Romance Novel Excerpt #7: Two Can Play at Solitaire

Check out previous chapters from my fake romance novel.

Chapter 1 - Vanessa Lonelyheart

Chapter 2 - The Scottish Cowboy of My Heart

Chapter 3 - Lovers Ridge

Chapter 4 - Cow or Never

Chapter 5 - Everybody Get (Hoe)Down

Chapter 6 - Bullocks to you, Sandra!

THE HEART IS THE LONELIEST DUDE RANCH

EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 7: Two Can Play At Solitaire


The wind was windier than usual.  Like the world was sighing on Vanessa.  She knew how it felt.  Because she was sighing on the world.  Dexter McChest was back with his old girlfriend and Vanessa Lonelyheart was back with her old boyfriend.  Oh wait, she didn't have an old boyfriend.  Unless you counted Tom Despair or Harvey Pillowcry or Frank Lee Lifesucks.

"No!", she said to the wind, breaking off her wallowing.

"No! No! No!" she triple shouted at the wind.  "I'm a Lonelyheart!  And that means something around these parts!"  By parts she meant Gentrified County, Texas not private parts.  Which, in hindsight, would have been sexier.  Nevermind.  We take it back.  It was a double entendre.

The Wind really got blasted by her shouting.  It was impressed by her air expulsioning. So the Wind stopped to listen. What else was it doing? Wind stuff?

Vanessa continued to address the Wind: "When people heard the name Lonelyheart, they knew it meant strength. They knew it meant a bottomless depth of feeling.  They knew it meant love of country and a willingness to secede if need be.  It also meant sexy passion and sometimes ruthless efficiency in the boardroom and bedroom.  It used to be pronounced BonerHeart in the old country but that didn't translate well.  So we changed the hell out of it."

The Wind made a 'go on' motion.  Vanessa hiked up her skirt and complied by sticking one foot on a rock outcropping.

"I'm a Lonelyheart.  And no exiled Scottish Prince Cowboy is going to take that away from me.  I'll show him that I can be happy.  Even if I have to surgically tighten my smile muscles."

The Wind thought it was a good idea and apologized for having to leave. It had to start Monsoon Season.  Vanessa walked back inside her ranch house mansion.  She was ready to make a bad decision.  So she drew a bath.

She positioned the imported Burmese bubbles around her nakeds and called Dexter from her bathtub hologram phone.  Suddenly, Dexter's sinewy man sculpture popped into view, hovering over her lily white kneecaps.  Even the tiny version of Dexter made her heart go beatless for the space of twenty six beats.  Technically, that's a heart attack.  But technically, isn't love?

But Vanessa got her blood engine going again and found courage in the aromatherapy she had positioned around her.  It was a blend of Egyptian Chamomile and South African Poppies.  It smelled like fortitude and apartheid.

Mini-Dex spoke to her, "Are you in the bath, Nessa?  Are you drowning slowly? Should I come save you?"

"I don't need saving this time, Mr. McChest.  You do.  I'm firing you.  That's it. You're fired."

The hologram seemed to shake with rage:  "Firing me? On what grounds, lady?"

"You're really slacking on the job.  The cows were just eating the grass today."

"That's called 'grazing', Nessa.  You've been away too long.  You've been cityfied.  Go back to your Central Park and watch the tourists graze again.  You're offbase."

Vanessa realized her mistake.  Grazing? Now she remembered.  COWS + GRASS = COWS LIKE GRASS.  She'd lost touch.  Her accent was barely hanging on.  The bubbles were popping.  She would need to import more bubbles.  Who was she?  She used to take baths in sagebrush.  She used to wear shrink-to-fit jeans.  She used to snack on pig ribs.  Now she carried around foie gras in a Louis Vutton lunchbox.

But she couldn't retreat.  She had to make him go.  She metaphorically bent down and went for the lowest blow she could think of.

"Well, McChest.  Technically, you're not a citizen.  I'm sure Scotland would love to know where you are.  Immigracion is on their way."

Holographic Dexter's tiny mouth dropped open the tiniest bit.  Like a millimeter probably.  Like the saddest millimeter.  All the bubbles popped in agony.

NEXT CHAPTER:  On the Run From Johnny Law

Romance Novel Excerpt # 4 - Cow or Never

Catch up on previous chapters:

Chapter 1 - Vanessa Lonelyheart

Chapter 2 - The Scottish Cowboy of My Heart

Chapter 3 - Lovers Ridge


The Heart is the Loneliest Dude Ranch

Excerpt from Chapter Four - Cow or Never

Was there ever a more beautiful moment between man, woman, and cow?  No, Vanessa thought. Never in the whole history of earth according to evolution or intelligent design.  The birth was a success.  The calf lay in her arms like a giant four legged baby. Snoring. Breathing into her hair. So hard to imagine this perfect creature would one day become a mediocre cut of meat at Applebee's.

Dexter McChest slipped the birthing chains from the calf's body, his arm muscles rippling with gentle power.  As gentle as two pistons powered by bunnies.  The way he gentled those chains from the gentle calf made him seem so gentlemanly. But oh, how ungentle it was to be in love with the gentlest gent in all of Gentrified County. 

But for now, it was all perfect.  She and Dexter had just shared the world's closest thing to sex. Which was birth. Which was actually a post sex thing.  So if things progressed as well in reverse they would be at sex in no time. Right after hospitals and wanting to eat rope or dirtclods.  She had never envied the state of a cow before.  But she coveted the sweet genetic bonds that bovine had to this furry, slimy angel in her arms.

Dexter finished winching and put his boot up on the bumper and lit up an electronic cigarette. He was trying to quit.

“How’s your baby, Mama?” said Dexter wryly.  Dexter always said things with adverbs.

Vanessa smiled and patted her calf’s calf.  “Dexter Aston McChest, how can you not want to have a baby when you’re covered in the miracle of life?”

His face clouded.  Like a face sky with emotion clouds.

“Oh no,” she thought. “I’ve gone too far.”

"Babies and me are complicated, Vanessa.  Russian novel complicated." Dexter said, the light of his fake cigarette punctuating his sentence.

But how could she be with a man, no matter how perfect, if he didn't want to have children?  Her womb would howl like a babyless canyon full of the winds of barren want.  Look how happy the cow was. Her mouth covered in the happy foam of birth exertions.  Passed out with the pure joy of almost splitting open from new life.  Didn't she want that for herself?

Dexter looked off into the distance. Straight into the afternoon sun. Because even his eyes were strong.

"Vanessa, it may come as a surprise to you but I had a child."

Vanessa gasped. Dexter sighed. All around them the air got denser as the plot thickened.

"I lost him and his mother in a helicopter crash. This was back when I was a Scottish prince.  He wasn't even mine.  She was a Brazilian heiress who was impregnated by the leader of the Cocoa Mafia.  I'd met her at a fashion ball, wearing a maternity gown by Versacci.  She needed to run away. I had a castle."

Dexter paused. Breathed out some nicotine substitute. His eyes furiously squinted at the sun like he was willing it to retreat.  It did.

"Somewhere along the way, we fell in love.  I promised to take care of her child.  We were going to name him Bilbo. We both loved J. R. R. I thought we had escaped, I thought I had taken all precautions but the Mafia Caocao found us.  A surface-to-air missile put a hole in our copter. And a hole in my heart."

Dexter shed one manly tear. It was made of motor oil.

Next Chapter: EVERYBODY GET (HOE)DOWN