Drabble: Goin' to the Chapel

Patti Abbott has made another challenge to her pals: a drabble -- a story of exactly one hundred words --  inspired by one of three pictures. Succinct, yeah? Here's mine.

"Goin' to the chapel..."

The parson looked nervous. Bart smiled to reassure him, then nudged him along with the Berretta. Now it was his wedding day, he didn't want to wait.

"Dearly beloved..." he paused.

"What now?"

"We need witnesses." The man swallowed.

Bart shook his head. "God is my witness. Ain't that right, Bonnie?"

The parson went on, his voice shaking. "Do you--"

"Bartholomew Jenkins Evans."

"Take this woman--"

"Bonnie Louise Ormond." He gave her a squeeze.

Happiest day: a few more words, "You may kiss the bride."

He lifted her limp head by the bruised neck. Bliss.

☠

Flash Fiction Challenge: Zoo Story

Patti Abbott has challenged folks again on the topic of the zoo: here's mine with apologies to Edward Albee and William Shakespeare and Bruce Robinson as well. So there.
 

Zoo Story

"So, this is the place."

"This? Why?"

"I thought it would be dramatic."

"Dramatic? Why? Wolf howls make it dramatic?"

"Not exactly. That scene was filmed here."

"What scene?"

"From the movie, you know the one."

"No. You mean…no. Which one?"

"The funny one, with those two guys and the drinking and—it's very funny. You liked it."

"It's not coming to mind."

"But there's that scene where he quotes from Shakespeare."

"Who does?"

"Whatsisname…Grant."

"Cary Grant?"

"No, not Cary Grant. The other one."

"Hugh Grant?"

"No, whatsit—Richard! Richard A. Grant."

"Don't know him."

"You do! He was in that movie and in lots of other ones. Tall bloke, gaunt looking, theatrical. He was in the Spice Girls movie."

"What did he play?"

"I don't remember. Anyway that's not the point."

"What is the point?"

"He was giving that speech from Shakespeare, right here, by the wolves."

"What speech?"

"Oh, you know the one."

"Obviously I don't. 'Wherefore art thou, Romeo?'"

"No, not that one. The one with 'quintessence of dirt' in it. Oh, you know, it's a famous one. Macbeth maybe."

"No, not ringing any bells."

"About the nature of man…"

"All the world's a stage?"

"No, not that. Oh, you know it—I can't remember now. It was raining down and he was reciting it to the wolves."

"Why to the wolves?"

"Because they were there. His friend had gone."

"What was his friend's name? Maybe that will remind me."

"I can't remember his name. I'm not sure the friend ever gets named."

"In the whole movie? No one ever says, 'Hey whatsyername, answer that phone' or something like that?"

"No. I mean, I'm pretty sure. The film's from his point of view. They go see the uncle and he gives them the cottage and they go on holiday."

"Oh, yeah, I kind of remember that one."

"Anyway he has that speech—"

"He does? Or the other one?"

"The other one, all right. But he gives that speech at the end of the movie and his only audience is the wolves and it's very significant."

"Why?"

"Well, because he goes on to be a great actor and you can see it in that moment. It's the beginning of better things."

"Oh."

"So I thought it would be appropriate—"

"What's the speech again?"

"It's about man's place in the world, the sky above, the ground below and how grand it all is. Quintessence of dirt."

"What does that mean anyway?"

"Like the epitome of dirt, I guess."

"Wouldn't that be a bad thing though?"

"No, not really—I think you're missing the point. It's poetry like."

"But it must mean something. If you're the epitome of dirt, you're still dirt."

"But don't you see—I mean, it's Shakespeare. Poetry."

"Ironic, you mean?"

"Well, not necessarily ironic but poetic. What's the word? Metaphor."

"Metaphor? That's when you compare things?"

"Sort of."

"So, what? The wolves respond to metaphor? Oi, wolves! Metaphorse for me."

"You're thinking metamorphoses. That's changing."

"Evolving. What would wolves evolve into?"

"Don't change the subject."

"What was the subject? This stupid movie?"

"It's not the movie, it's the speech."

"What about it anyway? You can't even remember what Shakespeare it's from."

"The play isn't important."

"The play's the thing—isn't that Shakespeare too?"

"Probably. But what I was saying—"

"Every famous quote comes from Shakespeare, doesn't it? Why is that?"

"I don't know. But the speech—"

"All the world's a stage, the play's the thing, the face that launched a thousand ships…"

"Yeah, but what I wanted to say—"

"Are they all from Hamlet? No some must be from comedies. Wait, Hamlet—that's the one. It comes from there."

"What does?"

"Your speech."

"Right, that's it. I'm sure it is. And the reason I—"

"Lots of good ones come from that play—isn't it bad luck to say the name? 'Bare bodkin': we always had a giggle at that one in school."

"Look, I wanted to say—"

"And there's a joke about privates, too. Miss, we'd say, could you read that part again, we didn't understand it. Hilarious!"

"Never mind that. I was talking about—"

"Do you suppose writers do that on purpose? Put in jokes like that?"

"I don't know. I don't care."

"What was that?"

"What?"

"That little box you threw into the pen."

"Nothing."

"Look, that wolf is trying to eat it. What is it?"

"Nothing. Never mind. Let's go have a drink."

"You're funny today."

"Yeah. Maybe Shakespeare wrote me."

"Ha, that's funny. So what was that box?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all."

Scarry Night: Miss Lonely Heart

This is a flash piece for a challenge put up by the ever resourceful Patti Abbott: for the rest of the entries pop on over to her blog. The link was the line "I really don't mind the scars."

She seemed so small at the big table, a drink with the palest hint of green beaded with sweat next to the flickering candle. His heart swelled. He knew he wouldn’t tell her—at least not that night—that the emotion flooding his ventricles was protectiveness. She was so self-sufficient, what with her little candy shop and her scrupulously kept accounts.

He had seen them—and her—when he first figured out the clues. Her username ("candyheart") and her avatar (the gift-wrapped 1lb dark chocolate truffle box) added to her "self-employed" designation and a few casually dropped references to the chocolate trade. You didn't have to be Sam Spade to connect the dots.

"Tabitha?" He added the question mark to his voice in order to play the part of the uncertain swain.

She smiled. "It's you." Her hand thrust out awkwardly and he enclosed it in his large paw, feeling a surge of satisfaction that felt so primal, so right. It took all his strength not to enfold her in his arms at once. Calm down, you've got a lifetime.

The drink, she explained, was zubrowka, a kind of Polish vodka with some sort of grass in it. Normally he'd find such a thing unhygienic, but because it was her drink, he got one, too. The cold bite of that first sip sealed the night for him. He didn't usually drink but there was something so clean about the taste, he knew it was a sign.

Talk came easily, just as it had online. Over the flank steak Tabitha confessed, "I still think of you in my head as Number 7." The pink blush on her cheeks did something to his insides. They churned like hot taffy.

"It's not actually Number 7. It's Double O seven," he corrected her. "It's from a movie—actually a series of movies." The vodka made him feel expansive, he forgave her misunderstanding easily.

Her laugh tinkled like broken glass. "When you said it out loud, I remembered at once. James Band!"

"Bond."

She smiled. "That's the one!"

The bloody red of the steak as she popped it in her mouth increased the warmth he felt from her nearness and the drink and the night. "I have something to show you," he said feeling the heat a little too much on his brow.

"I know," she said, smiling yet, though her eyes grew serious.

He looked over his shoulder to assure himself no one else in the room was paying them any attention, then began to unbutton his shirt. For a moment, he hesitated, then pulled back the crisp linen to reveal the long welts across his chest.

Tabitha reached up her tiny hand to touch his skin. It was electric. He thought her tiny nails, varnished an innocent pink, somehow made the slender fingers even more delicately beautiful.

"I really don't mind the scars," she murmured, turning her bright eyes back to her plate, a crimson flush rising up the back of her neck—visible even in the dim light of the restaurant. It foretold a sensuous nature.

"May I walk you home," he asked, his voice catching slightly as he slipped the raincoat over her small shoulders.

"Of course." Her bright eyes promised so much. Surely the path to her home would have some quiet corner where he could test that promise and take that little girl into his arms. When they crossed Pine at the corner and she pointed off toward Yates, he knew the right place.

"Can we step in here a moment?" He gestured to narrow behind the Chinese restaurant. His heart leapt into his throat. "I-I wanted to kiss you. I didn't know how to ask."

"Shhh," she said and took him by the hand. They walked into the passage and she turned her bright eyes up to him.

"You're so lovely, Tabitha." He rested his big hands on her shoulders. "So very lovely."

"And you're so delicious, Number 7," she said with a smile, her white teeth glinting in the dark.

"Double O seven," he chuckled.

"No, Number 7," she corrected him as her mouth dropped open and she sunk her teeth into his chest, tearing away a gaping hole in the flesh as he clanged back against the rubbish bin. Her grin transfixed him as she wiped the blood across her face and it dripped onto the raincoat. Quick as a lightning bolt she struck again, cracking ribs and growling. Then he saw it was his heart in her teeth, blood still furiously pumping out of it in all directions.

"I love you, Tabitha."

She popped the heart out her mouth with one tiny hand, bouncing it up and down as if weighing it. "I know, dear, I know."

How I Came to Write this Book

I'm hosted over at Patti Abbott's blog where I reveal:

"How I Came To Write This Book"

How I Came to Write this Book, K. A. Laity

THE MANGROVE LEGACY

Kit Marlowe, Tease Publishing, Dec 2010, ISBN 9781607671275, $5.99

In 2002, I moved to Houston, Texas with my husband. I hadn't quite got around to finishing my dissertation, but I had finished a novel, which came out the following year months prior to my dissertation defence. Nonetheless I had managed to get that pearl of academic ambitions, a tenure-track job in my field, as had my husband. Reason to celebrate, surely. People told us, "You can never leave these jobs. Lightning will not strike twice."

My apologies to those who love Texas, but we hated it with a passion. First there was the humidity. I thought 100% humidity meant it was raining, but it just means you wish you would die. The whole of Houston seems to be paved from one end to the other, the better to facilitate the flooding that happens every time it rains, let alone in hurricanes. Enron, far from being an anomaly, is just "the way we do things here" I was told. In no time I had my fill of Texas chauvinism: apparently they invented everything first, then made it bigger and better than everyone else. I've never seen anyone with a Connecticut tattoo.

In all fairness, I must admit the food was good, so was the theatre and opera. We made some terrific friends, too.

But we were miserable.... [read the rest]


I'm in my office today, working on syllabuses. The price of my neglect. Truthfully, I've been daydreaming that there's some way for me to look more like Tilda Swinton...

Publications: Plea, Professor and Provocateur

I thought I would have Bend Sinister read by today so I could write it up for Friday's Forgotten Books (maybe I will later today), but at present I don't and somehow I have decided that today is finally "Send out Queries for the Non-Fiction Project" Day, so there's that.

In case you missed it, my piece "A Plea on Behalf of the Small Hat League" is up in the inaugural issue of State of Imagination. Do drop by and leave a comment. Some very entertaining pieces in the collection; I really like the cover, too.

I'm happy to announce that my faux Lear "There was  a Professor of English" will appear in an upcoming issue of Asinine Poetry. And I just got word from Beth Virtanen that my story "Provocateur" will appear in the forthcoming edition of the literary journal Kippis!, so hurrah.

UPDATE: My humorous piece, "Resolutions for Better Sex in 2011" went up on Thursday at Polite Company Magazine, but they neglected to tell me. So drop by and share.

I'm going to get the queries ready and listen to the Punk Rock Jukebox, so if you need entertainment, consider watching Sir Michael Caine do his impression of Dud:

Friday's Forgotten Books: Puckoon

Spike Milligan's Puckoon

Once again this is a "forgotten" book only in the States; Spike Milligan is an icon for many in Britain and Ireland (not to mention the rest of the world). My Penguin copy actually has a note on the back cover, "For copyright reasons this edition is not for sale in the U.S.A." I bought it in Skoob some time ago (ah, Skoob, where I have whiled away many an hour).

I'm not going to write an entire review as there is a superb one by Jim Murdoch available. Rather I want to focus on why it's such a funny book and I love it. "This damn book nearly drove me mad," Milligan writes in the foreward, "I started it in 1958 and doodled with it for 4 years. I don't think I could go through it all again, therefore...this will be my first and last novel." Fortunately, that didn't prove to be true.

I love mad chaotic humor like Milligan created for the Goons (and yes, of course Peter Cook, source of my endless fascination with world domination). Milligan could be rather erratic as his personal histories attest, but when he was on, there was an elegant madness that makes you marvel as well as laugh. Long before it became a staple of post-modern literature, Milligan made himself a character as well as The Author, leading to exchanges between the two of them like this:

...He rolled his trousers kneewards revealing the like of two thin white hairy affairs of the leg variety. He eyed them with obvious dissatisfaction, After examining them he spoke aloud. 'Holy God! Wot are dese den? Eh?' He looked around for an answer. 'Wot are dey?' he repeated angrily.
   'Legs.'
   'Legs? LEGS? Whose legs?'
   'Yours.'
   'Mine? And who are you?'
   'The Author.'
   'Author? Author? Did you write these legs?'
   'Yes."
   'Well, I don't like dem. I don't like 'em at all at all. I could ha' writted better legs meself. Did you write your legs?'
   'No.'
   "Ahhh. Sooo! You got some one else to write your legs, some one who's a good leg writer and den you write dis pair of crappy old legs fer me, well mister, it's not good enough.'
   'I'll try and develop them with the plot.'

Delightful, eh? This is the kind of writing I aspire to do. It reads as if pouring from the brain spigot but of course, as Milligan's foreword makes plain, it's very hard work to achieve even if the prose reads effortlessly. Always the case.

If curious about the 2002 film version, here's the trailer. I'm not encouraged. For more Forgotten books, check out Patti Abbot's blog every Friday.

Bits and Bobs

Over at Patti Abbott's blog, you can read the final installment of La Ronde, the round robin story in which I took part. The fun of these things is that they take a lot of unexpected twists and that's certainly the case here. Vastly entertaining.

Perhaps the strangest news story regarding wombats ever...

It's possible Amelia Erhart has been found.

Tomorrow, of course, The Mangrove Legacy comes out. You can win a copy over at Kit Marlowe's Facebook page.Don't forget to take a look at the trailer. I'll put up a buy link tomorrow assuming all goes as it should (given the loopiness of anything computer-based lately, I am always adding caveats). Have you been reading the new serial? How do you think it's going?

I get the final papers of my one course tomorrow. I hope to finish grading quickly so I can enjoy my birthday without thought of work waiting. I have more reviews to post, too, but we'll see how the week goes. So little time, so much to do!

Friday's Forgotten Books: Kleinzeit

I find it amazing that Russell Hoban's singular book Kleinzeit seems to be out of print in the US. Amazon lists the version on the left as the most recent one (2002) but he doesn't seem to have the same popularity here as he does in Britain (where the Pennsylvania-born writer lives, no surprise). Most of you probably know the Frances books and I've certainly gone on at length about my love for Riddley Walker on various occasions, but I hadn't read Kleinzeit until recently.

While reading it in November, I decided to recommend it to everyone who was doing NaNoWriMo as the perfect inspiration for the difficult task of writing, especially for the first time. It mashes up a sort of Pynchon-esque mystery of coincidences and misheard words with a delightful surrealism: the titular character ends up in the hospital for trouble with his hypotenuse. His troubles begin on the most mundane sort of day when he begins to experience a sudden pain. But then something else happens:

Kleinzeit got out of the train, poured into the morning rush in the corridor. Among the feet he saw a sheet of yellow paper, A4 size, on the floor, unstepped-on. He picked it up. Clean on both sides. He put it in his attaché case. He rode up on the escalator, looking up the skirt of the girl nine steps above him. Bottom of the morning, he said to himself.

Little does he know that yellow sheet of A4 will take over his life: he loses his job, he's admitted to the hospital, he takes up the glockenspiel and he takes up with Sister (nurses in Britain are still referred to as "sister"), he meets a red-bearded man who lives in the Underground. And everything seems conspired either to kill him or turn him into a writer. It's not surprising that Hoban has said that this novel is where he found his voice.

One of my favourite passages comes when Kleinziet reads from Thucydides' The Pelopennesian War as he contemplates Athenians and the blank page of yellow A4:

I promise, said Kleinzeit to his dead mother, I'll be, I'll make, I'll do. You'll be proud of me.

Suppose [the Athenians] fail in some undertaking; they make good the loss immediately by setting their hopes in some other direction. Of them alone it may be said that they possess a thing almost as soon as they have begun to desire it, so quickly with them does action follow upon decision. And so they go on working away in hardship and danger all the days of their lives, seldom enjoying their possessions because they are always adding to them. Their view of a holiday is to do what needs doing; they prefer hardship and activity to peace and quiet. In a word, they are by nature incapable of either living a quiet life themselves or of allowing anyone else to do so.

Right, said Kleinzeit. Enough, He opened the door of the yellow paper's cage, and it sprang upon him, Over and over they rolled together, bloody and roaring, Doesn't matter what the title is to start with, he said, anything will do. HERO, I'll call it. Chapter I. He wrote the first line while the yellow paper clawed his guts, the pain was blinding. It'll kill me, said Kleinzeit, there's no surviving this. He wrote the second line, the third, completed the first paragraph. The roaring and the blood stopped, the yellow paper rubbed purring against his leg, the first paragraph danced and sang, leaped and played on the green grass in the dawn.

Up the Athenians, said Kleinzeit, and went to sleep.

It delights me to no end that Hoban fans go around on February 4th leaving sheets of yellow A4 in the tube and other public places with quotes from the author. I can't imagine a more wonderful tradition to have connected with one's books. This novel is quite wonderful and I recommend it highly -- and then go get Riddley Walker and the rest of his books! I love Hoban because his stories all make their own singular way, ignoring genres and rules and convention. What better way to write?

See more "forgotten" books at Patti Abbot's blog where you'll doubtless find friends like Todd.

Purposeful

I started out the day purposefully: I got a needed oil change, ran to the store and then came to campus. There things began to bog down a bit, not only because there was a lot of email to get to and a call from the Dean but then there was the printer not working. I haven't bought new ink for my printer at home, so I've generally relied on the printer here on campus. When we got new printers and a whole new print admin system, I was the only one who never had a problem printing. Everyone else was screaming for blood because of course they decided to change the system at the beginning of the semester. So I've taken advantage of the one colleague in the building to have him print a couple of emergency things and will hope the Mac guy gets around to me soon.

Yes, we have one person in IT who's competent in Macs. We have (last I knew) over 200 Macs on campus. And you wonder why our last Mac person quit to go to Skidmore where she has fewer headaches and more pay... oh, that's right. No wonder at all.

You can catch up with the latest episode in La Ronde, the round robin story started by Patti Abbot. Today's installment (#10 already!) is "It's Raining Down in Texas" by Graham Powell. Amazing turns this narrative has taken: now in Texas.

Kit Marlowe's The Mangrove Legacy will be available from All Romance Ebooks on December 15th! You can get The Big Splash there now (as well as at Noble Romance and Amazon).

21st Century Gothic will be printed on my birthday :-) though it won't be available until 2011.

I just got word that my presentation "Bringing a Medieval Woman to Life" (about writing a play on the life of Christina of Markyate) got accepted for the Great Writing Conference in London next June. Looking forward to that. I'm also considering a conference in Akureyri, Iceland as well. We shall see. Yeah, don't remind me of that note which says "Just say no!" I am (on the whole) doing less. Well, less of some things. Combining things, too, seems helpful (work that does double duty). But yeah, it remains the case that there is so little time, and so much to do!

World AIDS Day

There's a campaign on to have an AIDS-free generation born by 2015. A lot of work to be done first. It can be done. Commemorate World AIDS Day with something meaningful. These cool Dia de los Muertos t-shirts already sold out but there are many other ways to help raise awareness and help research.

I'm unbelievably busy this week, so let me just pass along some assorted news tidbits: Over at Patti Abbott's blog, you can read the latest installment of La Ronde by Kassandra Kelly. I have a new piece on ritual up over at the Jane Quiet blog. I sent off the revised essay on Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's Lost Girls; will let you know the details about the collection once I know them. I wouldn't expect it before next autumn, maybe even 2012. Still no word on the latest novel that's waiting for review by my publisher. That's how it goes in the print publishing world. I did get the line edits for Kit Marlowe's The Mangrove Legacy, so I will be busy with those today in hopes of getting it back to my editor to make it for the December 15th release of the e-book. Yay! That's why I love electronic publications.

Off to NYC tomorrow to see Lynda Barry; if the weather's like this again, I think I'll spend the rest of the day at MoMA.

UPDATE: apparently this anthology that includes my flash fiction "Rothko Red" has come out and is available for sale.

La Ronde, Part Three: Provocateur

Here's a fun thing: I'm part of a Round Robin story sequence thanks to Patti Abbott, which circles around envy. One character envies another in Patti's story, then that character envied, envies another in Dana's story and now I'm writing about that character envying a third. 

Hence the lovely woodcut of the punishment of the envious.

I figured it was about time to get a female character into the story :-) so without further ado --

Provocateur

by K. A. Laity

James Preston basked in the warmth of the congratulatory accolades. People swarmed around him, touching him, smiling at him and it was bliss. The glowering presence of that ponderous fool Disch nearby only made the golden glow burn brighter.

How ridiculous he had been! Amateur! Trying to steal the spotlight from him? A smile curled his lip as he remembered the way the man had floundered through his ponderous pontificating. What a contrast it made to Preston's own witty, economical—and studiously humble—speech. Who would be quoted in the papers tomorrow? Me, that's who, Preston thought as he accepted another congratulatory accolade with what appeared to be an abashed modesty.

I've reached the tipping point at last! My sonorous voice will be the vehicle that takes me to the pinnacle of success. His smile broadened.

The party had gone on long enough, however.  With the expertise lent by years of practise, Preston could sense that the peak had passed and folks were thinking about the after-parties. That was his cue: he looked around to find Jeannette.

Preston's personal assistant had been flitting around all night, working on his behalf, pressing the flesh he'd rather not have to press. Jeannette was perfect: bubbly, persistent and pleasantly zaftig. He spotted her talking up Rav Noonan, the producer of last year's sleeper hit and doubtless casting something new. Good work, Jeannette, he thought as, smiling left and right as if warding off bad luck, he made his way through the parting waves of partiers. Jeanette's ample breasts rose and fell with excitement as she gestured toward him, waving him over to the conversation. Her long brunette hair retained its perfect curls from that afternoon. He must remember to ask about her styling products.

"Wouldn't you, James?" Jeanette said with a grin, laying her hand on his arm which caused her silk blouse to part a little more and show a peek at her black satin brassiere. 

Preston smiled warmly at the two women, but his thoughts ran ahead with delight. It must still be tucked away upstairs! "If it's a fabulous opportunity to work with Ms. Noonan, then yes, of course I would be delighted." There were chuckles and more words, but his thoughts were racing ahead to the suite upstairs.

Noonan made a lot of grandiose plans and vague promises, but he took it as a sign that she said she'd be calling him the following week.  At last he thought the time was right to announce, "This pumpkin needs to go to bed, my dears. Actors hours," he said, his voice ruched with regret.

"But James," his PA said, her eyes wide with surprise, some of which might have been genuine, "there's the party UNM has put together for Grady.  You must go."

"Oh, my dear," Preston said, his voice filled with longing and just a soupçon of regret. He rested a hand lightly on her shoulder, where he could feel the strap of her brassiere just beneath the filmy material. "You will make my apologies to everyone and be your charming self. I'm counting on you."

Jeannette looked up him, her brown eyes wide. She leaned in and whispered, "You're not snubbing him for that tedious speech of his, are you?"

"Tedious?" he whispered back, giving his words a conspiratorial tone. "I thought it riveting."

Jeanette laughed behind her hand, her breasts jiggling ever so slightly within the confines of her undergarment. A warm flush rose up the back of Preston's neck and at once he was impatient to get away, but he had to play by the rules.

He willed his eyes to meet hers with something approaching sincerity. "I'm counting on you to make it clear that I wont be there because I don't want Grady to have to share the spotlight. It is his night after all."

"You're being generous."

Preston chuckled. "Indeed I am. But you will have to do yeoman's duty, my girl, to make sure everyone understands how generous I am." He pecked her on the cheek. "Good night—and don't worry about making noise when you come in. You know I sleep like the dead." Especially tonight, he promised himself.

When he locked the door behind him, Preston could barely stifle the urge to run at once into her room, but he took off his jacket and hung it in the wardrobe first, then took out his cufflinks. He began unbuttoning his shirt as he walked into her room, slipping through the door she'd left ajar this afternoon. Jeanette's table was strewn with papers, though her business card binder left an impression of neatness.

Preston pulled the top drawer open and there it was: the pink box with the name in script.  The black ribbon had been undone, but it didn't matter. He knew she had tried it on. Blushing she had said, yes, it fit, it was the right size, and oh, how extravagant he was. Preston grinned and picked up the brassiere, his excitement growing. His thumb brushed the purple silk gently, then he traced the black Chantilly lace with his finger. He didn't even realise that he had sighed.

He laid the brassiere on the bed, his eyes upon it as he removed his shirt and lay it on the bed, too, as if they were lovers. Preston picked up the brassiere, his touch reverent as he turned toward the mirror. He shivered as he let the straps slip down his upraised arms. The silk kissed his skin, its touch slightly cold, but warming quickly. Reaching behind he fastened the hooks, his eye riveted on his image in the mirror. It was a snug fit but that only added to his delight—and his excitement.

If only he had breasts like Jeanette's, Preston thought as he allowed his fingers to make lazy circles across the expanse of silk and lace. He grinned at himself. If you did, you'd never work again. Excitement surged within him as he pictured Jeanette's creamy breasts encased in the purple silk, getting nearer and nearer the breaking point, his breath getting ragged as his fingers moved more quickly.

Preston didn't recognize the sound that preceded the door opening—those damned little cards—but he couldn't miss Jeanette's startled expression as she stood in the doorway. What he must look like, he had time to think, his chest tightly bound by her brassiere, his chinos tented with barely contained desire.

"Oh god no," he whispered, but she already had her phone out and aimed at him. In the camera's click her heard the end of his brilliant career.

[For the curious, a link to Agent Provocateur's Stephanee brassiere featured in the story]

Friday's Forgotten Books: You Can't Do Both

I read this novel in England this summer; I've been on a bit of an Amis kick, filling in missing volumes while I mull over the overall effect of this pursuit. Projects tends to develop this way; I get obsessed about something, immerse myself in it, then when the time is right, chuck it all away and write. I'm also knee-deep in Angela Carter, so I can't really explain how they intertwine (could two people be less likely to intertwine?).

You Can't Do Both tells the story of Robin Davies, who lives in a south London suburb, winds up going to Oxford and then the Second World War and eventually into the adventure that is marriage, though not on purpose.  Davies' father is a weird amalgamation of strident atheism and puritanical control. His mother offers a sometime refuge against his father's rigidity, but without much substantial help. When at last he's freed of his stifling suburban home, he tries to live up to his fevered sexual dreams but encounters the realities of women who are likewise a bundle of eagerness, confusion and contradictions.

Amis plays this for some wonderful laughs, no surprise. But he also carefully details the way that the misogynist tendencies develop from these encounters. Women are denying him the one thing he must have. As Richard Bradford suggests in Lucky Him, this novel comes much closer to the truth of Amis' life than his memoirs, a highly fanciful selection of events and memories. There is a sensitive and moving depiction of a friend of Robin's who turns out to be gay which makes plain the costs and dangers of that identity in the not so distant past. You'll also find an evocation of what the Oxford days with Larkin might have been like and the awkward development of his first marriage, grown out of an uncertain alliance that quickly developed into habit because of the sexual connection, then threatened by pregnancy.

Davies never ends up being likeable exactly; by the end, he's distinctly unlikeable. But the dissection is fascinating and if not really an apology, it does seem to offer a bit of an explanation for how Amis became what he was. And at his best, that was a lot.

Now to get hold of a copy of Colonel Sun...

See the round-up of other neglected tomes over at Patti Abbott's blog.