made the sound of exasperation New Yorkers excelled at, a cross between a cough and a raspberry. “I’m not asking you to write a romance novel. Just make him more human.”
Beck exhaled his annoyance. The very quality that made Alex Barkhauser an incredibly effective agent on his behalf, also made her a formidable opponent. Namely, she was a pit bull. “I’m sorry, I can’t see Mack—”
“Here’s an example.” Pages rustled over the line. “The sex scene you have here with whatsername.”
“Tamara.”
“Tamara.” Alex’s voice turned scornful. “Total stripper name. Call her Susie or something.”
“Susie? Susie wears pigtails and scuffed sandals, not black lingerie. And women named Susie don’t masturbate.”
“Well no woman masturbates like this.”
“Like what?” The defensive edge in his voice disgusted him.
“Like a male fantasy from a porn movie.”
Beck’s mouth opened to protest. Then closed. Because it had nothing to say. That’s exactly what had inspired the scene. A movie he’d snuck in to see as a teenager and had never forgotten.
“You can’t tell me your girlfriends do it like that when they’re alone. Wearing this entire black lace getup, do you have any idea how itchy and uncomfortable that stuff is? Plus, you have to be five-eleven, one hundred and ten pounds but oh, yes, somehow with enormous boobs, to look good in it. And the ten-inch dildo? Please.”
“Alex. Can we move on to—”
“Make it more real, Beck. That’s what I’m saying. The book rocks otherwise. But make Mack’s relationship with women, his attention to women, his sex with women, more real. Less like a teenage boy’s wet dream. Let’s start there and see where it takes us, okay?”
“Where it takes us? To five percent sell-through, that’s where it takes us. For every female reader we gain, we’ll lose two men. I guarantee it.”
“No. Your stories are great, Beck, this story is great, that won’t change. You’re not going to lose men over a love interest for Mack. Most men have actually been in love, you know.”
“But this is fantasy. They read my books to escape all that.”
“To escape being in love?”
Beck closed his eyes. “That came out wrong.”
Or maybe not. Weren’t most men wanting to escape now and then from the female-directed rules of “relationship” into something nice and tidy like good guys blowing up bad guys?
Relationships had to be examined and worked on in exhaustive detail. Men had to be told they weren’t doing this, that or the other to female satisfaction. And always the question, what happened to the wonderful romantic men they used to be?
The wonderful romantic men they used to be disappeared about the same time the adoring sweet women they were dating became critical, judgmental shrews.
“Just try it, Beck. Try it. Soften up the sex scenes. Especially make Tamara’s self-pleasuring scene more real. Try that one first. And when Mack joins her, make him feel it in his heart as well as his dick.”
“Alex—” Beck sighed. It was hopeless. When your editor and agent were against you, things were tough. Add in the members of the marketing department and the ever-dreaded focus groups, and you might as well bend over and take it.
If he had a dime for every person envious of a writer’s so-called complete freedom in his work…
Well, if he did, he’d be rich enough to keep Mack’s mind on his dick during a sex scene, where it belonged.
“Okay.” He ran his hand over his aching head and jaw. “Just on the one scene with Tamara. See how it feels. How it reads.”
“Wonderful. You’re fabulous. It’s going to be so much better, you’ll be amazed, I promise.”
“Right.” He shook his head and hung up the phone harder than he needed to. Got to his feet and strode over to the window, pulling back the sheer curtains to gaze out at Madison Avenue.
Damn it to hell. He might have known this would hit eventually. This or something like it. He didn’t know a single writer who hadn’t come up against a brick wall at some point in his or her career. And Beck’s journey so far had been relatively easy. Alex had picked him up when he was still unpublished, working as an editor, still learning the craft in his own writing and from that of his authors. She’d seen enough raw talent to judge him a good commercial risk.
After extensive revisions, his first book had sold, then his second and his third. Mackenzie “Mack” Adams had starred in six books in the past six years, and for a while it seemed Beck’s star would never stop rising. Three years ago he’d quit his job to write full-time. Then the flattening sales, the apparent loss of reader interest.
And now back to extensive revisions. And the girlification of a true man’s man.
Worse, to rewrite the scene the way Alex et al wanted him to, Beck was going to have to find a woman who would be willing to describe her masturbation practices for him.
Of all the research he’d done, this was potentially both the most enjoyable and the most agonizing. Not to sound arrogant, but the women he’d dated hadn’t needed to touch themselves when he was around. And asking old girlfriends their current autostimulation techniques wasn’t the most tactful way to get back in touch.
No way would he ever admit to male friends he needed a woman to ask. He didn’t have any female friends close enough to broach a topic like this. His brothers would tease him unmercifully or slug him if he suggested asking their significant others.
The ideal would be a sexually open complete stranger he could talk to and never see again. Like that was going to happen. Though if it were possible, HUSH was as likely a spot as any to find one.
This was all too depressing. Next he’d start contemplating hiring a hooker.
His cell rang again and he rolled his eyes and reached for it to check the display. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone at the moment.
Oh.
Mom.
“Hi, Mom.” He rubbed his forehead, waiting for his headache to get worse. He loved his mother, loved his whole family, but his idea of how much time was appropriate for a man his age to spend with them differed vastly from theirs.
“Hello, Beck, how’s the writing going?”
“Fine. Just fine.” She asked every call, to be polite, and every call he answered fine. His entire family was in the restaurant business, an Italian place on West 55th Street—he was the black sheep. They wouldn’t care or understand about his line of work, so he generally didn’t bother sharing.
And he was pretty sure asking his mother about masturbation would not be a good way to start.
“Thursday night is the thirtieth birthday party
