Cherry Pie Cure
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About this ebook
“Soo-zaahn,” he said. “Soo-zahn,” he said it again, and I felt the bones in my toes dissolve. “I am so grateful for this gift, and so touched by your thoughtfulness. Soo-zaaaahn,” he said my name again, and I thought if he said it again I would die. “Soo-zaaaahn,” he said—and I lived, “Soo-zaahn, if I weren’t one hundred per cent sure that it was forbidden in the employee handbook, I would now cover you with kisses from the top of your head to the tips of the nails of your toes, and then back again. And back again. As it is, it is taking all of my willpower to not kiss the inside of your palm. Your elbows. To not drag my forehead along your nose and down your beautiful body and rest it in gratitude on your feet. And then... well, the next part, I will only think.”
*
When Susan discovers her husband of twenty-two years is cheating on her, she is sure her life is over. And she thinks her friend Marcella’s advice that she work through her feelings in a blog is stupid. She just wants to sit on the couch in her ex’s old bathrobe, feel sorry for herself, and chain-smoke. But with the help of Marcella, a growing tribe of “strange Internet friends,” couriered packages of sex toys, and the most delectable cherry pie in the world, Susan gets off the couch and into the arms of a gorgeous (“OMFG how old is he?”) new lover who is even more delicious than that cherry pie. Will her kids let her have this new life? Will her ex? And will Susan dare step into the passionate unknown... or will she retreat to the safety of her old life?
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Susan as The Heroine. Baker extraordinaire, yoga-hater, Luddite, and an innocent prude. “I don’t think an exercise routine developed by half-starved men in India is particularly suitable to short, curvy, booby white women. My breasts get in the way of everything. OMG, I just typed breasts. How do I delete this post?”
Marcella as Her Best Friend. Entrepreneur, musician and happily divorced self-proclaimed “slut” who has an opinion on everything and a solution to everyone’s problems except her own. “Look, Susan, do what you want, but either keep on with the blog or go sleep with a twenty-five-year-old boy. Do you want to be a pathetic blob of goo in your cheating husband’s bathrobe?”
Cody and Tyler as Her Adult Sons. “What were you thinking, Mom?” “Jesus, how old is he, Mom?” “Have you no pride, Mom?” “Oh-my-god-what’s-wrong-with-you, Mom?”
Nika as Cody’s Maybe-Maybe-Not Girlfriend. “I’m totally trolling Tinder for Persian guys now. Just so you know, Mama Susan.”
sugar&spice76 as Susan’s First Fan. “Honey, we’re not strangers anymore. We’re your strange Internet friends. We’re all mothers, and we all do the dirty sometimes, ok?”
FemmeFataleFun as the Sex Toy Peddler. “Smooches. Everything in that care package is therapeutic, kitten!”
mommyshidinginthebathroom3 as The Token Mommy Blogger. “Let her smoke, Marcella. It’s been six weeks. You can kick her ass about the cigarettes in six months.”
ilikeherbooty-full as The Porn Blogger Who Won’t Go Away. “Is this what women really talk about when men aren’t around, or are you doing that just for me?
Caspian00XO as His Friend Who Hears About the Pie. “Susan? Do I get pie now? I’m emailing you my address.”
Reza as Susan’s Love Interest. “This is my telephone number. As soon as I leave, you will type it into your phone. And you will send me a text. It will say, ‘Reza, this is Sooo-zaaaahn.’ If you don’t send me this text, I will assume I offended you and will need to quit my job so I don’t offend you again, so it is very important that you send this text. Yes, Soo-zahn?”
with cameos by
John as The Cheating Husband,
Jewel of The Not-So-Spectacular-Boobs as The Other Woman,
an assortment of lurkers, trolls, spammers, “Internet idiots,” and casual visitors,
Reza’s invisible roommates, and
The Lawyer.
a “MISTRESS OF HER OWN DOMAIN” novella
M. Jane Colette
M JANE COLETTE writes tragedy for people who like to laugh, comedy for the melancholy, and erotica for women and men who like their fantasies real. She believes rules and hearts were made to be broken; ditto the constraints of genres. She’s the author of the novels Tell Me (HarperCollins, 2015), an erotic romance for people who like a little bit of angst and a lot of plot with their hot sex, (the) Consequences (of defensive adultery) (in press, May 2017), a smart and sassy erotic tragedy with a happy ending, and Cherry Pie Cure (in press, June 2017), the debut rom-com in the Mistress of Her Own Domain series, as well as Rough Draft Confessions: inside the process of writing and selling erotica and romance (in press, 2017), a collection of non-fiction essays on the power of language and the business of writing. She's a member of the Romance Writers of America, its Passionate Ink and Calgary chapters, the Writers' Guild of Alberta, and the Alberta Romance Writers Association. When nobody's looking, she throws paint at canvas and writes poetry; when everybody's looking, she dances to keep herself from fidgeting nervously.
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Cherry Pie Cure - M. Jane Colette
Oops
posted by susan-oh-susan / february 15 at 7:15 pm / uncategorized / leave a comment
Apparently I pressed publish instead. How the hell do I delete posts off a blog?
*
Leave a comment:
Susan’s Writing Cure is a stupid name for a blog
posted by susan-oh-susan / february 15 at 7:21 pm / uncategorized / leave a comment
?
Delete, delete, delete!
*
Leave a comment:
Help
posted by susan-oh-susan / february 15 at 7:45 pm / uncategorized / 6 comments
Ok, look, I can’t figure out how to delete these posts, and I don’t know if you’re reading them or not, or who you are—who are you, actually? Who reads these things? Who writes these things? Marcella has a blog, but she’s a businesswoman and a musician—she needs them. So of course she thinks it’s a good idea. Aren’t we all like that? Assuming that what’s good for us is good for other people?
Marcella thinks this is good for me.
And because I am a stupid sheep—and crazy—what do I do? I listen to her. Watch her set things up. Outsource everything—even the name of the blog, my username, and my password—to her. Can you believe it?
It’s because I’m a sheep.
Or crazy.
And I hate the name of this blog.
Marcella was like, You can name it anything you like! That’s the great thing about a blog! You’re the mistress of your own domain, and you can say anything you like, Susan! So what are we going to call it?
And then she shot down every single one of my suggestions.
Which, ok, were mostly pretty lame. StupidSusansStupidLifedotcom, for example. Or, susanslifeisover… or… well, you get the picture.
But Susan’s Writing Cure Blog is just as lame.
Sigh.
And this whole idea is stupid.
And here I am, still typing.
I’m typing because I’m lonely and even though it can’t possibly be that hard to delete these stupid posts, I’d rather… type.
Maybe because… it’s better to hope somebody—Marcella, anybody!—is reading this than to admit how lonely I am?
Oh.
Did I just admit how lonely I am?
Is that the way this is supposed to work?
I’m going to text Marcella and ask her.
*
6 comments on Help:
m88: At this time it appears like Power Engine is the preferred blogging platform out there right now. (from what I’ve read) Is that what you are using on your blog?
susan-oh-susan: Um, no. Who is this?
BeautifulThingsEveryday: It’s a spammer, Susan. Delete his comment, and turn on your spam filter.
susan-oh-susan: Who is this?
BeautifulThingsEveryday: This is Marcella. You adorable idiot.
susan-oh-susan: Marcella, in my world, spam is a disgusting meat that comes in a can. What is a spam filter?
This sucks, I suck, the whole world sucks
posted by susan-oh-susan / february 16 at 12:15 pm / uncategorized / leave a comment
Marcella said, Ha, I told you it would be good for you.
Bitch. Of course she couldn’t resist an I told you so.
It is not good for me, by the way. I’m sitting here, typing, crying, and feeling stupid.
I am not depressed.
You might think I’m depressed. Because of that whole lonely bit earlier.
I’m not.
I am… livid. I. Am. So. Angry.
I am so angry because I am… I am that despicable thing I never wanted to be, nobody ever wants to be—but I never, never, never imagined…
I am a woman scorned.
A cheated wife.
A jilted (twenty-two years later, but still) bride.
An abandoned wife.
I am forty-three years old, and I am old and alone and life is awful.
This is not depression.
This is fact.
Stupid Marcella.
Writing that this is a fact is not helpful. I’m going to stop typing and text her again, and…
Actually, I won’t.
I hate texting.
You would too if you were me.
That’s how I found out, you know.
Stupid, cheating jerk.
Why was he so stupid?
*
Leave a comment:
But seriously, how could he be so stupid?
posted by susan-oh-susan / february 17 at 2:30 pm / uncategorized / 4 comments
I found out John was cheating on me just before Christmas.
Let me save you the huge build up.
The house was all dolled up for the holidays—I always go all out, you know. My favourite season, and all the more so now that the boys are both away at college, and only back for the holidays. Cody’s in his last year of French Literature at Queen’s, in Kingston, Ontario, and Tyler—that’s my youngest—he’s just in his first year at University of British Columbia in Vancouver, taking pre-engineering.
Not that any of that matters.
Anyway, Cody was still in Ontario, but Tyler was already home. I tripped over his giant shoes—seriously, that kid has canoes for feet—as I came back into the house from Safeway.
That’s our grocery store.
I mean, not our grocery. I mean, the grocery store closest to our house. The one I usually shop at.
I had been baking, and I ran out of yeast of all things. I could have asked John to pick some up on his way home from work. But I didn’t want to… this is true—I didn’t want to inconvenience him. Because he had been putting in such long hours at the office lately.
I told you. I was so stupid.
So. Stupid.
So, I tripped over Tyler’s shoes—but that made me feel all happy and lovey and gooey, you know? Because… well, he is my baby for all that he’s six-foot-four now, and I never believed that I would miss tripping over his giant shoes when he went away to college but I did—I do. And I put down the grocery bags—I ran to the store just for yeast, but they had an amazing sale on meat, and so I got some pork chops, for after the holidays, you know, because I knew we’d be sick of turkey, and then I went to check what was fresh and cheap in produce the way I always do, and what with one thing and another, I ended up with two full bags—so I tripped over those damn shoes, put the bags down, and bent to put Tyler’s shoes neatly on the mat.
And that’s when I noticed John’s iPad.
On the floor, between the wall and the boot mat.
Don’t ask me how it got there.
Actually do—the stupid idiot was holding it in his hands when I came into the hallway to kiss him goodbye that morning. And when he saw me coming, he set it on the floor… to pull me into his arms… to kiss me.
Yes, I’m crying. Ugh.
Anyway.
Do I even need to tell you this next part?
I didn’t snoop.
All I did was pick it up—I remember thinking, Oh, John. Like father, like son. Tyler’s shoes, John’s iPad. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Why bother putting things where they belong if you know Mom’s going to pick them up for you?
I picked it up.
John had just set it up the other day to open with my thumb. To show me how it worked… in case I wanted to get one… And I thought it was such a fun thing. I put my thumb on the home button… not to check anything. Just for fun…
For fun! God.
And as I unlocked the iPad, the message flashed across the screen.
How much time will we have, honey-bunny?
And then…
Pout.
And then…
You know I’ll settle for what I can get. For now, anyway.
And then… a picture.
God.
No face. Just chin. Neck. Cleavage.
Breasts.
More breasts.
And breasts again, from a different angle.
I stood there, like a complete moron, in my entry way, grocery bags on the floor, watching another woman send pictures of her breasts to my husband.
*
4 comments on But seriously, how could he be so stupid?:
sugar&spice76: Oh, honey. Hugs.
susan-oh-susan: Marcella? Is that you again?
sugar&spice76: I’m Stacey, but everyone calls me Sugar. I blog about urban parenting at SugarAndSpiceNotEverythingNicedotcom. Come visit me there sometime! But I just wanted to say—hugs. And—he’s the moron. Not you.
susan-oh-susan: No, I’m totally the moron. Well, he’s an idiot too. But wait until you see what I do—don’t do—next.
How could I be so stupid?
posted by susan-oh-susan / february 18 at 9:01 am / uncategorized / 3 comments
I stood there, like a moron, until Tyler came into the hallway.
I thought I heard you leave, and then I thought I heard you come in, and then I heard nothing and I thought you were murdered in the long dangerous walk between the front door and the kitchen, where you were heading to make your favourite son a triple decker ham-turkey-mystery meat sandwich,
he rumbled. You know, he’s eighteen now, and his voice broke
three, maybe even four years ago, but still, every time I hear that rumbly man’s voice come out of that mouth…
Oh, Jesus, Mom, don’t cry, I’ll make my own sandwich!
he said, because—well, you know what I did.
No, no,
I said and I didn’t even ask him, he picked up the grocery bags and took them into the kitchen and me, I…
I put the iPad right back where I found it.
That’s just what I did.
*
3 comments on How could I be so stupid?:
sugar&spice76: Oh, honey.
susan-oh-susan: I know, Sugar. Moron, right?
sugar&spice76: No, honey. No. Hugs.
Breasts are also stupid
posted by susan-oh-susan / february 18 at 3:15 pm / uncategorized / 2 comments
By the way, they weren’t even that nice. Her breasts, I mean.
I mean, they were okay.
But they weren’t like… pin-up girl or porn star breasts. You know?
They were just breasts.
Not that different from mine.
No better, anyway.
Oh god.
Here I go, crying again.
I’m going to text Marcella and tell her this blog is ruining my life.
*
2 comments on Breasts are also stupid:
BeautifulThingsEveryday: This is Marcella. Susan, this is good for you. Keep on writing.
sugar&spice76: Honey, I agree. Keep on purging, Susan.
So Christmas sucked
posted by susan-oh-susan / february 19 at 10:09 am / uncategorized / leave a comment
So Christmas sucked.
*
Leave a comment:
Marcella sucks and I’m a pathetic blob of goo
posted by susan-oh-susan / february 20 at 5:13 pm / uncategorized / 8 comments
Marcella came over this morning on her way to work to make sure I was out of bed and showered and dressed. That’s my promise to her—I made it… when? Just a few days ago. Valentine’s Day, I guess, when she came over for our Don’t commit suicide on Valentine’s Day, Susan
date and found me in pajama pants, week-old socks, and John’s disgusting old bathrobe… at 7 pm.
Susan,
she said, very sternly, this ends today.
My husband of twenty-two years left me six weeks ago,
I snotted into the sleeve of John’s bathrobe. I’m entitled to be miserable. I should probably be on medication.
You should take a shower,
Marcella said. And then more or less man-handled—woman-handled?—me into the bathroom.
It was later that night, actually—after the third bottle of wine—that she convinced me to start this stupid blog.
Which, I still think, is a terrible idea.
Anyway.
When she was over this morning—and I was out of bed, showered, and dressed—she said that So Christmas sucked
was a shitty blog post.
It’s true,
I said. Also, succinct. And also—what’s the point of details? You know them all. God knows I know them all.
And she said…
What about Stacey-Sugar?
What?
The blogger who’s left comments on your posts. She probably wants to know more than ‘So Christmas sucked.’
And then we got into a fight… well, not a fight, but an argument, over whether the blog was a therapeutic exercise or an exercise in self-indulgence, and Marcella, who has an opinion on everything and a solution to everyone’s problems except her own, said, Look, Susan, do what you want, but either keep on with the blog or go fuck a twenty-five-year-old boy. Do you want to be a pathetic blob of goo in your cheating husband’s bathrobe?
And I said, I am a pathetic blob of goo in my cheating husband’s bathrobe,
although I was dressed. In yoga pants and a T-shirt, but still. They were clean, and the shirt was kind of pressed. Not that I ironed it or anything, but it’s made of that material, you know, that comes out of the drier looking ironed.
I used to iron John’s shirts, did you know that?
Stupid moron.
Me. Not you, Marcella.
Although I’m still kind of mad at you. Even though you shovelled my driveway.
Thank you for that.
Where was I?
Right.
Christmas sucked.
*
8 comments on Marcella sucks and I’m a pathetic blob of goo:
sugar&spice76: I totally want to know the details! Christmas sucked! What happened? Did you confront him?
susan-oh-susan: I’ll tell you, but please don’t judge me.
BeautifulThingsEveryday: I love you, you pathetic blob of goo in a bathrobe. And this is so good for you.
susan-oh-susan: I’m still not talking to you.
BeautifulThingsEveryday: K. But make sure you have coffee on when I come over tomorrow morning, because I have a late night planned tonight.
susan-oh-susan: With Charles?
BeautifulThingsEveryday: No, I’m done with Charles. This one’s called Raoul. I’ll show you pictures, and maybe you can convince me to share him.
susan-oh-susan: Stop it.
I guess I’m not dealing very well
posted by susan-oh-susan / february 21 at 4:02 pm / uncategorized / 6 comments
Yeah.
Christmas sucked.
I guess I decided while I was making Tyler his sandwich that I wasn’t going to ruin the kids’ Christmas by making a big deal out of it… I actually remember, that was what I thought, Don’t make a big deal out of it, Susan.
But honestly, I don’t think I was really… thinking, you know? I was totally shell-shocked. John came home late, and pecked me on the cheek and I flinched with disgust, but he didn’t notice. He and Tyler chatted and watched television. I hid in the kitchen and baked.
I should have maybe texted Marcella. But I was mostly just trying not to think about it…
Honey-bunny.
Pout.
I can’t wait to…
Oh. My. God.
My husband was cheating on me.
My life was over.
*
6 comments on I guess I’m not dealing very well:
BeautifulThingsEveryday: Drama queen. You’re not in that space any more.
susan-oh-susan: Are you sure? I still sort of think I am.
BeautifulThingsEveryday: My prescription, as always, is a twenty-five-year-old boy.
susan-oh-susan: You can keep your twenty-five-year-old boy. My twenty-one-year-old boy is about to arrive. In the next post.
BeautifulThingsEveryday: So you are going to keep on writing.
susan-oh-susan: I guess.
This one is about trying not to ruin Christmas, and meeting Nika
posted by susan-oh-susan / february