“Everything isn’t Harry Potter fanfic, Kitty,” she sighs, making me blush again. “Shifters. Breeders.”
“Breeders?” Do I even want to know?
“When a woman is forced to have someone’s baby.”
What an education today is turning out to be.
“And women like this?” I ask, scrunching up my face.
Somewhere along the way, the romance world I know and love has turned into something I hardly recognize. I wouldn’t be able to put the books Maggie’s describing on the same shelf as the novels my mom used to read, the books that got me into romance in the first place. My books would be scandalized. I’d have to turn them around, so the covers didn’t face each other.
“Kitty,” Maggie says, “a single kiss isn’t doing it for romance readers anymore. In your last book, the heroine didn’t even give the guy head. No anal. Not even a well-placed thumb.”
“I think that’s off-limits for most self-respecting women,” I reply. “Butt stuff, I mean.”
“No sex toys either,” she adds.
“Furry handcuffs, once!”
She rolls her eyes. “Come on. It was in a flashback scene from a seventh-grade Halloween party and didn’t involve sex in any way. You know what readers want? For the hero to cuff the heroine to the bed and screw the living shit out of her.”
“Maggie!” I gasp.
She’s never spoken this way to me before.
“That’s how it is.” She shrugs, leaning back in her leather chair. “Women want to be treated like dirty whores in the bedroom. They love foul-mouthed, alpha males. You write sweet betas.”
“Uh, the real meaning of beta is …” I begin.
It doesn’t matter. She bolts up from her chair, pacing in front of the window. Her heels click smartly again, her rapid pace keeping time with the beat of my heart.
“When’s the last time you got laid?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“That long, huh?”
It’s like I’ve stepped into a bizarro world. Since when do we get so personal? “What’s that got to do with it?” I insist, folding my arms.
“Your characters, when they finally do it, are in the missionary position. Always. In fact, your books are like the missionary position. They get the job done, but that’s about it.” She pulls a single printout from a folder on her desk and drops it into my lap. “See for yourself. The sales figures for your latest book. Unlike the women you write, they suck.”
“I write missionary position because the man is on top and in control,” I point out. Okay, so it’s lame, but I have to redeem myself somehow.
Lois is no help. When I look over at her, hoping she’ll back me up, I find she’s nodded off.
Maggie shakes her head at me. “Women want hot, messy sex. Dirty sex with a foul-mouthed, hot-as-hell, take-what-he-wants guy who’ll leave them breathless. And he needs to have some kind of secret past only the heroine can heal him from.”
“With her vagina?” I ask, raising a skeptical eyebrow.
“Exactly.” She smiles, like I was asking a serious question.
“Don’t women want to be treated with respect?” I can’t help but ask. “Wouldn’t she do better to get him into counseling? I can’t write books where women are treated poorly.”
“How is being given a good fucking being treated poorly?” she challenges, perching on the edge of her desk and staring straight at me.
I have no response to this, and she can tell. I know it because the look on her face turns to one of smug triumph.
“Listen, sweetheart, it’s up to you. You can stick to your morals and write the sweet, bland love stories you write now—which you’ll have to self-publish—or you can write something hot, which we’ll publish.”
She leans in, eyes narrowing. “We can’t buy the novel you’re currently working on. We can’t afford to. I’m sorry, kiddo. I wish this were better news. But that’s the state of the business nowadays. Write to please yourself, or write to the market. It’s your choice.”
My choice. It’s like being asked if I’d rather die via firing squad or hanging. It isn’t really a choice at all.
If I plan on making an income and continuing to write, which is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do with my life, I’d better start learning how to be dirty—or at least, to write characters capable of doing very dirty things.
Even if I can’t imagine doing any of them myself.
She keeps talking, but I can barely hear any of it over the pounding of my heart and the sinking of my stomach.
So much for being the hottest name in romance.
CHAPTER TWO
My editor was very clear. No more sappy love stories.
So, I do what any self-respecting author would do in the face of sacrificing their morals and integrity for the sake of maintaining a career: I go to the liquor store. After all, there’s no way I’m going to be able to write the sort of things she described while sober. I can hardly even think about it without blushing.
I’ve heard the saying, Write drunk, edit sober, before and never understood the reasoning behind it until now. Indeed, today has been an education.
By the time I get home to my walk-up, I’m struggling to make it up the stairs with a grocery sack full of booze. Anybody who saw me would probably imagine I was having a party—and if they knew the truth, they’d probably wonder how to stage an intervention.
Suddenly, as I’m a few stairs away from my floor, a golden retriever comes barreling down the hall in my direction.
“Phoebe, don’t jump,” a deep, rich voice chides. A voice belonging to the drop-dead gorgeous man who shares the floor with me, his apartment sitting across from mine.
Okay, so maybe I took ideas from my own real life and used them for my last bomb of a book. Right down to the breed of dog involved. A girl can only be so imaginative.
Which is a shame because I’m going to have to start using my imagination in ways I never thought possible.
A six-foot-plus mountain of lean muscle comes trotting down the hall after the dog, a perfect smile lighting up his face. My beautiful neighbor, a guy handsome enough to make me a little sweaty at the very sight of him.
Is it crazy that in the year we’ve lived across the hall from each other, we’ve never spoken outside a passing hello? Considering how perfect he is—like a fairy-tale prince, right down to the adorable, playful dog—maybe I need to get my head examined.
He’s gentle when he pulls the dog away from me. “Sit,” he orders.
When she does, gazing up at him with huge dark brown eyes that practically scream adoration, he pats her on the head. I have to bite my tongue to keep from asking if there’s anything I can do to get a pat on the head like that. A girl can dream, right? That doesn’t mean she has to make a fool of herself.
“Thanks.” I manage to laugh a little, feeling breathless in the light of that smile of his.
Boy, it’s not even fair for a man to be this handsome.
His dark eyes look me up and down, and he must like what he sees since his smile widens.