would it take to make you smile, I wonder? Or are you afraid you’ll get wrinkles because you’re so old? Your heart chakra could use some major realignment too. I wish I could get my hands on it.
I really wish you could get your hands on every part of me. I don’t think I can wait until next year. But please do tell me what you have in mind.
I will tell you that if you had pushed me up against the door in your office and kissed me, I would have bitten your lower lip. After you’d jerked your head back in surprise, I would have grabbed your face and kissed you hard and sucked on your tongue until you groaned. I’d imagine your hands would have gripped my hips like they did when I was straddling you on that bench. I would hope so, anyway, because I really liked it when you did that. I’d also like to think that while kissing me deeply, your hands would slide all the way up the sides of my waist. From the hips to my ribcage. And then one of your hands would find its way over to my obscenely erect nipple while you slipped the other hand between my legs. I would have squeezed my thighs around your hand because I was so tense and wet, I desperately needed to feel something there against my throbbing clit. And let’s face it, I would have grabbed that big bulge in the front of your pants. Because that’s just the kind of girl I am.
What kind of man are you? What would have happened next?
Your partner in mildly erotic epistolary adventures,
Me
Dear F,
You get an A + for adult letter writing. As a professor, I encourage you to include an epistolary section in your novel. I would also like to remind you (although I am sure it’s unnecessary to do so) that we must refrain from talking like this with each other in public. Not until May. As an avid reader, I wholeheartedly encourage you to continue writing me letters like the one I have just received. To me only. Feel free to get even more detailed in your descriptions of what you would have done to me or what you would like to hypothetically do to me.
On another completely different note—I have to give my seven-year-old niece credit for the idea of writing letters and then making them disappear. While she of the pure and innocent heart had envisioned the paper magically transforming to butterflies and the words being etched onto their wings, I find it interesting that you had a similar idea. I’ll let you have the letter-writing thing for your book. It doesn’t really work for mine, and my niece has no interest in using it. She is far too clever to waste her considerable imagination on a writing career.
As for the degree of my handsomeness, I have no intention of minimizing it, so you’ll just have to deal with it. That said, I would very much appreciate it if you could be significantly less beautiful, funny, intelligent, sweet, sassy, and fragrant. Also, if you could have a less gorgeous ass and wear a metal bra under several layers of thick sweaters until next May, that would be great, thanks.
As for what kind of man I am… I’m the kind of man who likes poetry, the Beatles, long walks on the beach at sunset, and torturing himself with filthy fantasies of fucking a hot, younger, off-limits student and eating her out until she begs forgiveness for calling him “Assface.”
I wasn’t planning on outlining what I would have done to you in a hypothetical past-tense situation—I was planning on telling you what I want to do to you after my contract is up as a teacher. But since you asked: If you had grabbed the big bulge in the front of my pants while we were kissing, I would have groaned again. You would have covered my mouth with your hand, to remind me that we had to be quiet. Because we were in my office. I wouldn’t have wanted to pause long enough to find some way of covering up that window on the door, so you would have had to keep your back against it. I would have held your gaze, lifted up your shirt, and then lowered myself down to suck on your perfect perky tits, because they were asking for it. You would have had to cover your own mouth, with both hands, to keep from crying out because I would have kissed your tits so thoroughly you would have come just from that. Then, when you were limp and dazed from that surprise orgasm, I would have dropped to my knees, pulled down your jeans, pushed your panties to the side, and applied the kind of pressure and friction you needed on your clit with my tongue. I then would have massaged your clit with my thumb while fucking you with my tongue. I would have told you how fucking good you taste and marveled at how wet you were, all for me. Because your pussy is mine. You would have screamed my name over and over while shuddering and writhing in ecstasy, and then I would have been fired and it would have brought shame upon my father and, by extension, the entire Ford family and Creative Writing Department.
So, it’s a good thing I can control myself, and it’s a good thing that didn’t happen.
I need to stop writing now.
Yours in moderately erotic epistolary adventures,
Me
P.S. Hands off my heart chakra, but tell me more about your lady parts and this “yoni” business. I’m intrigued.
Dear E,
Welp.
I guess I’m also glad it didn’t happen, but if that’s really how it would have gone down, I personally think it would have been worth it.
Just kidding.
And yeah. It was totally unnecessary for you to remind me not to publicly discuss how I would have hypothetically grabbed your crotch. But thanks for the scholarly advice!
I can’t wait to get the class’s feedback on the chapter I’ve been working on. Or maybe I should just share the unrated version with you and turn in a PG-13 version for class consumption.
I also need to stop writing now,
Me
P.S. I thought I told you not to ask about my yoni.
P.P.S. I thought you were going to send me your work in progress.
Dear F,
Please find an excerpt from my work in progress attached and burn it along with this note when you’re done reading it.
And send your unrated version over immediately, if not sooner.
Thanks,
Me
22
JACK IRONS
The Departure by Emmett Ford (Jack Irons Series, Book Six) – Chapter Ten
Jack Irons didn’t consider many people his friend, but there were a few people he could trust and there were a few who owed him a favor. He had one trustworthy friend who owed him a favor, who also happened to own a cabin. It was up by Lake Tahoe, off the beaten track. This was the best kind of friend, and it was the best kind of cabin. It was clean and private. It had the best home security system money could buy, and Jack had already acquainted himself with the premises and every possible escape route. The water pressure in the shower was excellent. More importantly, Jack was taking a shower in the master bathroom while Catalina was in the kitchen making dinner.
After zigzagging across California and western Nevada for three days straight, this was a welcome interlude in what had felt like an epic, potentially fatal, improvised jazz performance. Of the two of them, Jack was never quite sure who was the solo artist and who was the accompanying musician. He didn’t know who was seducing whom, and he no longer cared. All he knew was he liked the world a little more again now that Catalina was in it. Ev
en though his entire life had been disrupted and keeping her alive and safe just might kill him.
He also knew he wanted her in bed with him before the night was through. There hadn’t been time for it in the few days since they’d met, but nearly every frenzied minute had been a prelude to sex. That’s how it felt to Jack, anyway.
He toweled off, gave himself a quick once-over in the steamed-up bathroom mirror, and put on the briefs and jeans he’d bought at the Walmart on the way here. Catalina had insisted on buying the DVD of a Pixar movie that was on sale by the cash register when he’d told her he hadn’t seen it. He had always thought he’d lived far too much of a life in his thirty-six years, but in the past few days, this woman had asked him if he’d seen or heard of or done twenty-seven different things, and the answer to twenty-six of them had been no.
The Love Interest Page 11