One of the things that I decided to do about two months ago was get my butt back to exercising on a regular basis. The impetus for this was that I had to shoot a video for a completely different project I’m doing (non-writing-related) that I’ll talk about in the future, and when I saw the edited video, I wanted to cry. It’s a whole lot easier to lie to oneself that that extra five, then ten, then fifteen, then twenty pounds isn’t really showing, because my clothes still sorta fit (which, translation, the final few “big” clothes I had left in my closet before going up yet another size), but when you see a video of yourself and you don’t even recognize that person? That’s depressing.

I had already ignored it for too long, and I loathe wallowing and it was either wallow or change something. I cut out a lot of the extra carbs (the crackers, the chips, the snacks, and a lot of white bread, rice, etc.,). I’ve almost completely cut out fried foods (not an easy thing, living in the Quarter), and I’ve cut waaaaay back on sweets (though I confess, I do have them on occasion). I’m eating far more protein / salads these days, and that’s helped, but it wasn’t enough.

I knew it wasn’t going to be enough, and I have been, to put it mildly, very very grumpy about that fact.

Just walking on a treadmill (or outside, but let’s be honest, when it starts hitting the upper 90s here, I’m not walking outside)… wasn’t going to cut it. I needed aerobic movement, and I am not the kind of person to go join a class. Wait, check that. I’m totally the kind of person who would join a class. I’m apparently just not the kind of person who actually attends said class. No matter how much they try to seduce me with sweet talk, goals, rewards, music, camaraderie, promises of a pool boy to feed me grapes afterward. I mean, theoretically, I love classes. I even love the concept of getting out of the house and going somewhere else to be joined by a dozen or so other women who have similar problems/goals so that we can encourage one another in sisterhood, rah rah rah.

In my fantasy, I show up at one of these classes and there are a bunch of women there who are roughly my level of fitness, all of whom hate exercising as much as I do, and we bond over how annoying it is, how hard it is to fit into the day when the characters actually decided, ten minutes before the stupid class, to finally show up and start cooperating. Then we realize that we’ve passed an entire hour of bonding while managing to float through the exercises, all dewy and having dropped a size already, and we head back to our respective corners of the universe, knowing we’ll bond again the following week and we’ll all be skinny three weeks hence.

I am not just a little irritated that it doesn’t happen like this.

Instead, there’s one of two scenarios: half of the class is made up of tiny little scrawny pipsqueaks who claim to be overweight because they need to lose two pounds, who show up in attire that looks straight out of Hookers R Us and then they pinch 1/4 of an inch while proclaiming how they just don’t know how they got so out of shape (wherein I contemplate snapping their heads off their shoulders–that’d save ‘em the two pounds right there), or there is an entire class of sadists/masochists who just luuuuuuuvvvveeee to exercise and they look at me like I’m the most pathetic thing they’ve seen since God invented walking. For the former group, I just cannot exercise while thinking that I need to feed them cookies before they fall down, faint, and then I’m thinking about cookies and how fabulous chocolate chip cookies would be for a reward for having endured an entire hour of Little Miss Size Zero waxing poetic about her new Nikes, and before you know it, I’ve left the class, headed straight for the corner grocery, and I’ve downed half a bag of cookies before I regain awareness of my actions. For the latter group, I inevitably start thinking if they’re so damned fast, I wonder if they can outrun a bullet? Probably not the healthiest of attitudes. (Still…. fun.)

I’ve even tried to grit my teeth and just accept that I’m not going to like anyone in the class, not going to bond, not going to enjoy it, not even going to be happy that I did it until many moons later, and I tried all of this when I took a spin class. I have to preface this with, I didn’t know what a spin class was at the time. I thought it was some sort of dancing class when I signed up. (Shut. Up. I did.) So I get there, and there’s all these stationery bicycles in one room and a freaking mirror in the front of the class, so we can see ourselves, and a single bicycle facing the room for the instructor. They kept the lights down low, thankfully, and I saw quite a few women filter in there who were easily fifty-to-a-hundred pounds heavier than me, which, frankly, gave me hope, because this class would surely be one I could relate to. I wouldn’t be a failure at spinning, because if that eighty-year-old in front of me, who needed to lose at least 75 pounds could do it, I could.

I have never, in my life, been so tempted to get down off a bicycle and commit cold blooded murder than I was in that class. In fact, if I could have felt my legs and they still actually worked at the end of that class, I would have.

We started off biking and biking and biking and doing all these stand up/sit down combinations, and I was breathing hard, but keeping up, and had, up to that point, managed not to fall off the damned bike when the perky little instructor, who probably hadn’t eaten an entire sandwich at one sitting her whole life, said, “Okay, now we’re going to turn up the tension on the bikes!” And she said it like this was a good thing. While I’m back there thinking, “Tension? This wasn’t with tension? We’re supposed to make it harder? On purpose?”

Then the eighty-year-old in front of me increased her tension and had absolutely no problem keeping up with the group, and I thought, “Okay, okay, how hard can this be?”

Let me tell you how hard: there was a point where I was in tears, trying to keep up, and the instructor was up there saying crap like, “Now it’s okay if you can’t keep up, some of us are just not yet in good enough shape, and you’ll get there, don’t give up,” and I was telling my legs, “STAND UP! STAND UP NOW DAMMIT” and my legs very clearly said, “fuck you, we quit.” And they collapsed. And there was this brief moment, this microsecond, when I thought, “wow, I bet everyone else is having a hard time,” and when I forced my 500 pound head up, even the eighty-year-old woman was looking over her shoulder with pity as the entire class biked even faster and the 90-pound instructor said, “Now I see that some of us need to rest, and we shouldn’t feel ashamed that we need a bit more time to adjust to exercising again–after all, we didn’t get into this shape overnight!” I sat there–the only member of the class unable to keep peddling–not even able to pull my feet out of the bicycle’s pedal contraptions and plotted the murder of the instructor. I’d have done it, too, if I hadn’t had to crawl out of the door to lie in a pile of drool for a few hours before I could stand up again.

So this time, I eschewed the lure of the classes nearby (the Zumba class looked kinda promising until I saw the instructor was all of fifteen) and decided to do the Couch to 5K app. This app allows you to create an exercise playlist with your own music and it is, essentially, interval training, where you start off slow (walking) and at set intervals, you run/jog faster. In the beginning, those intervals are about 30 seconds, or a minute, and then a minute-and-a-half. Nine effing intervals. I found myself saying things like:

inner child: Why do we have to do all of it? Nobody will know. We can just do half. That’s half more than yesterday.

 grown up toni: We’re doing it all. We can run two more times. Just two more. It’s not going to kill us.

inner child:  It might. I don’t feel good. I need to throw up.

grown up toni: You do not need to throw up. You’re fine.

inner child: Do, too. And I need to pee.

grown up toni: You do not need to pee. Shut up. Get ready to run.

inner child: Can I at least have a couple of cookies when we’re done?

grown up toni: No! We didn’t just burn off all these carbs for you to go stuff yourself with cookies!

inner child: I hate you. Wait… I see that run time…. that’s THREE WHOLE MINUTES OF RUNNING? Like, WITHOUT A BREAK? We’re gonna die! That’s just MEAN!

grown up toni: We’re not gonna die….. [mid-run]…. okay, we might die, but we’re gonna die skinnier!

inner child:  You’re really sick, you know that?

 

Sadly, I cannot shoot the instructor.

I have sort of evolved from the point of wishing the inventor of the program a thousand ugly deaths to merely hexing off his or her body parts. Progress!

My goal is simple: get healthier. I may or may not actually lose weight and get skinnier, (though I’m seeing some progress there, it’s small), but my real goal is to be able to move around and feel good in my body. I want to be able to wear a pair of shorts this summer while walking around in the Quarter because blue jeans are just too damned hot, and I’m going to have a lot of construction/remodeling/decorating projects to work on where there’s no a/c, so I need to be able to not feel horrifically self-conscious in shorts. (Which would require me to actually go shopping and buy shorts, something I haven’t done in ten years.)

So how about you? How do you feel about your body? Want to lose weight? Happy where you are? Are you doing anything specific to affect a change in your life/health?

 

(btw, I am giving away five copies of my friend, Robert Browne’s, new legal thriler, TRIAL JUNKIES — this is an ebook only. I’ll pick five of you from the comments section and announce it on Sunday. And for those who are awaiting their prints, still, my apologies. I found out yesterday that the printer had a glitch and I think it’s fixed now. I hope you’ll be getting your print by mid-week next week.)

 

[contest below]

When we were growing up, my brother, Mike, was always small for his age, with a big ol’ soft heart that was always twice his size. He loved people, loved helping them, loved hanging around and just being a part of a group. Unfortunately, we went to a tiny school that had its fair share of bullies, and for reasons I’ve yet to understand, Mike became a target. Probably because he also had a spine and would stand up to people three times his size. If you’ve ever seen a Chihuahua nose-to-nose with a Great Dane, you’ve seen my kid brother in action.

I don’t remember a single time Mike ever complained. There were times when he was losing enthusiasm for team sports, but we thought it was more about the fact that he was so little, he didn’t have much playing time. It turned out, he was having trouble with some of the bigger guys on the team hazing/bullying the little guys. Primarily him.

We discovered this one evening when I couldn’t find him after school. He played on the middle-school (jr. varsity) football team, and they had practice at the same time that I did (dance team), which worked out well for my parents, since I could drive us home. Only, I couldn’t find him. Everyone else had left already by the time I realized something terrible was going on, and the rest of that evening is a blur. I couldn’t get into the school to call my parents (seriously, everyone had gone home), and I wasn’t sure what to do. Somehow, I managed to get to a phone and some hours later, my dad found him; he’d been beaten up by a couple of kids in school and left in a ravine in the far back acres of the school property. The father of one of the boys was on the school board, and the other one had a lot of clout. Nothing, we knew, was going to be done.

Now, some people would have dug into a shell and quit; others would have become bitter; others would have emulated the bullies and turn mean out of self-preservation. Mike didn’t do any of those. He stayed positive and upbeat. He asked if he could take Karate, and mom and dad found him a place to take his first lessons. (It wasn’t that great of a school–more of an excuse for the teacher to beat up students–but he stuck with it.) He kept taking until he grew and grew and became a black belt. He found the International Tang Soo Do Federation (ITF) and joined it so that he could take lessons from people who were real Masters at the art, and whose philosophy was more about being a peaceful person, rather than vengeance. He took it upon himself to go to our local park system and start classes for kids who couldn’t afford the more expensive schools, and taught hundreds–if not a couple of thousand–students through that system until budget cuts forced that program to end.

He kept taking lessons, progressing upward to second, then third, then fourth, and now fifth degree black belt. He has his own school, [Zachary Karate], and he’s taught–and counseled–more than 3000 kids.

Most of what he teaches is about believing in yourself. Learn to defend yourself when necessary, but also learn that your self-worth is not caught up in what other people think or say or do. Your value has nothing to do with outer expectations, but who you are, within, and how you act. I can’t even count the number of parents who’ve come back to him to tell him he saved their kids–they were depressed, lost, scared, or going off the rails with rebellion. He just has a knack for reaching them. And he’s tireless about it.

He’s also a World Champion in Sparring (2007 I think); he finally quit competing nationally because he’d never lost. Not once.

He’s got the heart of a lion, and the gentleness of a lamb. If anyone has ever needed help, he’d be there. I cannot tell you how often I’ve heard stories of him dropping everything he had going on because someone needed help.

He’s a hero, to me. Always has been.

He also has an extremely rare form of gamma/delta t-cell lymphoma. It’s extremely aggressive, and he almost died last September.

Right now, he’s in remission. We are over-the-moon about that, but the reality is, this is such an aggressive form of lymphoma, that he’s going to have to have a bone-marrow transplant in order to survive. (Actually, they don’t transplant the bone marrow any more–they transplant the stem cells. Much much much easier on the donor and way more effective on the recipient.)

Without this transplant, it is highly likely this type of lymphoma will return; it will have very likely mutated, which will make it more difficult for them to attack it with the same chemo, so it’ll be an experiment to adjust. With a transplant, however, he’d could easily live another twenty or thirty years.

What he needs, in essence, is a hero. Someone who matches the HLA cells. (Complete strangers can match. In fact, it’s far far more common for complete strangers to match. There’s a lot of biology-speak that should probably go here to explain why, but I am not a doctor, and will likely get something wrong.)

To donate stem cells in this day and age is actually fairly easy and painless. To add yourself to the donor databanks (if you’re eligible to be a donor) is so easy (and free), it’s amazing. Simply go to www.bethematch.com and look at their short checklist to see if you’re eligible; if you are, they’ll send you a FREE kit where you simply swab the inside of your cheek and send it back. That’s it. You’re in the donor database.

Now, you’re not promising you’ll do it. You’re just saying you’ll consider it if you come up as a match for someone. If you are able and willing at that time, they’ll schedule the simple procedure around your life/schedule, and the recipient’s insurance pays for the process.

You can save a life.

You might not be Mike’s hero, but you could very easily be someone’s hero. For only a few hours of your time, if you’re a match.

And someone out there will match my brother. Someone out there will enable him to keep on teaching kids, keep on being a hero. How amazing is that?

So today, I am asking you, please be a hero and do these two things:

1) tweet or FB (or both) the link: www.bethematch.com

2) check to see if you’re eligible and send off for the kit, do the swab, and turn it in.

That’s it.

I know not everyone can be a donor. There are a lot of health issues and/or age that may prevent you, but if you’d help us get people into the databanks, you could help save lives.

As a thank you (and really, there is just no way to thank you enough) — if you share the information, let me know in the comments section. If you’re eligible to do the kit, that’s fabulous, but even if all you can do is share the links and encourage others, I want to show my appreciation. All your names will go into a hat and from that, I’ll pick two winners; I have several original photographs framed on canvas and I’ll let the winners choose one of them; it’ll be signed and an exclusive to you. OR – if the winners would rather not have a signed photo (my feelings will not be hurt, truly) — you could choose a $100 gift certificate to an online store of your choice (as long as I can email the certificate.) I’ll also give away two runner-up prizes of $50 each for a gift certificate to any online store of your choice (as long as I can email you the gift certificate.) [For this contest, I have to limit entrants to US citizens. I'll do something new for the rest of you next time, I promise.]

So let me know, below, if you’ve shared the links and/or sent off for the kit. Or tell me if you’ve ever had any experience with bullies and what you think was the best piece of advice you ever got?

(Here are the photo choices…)

              

 

Karin is traveling today, so the remaining gals here at Murder She Writes thought it would be fun to have another “Ask Us Anything!” Q&A. The rest of us will pop in all day to answer questions — about our books, reading, writing, television, movies … just ask.

[contest below]

Good news: I survived Mardi Gras in New Orleans, on the main parade route and then, later, in the Quarter. I am not entirely certain that NOLA or the Quarter survived me, but that may be a story for another time.

What’s up for grabs, though, is whether or not the Quarter survives Bobbie Faye, and her whacked out wedding in the novella that’s included in our new Guns and Roses Anthology. (You haven’t heard about it? Your kidnappers FINALLY let you go, YAY! Otherwise, nice rock, good soundproofing, because we’ve probably annoyed the world with our yahoooing over here. )

One of the very (very very very) strange things about writing a series with Bobbie Faye at the helm (and believe me, folks, she is real and she drives the bus), is that I never really know what’s going to happen. I always sort of think I know. I tend to have a plan when I start the story, but then Bobbie Faye wakes up and takes over and it’s a wild ride.

Case in point, this… well, it was going to be a short story. (ha) It was going to be a very simple, straightforward, quickie about a prelude moment before Bobbie Faye had (or didn’t have, as the case may be) her wedding. And then… Bobbie Faye showed up, took over the story, and it became a novella (about 4 times as long as my original planned length). There were heists and gunmen and Others Who Shall Remain Nameless all aiming to destroy Bobbie Faye. It was Not Pretty.

But it was a helluva ride.

God, I love that woman. I am so grateful for the day when she showed up, fully formed, (and she named herself, I’ll have you know), and sort of burst into and stopped another project I was working on cold, because, as she said, she “had words,” and I had better “get busy.” She is this living, breathing entity, to me, and, I have been blessed over the years to learn, to many others. I cannot tell you how grateful I’ve been for that. So much so, that I almost couldn’t write this story; it’s going to be the last Bobbie Faye for a long, long, long, time. There may be spin offs (see that link for a poll, if you have an opinion). But–at least for a while–Bobbie Faye is going to be stepping into the background of those other stories.

Which meant, really, that this story was our last time together, and she just went off in a direction I hadn’t predicted. I thought I knew how the story ended; I was a bit shocked, really, when there was a certain reveal, because I can honestly tell you, I had not planned it. Not at all, not even a little bit. And when it was revealed, I sat back in my chair and thought, holy shit.

So, without further ado, here’s the excerpt from BOBBIE FAYE’S WHACKED OUT, NO GOOD, REALLY SUCKY, HOT MESS OF A WEDDING:

“Exactly why is Bobbie Faye trying to kill the scarecrow again?” Nina asked Trevor, Bobbie Faye’s smoking-hot fiancé, after she’d arrived in her best friend’s back yard. He was leaning oh-so-casually against a tree with one shoulder, facing the “back forty” as Bobbie Faye called the vast expanse of wilderness surrounding their home deep in bayou territory of South Louisiana. To a casual observer, (if they could get past the abs, the biceps, the ass… boy, her girlfriend sure knew how to pick ‘em)… they might think Trevor was completely relaxed, enjoying the scenery of his fiancée decimating a scarecrow. Well, you never really knew, with some couples, what they did for kicks. But Nina was anything but a casual observer and she could feel the tension radiating out from Trevor, his arms crossed tightly, his stubbled jaw, clenched.

As Bobbie Faye unloaded her magazine, he intoned, “It’s been a particularly stressful day.” His monotone delivery barely disguised his own tightly banked fury. He was FBI—well, now, he was former FBI after their last disaster where a bad-to-the-bone terrorist had gone after Trevor by trying to destroy Bobbie Faye… and half of Baton Rouge with her, when he planted bombs at the LSU/Alabama game. In Trevor’s world, people died when they threatened Bobbie Faye, hence the former in front of that “FBI.”

Nina started to speak to her friend and Trevor held her back, shaking his head. It wasn’t that unusual to see Bobbie Faye with a gun; hell, she not only ran the gun counter at Ce Ce’s Cajun Outfitter and Feng Shui Emporium, but she was a better shot than anyone Nina had ever come across—and being neck deep in spec ops, Nina had come across plenty. It was, however, a bit strange to watch Bobbie Faye blast the stuffing out of the poor defenseless scarecrow tied to the fence, not to mention how unnerving it was to see several carcasses of previous scarecrows littering the ground. As crazy as Bobbie Faye was—and she tapped out at the top of the if-she’s-breathing-then-there’s-a-disaster-a-brewing meter—Nina had never seen her quite so… focused in her Crazy. For someone who was purely a civilian, who simply had a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Bobbie Faye was generally able to deal with the stress.

Now? She looked like she was going to go batshit at any moment.

“She’s been on the phone all day,” Trevor explained. “It didn’t go well.”

“If this is ‘not well,’ then remind me to move to Russia when she gets to ‘bad.’”

“It was either encourage her to kill the scarecrows or let her go talk to the Bishop at the Diocese.”

Bobbie Faye dropped the magazine out of her FN, slammed a new one in and planted, rapid-fire, nine more rounds into the scarecrow’s left eye.

Nina suppressed a shudder. “Good call.”

Nina had heard a few of the early horror stories from Bobbie Faye as she tried to find a venue for their wedding. She personally knew local bookies who were taking bets as to how many people slammed the door in her friend’s face before Bobbie Faye had a full-on melt down. There was a betting board set up in Vegas and Homeland Security was discretely making calls. She knew of one three-star general who’d taken early retirement rather than be transferred to “Bobbie Faye” territory.

Bobbie Faye was Catholic, somewhat lapsed, but it mattered to her, so it hadn’t completely shocked Nina that Bobbie Faye would want a Catholic wedding. It had surprised her, when she had returned home from her latest assignment, to find out there was no venue booked and no wedding details planned—not because Bobbie Faye was anything short of a nightmare in the planning department, but because Trevor, at least, was an organizational wizard. If he hadn’t gotten her to settle on a place, things were bad.

Bobbie Faye dropped that empty magazine, slammed home another one with a vengeance, and shot off a kneecap.

“Boss?” a construction worker said, approaching them from the house—the one being renovated after the aforementioned badass terrorist had blown it up, “we gotta take off for the day.”

“It’s only noon,” Trevor said, still watching Bobbie Faye.

“I know… but,” he stammered as Bobbie Faye unloaded multiple rounds into the scarecrow. “Sir, she’s scaring the men. T-boy done dropped the big nail gun on his foot twice, an’ Mikey keeps flinching, an’ if you want your wiring to work, that ain’t so good, an’ Raoul keeps stopping to pray. An’ cry. We’re just wastin’ your money.” He’d said it all in a rush and Nina realized he’d had the sense enough to put her between Bobbie Faye and himself. “We can come back tomorrow.”

“Fine,” Trevor said, surprising Nina. It must really be bad if he wasn’t telling the man to pull up his big boy panties and get back to work. The foreman crossed himself and then sprinted back to the jobsite as Bobbie Faye loaded another magazine.

“How many churches turned her down?”

“All of them.” Trevor’s flat passionless tone didn’t fool Nina. He was just as ticked off as Bobbie Faye.

“Well, you don’t have to get married in this parish. Y’all could try—” She caught the banked disgust behind Trevor’s sunglasses. “Oh, you mean all of them. In the whole state?”

“Country.”

Nina blinked, waiting for the punch line. Trevor kept his gaze on Bobbie Faye. “Seriously?”

Bam bam bam bam bam bam bam — and there went the right eye. Behind them, construction workers fled, their trucks fishtailing in the driveway.

“Apparently,” Trevor added, deadpan, “she was ex-communicated last month.”

“Seriously? They still do that? The Pope?”

“It came down from a Cardinal here in the US.”

“Well that explains the weird protection detail request that came through a while back from a Cardinal who was crying and begging for help—” Trevor arched an eyebrow and she nodded. “Kept babbling about having made a grave mistake, but wouldn’t admit what it was.” Bobbie Faye reloaded. “But why? It’s not like she’s actually blown up a Catholic Church. Yet. And I’m pretty sure she hasn’t maimed and tortured any priests that I’m unaware of.”

Trevor cut his steely blue gaze her direction. “Are there some you are aware of?”

“You think I’m gonna break girlfriend code with her handling a loaded gun right there?”

Trevor barely twitched a grin at that, and he shook his head. “The ex-communication happened not long after I had mentioned to my family that we wanted a Catholic wedding. I had Izzy”—his computer-hacking whiz of a baby sister—“do a deep check of Cormi-co’s financials.”

Cold fury radiated off Trevor just at the mention of his family’s business and suddenly Nina knew. “Tell me she didn’t.” Trevor’s mom. A name banished in Trevor’s home and anywhere near Bobbie Faye. Banned by Trevor when his mom gleefully tried to trade her to the terrorist to buy back Trevor’s life.

“Moved thirty million into a charitable contribution fund, just after placing a phone call to the Pope. Said fund dispersing to the Vatican ten minutes later.”

“Wow.” Nina’s mind reeled. “Your mom really really does not want you two to get married. Does Bobbie Faye know?” Bam bam bam bam bam bam bam — and the scarecrow’s head fell off, the neck cut clean through with Bobbie Faye’s neat line of shooting. “Never mind. I’ll take that as a yes. You could always elope. She said from the beginning she didn’t want a big wedding.”

“She wants a wedding,” Trevor said after Bobbie Faye shot off the right arm of the scarecrow. “She’s not going to say it, or ask for it, but when she doesn’t think I’m looking, she pores over bridal magazines.”

“Bobbie Faye? Our Bobbie Faye?” The cowboy boot-wearing, tough-as-nails, take-no-prisoners, foul-mouthed whirlwind… looking at big fluffy wedding dresses?

“She’s getting a wedding,” Trevor said, low, quiet. Scary quiet. “She’s getting a wedding, with all the frills, in a Catholic church, in a beautiful dress, if I have to kill every goddamned person in this state to do it.”

Nina watched as the other arm of the scarecrow fell off. “How many of those you been through?”

“Seven.”

“If she makes me wear pink, I’m kicking your ass.”

… and the trouble begins…

Now, for YOU:  I mention my spin off poll above… but spin offs imply favorite series and characters that you already love. So tell me, are there any spin offs that you’ve enjoyed? If so, which ones? Would you like seeing the original characters show up in the background? What’s your favorite spin off character that you met as a minor or mini-major character in another character’s book? [And if you go vote in that poll, I'd love you forever. ]

Everyone who comments today will be entered to possibly win one of 10 $15 (email) gift certificates to an online bookstore of your choice (as long as I can buy it from online, and email it to you, it’s doable. This includes outside the US, as long as I can do it without wanting to throw my computer in the river.) Contest ends Saturday, noon, CST and winners will be announced either late Saturday or Sunday (check back on the website for the winners–you have one week to email me to claim your prize).

“My floor-length candy apple red sequined jersey gown is strapless, has a big bow in back, and fits me like a  second skin. It looks great with my sleek chin-grazing platinum blond wig.

If I find myself in trouble, my ring has a Roofie prick, and my heels truly are stilettos.

Not to mention that I’ve got a two-inch-long Swiss MiniGun tucked in my bustier. It fires bullets at a speed of 399 feet per second.

Don’t worry. The safety is on.”

That’s a quote from my story, The Housewife Assassin’s Bloody Valentine, which you’ll find in the awesome anthology that the authors on the blog are launching this week: Guns and Roses, a Murder She Writes Anthology.

In that particular scene, my heroine, Donna Stone, is crashing a swank Valentine’s soirée being thrown by a terrorist cell, the Quorum. I wanted her to carry a gun, but with a glove-tight gown, it had to be tiny.

When I saw the description for the Swiss MiniGun, I laughed out loud. I couldn’t imagine firing something so tiny, let alone loading it!  But hey, apparently it’s a proven killing machine, so who am I to scoff?

Besides, I’m sure it’s easier to carry than strapping even the smallest LadySmith to your inner thigh, then maneuvering a sexy walk in heels a la Emily in this week’s episode of REVENGE (See below).

AWKward.

You can catch more of Donna in the first book of the Housewife Assassin series, The Housewife Assassin’s Handbook. The second book, The Housewife Assassin’s Guide to Gracious Killing,  launches this Mother’s Day (May 12, 2012).

Just so you know: Donna owes her existence to one of the ladies on this blog: Karin Tabke. Had it not been for Karin laughing at Donna’s antics — both domestic and espionage — I would not have had the courage to put her out in the world–

And see her enjoy a bidding war among editors.

As fate would have it, those editors who were excited about acquiring her were shot down (figuratively, if not literally) by their editorial committees, who deemed Donna too dark a character. Housewives killing people? Unheard of!

(COUGH! — Desperate Housewives — COUGH!)

That’s okay. You can’t keep a good assassin down.

Especially one who makes a killer cherry pie.

I hope you enjoy this excerpt, below.

– Josie

 

 

CONTEST QUESTION!

Read the excerpt below, from The Housewife Assassin’s Bloody Valentine,  for a chance to win a $15 eGiftCard from Amazon.com.

All you have to do is send me an email with the correct answer to this question:

What name does Donna use in order to get inside the prison?

Email that answer to MailFromJosie@gmail.com. Be sure to put in the subject line” MSW Bloody Valentine Contest”.

____________________________

WINNER TO MY LAST POST’S CONTEST: What’s a great “Bond Girl” name?

Lynn V., from Texas

 

THE HOUSEWIFE ASSASSIN’S BLOODY VALENTINE

by Josie Brown

(Excerpted from GUNS AND ROSES (A Murder She Writes Anthology)

Valentine’s Day, 2:14 pm

Isla María Madre rises higher and steeper from the turquoise Pacific Ocean than her sister islands, María Magdalena and María Cleofas.

Am I the only one who finds irony in the fact that Mexico’s notorious prison was built on an archipelago named after the three saintly women who attended the Resurrection?

That’s okay. My mission is a resurrection, too, of sorts:

When I leave, I’m taking the prison’s biggest bad-ass with me.

That would be Hector Negrón de la Moraga, who runs the Diablo Blanco drug cartel out of Mexico’s Baja peninsula. This Forbes 100 billionaire’s cash flows in from the tons of methamphetamine he smuggles stateside. His drug mules are many of the American socialite junkies who hang at his Cabo San Lucas nightclubs and resorts.

But because the gangbangers known as Los Corazónes Rojos are jonesing to take over his territory and have put a price on his head, the first six months of his prison sentence have been spent in solitary confinement.

No wonder he felt it was time to cut a deal with the United States. Spill his guts, as it were.

Before they are spilled for him, all over the prison yard.

He got the Feds’ attention by explaining that he launders his dirty drug money through a blind corporation: a real estate company which builds Mexico’s many gated communities and private stucco palaces. Not only does he know where his rivals live, he’s also got the floor plans of all their estates.

Including the security codes.

Even more important is the fact that he built the villa used as the south-of-the-border headquarters for the most heavily funded terrorist organization in the world:

The Quorum.

The United States, Great Britain, France, Germany and Japan want to put the Quorum out of business, once and for all. But some crooked Mexican politicos have halted Hector’s extradition.

Their allegiance is with Los Corazónes Rojos, which has a hit out on him.

That’s where I come in.

My employer–Acme Industries, a black ops agency, which buries all skeletons that the CIA deems worthy of ghost protocol—has been hired to pull off his prison break. In return for pointing out the Quorum’s safe house and providing us with its floor plan and security system data, the Feds will let him live stateside, where he’ll be put in the DOJ’s Witness Protection program.

Hector’s financial portfolio may be humongous, but his physique is petite, which is why his nickname is El Chihuahua. Here’s hoping he lives down to it, since smuggling him off the island won’t be easy under any circumstances.

Now that the prison is within sight, the tug’s low, sad bellow puts all hands on deck. The Mexican flag flaps loudly on the stern pole. I presume no masts are half-raised inside the prison, either.

Certainly not El Chihuahua’s, now that his paid-by-the-hour puta is here.

That would be me.

The other women standing with me on the tugboat’s deck—all wives, girlfriends and whores on their way to their monthly conjugal visits with the murderers, thieves, and drug dealers who live within the prison’s walls—adjust their lips upward into smiles, while tugging the necklines of their too-snug blouses even lower.

In lockup, orifices may be readily available, but bountiful cleavage is not.

My breasts are already propelled high, front and center. My skirt is short and tight, whereas my high heels are long, pointy and packed for a punch: one is tipped with a knockout drug, the other with a serrated blade.

So yeah, I guess I’m ready, too.

There are at least forty guards on the grounds, and another six in the turrets of the towers topping this castle-like compound. Their whistles and catcalls can be heard loud and clear as we women maneuver our way up the chipped stone steps leading to the prison’s two-story solid steel gates.

Being manhandled (ostensibly for hidden weapons or breakout tools) has many of the ladies wincing. But those who, like me, are looking for an extra half-hour with their menfolk smile and purr a few promises they hope will be forgotten when it’s time to leave this hellhole.

The metal detector beeps when I saunter through. The guard on duty smells as if he’s taken a hit off every bottle of tequila that’s been smuggled in today. He presumes it is the thick-ribbed bracelet on my arm that set it off. All the same, he fondles my breasts between his rough palms, as if they’re a pair of ripe melons.

Tit for tit, I pinch his breast harder than he tweaked mine.

“Usted me está haciendo caer en amor con usted,” he says, with a smirk.

Why am I not surprised that he actually likes a little rough play?

“What a douche,” my team leader, Jack Craig, mutters into my tiny diamond stud earpiece. He witnesses that bit of womanhandling through my contact lenses, which are really digital mini-cams. Obviously, he doesn’t like what he sees.

No boyfriend would, right?

“Seriously, Donna, you have my permission to kill him, now, if you want.” By his tone, I know Jack means it.

“Mas tarde, mi amor,” I murmur. Then I lick my lips, knowing that the guard will hear my soft taunt as a come-on.

 Later my love…

First things first.

My act is working. The guard is too distracted to notice all the toys, which will get my ass, and my asset, off this godforsaken island. In my clutch bag are my ID (a Mexican driver’s license that identifies me as “Lucinda Gutiérrez”, a nondescript lipstick, a seemingly innocent compact, a change purse that holds a few coins, and a rosary with a small metal cross.

Here’s the plan: Once we’re alone in one of the prison’s flimsy straw love shacks, I’ll clue Hector in on the fact that nookie is out, but a run for the gate is in. Unfortunately, that should keep the smirk on his face. Then I’ll slap one of my tiny, but strong, neo-magnetic earrings onto the shack’s center pole before shooting the other earring—attached to the zip line hidden in my rosary—out the shack’s window with my lipstick case, which is really a miniature missile launcher. The missile’s GPS system will lead it to a three-person submarine anchored about thirty feet below high tide and about two hundred feet offshore where Jack is waiting for us. Once the zip line’s magnet has locked onto the exterior antechamber of the sub, we’ll roll off this hot hunk of rock using my GPS-driven ribbed bracelet as a pulley.

Since subs are the new vehicle of choice for running drugs between Mexico and the U.S., El Chihuahua should feel right at home.

Besides, prison has given him time to get used to tight quarters.

Between the sub’s cloaking system and a submersion depth of sixty feet, we will be able to maneuver past any Mexican patrol boats. At a cruising speed of eighty nautical miles per hour, we should surface at the dock of our safe house in the posh tourist enclave Cabo San Lucas in three hours, tops. There, we’ll debrief El Chihuahua as to the whereabouts of the Quorum’s villa and get the necessary entry data.

After turning Hector over to his Witness Protection detail, Jack and I will break into the villa, download all files on the master computer’s hard drive onto a flash drive and then plant a worm that will allow us to monitor all data going in and out of it.

So that, finally, Acme will learn who is funding the Quorum and break it up, once and for all.

Five years ago, the Quorum took my husband, Carl, away from me and our children.

 Time to get even.

And not a minute too soon. It’s Valentine’s Day. My aunt Phyllis is watching my three children—ten-year-old Jeff, his twelve-year-old sister, Mary; and kindergartner Trisha–so that

Jack and I can have a romantic getaway.

Jack isn’t their dad, but he’s the only father they know.

If I have my way, it will stay that way.

Happily. And ever after.

We’ve dodged a hell of a lot of bullets together. Both literally and figuratively.

I lost Carl to the Quorum. I won’t lose Jack, too.

In fact, something tells me that Jack is proposing tonight.

If he does, I have no idea how I’ll answer him. My hesitation has nothing to do with what I know about Carl’s fate, and the role the Quorum played in it.

Maybe I’m afraid of tempting fate twice.

Granted, our version of hearts and flowers is a bit skewed from the norm. More like guns and roses.

My slow stroll through the prison courtyard is serenaded by the jeers and come-ons of the prisoners who, for this month anyway, are unlucky in love. “Siéntate en mi cara, perra…” and “Quiero que me chupe…” are the two most common ones shouted so often, and by so many that, to my ear, they sound like a mantra.

I ignore them, and I certainly won’t translate them now for you.

I’m too much of a lady for that.

Hector’s lawyer has arranged for his client to be assigned the last love shack on the left. I’m sure Hector is in there now, waiting for me. It’s perfectly situated for this mission because it is the closest one to the island’s north shore, where the submarine is anchored.

I’ve almost reached the shack when a guard prods my backside with his semi-automatic rifle. “No no no, puta! Para ahi! El Chihuahua se encuentra en la torre, allí.”

Ah, hell. Turns out that our little tryst has been moved to another location.

He’s pointing to the rickety stairwell that leads to the top of the tower, which, unlike the shack, is made of solid rock. It’s too narrow to hold more than one room at the very top, which has only one high, tiny window barred with wrought iron.

As if that matters. If we’re in there, the zip line will never reach its final destination: the sub.

“Plan B?” I whisper, just loud enough for Jack to hear me. The wooden staircases are steep, and rickety.

“Dollface, there is no Plan B. Frankly if it was up to me, you’d take a shiv to the slime bucket and waltz out of there. But orders are orders.” I hear Jack clicking away on his netbook as he tries to figure another way out for all of us.

Including the odious Hector.

There is just one outdoor landing before the ground floor: on the fourth flight of stairs. I try to keep my head up so that Jack’s reconnaissance is easier, but it’s difficult because my heels are getting caught on every other step. To hell with that. As I bend down to slip out of them, the guard bringing up my rear murmurs, “Culo lindo, pero sus piernas son tan flácidas.”

Should I be flattered he says my ass is cute—or pissed because he thinks my thighs are flabby?

“Hey, what did I tell you? Just twenty minutes on an elliptical would do wonders for you,” Jack says. “No more of that tiny jiggle of cottage cheese on your upper thighs—”

In any language, the extension of my middle finger tells both of them what I think of their opinions.

© 2012 Josie Brown. All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Author.