Excerpt: Twenty-Seven Steps to a Better You

Chris stood up and shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket. Hannah remained sitting on the sofa, leaning forward, knees together, hands at her sides on the cushion. With a smile and a wave, Chris stepped through the door and closed it softly behind him. He stood for a moment at the top of the stairs, fingers interlocked on the top of his head like a prisoner being searched. He closed his eyes and tilted his heat toward the ceiling, then sighed heavily and trudged down the stairs. He questioned the wisdom of the decision he had just made. The angel on one shoulder told him that he did the right thing, that she needed to come to the decision herself, with a clear head. The devil on the other shoulder slapped him upside the head and reminded him that when girls are having fragile moments, they give out blow jobs like Halloween candy.

Chris made sure that the entrance door did not shut all the way behind him, then breathed the moist night air deeply. The rain had picked up, and he put the hood on his sweatshirt over his head. He began to walk briskly to the dumpster and his car, when he heard a shout behind him. Hannah was running across the courtyard, in her bare feet and no jacket, calling his name.

She quickly caught up to him, and he turned around to ask her what he had left inside, when she practically leapt into his arms. He caught her, and their mouths met so hard that their teeth almost chipped. Their tongues explored one another passionately, almost violently, for what seemed like an eternity. She collapsed against his chest again when they were through. “I thought about it,” was all she said, and he lifted her chin with his thumb and finger, looked into her eyes, and nodded. The rain beat down on their heads, and soaked through both of their shirts, but they didn’t feel the cold or damp one bit.

“What fucking stereotypes are we,” Chris remarked, in between kisses. “The two attractive young heroes, finally falling in love and making out in the rain. Where the hell is this guy getting these awful ideas?”

“I know,” Hannah said, pulling her head back slightly in her embrace. “I mean, there are some good lines here and there, but this story really isn’t all that convincing.”

“I know. This guy seriously needs to pull his head out of his ass and actually give me a personality in the next draft.”

The narrator gently pointed out that he was doing the best he could, given the time constraints and the circumstance, and if Chris didn’t like it, he could go stick it inside. He abruptly ended the chapter, and right when they were getting to the part where Chris was going to get his end wet. Oh, that’s just too bad, don’t you think? Poor guy just got cockblocked by his author. I hope that’ll teach him not to complain.