LITMIR.BIZ

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extracted their personal favorites from the large wicker basket of dog toys, while Frick and Frack observed the doings from their positions on their tall scratching pole. Beth tossed the toys and looked around her living room, thinking about what Sara had said about her place.

      She’d only intended to create a comfortable haven for her and her pets, but the result was a feast for the senses, now that she thought about it. And she’d done it on a shoestring budget, too. The overstuffed sofa was as comfortable as a glove, but with an appealing rough weave. The cherrywood cocktail table and matching end tables were deeply stained and gleamed like liquid, and the carved wooden upright lamp was as curvaceous as a living form. These were amazing steals from an estate sale. The framed weavings Sara had admired were vibrant against the wall she’d painted an accent plum color. She’d worked out a trade with the artist—doing some publicity brochures and newsletters for her.

      In contrast to the soft warmth of most of the room, elegant glass vases of various shapes, colors and heights filled her knickknack shelf. Treasures from garage sales and eBay. She varied the scents of the candle clusters based on her mood, which Sara teased her about.

      She breathed deeply of the white gardenias, red hibiscus and yellow honeysuckle blooms she’d arranged in vases in her living room, dining room and kitchen. They were all from her yard. The aroma and bright colors made her feel good. She extracted a bloom and stroked her cheek with its petals, shivering with the delicious tickle. Maybe she was a sensualist, after all.

      Her previous lovers hadn’t tapped into her sensual side, that was certain. Not that she’d slept with many men in her twenty-seven years—three, counting Blaine. They had all been good intellectual matches for her, which seemed more important than sex, which she’d viewed simply as part of the package. Maybe she was wrong.

      Maybe she would explore sensuality versus sexuality in her column. Which she had to get to work on. Now.

      “Enough, guys,” she said, refusing the ninetieth slobbery delivery of Ditzy’s rubber newspaper, Spud’s cloth monkey and Boomer’s battered playground ball. She headed into the second bedroom, which served as her office, her canine pals trailing her, disappointed but resigned.

      Her revision on a camper top manual for Thompson Manufacturing was due this week, but her column scared her, so it came first.

      She turned on the desktop water feature—a miniature waterfall that spilled over three layers of rounded pebbles into a frosted glass bowl—lit two energy-boosting peppermint candles, limbered her back and arms with yoga stretches, then sat in her specially outfitted chair.

      After three slow, deep breaths, she tilted her lamp minutely to be certain the glare wouldn’t tire her eyes, then clicked the start button on her computer.

      Her animals assumed their work posts. Spud rested his chin on her insteps, Boomer lounged to her left and Ditzy curled up in her lap, chewing on her toy. Hopefully, its squeaker would give out before Beth went nuts from the wheezy creak.

      Taking a deep breath and blowing it out, she rested her fingers on the keyboard and began her adventure.

      Your “On the Town” reporter, who has faithfully detailed the latest dance clubs and restaurants, greatest wine-by-the-glass value and most intriguing after-hours venues, will now turn her attention to the rest of the evening. After all, while my date and I are savoring the saucy bouquet of our cunning cabernet, we’re wondering what we’ll do after the last jazz set at The Phoenician and the ginger Crème Brûlée with pumpkin seed lace at Lon’s at the Hermosa Inn. Will we be intimate? And how will we decide?

      Not a bad beginning, she thought, reading it over. Could she be Sara for the next part? Deciding to have sex based on whether the guy made her laugh, could dance, smelled good or, hell, wore a tie she liked?

      That wasn’t Beth’s way. Beth waited to have sex until the relationship was solid and they were comfortable enough around each other to minimize the fumbling awkwardness of the first time.

      And she did her best to make it special—perfect lighting, alluring music, erotically scented candles, something tastefully sexy to wear, wine beside the bed and an after-sex snack awaiting them in the fridge. And then she hoped for the best.

      Her entertainment column was all about ambiance and turning everything, even a cup of coffee, into a celebration. Her column elevated the ordinary to the extraordinary. And now she wanted to do something like that with sex.

      Sara, on the other hand, didn’t care a bit about elegance. She liked sex in whatever way it came, so to speak. But couldn’t sex be lovely, lyrical and hot? Surely Beth could give Sara’s sexcapades Em’s tasteful flare.

      She looked at the calendar. She had just one week to write, revise and finalize the piece. Tight. She liked to let her columns breathe for a few days before polishing them to a gleam and sending them to Will. Her glance at the calendar brought her eye to the fan letters she’d pinned to the bulletin board. Smiling, she detached them and read the phrases she’d highlighted in each.

      “Miss Em: Your words made me practically see the place,” said the first. “Thanks to your recommendation, Em, our anniversary was the most romantic ever,” went the second. And the third really moved her: “Oh, to have E.M. Samuels’s vision. What would we do without you?”

      Her readers counted on her. She would not let them down.

      But when the phone rang, she was grateful for the delay. “Hello?” she said eagerly, and her mother greeted her with equal cheer.

      Beth rocked back in her chair, knowing the conversation would take a while. Her mother leaned on Beth for comfort and advice, a habit that began when Beth’s father had left them twenty years before, but she had to be coaxed to ask for the help she needed with practical things—repairs and finances.

      It took a few minutes, but Beth finally extracted the fact that the AC unit was broken. AC was essential in Phoenix, even in April. Her brother Timmy, who lived with her mom, had patched it before heading to work, but it had wheezed its last shot of cool air shortly afterward.

      The landlord, George Nichols, was insisting he’d replace it with a unit from another of his properties, but her mother didn’t want that. Her rent was low because they’d stipulated in the lease that they’d handle repairs, and Tim was good at that. The offer of the AC was too much like a favor, her mother said, which it undoubtedly was. George seemed to really like her mother.

      A fact her mother seemed to be ignoring. She’d dated a few men during the twenty years since Beth’s father left, but the relationships never lasted long or amounted to much. George was a good guy—handsome, intelligent, kind—a little older, probably, than her mother’s fifty, but he acted youthful. He’d retired from some high-tech firm and managed properties to stay busy.

      Today, she wished her mother would just let the guy give them the unit, favor or not. They needed to cut costs wherever possible. Beth’s work as a technical writer paid her living expenses, but the column funded the extra help her mom and brother needed. Yet more reason to make the sex column work.

      She convinced her mother to let George give her the unit, without telling her about the column crisis—she didn’t want her to worry—and agreed to come to dinner before hanging up.

      Staring at her blinking cursor, she thought about something else her mother had mentioned—Timmy’s latest invention idea. He needs investors, Bethie, if you have any ideas. Her stomach tightened another notch. In the past, she would have offered help from her savings. Now there were no savings. Not since Blaine. How had she been so wrong about the man?

      They’d been together for nearly a year, spent most of their free time together, and Blaine had behaved as though she hung the moon, set the sun and fluffed up the clouds to boot. In truth, she’d felt a little uncomfortable because she didn’t feel quite as connected to him as he’d seemed to her.

      But when he’d disappeared, she’d been stunned. She’d thought she had good people instincts. Basically an optimist, she expected the best from people, and they usually delivered. Yes, toward the end, Blaine had seemed

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