Three
Max tried to be subtle in following the woman ahead of him. Her long legs were bare and a small scorpion flexed its tail within a Celtic ring just above her heel. Virtually crablike, he tried to avoid lamp posts, trash cans and other people as he sought to catch a glimpse of her face. He was expecting to be disappointed - a figure like that had to be the silver lining - but just as he was preparing for a cross-path sortie she nixxed him by turning into the office building they’d just reached. In a way it was a relief; had he seen her properly, she could have taken the shine off the day. Whether she was beautiful or not - she would be unattainable. `Typical chauvinist asshole’ he reprimanded himself as he headed for his apartment, stopping briefly to get a sandwich for lunch.
He remembered the girl from the street later as he worked on his book - he needed a new character to fill a gap he’d noticed in a tangential story line. The mystery girl’s sultry way of walking and how her hair swung, together with the small tattoo on her inner ankle (he wondered, hoped, there were more) conjured images of a latter -day Siren into his mind. She was by no means a major player but the character might fulfil a symbolic role in the tale that he felt needed emphasising. He worried about the so-called hidden themes in his books - his publisher didn’t. Max believed his readership to be a lot brighter than Peter Worth Inc. Even his agent called them his `herd of cows’ in the belief that they’d go wherever he pointed `after all - they have so far’ he glibly pointed out. Max however, reckoned they just thought he was patronising them when he underlined too fervently what, to them, was a patently obvious undercurrent. He realised he wrote ostensibly for the trash or ‘holiday’ sector but still believed in respecting his consumers. In the end he decided to use her but to mellow the episode a little to make the link clear yet unassuming.
At around five he decided to call it a day. His cat Mrs Parker deigned to give him an audience as he stacked the loose leaves of the book in a pile. This one was going ok - well, he only met an inability to put words on a page every other day. The last one had taken well over two years to even finish the first draft. Talk of contracts and everything. But the truth was - and he was sure they knew it too - that when he lost the spark, the taste, anything he wrote was just so much crap. It happened at its own speed and hopefully would be worth waiting for - although probably not in a literary sense. He was just happy to be able to make an okay living at something he generally loved doing. Absentmindedly he scratched behind the cat’s ears. She told him it was time for food.
He followed orders and headed for the kitchen thinking that perhaps he should have made some excuse for tapping the girl on the shoulder and introducing himself yeah, right. He decided to chill with a movie before going out for dinner.
He remembered the girl from the street later as he worked on his book - he needed a new character to fill a gap he’d noticed in a tangential story line. The mystery girl’s sultry way of walking and how her hair swung, together with the small tattoo on her inner ankle (he wondered, hoped, there were more) conjured images of a latter -day Siren into his mind. She was by no means a major player but the character might fulfil a symbolic role in the tale that he felt needed emphasising. He worried about the so-called hidden themes in his books - his publisher didn’t. Max believed his readership to be a lot brighter than Peter Worth Inc. Even his agent called them his `herd of cows’ in the belief that they’d go wherever he pointed `after all - they have so far’ he glibly pointed out. Max however, reckoned they just thought he was patronising them when he underlined too fervently what, to them, was a patently obvious undercurrent. He realised he wrote ostensibly for the trash or ‘holiday’ sector but still believed in respecting his consumers. In the end he decided to use her but to mellow the episode a little to make the link clear yet unassuming.
At around five he decided to call it a day. His cat Mrs Parker deigned to give him an audience as he stacked the loose leaves of the book in a pile. This one was going ok - well, he only met an inability to put words on a page every other day. The last one had taken well over two years to even finish the first draft. Talk of contracts and everything. But the truth was - and he was sure they knew it too - that when he lost the spark, the taste, anything he wrote was just so much crap. It happened at its own speed and hopefully would be worth waiting for - although probably not in a literary sense. He was just happy to be able to make an okay living at something he generally loved doing. Absentmindedly he scratched behind the cat’s ears. She told him it was time for food.
He followed orders and headed for the kitchen thinking that perhaps he should have made some excuse for tapping the girl on the shoulder and introducing himself yeah, right. He decided to chill with a movie before going out for dinner.
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