A Tough Act to Swallow now out

Hey, my very patient fans. Sorry about the hiatus - rough summer that turned into a rough autumn, no need to go into details. On the up side, I finished a new story late last night, and my editor vetted it this morning, so without further ado, my latest title:

It's the same one referenced in my last blog post. Here's the promotional excerpt:

The sound of snapping fingers jolted me to awareness. I felt dazed, like I’d woken from a nap… one where I’d been dreaming about something very good. My eyes and mouth were bone dry, and it felt like every drop of moisture I’d lost there had ended up right between my legs. My stiff nipples rubbed against my blouse, every breath making it feel like someone was rubbing them. My cheeks burned as I rose to consciousness.

Then I opened my eyes, and saw that I was on stage, and my blush deepened furiously. An audience of dozens of people were watching me. I struggled to remember what had happened. The last thing I’d known, I had gone out with my friends Jenny and Carol to see a hypnosis act for our girl’s night out. It had been Jenny’s birthday wish, of course.

Jenny had been eccentric for as long as I’d known her. Every birthday was an exercise in crazy. When she was seven, she’d made her favorite Barbie into a punk rocker with food coloring. Last year, it had been horse riding lessons, and the year before that, a trip to Ecuador for reasons that still eluded me. This year, she just happened to want a stranger inside her head, and I’d come along on a lark.

I just didn’t understand how I’d ended up on stage too. The last thing I remembered was sitting down to watch the show. Right now, the stage hypnotist had his back to us, facing the crowd, and I realized I didn’t even remember what he looked like.

For a brief moment, I considered making my escape: there was a fire exit beyond the stage, and my purse was on the ground beside me. All I had to do was get up and make a dash for it. The only trouble was that my whole body felt leaden. Exhausted. I couldn’t budge a whole finger, much less stand and move.

The hypnotist asked the audience, “Now that we have our volunteers, you’d like to hear from them, wouldn’t you?”

The audience cheered, but I hardly heard them. It felt as though they were very far away. All that mattered was his voice: it was magic, sending little thrills up and down my spine. The notion of fleeing evaporated like the morning dew, and I stared at him with renewed appreciation.

Thanks for waiting for me. I'm already at work on the next one. I've missed being here very much.

It's already available on Smashwords. Per the usual, I'll offer more links to purchase as soon as it clears my various vendors. :)

xoxo
- Jessie