Dialogue with the Professor

Over on Facebook and Twitter, I've been posting a conversation I had recently with the Professor.

I've been posting new excerpts daily. Here's the dialogue thus far:


So the Professor stopped by my flat and without introduction strode into my living room. He sat in a chair, crossed his legs, and glared at me.

(This was not uncommon.)

“SR.” He nodded.

“Gabriel.”

I glanced in the direction of the kitchen. “Would you like a drink?”

The Professor’s lips visibly thinned.

“This isn’t really a social call.”

“So you aren’t here to borrow milk, then?”

“No, I am not.”

“Can I offer you a towel?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute. First, I want to talk to you.”

“No need to wait. I have plenty in a variety of colours.” I gestured to the hallway. “I’ll just run and get one.”

“As I said, I want to talk to you.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but realized that in his current mood, such protestations were futile.

Averting my eyes from the spectacle that was the naked professor seated on my very nice leather chair, I sat far away from him, feeling very uncomfortable.

Clearly he was agitated and sadly for me, Julia had not accompanied him.

(I pondered the possibility of fetching the Snarky Narrator in order to deal with him, but alas, he was out shopping for a new set of parentheticals.)

“This isn’t an art gallery,” I grumbled. “Or a photo shoot. I’m going to have to have that chair cleaned now.”

“Have you forgotten something?” The Professor’s eyes flared in my direction.

I looked away from him pointedly. “I might have asked you the same question.

“No, I don’t think I’ve forgotten anything, apart from a plastic cover for my leather furniture.”

He leaned forward. “Perhaps my appearance might jog your memory?”

I continued inspecting the fascinating sight that was the bare wall of my condominium.

“I can hardly see what your appearance has to do with me, although you might want to rethink your wardrobe choices. The police aren’t likely to look favourably on a naked professor sauntering down Bloor Street.”

“Allow me to refresh your memory. On June third, you released Chapter One of Gabriel’s Redemption. Then the story stopped. Does this ring any bells?”

“Well, you and Julianne were in the orchard at the end of the chapter, and …”

The proverbial light went on in my head. “Oh.”

“Exactly. Oh. Although in this case, it would be better to say ouch.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like to lie naked in an orchard day and night for weeks on end?”

I blinked as I scanned my memory banks.

There was that one time in Barcelona …

I shook my head.

“Sadly, no.”

The Professor sniffed primly. “Well, it’s damned cold. We only have one blanket. I’m afraid Julianne is going to catch pneumonia.”

“And die,” I muttered.

“Excuse me?” The Professor gave me a look that was so scathing, it could have peeled the paint from my walls.

“Uh, nothing.” I scratched my head thoughtfully. “I could rewrite the scene and add a few more blankets.”

“You’re obfuscating.”

I straightened in my chair. “I most certainly am not. And may I remind you, you stole my thesaurus the last time you were over. I want it back.”

The Professor waved a dismissive hand in the air, as if he were swatting a gnat.

“Forget about the thesaurus. What’s this about Gabriel’s Redemption being released in December?”

Oh, here we go, I thought.

“Et tu, Brute?”

The Professor merely scowled.

I cleared my throat.

“As you know, I hadn’t planned to write a sequel to Gabriel’s Rapture. Readers changed my mind. So the gap between the release of books two and three is wider than between books one and two.” I pushed my glasses up, as they’d begun slipping down my nose.

“Regrettably,” I added.

The Professor gazed at me coldly.

“I’ll say this slowly so that I’m sure you can keep up.

“We’re in limbo, naked, in the orchard until you release Chapter Two or publish the entire book. How do you think that feels?”

I pondered this idea for a moment, since his wife was very beautiful.


To be continued ...

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All the best and thank you for reading, SR

PS. Thanks to you and your support, "Gabriel's Redemption" cracked the top 100 Contemporary Romance Novels in Amazon.com's Kindle store: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASI...