I have a computer. It works. I just prefer the action of this typewriter, how it requires both accuracy and finger strength to work, and how my pummeling transfers through to the escritoire right down to the floor boards. This activity makes me feel at one with my writer’s loft, which in turn−

“Time’s up, little man,” she purrs from the balcony. She’s smiling, red lips spanning beyond the doorway, white teeth reflecting light into my room.

Sighing, I take one last drag on my 234 and snuff it out in a lead crystal ash tray. I grew up with one of these, but amber, not clear like this heavy beast. Glancing at the typewritten page curling from the carriage return, I warn her that I was in the middle of a sentence. She pretends to pout and lets me wrap this up. Hackety-hackety-hack, then a zzzzzip! from the carriage, and the page is shuffled into its brethren sheaf.

My Goddess can’t possibly read the words at this size, so she informs me. I know this is bullshit, she could read the manufacturer’s number on the underside of a fly’s wing. When  I call her out on this, I can hear her voice smiling: “I just like to hear you read to me.”

Well. Far be it from me to defy a Goddess.

The aged iron castors roll and grind on the well-worn dark wood floor boards, and the springs in my chair complain when I rise. They complain about everything. I stretch my back, organize the papers, and walk out to the balcony to join my matron. Promptly, the Parisian wind whips the sheaf right out of my grip, racing past her enormous shoulders and bosom, the papers scattering from Rue Tel ou Tel to Rue Je Ne Sais Quoi.

“Did you do that on purpose?” Her large and beautiful eyes narrow at me.

She can see by the blush on my cheeks that I did not.

Still, she issues a slight hmmph at me but pinches her eyes shut and wrinkles her nose, et voila, the manuscript is back in my clenched fist again. My Goddess rests her massive head against my building and licks her lips as she gently orders me to read to her. “And it had better be sensual, my little writer,” she whispers. “Your last two were… oh, so close! I’m sorry to disappoint you. Please don’t take it badly. You know how much I love your work, but,” her incisors gleam against the blood-red lip they bite, “there’s just something lacking. And you’d better find it if you ever want any of this.” Her palms cup her ponderous breasts, proffering them up to me below the balcony. She tilts her head saucily as her fingertips play with her nipples, bringing them to life in the brisk winds of our high altitude. It’s true, she’s using her wiles to hook me, capture me, so I will produce for her. I know what’s happening and I’ve agreed to it, frustrating though it can be.

I lean against the railing beside her cheekbone, clear my throat, and begin: “Where is she?” he cried, bursting into the room. The lord gestured lazily to his guards, who drew their swords and formed a barrier. He only sneered at the gesture. “It will take an army of you to keep me from my beloved!” So saying, he produced twin daggers and sprang at the guards…

My Goddess closes her eyes and listens. She’s a very good audience. She doesn’t ask much of me, specifically, in terms of topics, leaving it all up to me. I wish she’d request more, but she insists it’s more interesting to see what I’ll produce on my own. If she would ask something of me, I insist, then I could tailor a piece directly to her tastes, appealing to her proclivities and specific interests. She only laughs and beckons me to feel my way around, learning through trial and error, stumbling blindly through the labyrinth of my Goddess’ intricacies. Perhaps she likes how I feel inside her, groping, finding my way by touch, running into walls.

“You wouldn’t,” gasped the craven lord, drenched in the blood of his own men. “You are supposed to be better than this, aren’t you? Killing me will make you no better than−”

His words were cut short by the dagger that slipped between his ribs. Rodolfo wasted no time on a witty rejoinder, only dispatched his foe and charged up the tower steps, where his betrothed lay.

Air hisses through her large nostrils. One of her hands massages her breast; the other has disappeared somewhere further south. Knowing the words, I glance briefly at her ear, swaying just outside arm’s reach of the balcony. Her long, dark hair heaves in the wind like waves upon the shore, a mass of glossy tendrils moving as one. All I would have to do is sprint the width of the balcony, hurdle the railing with one arm, and aim for her shoulder while grasping any errant hairs around me. That’s how close my Goddess is right now: she’s right fucking there. But my eyes return to the page.

Swifter than thought he severed the bonds on her wrists and ankles, lifting the lovely woman gently to the bed in her cell. “Rodolfo,” she gasped, “I’ve waited so long for you.”

“Wait not one second longer,” he growled, tearing his doublet open and casting it aside. She reached for him, but he caught her wrists and pinned them to the mattress above her head. Her eyes widened in fright, glancing at her arms and then into his face. In the radiant heat of his expression her eyelids fluttered and her slim throat released a lilting gasp of desire. His powerful thighs straddled her hips…

Am I proud of this work? Not really. I’d write anything for my Goddess, anything she requested, but I’m so glad no one else in the world will see this. Don’t get me wrong: I’m still pushing myself to expand my prowess and technical skill. While I wouldn’t read this dreck, it’s still a faithful recreation of the stack of classical gothic romance books she procured from the local library for me. She won’t tell me what she wants, but her hints are somewhat less than subtle. So I started with The Castle of Otranto and charged on through Wuthering Heights and everything in between, and now my mind’s heavy with it. Now I can faithfully write within this genre (or close enough), satisfying one of the qualifications she’s put on me for this round of writing. Is she into it? Without wanting to be crass, there’s a certain sound effect a few floors below me that suggests, yes, she’s digging it.

His engorged member thrust into her, filling her. She could feel all the features of his manhood running along her most sensitive tissues. Her body responded, issuing the salty honey of her desire to coat her lips and run down his thighs. He gasped, bending in half to lap at her dun breasts, and she wrapped her slender arms around his skull possessively, even as she clenched at him between her thighs. His hot breath scalded her belly, and she cried his name like a command. His buttocks tensed, his thighs pulsed…

I sneak a glance at my Goddess. Her thick, pink tongue darts out to lap at the corner of her mouth, and her eyebrows furrow with concentration.

…and they consummated their love. With the lord’s corrupted guards all slain, they met no resistance as he carried her from the ebon tower to his steed, and Rodolfo and Elaine rode off to their bold, bright future.

There’s a pause. A breath hitches in my Goddess’s tremendous throat. “Brûle en l’enfer!” she cries, balling a fist and caving in the lower floors of my building. It’s a solid construction, this building, so I simply duck inside from the balcony and stand beside my escritoire, waiting for the storm to pass. She swears, she stomps her massive feet upon the hapless streets for a few minutes. It must be awful out there.

Finally her face returns to my balcony. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are a little wild, but she controls her voice. “You little…” She sighs heavily. “One more time, writer. I know, this is the seventh or eighth time I’ve asked this of you, but really, now. You’re always so close, and then you blow it at the end.” Her lovely eyes squint at me, peering into my apartment and blocking out the world outside. “I don’t mean to be harsh, but if you knew what you’re putting me through…” She extracts a promise from me to meet at the same time tomorrow. I have until then to work another improvement, an upgrade, a final revision that will give her what she needs, once and for all. Then and only then will I receive my rich reward.

I weight the manuscript upon my desk with a lead cast of the Arc de Triomphe, and I go to the balcony once more. The sun loves her skin as she stomps off sulkily, kicking over a building here or swatting a helicopter there. Regardless, her perfectly rounded bottom swings as cutely as anything ever could, as she exits the city limits.

From my pocket I extract the gold paper packet and draw another 234. I light up, taking my small pleasure in the sugar-coated butt, and hold the tingly smoke in my mouth, letting it all go numb. When I laugh—and oh, how I laugh—sweet smoke spills out and is whisked away in the breeze.