News

In my books Anita wakes up nude beside a beautiful man, or men. She rolls over and sex ensues. Not just sex, but really good sex. When she can walk safely, she slips on something silky and begins to get ready for the day. In real life today, I woke up nude beside a beautiful man. We cuddled, we talked, and then sex ensued, and yes, it was really good sex. When we could both walk safely, Jon threw on a robe and is now in the shower. I cleaned up and put on silk pajamas and a robe, and headed downstairs to start my day. Here’s where fact and fiction begin to diverge a lot.

Our pug, Sasquatch is going nuts in his crate. Open crate and he makes donut circles around me like a whirling dervish. Yes, it’s very cute, and also a tripping hazard as we’ve learned. I open the back door for him to go outside, but it’s raining, pugs hate rain. They are indoor dogs and very aware of that. He sat on the top step, the only dry spot, and scratched frantically at the door. He wasn’t going anywhere to do anything in the wet, but if I let him back in without it I’d have a mess to clean up. So . . . I find the closest boots, Doc Martin black leather heels. I tuck the scarlet silk pajama bottoms into the tops of them, and begin to curse my dog under my breath. I put a raincoat on over the robe, but there is still red silk out, bare, to the rain. Silk doesn’t like rain. I pull my hood up, never a good look for very curly hair, and out into the rain I go. (Why didn’t I get an umbrella? It never occurred to me, and if I wait too long Sasquatch will do whatever he’s going to do on the top step. Leaving it like a land mine.) I chase him out into the yard, and stand there to make sure he does something in the rain. The rain begins to leave little spots all over the silk. Finally, we’re back inside. I’m balancing on one foot taking off boots, and muttering at the dog who is staring at me adoringly in a perfect sit waiting for his treat. Morning’s like this are why Anita doesn’t have a dog.

And if our daughter wasn’t off with Grandma, and Grandpa in sunny climes for Spring break the whole coming downstairs in silk, and the raucous sex before, would not have happened. This is just one of the many reasons Anita doesn’t have a child.

In the books food just sort of appears for Anita, or she skips food all together. In reality, I’m brewing tea, toasting bread, and trying to spread organic sunflower butter on it. Organic nut butter has this oil on top of it. I’m sure it’s perfectly fine and perfectly healthy, but it’s unappealing. So I’m stirring the butter to mix the oil with it, like I’m supposed to, then measure out a tablespoon of it for the toast. Anita never has to measure her food, or worry that much about healthy. She’s too busy staying alive to worry about calorie counts. Remember the red silk I was wearing? Remember how I said the nut butter is oily? Yes, the measuring spoon of oily nut butter fell onto the sleeve of the red silk. *sigh* There is a reason you never see anyone in the silk, velvet, or other lingerie in the kitchen in my books. Most of it is not user friendly for actually cooking in, only to be put on after the meal is done so you can look fetching beside the main course and let your significant other know that desert will be fun, too. I say significant other, rather than husband, because I like a man who can cook.

Other things that work more smoothly in fiction than in fact: Jean-Claude has an unlimited supply of silk sheets so if you ruin a pair it’s fine. In reality it’s hard to find good silk that fits a big bed, and it’s expensive to replace. Almost everyone in the books is in great shape with seemingly little visible effort to stay that way. We haven’t seen Anita work out in a long time in the books. In reality I have to see a lot of gym time to look as good as I do, and it’s not as good as Anita looks. She’s still doing my pre-child, pre-marriage, pre-real job workout. I’m trying and I’m about to get even more serious about getting fit and healthy, but where Anita just seems to exercise the way she eats, off stage, and magically, it’s a lot harder to fit into my life. I did show Anita and some of the guys working out in the gym in the June book, Bullet. I wanted to show some of the real effort that goes into staying in that kind of shape. One other difference, I just looked at the clock. I have to buy new exercise shoes because I’ve worn down the inside of the pair I have. Good shoes are very important if you’re doing serious walking, or running, for your cardio. So, I have to find a new pair before we leave for Paris since I’ll be hitting the treadmill there, too. I have to find shoes for my great new dresses that I bought, but the new shoes have to be okay for my ankle and still look good with the dresses. Anita is able to wear the spike heels that I could wear before I injured my ankle. The spike heels are the one thing my orthopedic doctor would not sign off on. I can wear them if on a flat surface, but she was dubious about me maybe rolling my ankle again, so I’m in search of high heels with wider heels, though oddly in pumps it needs to be over three inches high, in fact the pair that felt best were one of my four inch spikes. If the heel were wider I’d take them, but standing in spike heels is different from risking walking in them for an entire evening. Just not worth it when I’ve just gotten better. In the books Anita heals almost anything, magically, amazingly. That is pure wish fullfillment on my part, because I’ve always been injury prone going back to my late teens. These are just a few things that are different between my fiction and my fact.