"Hey mister! How'd you like to get your face outta that old dirty book and put it between the legs of this dirty young slut?"
That, my friends, is called a 'hook'- an opening line of a story that's supposed to grab your attention and convince you to read on. I should know, I'm a writer.
My name, for future reference, is Brian Maxwell Connors, but everyone calls me Max. I don't think my own Mom calls me 'Brian' any more. And no, not for the reasons your dirty little minds think so. And how do I know that's what you're thinking? I know my audience.
I'm doing ok as a writer. Not raking in John Grisham or Danielle Steel money, but I get by. I've got twelve novels under my own name. Three that made the Best Seller list briefly, one of which my agent is busy negotiating with a Hollywood studio over script rights. That last one should net me a nice payday, which is something every author hopes for. I don't make millions, but I get by.
I've also got a bunch of juicy smut epub novellas out under a pen name. Those do decently. They don't see actual print that I know of, so the overhead on them is significantly lower and I get an acceptable profit off of what amounts to exercise writing. And no, I'm not going to tell you what name I use either. Suffer.
The reason I'm telling you all this and interrupting the introduction of the slut in the hook up there is to explain how I got to where that offer caught me completely off-guard. I'm doing my first signing tour- twelve cities up the Atlantic coast from Miami to Boston in thirty days. My agent wanted it to be a shorter trip, but I like to explore strange places and especially haunt used bookstores. The older the better in my opinion. So I insisted on the extra time. Sneak into a little hole in the wall place, find my books and secretly sign them, then go poking through the stacks looking for something cool to read.
Yes, yes. I still read BOOKS. I am fully aware that I can download whole libraries onto my tablet and e-reader and take them with me wherever I go. Bleech. 😋 You just can't beat the smell of old books and the feel of some much-loved tattered old paperback in your hands. And it's a damn sight harder to quietly drop a tablet on a table next to someone who looks like they could use a distraction from their screens through the medium of a scandalous cover painting.
So that's how I ended up here, in an inner-city used book store that had a narrow front and felt like it went back all the way through the buildings on the other side, with a pile of cheap pulp erotic spy thrillers and dime-store erotica in a basket between my feet. I was reading one of them already, deep into 'The Many Adventures of Agent 0008- The Lost Bomb' and not paying much attention to my surroundings, truth be told. I barely registered a pair of tattered combat boots come up next to me, muttered an 'excuse me' under my breath and scooted to one side to let them at the shelves.
Which is why their opening line threw me for a loop.
"Excuse me?" I cannily asked to cover my bewilderment at being dragged back into the real world, blinking madly to refocus my eyes.
"I said 'How'd you like to get your face outta that book and into my slut's pussy?'," retorted the young woman in front of me. I swear, I had immediate flashbacks to my childhood because she looked like a cosplay version of the Baroness from the GIJoe cartoons. Straight black hair hanging down past her shoulders, the huge round glasses, black jeans and leather jacket, right down to the black t-shirt with the COBRA logo across her breasts. I think it's safe to say, she wasn't bad looking either. She had a leash in her hand and at the other end...
The coquettish collared girl playfully biting her finger on the other end was as out of place in an old book store as I would be at an anti-porn protest. Well, ok, to give her SOME literary-world credit, she was dressed roughly like Alice from Alice in Wonderland. Like, very very roughly. She wore a light blue sleeveless dress made of latex that looked as though it were at least two sizes too small the way her boobs threatened to spill out the low-cut, white frilled opening at the top. Where the Baroness' tits showed off her shirt, Alice's outfit showed off her tits nearly to the point of complete exposure. And I'm concentrating on her boobs because I don't think the skirt covered much either and I had serious immediate doubts she was wearing panties. What she did wear were long white latex platform boots that went all the way under her brief skirt with what looked like a six-inch spike heel and white latex gloves to the elbow. Of course, she was bright yellow blonde with two poofy pigtails sprouting from the top of her head.
And, for some reason that I wondered if they were out-of-character, a bright blue hairband sporting stark white bunny ears that added another eight inches to her considerable height.
"Ummm... what?" I stammered, displaying all my rapier wit while glancing around to find the hidden Punk'd cameras, checking the front window to make sure it was still daylight outside and pinching my arm to ensure I wasn't asleep. 'No' on all three as far as I could tell.
"Maybe he's just not into girls," Alice said, sadly tilting her head the way a dog tries to guilt you out of a hot dog at a street cart. She heaved a sigh, which made me want to jump to her aid if and when she spilled out of her top. "That's too bad. He looks like a nice guy and I like fucking nice guys for you, Anna."
This was the point that the ongoing war between my dick, which was already hard just looking at her, and my brain, who was having a hard time with the whole scenario, tipped towards the latter. Of course I wanted to fuck this woman! I'd have to have been dead for the last six years NOT to. I'm single and the only one waiting for me at home were the two plastic plants and a cactus I'd killed three months ago but haven't tossed out yet.
But the whole situation set of my Weird-O-Meter and brain got his say.
"I'm sorry, " I began, dropping my book down into the basket and looking between the two of them. "I'm flattered and there are parts of me that are completely on-board with... well, everything you're offering, but I just gotta know- why me? There cannot be a lack of guys more... ummm 'your type' who would jump at the chance in the area, right?"
Baroness Anna sized me up with a strict, judging glare which, admittedly, tipped the scales back in dick's favor more than a little. I think she wanted to know if I was joking or not. Eventually, she made up her mind, jerking her thumb over her shoulder to her... her pet?