It was in a "Author's Name's next BLANK novel of romantic suspense" context. I went ahead and used "fabulous" and let it go at that.

Can you tell how invested I am in writing cover blurbs?

Thrilling?

Damn. Thrilling would have been good.

Compelling? Riveting? Engaging? Engrossing?

Too late. I already sent it in.

It's sad how much I really don't care. I don't know where my vocabulary went today. I suspect the neverendingmotherfucking rain washed it away.

All right, then -- let's go with a seasonal topic!

Challenge #80 (Out of the Closet) is now closed.

Challenge #81 is, in the spirit of the season (get it? get it? "spirit"? ....yes, I'm a huge dork), masks.

In Hiding

It's me, and the mirror: a woman, peeling away the masks.

The first one, flesh and fever, is the woman of today, feeling her age, feeling her systems breaking down. The lips are cautious, the eyeslits come with hoods. This one's about protection against loss.

Beneath that, another: passion, scarlet-painted cheeks, a full ripe mouth, what they see, what they should have seen, when they looked down at her, her body moving under them.

Third mask: the girl who won't die, comedy/tragedy, laughter and tears, tinted with the flame of her need, painted in all the colours of the rainbow.

For today, let me put my mask on. Let me be your Salome; let’s give reality a pass today. Pretend there’s nothing but right now...the sweet taste of chocolate and what happens when our lips touch. Tomorrow will happen soon enough...with its bill paying and my finding the flaws in my face.Tonight I’l be a temptress and give you everything. I’ll be a goddess and make you a world, just to smash. I’ll be a princess and pretend that I rule. I’ll be a clown just to make you smile. I’ll be a naughty schoolgirl and let you give me...detention.(I never have been very disciplined.) I’m a spy on a mission...a detective that needs to make a few confessions herself. For tonight, I’ll be anything but me.

erika, you just broke me.

Me, too.