Chapter 1
Dressed in black with a white collar and white-on-black nametag identifying her as Lucy, the slightly tentative waitress with a soft smile said goodbye and to call again, her eyelids fluttering. At that Ryan knew he only had to ask and she'd date him.
Oh brother, act your age, the newcomer to the city mused. He'd welcome her company but that would almost amount to cradle snatching. "I'll call again," he said pulling out a friendly smile instead of a flirty one and pushed five bucks into her hand. Ryan pretended not to have heard her whisper thank you and add she finished at 2:00. His grin lasted all the way to the exit and into early-morning sunshine.
Ryan Silverstone, who wrote under the name of Rogan Stone, had 45 minutes to kill before his appointment with his publisher. Thirty of those minutes were spent doing something he rather liked. He slouched against a sidewalk traffic sign and watched the pretty girls go by. As well, he occasionally glanced at other less than perfect folk who sometimes exhibited expressions or gestures that might be recorded by his discerning brain as useful to graft on to somewhat lifeless minor characters in his writings to boost personality or expand their oddities.
The author's 38-year-old mouth with fleshy lips damned the drool to avoid an embarrassing release and Ryan swallowed periodically as chic chicks, often glancing at him, as they tap-tapped on the pavement to their offices. Black was the almost universal outer covering, sometimes with thin stripes. Ryan figured the more reserved women would wear black underneath; those deep into an affair or recent marriage would wear color with lace trim and in a sexy cut while the others... what others? Among the favored with Ryan's favorites, mostly dressed in black or dark blue. They were the babes with very mobile hips and slightly open-lipped smiles that lingered. Inevitably they would be in yellow thongs or red silk boy's shorts and mostly being full-breasted would wear a matching bra, with thicker straps if they were sensible but perhaps if they were confident of staying confined would have just the one hook or a single pull bow at the front. Oh yeah, thought Ryan, who heroines inevitably reflected that preference.
Ryan's attention was diverted and his brain began recording. His penetrating green eyes fell on a skinny guy in tattered clothing bending over amid an assortment of legs, mostly feminine. At first Ryan thought the social misfit was looking up skirts and dresses. He was low enough. Then the guy's hands darted between pavement-pounding shoes and he grabbed two cigarette butts, straightened and pocketed them.
"I'll be damned," Ryan grinned. He'd known street bums did that but had never really observed them in action. This guy who looked an aged alcoholic, probably no more than fifty despite his wrinkled face and emaciated body -- Ryan had no idea how he managed to figure out that age.
The startling discovery for the author was the guy, in close proximity to all those stocking tops and perhaps even the occasional uncovered pussy, made no attempt to look up and enjoy the sight of freshly washed flesh and perhaps wobbling white thigh above stocking tops of those who detested tights. Ryan knew why -- the guy needed skill and speed to reclaim the butts without having sharp heels bruise or even sever his skinny fingers. He watched the guy progress beyond him, having picked up at least a dozen butts and only missing a couple when a babe collided with him and almost lost her footing. Ryan was aware through this acute observation he was privy to a form of street poetry, acted-out drama totally mimed amid the cacophony of usual downtown noise on principal thoroughfares.
A chauffer-driven black car pulled up in the no-stopping zone right beside Ryan. A fake blonde with fake tits slithered out after kissing her father (?). The guy called, "Great night honey, my balls feel as if they are hanging below my knees." The overweight whore giggled and 'daddy' shouted, "Shut the door. I'll call when the wife will be out of town again." The woman slammed the door shut, glared at Ryan and walked away from him, her fat ass as well as her 'profession' having turned him off but his brain recorded that she was wearing an imitation tiger skin dress with a zip that went all the way from the back of her neck to just below her ass. Great dress for a hooker who could sit on her client's knees on the back seat of a cab without unduly concerning the driver.
The senior receptionist, around forty, recognized her publisher's author as soon as Ryan walked out the elevator. "Good morning Mr Stone, you look younger and more handsome than the picture on the dustcover of your books. I'm Miriam."
"Hi Miriam, what a lovely greeting."
Making no attempt to hide her wedding ring, Miriam leaned forward to allow Ryan to see the white flesh creaming out of her inadequate blue bra under her black top and her tongue tip protruded slightly. "Fetch me a glass of water please Mandy."
With the assistant gone Ryan knew he only had to suggest a drink after work...
He didn't. Miriam sighed and picked up her phone, "Mr Stone is here Mrs Jackson. Pardon me? Oh, sorry, I meant Mr Silverstone."
Miriam pouted and pointed to the boardroom to her right. Ryan winked and walked towards the boardroom. The door opened and the plump woman with a cheerful face said, "Hi Ryan, it's great to see you in the flesh. I'm Nicola Jackson."
Ignoring Ryan's outstretched hand the commissioning editor kissed him and inside introduced him to the rather watchful trio of publisher Maxwell Simon, Max's third wife and executive editor Belinda and promotions manager Eva Stillwell.
The 70-minute meeting concluded without an offer of lunch. Ryan found a café filled with classy-looking office workers and a thick sprinkling of dowagers with sharp noses and food heaped in front of their protruding bellies. He sat at the bar occasionally catching the bored stare of woman touching forty in a stunningly cut green suit that spiraled her into the category of a mother of teenagers but still worth a second look; oh yeah. The boobs were a disappointment but then that's why the fit of her jacket was so classical. Ryan heard the waitress say with tip-earning familiarity, "I have your regular table ready Mrs Hungerford."
Slipping into work-mode Ryan's brain dimmed out the chatter and everyone else so when he turned to grab a close-up look at cute Mrs Hungerford she was the only person imaged by his brain in color. It was rather eerie, but he was used to it. If he really concentrated he could visualize a dressed woman in the nude and she'd look totally realistic although exact detailing could be somewhat askew -- for example, the target might not have trimmed her vulva, the thighs would not be as graceful as he pictured and his mind had been too kind about insignificant breast droop. He was in this half daydream when her violet eyes met his and she murmured, "Why not join me Mr Green Eyes?"
Hesitation was understandable: what if that invitation actually had been imagined? Mrs Hungerford must have known backup incentive was necessary because she held out her hand. Ryan took it and was almost jerked off his bar stool. "Leave your drink, lunch is on me," she said, hauling him along like a trophy.
Ryan had gone into Buffalo the previous day to have his almost chestnut-colored hair shaped and combed back, the top had been left long to hide the beginning of a balding spot. He'd purchased a gray suit and was wearing that and a new cream shirt. The top button was undone and the knot of the gaudy yellow and red wide tie hung low, so perhaps he looked not unlike a gigolo. When Mrs Hungerford let his hand go he thought he'd give her a wee thrill -- or the opportunity to turn with a snarl and attempt to send his front teeth down his throat with a vicious face slap. His hand slid over her hip and in descent attempted to grab and snap the lower elastic of her panties. He felt the panty line but only managed to pinch her rather than snap the elastic. She half turned, said, "Tut-tut" and pointed to Ryan to take the outer chair rather than the one opposite her.
As the waitress left with the drinks order Mrs Hungerford handed Ryan her handbag and told him to place it on the spare seat, saying she didn't want anyone attempting to sit there.
"Why not?"
"Because if I'm buying lunch I expect to have my guest completely focused and be entertained."
Ryan obliged and pressed her knee against hers.
"Leave it there but that's not what I meant. Please identify yourself as an uncommonly interesting man -- what are you, forty?"
"Approaching it but sorry to disappoint. I live out from Buffalo on the bank of a river flowing into a lake. An environmental joy to me but perhaps a dead bore to most folk."
The mouth of Ryan's hostess fell open, giving him a view of a nicely pink tongue without fuzz and expensively maintained enamel. "Ohmigod. I'm reading
Josephine's Unwise Venture into the Forest
after having had
The Bracewell Twins Swim to Glory
to read for a group discussion. On both cover flaps you said those exact words: 'I live out of Buffalo on the bank of a river...' But I didn't recognize you. Please get that awful photograph upgraded. Oh, by the way, call me Avon."
Ryan said his publishers had chosen the photograph and he was relaxed about it. People who needed to know what Rogan Stone aka Ryan Silverstone looked like already knew.
"That's so damn typical of Maxwell Publishing, known as Dour Maxwell Books in my book club with a couple of exceptions: your romance novels and those of Penny Money. You two stand head and shoulders above Dour Maxwell's other authors. We favor Penny of course because she consistently treats her heroines romantically. But you -- God we laughed hysterically at the disgusting things coach Kenny Hartwell and those two blondes got up to in the changing room and in hotels. None of us really knew the term double dipping until you clarified it in the most grossly erotic way imaginable. Every time I see two blondes together I think of Dottie and Jess, side-by-side, butts in the air and spreading. God, you are so disgusting. What are you working on now?"
Ryan said he'd been called to Manhattan today and had thought it was to receive a book award. But at the meeting for the first twenty minutes the female executive editor and commissioning editor ripped into him for the 'unsavory manner' in which his heroines were treated. "They said the sex didn't bother them, it was the cavalier way his heroes treated females -- arrogantly, as sex objects and his heroes were quite brutal in their thoughts about women and no women liked reading about women being sprayed with semen."
Ryan looked for reaction but his hostess showed only a light smile.
"I was ready to lash back at them when I noticed dour Maxwell almost turn his lips up at them and the female promotions manager kept shaking her tresses so I eased back thinking the cavalry was coming. It did. When those two women paused to wipe the vindictive froth from their mean mouths Maxwell said, "You spoke of many complaints -- give me a figure."
Avon simpered, "Well, well. My interest in you grows."
Ryan winked and continued. "The commissioning editor said around two-fifty and the executive editor said at least. Maxwell then asked how many complimentary letters and emails had been received about Ryan Stone and his novels. Maxwell's wife replied she didn't have the figures with her so the promotions manager was asked and said she in the past year about 2000. Maxwell then asked why were they wasting their time on powder puff stuff?"
