A teaser - Passages from MATTERS OF CONVENIENCE

I can't tell you quite yet when my second novel will be published...or how.  First things by their nature must come first, and now that Matters of Convenience has been written to completion, what I have elected to do initially is seek representation by a literary agent.  Hopefully a successful search will lead to its finding home sweet home at a publishing house en route to the ultimate destination - laid out before you in printed format or on a screen.  If the traditional path does not work out, my back up plan (which at this point is fairly traditional in its own right) will be to publish it myself.  Either way, the goal is to get it before your eyes and hope you enjoy the tale.  Since the time for you to partake of my story in full has not yet arrived, I have decided to present snippets here to whet your appetites.  Gentle readers, without further adieu I present a few bite sized morsels from Matters of Convenience.

No reasonable excuse or explanation occurred to her for declining his invitation. Her body craved to be explored by his touch. She longed to discover the places that would make him arch with pleasure, moan with delirium, hum her name in delight. Yet something made her suppress these urges, told her she must wait, that it was too soon. And although the source of these warnings was vague, she opted to obey them over desires that were far better understood.

James could sympathize with problematic sexual entanglements.  This was not to say that he lugged around a suitcase full of regrets about past behavior.  His fierce appreciation of female beauty, the unrelenting desire he felt for their company, the pleasure he both derived and sought to give, had led him in and out of quite a few bedroom doors.  Pleasure was still what he craved, but he was now ready to find nirvana in the embrace of a single pair of arms and legs.

Happily ever after did not make its way to everyone’s doorstep. Most people made due with whatever came along for however long it lasted. They surrendered fairy tale hopes for cookie cutter lives that they could make peace with. If it looked like happiness to those looking from the outside, success was claimed. But a certain percentage of people routinely opted for chaos at the expense of the appearance of tranquility. Perhaps for them the appeal of the race was stronger than that of the finish line, the thrill of the chase far more important than actually catching up.

And on some night in the probably not too distant future, nature would lead them to whichever of their bedrooms was closest at that moment. In this man’s arms, stretched out on either his bed sheets or her own, she would eliminate the final traces of Todd from her everyday consciousness. James would serve as diversion for a week, a month, however long she decided. It was almost as if she had willed him into existence, into standing before her at the precise moment she was willing to accommodate him, arriving not a minute too early or too late. 

He mentally prepared for the worst.  The last time he’d run into one girlfriend while out with another had not gone well.  Perhaps his memory exaggerated it, but his recollection was of a scene that reached the hysteria played out on daytime talk shows when some clueless guy was informed that he was “not the father”.  Sonya had no rational reason to get upset.  They barely knew each other really.  Other than sex, they had shared little and held even less in common.  For God’s sake, it had been a struggle to remember her name.  Still, he was well aware that the way he viewed his involvement with a woman sometimes did not match how she was seeing it.

On occasion he would think back to the fiercest passion it had been his pleasure to experience and reflect on what might have been. He would look upon the woman who occupied the opposite half of his bed and feel his life had not quite lived up to the promise of another day. These moments would be mercifully brief, or so he hoped.

A few minutes of stalling would not break her. She had the strength to stand there and love him right up to the moment he would possibly reveal that this was no longer in her best interest. He did not expect histrionics if his revelation was disappointing. She would not give him the satisfaction, would remain stoic until showing him the door. Whatever happened once he was on the other side would be privileged information.

For more passages from MATTERS OF CONVENIENCE (with accompanying imagery), check out the board I created at Pinterest.