Coming Soon from Loose Id: “A-Muse-Ing”

About six months ago, I was shooting the breeze with a friend, chatting about the latest hotties on the small screen.

She asked, “Are you keeping up with ‘As the World Turns’?”

I replied, “Lost track of it, and I wish I hadn’t. I miss my stories.”

She said, “Go back, if only for Luke and Noah’s sake.”

“Luke and Noah?” asked I.

She smirked at me.

“Why?” I asked, starting to get nervous.

She smirked some more.

Turns out the woman knows me way too darn well, and that’s not just a good thing, that’s a great thing.

I’m betting more of you out there know about Luke and Noah than I did. And more about Ollie and Christian from the German “Forbidden Love” (YUM!). Talk about stars in my eyes, folks. Pretty guys, delicious angst, and a brand new reason to sneak in time to enjoy the stories again.

But wait, there’s more. What more could there be? Why, I’m glad you asked.

As I sat one day pretending to pay bills while keeping one eye on my guilty pleasure, I thought to myself, “Self, the life of a daytime drama writer’s got to be absolutely nuts. The pressure, the intricacies of a thirty-year-plus story bible, standards and practices, the secrecy clauses–wow. You’d need one hell of a muse just to keep up.”

I then thought, “What kind of muse would it take to get that kind of job done?”

At which point Rory burst into life inside my head, tapped me on the mental shoulder and said, “A guy like me. A muse like me, actually. Pleased to meet you. Got any Pop-Tarts?”

Generally, naked men demanding sugar don’t usually appear in my head. I figured I was hallucinating–probably finally overdosed on secondhand toner fumes. But what the hey, yeah? I gave my imaginary man a Pop-Tart (peanut butter and jelly flavor), he introduced me to his pet daytime drama writer Harper (also imaginary, dad-blast it), and after the dust settled we agreed–carefully–that we could live with each other long enough for me to write Rory and Harper’s story.

Because write it I would.

“But in a while,” I tried to bargain. “I have this story, and this one, and that one too–”

Oops.

You don’t want to know what happens when you deny a muse his man and his candy. It ain’t pretty and Rory’s a master at putting on the thumb screws. In the end I resorted to promising that crazy muse the metaphysical equivalent of a gold ticket to Willy Wonka’s if he’d just forgive me, and get naked and naughty with Harper while he was at it.

The end result is “A-Muse-Ing”, a book that ate my brain, left me gibbering quietly to myself more than once, and which I love as much as “In the Strangest Places” (if Rory and Rack were ever locked in a room together, I shudder to think of what could happen). Sixty-six thousand words about a daytime drama writer and his muse–laughter, lust, drama, toast, bubble soap, coffee, and lube. (And I threw in a snapping turtle for good measure.)

Coming in November 2008 from Loose Id!

(The friend who re-introduced me to daytime dramas is, by the way, still laughing her tuchus off at me. No sweat. I’m sending Rory her way next!)

Click me for the excerpt!

Harper whirled, caught himself a half-second from falling, and gaped at the kitchen. The brightly lit kitchen, reverberating with doo-wop blasting from the radio, the emptiness eradicated by one completely naked muse getting his groove on. “Rory?”

“Who else were you expecting, Santa Claus?” Rory smirked and blew Harper a kiss over his shoulder. “Hungry?”

“You’re real.”

“Course I’m real. Thought you were gonna sleep all night. I wore you out good, huh?” Rory reached for a skillet Harper would have sworn resided at the bottom of a cobweb-festooned cabinet and shook it over the burner coils on the stove, sending up a sizzling, intoxicating cloud of sage and onion.

“Um,” said Harper, cleverly. “I thought you were –”

Rory wrinkled his nose and cranked up the music. “Not this again. I’m real, I’m not going anywhere, etc. etc. etc. I’ve got promises to make good on and a factory’s worth of number two pencils all sharpened up. Are you attached to this paintjob? No? Good. It’s now officially a non-erasable chalkboard. And shake a leg, would you? Latemeal’s almost done.” Rory twisted the radio’s volume knob as high as it would go and began to beat out the percussion with a spoon, a fork, and the countertop. “What are you laughing at?”

“You.” Harper rubbed the back of his neck, trying not to smile like a fool. “Turn it down, Rory. I have neighbors.”

“It’s not even nine o’clock,” Rory protested. “In New York City. Trust me, they ain’t sleepin’.” Rat-a-tat-tat.

Harper rested his shoulders against the wall and watched Rory go, man, go. “Sleep is our friend.”
Rory waved his hand dismissively to the left. “Bahhhh. Sleep’s for wusses and ants that go hungry when it snows. Or whatever. Aesop wasn’t my guy. I get fuzzy when it comes to aphorisms anyway. You want toast or bagels?”

Harper bit his lip to keep from cracking up again. Surreal. “Sleep’s for pansies, huh? I seem to recall someone snoring in my ear around three o’ clock.”

“I snore? Huh. Didn’t know that.” Rory spun on his heel, playing air drums now. “Womp-ba-ba-loop-ba-ba-lum-bam-boom! Tutti Frutti –”

Harper lost it completely, clutching the doorway to keep from falling. “You’re a lunatic.”

Rory grinned at him, still grooving.

“Note to self,” Harper said when he could breathe again, wiping tears of mirth off his cheeks. “Never let Rory near sugar after he’s gotten laid.”

“You bet I got laid, and righteously so. You, my friend, could give lessons on how to get maximum value out of a blow job. And just you try and get between me and my sucrose. You’re a peach of a guy, but that could get ugly. Bomp, bomp, bomp –”

“Rory?” Harper pushed off the wall. His kitchen wasn’t huge. He crossed it in four steps and caught his muse by the elbow mid-gyration, reeling Rory to his chest. No hesitation. Wrapping his hand around the back of Rory’s neck, Harper bent and kissed him, stroking his tongue inside.
He remembered his “morning” breath too late.

Rory didn’t seem to mind. He purred and opened for Harper, licking cat-like around his lips. “Hello to you too, sunshine.”

http://www.willaokati.com

Written by Willa Okati

Possesses an abundance of crazy ideas, writes constantly, always tries new things, and drinks an insane amount of coffee. Manlove (and femmelove) is more than a passion -- it's a way of life. You can find Willa at http://www.willaokati.com or at her newly-renamed Yahoo group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/got_ink_willaokati
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