A Virtual Book Tour With a Great Sound Track

Moira Boyer Moments from Hell's Blessing

  They get up and do a slow dance to the Beatles’ Yesterday.

  George says, “I'll take the flattery with a grain of salt, Moira, but it still sounds great. Do you think you can hold me up if I get winded?”

  “Holding you sounds like a real plan, Georgie boy.”

  “And you say I’m a flirt? You have the devil in you, HEAT.”

  She laughs. “The gossip mongers often say I've had a lot more than just the devil in me.”

***

  "Ms. Boyer, you look breathtaking. Please forgive me, because I'm not patronizing you but my sense of aesthetics is fascinated by the flawless symmetry of your legs.”

  As she smirks, she tilts her head.

  In her throatiest voice, she says, “Be candid, Tad, it's where they lead to that’s fascinated or probably obsessed you.” 

***

“Talking about stallions, let’s take a shower because we’ve some catching up to do, my Italian Stallion. On second thought...no, you’re not an Italian Stallion. No, that’s not it. You’re a…wait. I’ve got it.  You’re a...a…Jewish…Jackhammer.”

Mel cracks up. “Oh Lord, what am I getting myself into?”

Moira thinks for a split–second.

She smirks...and then says,“Mmmmmmm…me.”

Mel falls to the floor laughing as he tries to step out of his pants.

Memory Moments from Hell's Blessing

Vietnam Central Highlands

April 1969

Their parachutes buried, the POW rescue team assembles at the edge of a clearing.

Dread of landing behind enemy lines becomes reality when:

The fog of war descends.

The Alamo.

Little Big Horn.

Armageddon.

A Yankee Go Home message from a Hanoi delegation.

A staccato of the AK-47s, and a grenade shower.

Twilight becomes noon.

Who said war is hell?

He's right.

War IS Hell.

  

***

In awe of the opulence, Masterson blurts out, “Wow,” in admiration of the many fragrant flowering plants all around the entranceway, art masterpieces on the walls, and pointedly, at a clone of Michelangelo’s David in the middle of the main room to the left of the stairway.

There’s money.

There are riches.

There’s wealth

Then there is a citizen’s version of Ft. Knox

  

***

Jessica smiles provocatively, gives each of them their drink, and then turns to walk away.

Masterson's eyes switch from being riveted to her cleavage, when she’d bent down to serve the drinks, to the soft tissue activity in her bottom as she leaves the area.

He knows he should pay attention to Thomson and not be focused on the cheeks that launched a thousand ships.  

Masterson says, “Definitely; what man wouldn't be? All right, now that my libido has finished its run in orbit and made a soft landing, let's get down to business…if I can concentrate.” 


 

***

Sometimes a man looks at the face of an exceptionally beautiful woman and all thought processes end up in gridlock.

It’s not aesthetic.

It’s not erotic.

The only tool of his five senses responding to commands are his eyes.

He just...looks. 

***

Mel’s 22nd birthday, he’s a changed man.

His memory is gone.

Scorpion venom, months of drowning in Asian herb therapy and a voltage tsunami have mutated his metabolism and genetic structure.

The face in the mirror says to him. “Get out of here. You’re a walking freak show.”

Ponce De Leon couldn’t find it.

Mel Stone didn’t look for the Fountain of Youth.

It had found him.  

***

The fly finds refuge on a long finger in El Greco’s Via Crucis masterpiece; one of many in the Frank Lloyd Wright emulation home of Drug Lord, Pedro Ramirez.

It feels safer there.

Ready to move.

There’s a Shock and Awe version of Daddy Spank at the other end of the room.

Ramirez glares through spastic eyelids at his son, Cesar. 

***

A heavy, pulsating beat.

Strobe lights like fireflies on a nude girl as she flies around a pole.

Miss No-Bra puts her hands on his thigh as she rubs her breast against an apple-cheeked sailor’s shoulder at the bar. 

She moves a drink over to him.

Miss Glory enters the stage tossing her breasts around like a windsock at the airport to the cheers of the biker types and geezers.

The watering hole of the higher life forms of La La Land? 

***

Mel, in one of Mark’s old T-shirts looks as if he can barely breathe.

Alexis swallows in shame at the level her brain’s infidelity is controlling her pulse rate—in addition to what’s happening down below.

Her face grabs a shade of pink, as she stares at a Bowflex trained block of granite.

Boy toy time?