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Once I went to a Tupperware party as a favor to a good friend. She needed so many bodies to fill out her quota so I went, as a favor. I’d had a few odd instances with fans being overly fond of my Anita Blake novels, and I’d even had some disturbing moments with readers being overly interested in my fictional men, but I thought, it’s a Tupperware party I’ll be safe. I was about to be very wrong.

It turned out that most of the women were fans of mine which was flattering, but they started talking about my characters, my male characters, and speculating on the size of their, um, equpment. They were debating on Richard and Jean-Claude. This was early in the series. I sat behind them on my little chair and thought in my head very loudly, "Don’t realize its me. Don’t realize it’s me. Please no one out me. Please, God." God was busy that day, and let’s face it on the grand scheme of things a little embarrassment isn’t a tradgey.

One woman did know me, and of course my friend knew me, traitor. The woman I knew said, "I know someone that can answer the question." They all turned with her and suddenly I was the center of attention. "Laurell would know," she said.

I blinked like a deer in headlights. I thought maybe if I say nothing, pretend I didn’t hear the earlier conversation they wouldn’t have the heart to say it all over again. Wrong again, they were relentless. I’d actually been asked this before so I had my answer, "If Jean-Claude were real, and really my boyfriend I wouldn’t kiss and tell."

Most of the women nodded, but two of them did not. They persisted in trying to get me to list his size in inches. I refused, politely. Finally one of the women held up a cooking thing she’d won answering some question or other. It was a little plastic thing a cross between a spoon and a cup meant to dip into water and lift out hard-boiled eggs.Someone had explained what it was to me early. It was vaguely egg shaped with a hole in the bottom for the water to drain out. She raised it up, ran her finger around the edge of the hole and said, "Smaller than this, or bigger than this?"

How could I possibly get out of this conversation? The women started saying that Jean-Claude would have to be smaller than the hole because the hole was pretty big. I remember thinking its not a big hole. They finally insulted him by assuming on my behalf that he was smaller than that, and that did it. I had to defend his honor. I shook my head and said, "I don’t think so, that’s a really small hole."

They stared at me. I blinked back. They were happy with the answer. I was glad they moved onto a different topic. It had been a very small hole.