Inventing Herself

INVENTING HERSELF

An erotic novella

Sommer Marsden

Published by Accent Press Ltd – 2013

ISBN 9781909624603

Copyright © Sommer Marsden 2013

The right of Sommer Marsden to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Xcite Books, Suite 11769, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London EC1V 4PY

Chapter One

Sophie stared at the hot pink sticky note that said simply,
Find Your Centre
. She blinked, feeling slow and stupid. It was clearly in Temperance’s handwriting, so all she had to do was go up there and knock and ask her editor what the hell it meant.

Maybe they were sending her to a yoga class. Wasn’t that a Zen term? Maybe they were going to have her learn to make doughnuts with cream or jelly or lemon inside.

She rolled her eyes at that. Even she knew that was a stretch. She was putting off waltzing up and knocking on Temperance’s door because something in her belly – something already buzzing with trepidation – knew this would not be good. Not good at all.

‘Balls,’ Sophie muttered to herself. She had to force herself to walk, but she finally did. Going slow like a death row inmate, dragging her feet a bit even in her kick-ass black leather boots. They were new; she should have a spring in her step. Instead, she felt as if each foot weighed a few hundred pounds.

Temperance popped her head out of her office and yelled down over the railing, ‘Sophie Calhoun, move your butt! Let’s go. I want to tell you about your brand new, completely fab, spectacular assignment.’

With all those adjectives, Sophie knew for sure this wouldn’t be good. Maybe for the magazine, but definitely not for her.

She nodded and tried to smile, but chewed the inside of her cheek to keep from groaning. When Temperance used “fab” it was something Sophie’d rather eat glass than complete. And yet, she did, because working for
There
magazine was her dream job.

You have your dream job, she reminded herself as she forced her feet up the steps. This was just one of those crazy New Year’s assignments that came every year.
How to Find Your Happy in Ten Easy Steps
,
Twelve Things Every Girl Needs to Start the New Year Right!,
or even
Five Steps for the Best Sex in the New Year!
It was just more of the same, nothing to be afraid of.

She reached Temperance’s door and let out a little
ooph!
as her editor snatched her inside the office and shut the door. ‘My goodness, it took you long enough to get up here. You act like I’m going to put you before a firing squad.’

I feel like it too, Sophie thought. But she kept her mouth shut and forced a smile.

‘Sorry. Must not have gotten enough sleep last night,’ she said. ‘I feel kind of dazed.’

‘New pup keeping you up again?’ Temperance asked, nodding. She stuck a pencil in her cinnamon-candy-coloured bun and pulled a different pencil out. She always had about three of those things wedged in her tight updo. She took off her thick nerd glasses – only she could truly make them look chic – before putting them back almost immediately. Then she fluffed her giant blousy tunic sleeves and stared.

Sophie realised she’d never answered the question. ‘Simon is getting better. He does still wake me up a lot, though …’ She let out a sigh. Crossed and uncrossed her legs and felt a tickling of annoyance. What the fuck was going on that she was so dreading this assignment? She didn’t even know what it was yet!

‘You wanted him. What is he, a –?’

‘Alaskan Husky. He’s a sweet baby,’ Sophie said, smiling.

‘Keeps the hours of one too,’ Temperance snorted. ‘Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.’

Granted, he’d kept her up a lot at first, but now he was better. To move the whole torturous wait along, Sophie waved the neon sticky note. ‘About this –’

‘Ah! Yes!’ Temperance clapped her hands. ‘You’re going to love it.’

Doubtful …

‘OK …’

‘You have it all!’ Temperance said, waving her hand again. Sophie noticed the nails were a startling shade of lime green. Must be the newest shade.

‘I do?’

She did, though. Right?

‘Don’t you?’ Temperance demanded, eyes narrowing.

‘I mean … I guess I do, but – ‘

‘You have the job you’ve always wanted, right?’ Temperance leant forward and grabbed a pencil. She began to bang it rhythmically against her teeth as she talked.

‘Yes. I love it here.’

‘OK, so perfect job – check!’ Her boss then drew an exaggerated check mark in the air with the pencil. ‘You’ve always wanted that dog, Simba,’ she said.

‘Simon,’ Sophie corrected.

‘Yes, yes, Simon,’ Temperance said. Then, ‘Check!’ And another imaginary mark was drawn in the ether.

Sophie sighed and sat back in the chair. She found herself folding and refolding the blinding pink square of paper.

‘Didn’t you tell me when you first started working here that you wanted to live in the building you’re living in since you were a little girl?’

Sophie had to smile. ‘Yes. I had a good friend whose parents had an apartment in the Sheridan. I loved it then and always dreamt – you know how girls do in their heads – of having my own apartment there when I grew up. I’d do it in yellow and aqua and all the colours I loved. And I have! I’d have the white wicker living room set like I’d seen in a maga –’

Temperance pointed the pencil at her almost aggressively. ‘And you do, yes?’

‘Well, yes.’ Sophie swallowed hard. Not because of Temperance’s almost manic behaviour, that was quite normal; it was more she was realising that Temperance was right. She did have everything she’d ever truly thought she wanted, but …

She cut her own thought off and tapped her foot, letting annoyance replace worry. ‘What is the assignment, Temperance?’

‘Ah yes, excellent! Now you want to know. It’s how a woman like you – a woman who has it all – can find her centre.’

‘Is that a sex joke?’ Sophie blurted.

Temperance snorted. ‘No. Of course not. It’s New Agey meets what?’ She rolled her hands around in the air. She was an animated speaker, to say the least. ‘Meets Buddha, meets
Cosmo
, meets a Native American vision quest!’

‘It sounds like a personality disorder to me,’ Sophie grumbled. But she was mostly upset because a steady and increasing uneasiness had come over her. This assignment was not giving her the “go-get-’em” rush she usually got when presented with something very new. Instead, it was making her feel clenchy and uptight.

Temperance threw back her head and laughed. She had lipstick on her teeth. In a flash of meanness, Sophie decided not to tell her.

‘No, what it is, darling Sophie, is an article about how a woman like you – a woman who has all the things she ever wanted – can go even deeper and find out more about herself. Something more spiritual.’ She levelled an eye at Sophie. ‘But not too spiritual because that just turns people off.’

Sophie blinked. Well, that wasn’t a contradiction or anything, was it?

‘OK. I guess I can just …’ She shrugged. ‘To be honest, Temperance, I have no idea how to go about this.’

‘I thought you’d say that.’ Temperance passed a slip of paper over to Sophie. ‘Here’s a list of ways I’ve read people have found out more about themselves. Connected to the inner –’ she twirled her pencil wildly before saying finally ‘– their inner whatever! I say you just give them a shot and see what happens. I bet there is a deeper, calmer, Zen-ner, more satisfied Sophie deep inside you than you ever anticipated. And when you find her, you can share her with our readers!’

Sophie left the office with a slip of suggestions, a lump in her throat and a pit in her stomach.

She didn’t look at the list. Not really. She glanced at it long enough on her walk home from work to see a few bulleted items. The January wind ripped at her scarf and completely ruined her hair. It didn’t matter, though; the only one waiting for her at home was Simon and he couldn’t care less if she came home totally bald, let alone with messy hair.

Her phone buzzed and brought up a message.

Want to get drunk with me?

The first genuine laugh of the day popped out of her. Kevin almost always made her laugh. She’d thought when he first moved in next to her that they were going to come to blows. He was often loud, very eccentric, and made her feel like an utter failure in the sex life department due to a steady stream of drop dead gorgeous men coming in and out of his apartment.

Sure. Why not. Got dreaded undefinable assignment. Need copious amounts of wine.

She looked up from her text just in time to smack right into the back of a big, broad guy who was strolling along with his girl. She looked concerned but mildly amused.

‘You OK?’ she asked.

Sophie absently began brushing the man’s coat as if she could dust off the klutzy collision. ‘I’m so sorry – I wasn’t looking and I just –’ She dropped her hand when the woman gave her stroking fingers a pointed look. ‘I really should not text and walk,’ she finished weakly.

The man smiled and said, ‘No harm,’ then reached out and took his girl’s hand in his and smiled at her. Off they went, laughing together, probably about her.

That
, Sophie thought. You don’t have that. And maybe that’s why you are horrified at getting this assignment for the girl who has everything. Because you’re the girl who has almost everything. But not quite.

She put her fists in her coat pockets and hurried along as the wind licked at her frozen cheeks. She was grateful, though, that the sting made her eyes water because it was almost like crying and she suddenly felt a little like crying. If it wouldn’t have smacked of a damn pity party, she just might give in.

Instead, she rushed toward home and Kevin and that wine he’d promised her.

*               *               *

‘Oh Lord, what’s with
that
face?’ He stepped back to allow her entry to his living room. Just like hers, it was a wide, sprawling room with high windows and sills deep enough to perch on and watch the traffic below. His apartment was done in soothing blues and greens as opposed to her vibrant tropical hues.

‘What face?’ But even as she asked it she could feel discontent on her face.

‘That face. That “I-smell-poo” face. I could have that face but look at me …’ He turned to show his profile and then struck a pose.

She could only smile. ‘Smashing. Why would you have that face?’ Sophie dropped her messenger bag, leather bag, and coat all by his coat rack.

Kevin frowned and began hanging her discarded items meticulously on said coat rack. ‘Because I broke up with Denton.’

‘Why?’

‘He stinks in bed.’ Kevin sauntered over to a side table and poured out two glasses of wine. ‘Man can’t give head to save his life.’

‘At least you’re getting head. And sex.’ Sophie clinked glasses and sat back, toeing off her boots and tucking her stockinged feet beneath her.

Kevin cocked his head and read her face. ‘Blanket kind of day? Oh and p.s. I took your mutt out to pee for you,’ he said, tossing her a soft cashmere throw. He did window dressing and styling for a local department store and never failed to have the nicest things.

She cuddled the blanket and sipped. ‘You’re a saint, baby! And yes, very blanket kind of day.’

‘So spill. I know you get sex when you seek it out. Are you not seeking?’

Sophie laughed and dug into her skirt pocket. ‘I am currently seeking out myself.’

‘Is this a masturbation thing?’

She let out a loud whoop. ‘See! Great minds. But no, it is a true sincere looking deeper into one’s self kind of thing. Crazy but true.’

Kevin snatched the sheet of paper. ‘What do they want you to do? Not one of those things where you get down on the floor, look between your legs with a flashlight and a mirror and –’

‘My God, no! It’s like a Zen, sweat lodge, Buddha thing,’ she said, regurgitating what Temperance had said.

‘Sounds confusing.’

‘Not so much confusing,’ she said, chewing her lip, ‘as …’

She took a swig of wine.

‘As?’

‘Scary,’ she blurted.

‘Scary? Why?’

‘What if there’s nothing to find? I mean, Kev, I thought I had it all, because I really do. But I am missing something, and that something I feel like I’m missing is the more part.’

‘The more part?’

‘The
more.
The stuff beyond the job, the apartment, and the dog. The thing beyond the clothes and good friends and partying and the occasional fuck.’

‘Love?’

‘No. Yes! I don’t know. Maybe.’

He plucked the list from her fingers and read. ‘Yoga. Write letter to yourself. Be unselfish.’ He cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘Sounds intriguing. And by intriguing I mean I’m-going-to-run-headfirst-into-a-wall bad.’

‘Come now. Yoga can’t be so bad.’ Sophie chuckled. She poured more wine from the bottle he’d set on the coffee table. They hadn’t eaten anything. She’d be drunk as a skunk in no time.

‘You are not the bendable, stretchable girl type. Plus, I hear people fart during yoga. A
lot
.’

Sophie clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘Shut up!’

‘No, seriously. I would be in the front of the class if I were you. Or far, far back where no one else is. Or, you know, be like those people on that end of the world prepper show – wear a damn gas mask.’

Sophie wrinkled her nose. ‘Bleh. Now I don’t want to do yoga. Not even alone.’ She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and sighed. ‘But I have to. It’s part of my job. And there could be worse things. I could be working in a coffee joint making coffee like I did in college. I burned the coffee almost as much as I burned my fingers.’

‘True. Or you could be working in a shoe store like that one downtown. You worked there for 17 days and didn’t even use your employee discount.’

‘I only wear flats!’

‘Then why did you get a job in a store that only sold designer heels?’

Sophie grinned. ‘They were hiring and the pay was good. Plus, I figured
you
could use the discount.’

‘Girl, I should have.’ He pretended to flip back his barely there flax-coloured hair. He had green eyes as dark as uncut emeralds. They were gorgeous and he knew it.

‘Trust me, yoga classes, farting or not, are more my speed. I want to give this a shot. Even though it gives me a stomach ache.’

He hopped over the back of the sofa and returned with a takeout menu. While they perused it he whispered in her ear. ‘Maybe it gives you a stomach ache because it’s something that needs your attention. Maybe, just
maybe
, you’re not as happy as you think you are. And maybe you’re ready to face it and change it.’