Sunday, September 25, 2011

31st Six Sentence Sunday...when therapy goes terribly wrong...

From The Falstaff Vampire Files, therapist Kristin's client, Mina, explains that she's just got engaged to a man who wants to become a vampire, though she doesn't understand why:

"I'm not sure if he wants power, or if he just wants to be immortal--he's an older man--he's thirty-five."

I sat back just a little, partly to keep from smiling, remembering my own twenties when thirty-five had seemed impossibly old to me, while now, in my late forties, it seems impossibly young. Scratch that, I happened to be dating--well, sleeping with--a thirty-five-year-old man, so I couldn’t call it impossibly young.

"His name is Henry Roy," Mina said, happy to say his name.

It became very hard to breathe in my office at that moment because Henry Roy was the name of my own thirty-five-year-old lover, though everyone called him Hal.

"Everyone calls him Hal," Mina said.

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Saturday, September 17, 2011

30th week of six sentence Sunday - Vampires & Therapy

The Bookbuzzr widget provides a sample of the first chapter of The Falstaff Vampire Files, including an encounter with the Thing in the Shed. So I'm using today's 6 sentences to introduce therapist Kristin's relationship with her client, Mina:

For several months my client, Wilhelmina--Mina--has come in twice a week to talk about her fears of being stalked by vampires who wanted to make her undead. I don't believe in vampires, but something was scaring the hell out of Mina and her terror came along with her into my consulting room with a presence strong enough to make my own throat tense up. So I wasn’t prepared when Mina started off the session with a shy smile and announced, “I’m engaged!”

I smiled back and almost said, "Congratulations," but stopped myself and retreated into my therapist role and said, "Tell me about it."

She lowered her voice, "He wants to become one of them."

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Sunday, September 11, 2011

29th Six Sentence Sunday, how badly does she want her stolen property back?

Kris Marlowe ventures further into the creepy old house in The Falstaff Vampire Files.

"The corridor on the left leads to the back door," Hal had told me on my first visit. "I keep my coffin in a shed out there--did I tell you I was a vampire?"

Strange how I forgot those words until I stood on the red stone floor again and started up the chilly staircase, also red stone.

A scrabbling sound nearby made me freeze in my tracks. I stopped to listen. The house seemed to shudder like a ship in the wind.

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Sunday, September 4, 2011

28th Six Sentence Sunday, a dangerous seach

Further into forbidden territory in The Falstaff Vampire Files

I knew I could be arrested and lose my license if the old lady called Hal or the cops. But I needed to get my property back and I was still enraged that Hal had taken it. I walked into the darkened foyer. It was paved in dark red stone. It was late afternoon but very little daylight filtered in and the lights mounted on the wall glowed already in their twisted copper fittings. The veins in the alabaster seemed to pulse like reptilian eggs.

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