The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels by Maxim Jakubowski

Author:Maxim Jakubowski
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781780333526
Publisher: Constable & Robinson
Published: 2012-11-30T13:32:05+00:00

THE COMFORT OF WOMEN

Michael Hemmingson

ONE

I’d been celibate for five years. I didn’t think I was a bad-looking man – women had found me appealing in the past – but between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-seven, I hadn’t touched a woman and a woman hadn’t touched me. I’d created my own isolation, going from one dumb job to another, spending my time alone in a studio apartment, writing. My first novel was published in an irregular paperback format by a small press operated by an enthusiastic fellow, reminiscent of those old City Lights Pocketbooks. It fitted easily in my back pocket and not too many people read it, despite all the good reviews. The whole matter was a solitary experience with no one to share it with.

One day, I received a letter from an English professor at the local university, Barry McGinnis. He wrote that he’d gotten my address from the publisher of my book, and how the book was an unknown work of genius, and that he’d like to meet me.

I put the letter aside.

A month later, the professor called on the phone.

“Your publisher is an old buddy of mine, a former student, in fact,” McGinnis said. “Hope you don’t mind. I got your number from him.”

“No,” I said. “I meant to call you. I did get your letter.”

“Listen, why don’t we meet for a beer?”

I met the professor at a pub near the campus, and listened to him talk about how great he thought my work was. He’d not only read my novel – and assigned it to one of his classes – but had seen my work in various and (quite) obscure literary journals and underground publications.

“You go by Nicholas?” McGinnis said. “Or –”

“Nicky.”

“Nicky, Nicky Bayless – where’d you go to school?”

“College?”

“Yes.”

“Never went.”

“No degree? No creative writing program?”

“No.”

“Probably a good thing,” McGinnis said, nodding his head, his long grayish-black bushy hair bouncing. “But you know, I bet I could get you into the MFA program here.”

“With no BA?”

“Hell, your published work will vouch your worthiness,” the professor said. “I bet I could get you a nice fellowship, too.”

And that’s just what Barry McGinnis did.

TWO

I met Alexia in one of the graduate courses Barry McGinnis taught. She had a quirky look to her I found appealing – thick, dark-rimmed glasses; a white streak in her otherwise jet black hair; an odd-assortment of attire, cool in this age of awkwardness; when geekiness, coupled with intelligence, was sexy. She was one of the regulars who hung out at the pub where I first encountered McGinnis – often this crowd was orbiting around him, a charismatic man in his own right. He was at the pub three nights a week, and I soon found myself there as well. Alexia was there. I was sort of the oddball, I felt, brought into this circle by McGinnis because of my book and not my academic struggle (and I had a new book, a collection of stories, coming out from another small, obscure publisher).

One night, at the pub, McGinnis wasn’t there, and many people departed.

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