Chapter Nine
Corby
Henry Thoreau wrote his greatest novel in the forest. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.” And so I am here in this small town in Cherry Falls, staring at the great expanse of pine outside my window, and yet my page is still blank.
It’s not as if I don’t have thoughts, but none of them seem worthy of putting pen to paper. All of them are lewd and dirty and involve putting Glory into a number of inconceivable positions with all but a few having her legs spread. Most of the time I’ve written about sex or seduction it has been in the context of crime because murders are almost always a crime of passion, whether it’s love or hate. There’s only one form of expression that ties those emotions together, and it’s the violent outpouring of emotion.
It’s the battered wife whose control and sanity snaps at the sight of the man who has inflicted untold abuse on her for years sitting on the sofa with one arm elbow deep in a family size bag of chips (that he has not shared with any family) and the other down his pants, gripping his sweaty, tiny dick. It’s the young man rebuffed in real life who spends all his time on the internet, searching up justifications and finding a sympathetic voice in the forums that hate, spurred on by the only people he believes understand him as he spews his vitriol out in the form of bullets.
I don’t write about these characters precisely, but versions of them. My stories have always been dark and gloomy, good for rainy days and the black nights.
Living in the city all my life gave me a certain impression of small towns. They are backward, without one Starbucks in the entire county, whereas I am used to seeing them on every block. The only Michelin they’ve heard of is the tire and not the restaurant rating guide. The people are more interested in their neighbors than their own lives.
None of this proved to be true in Cherry Falls. Hardly anyone has inquired after me, the recluse living in the woods in a weird house with its flat roof and its concrete walls designed by an architect who ran off with his housekeeper—the male one. The food here is good from Virgin Street Diner, the Cherry on Top Ice Cream Parlor, and Bela’s Bakery. I heard that the owner learned to bake in Syn City, which makes complete sense since there’s something wickedly addictive about her croissants. As for the coffee, well, let’s face it. If you can’t make your own, you shouldn’t really complain about what you can’t buy.
Most importantly, the city does not have Glory Gilmore. I stretch out my legs and fold my hands behind my head. I rub my tongue against the roof of my mouth. The rest of the Thoreau sentence was “see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Until I met Glory, I had only been living a half-life, mostly monochrome. The world I’d inhabited was bleak and corrosive, filled with villains on both sides. The main character, almost invariably a man, had his own questionable morals. People like reading about flawed characters, so I make my heroes disreputable, but as long as he has the code of not harming children, no misdeed he commits would be classified as unforgivable. But writing about those characters and the sins they commit has placed me in a dark space. The walls of my five thousand square foot penthouse seemed to press in on all edges. It wasn’t just the crazed woman I found in my bedroom that forced me out, it was my own shadow that seemed to grow with every book published and every accolade placed at my feet.
The city was too small for me. It wasn’t until I reached Cherry Falls that the weight crushing my sternum lifted, and I could inhale again. But still I wasn’t alive—not until I laid eyes on Glory, and even then I hadn’t drawn a true breath until I’d kissed her. It wasn’t mere desire that surged through me when our lips met and our tongues tangled. It was vital, pure blue flame that re-animated those long dormant feelings—the ones that I thought I’d killed off along with my characters.
Kissing her turned me on so much that my dick hasn’t deflated even though she left—escaped—hours ago. I hadn’t wanted to let her go, but if I’d kept her, forced her to stay, I knew that it wouldn’t last. I don’t want to extinguish even an ounce of her spirit, which might have happened had I seduced her. One night isn’t all that I want from her. I want forever, and so I might have to take it slow, as much as I detest the thought.