From the author of Satan's Seven Swordsmen,This Month's Star Title: Partners of Peril!

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

June 1961, near the end of a Friday, Excolo Offices

I look at the cover to our newest title, just come back from the printers, and snort to myself. I told Isidore to find a pretty blond for this one, and it seems he managed. I wonder if he picked the model himself. I'm sure he exerted himself fully in the search.

I toss the book aside and glance at the latest financial reports. Syl Thorn's book, which came out at the start of the month, has made good solid sales. It won't sell as many as Mr Fancy-Panties, and that won't sell as many as Convent Girl Catastrophe, but it's doing respectably, and more to the point it will continue to build up her fan following, because it isn't - well, let's put it frankly, it isn't just a jerk-off book. I had to field a few angry phone calls about the not-desperately-sad ending, but there hasn't been as much backlash as I feared. And we have had a handful of lovely letters about it. We open the author fanmail that comes here - we didn't, once upon a time, and then one of our authors got cut by a razor blade inside an envelope and they sued us for negligence, as if we were to blame! - and I have a letter here to pass on to Syl that I think she'll like. Of course I'm delighted she let her fiance at the altar, but I'm almost glad, the letter says, that she didn't leave with her girlfriend. It would have been a happier ending, but somehow there's something about her striking out on her own that felt more true... Something very like that happened to me, and I'm - not happier for it, but I live a truer life than I did before. I smile at the letter, familiar feeling of tightness in my throat that passes, and I put it back in its envelope and return to the accounts.