Exquisite Joy & Exquisite Agony
an excerpt

The rain pelted on the frosted glass, drumming out some half-forgotten melody that nudged but didn’t quite come to mind. It was angry rain, the kind of rain that only comes in the middle of the night when no one but those night owl’s can really appreciate it. The kind of rain that wakes kids’ up, and that sets the tone for star-crossed lovers who find themselves in bed together. Or the kind of rain that helps someone think.

Thunder crashed loud enough to rattle the glass of scotch on the table, but he didn’t notice. Too far into his cups to realize the room was shaking, and it wasn’t his head spinning. But that happened to be how he liked it. Spinning, and living in a haze.

Comes with being a writer.

The effortless territory of the writer with a whore for a muse was not the party he knew, and it frustrated him to no end. His muse? She was a cock-tease. A wicked, manipulative bitch who taunted and teased him in dreams and skirted around the edge of his vision, flashing her bits before he could get a good look and then running off.

That was his Muse. Fucking bitch, she was.

Downing the rest of his glass, he rose from his chair to move to the afore mentioned window, expressive hazel eyes squinting as he looked out across the dark and quiet city, the sound of the rain his only companion. Amanda was out. Again.

She’d been out most nights the past month, for no good reason, and it was beginning to grate on his nerves. He wanted her in his bed. Not out somewhere else, doing God knew what else. A wife was supposed to be in bed with her husband.

The sound of glass breaking broke his reverie in thought, and the splitting of his palm drew his eyes down to review the shards embedded.

“Merde,” one by one, the shards were retrieved and discarded onto the floor without thought.