“What are you looking at?” “What are YOU?”
He scratched at his beard to cook an answer, brushed the books out of his lap letting them fall harum scarum into the portmanteau by his side, to buy a little more time.
“I,” he said, “am staring at someone who is starting at me.” “What is that supposed to mean?” Going defensive, the woman, puffing out her chest, chomping down hard on the underbite, brandishing weapons of inhuman strength and endurance buried under lovely fleshy puddings of fat arms—bracing for combat; achieved.
hey were very good friends who were not quite frank with one another. Over the last twelve months they had mastered deception, had almost never told the truth to each other. The excuse for their secrecy was that they were both struggling to write first novels: a process that needs discipline, commitment and strategy. They were sarcastic, and the sarcasm gradually became habitual. ...READ MORE
