The Harlow Hoyden (40 page)

She extricated herself from Trent’s grasp, walked over to the doors and turned the latch. “There,” she said, a mischievous smile on her lips, “now we shan’t be disturbed.”

Trent felt the blood pounding in his ears—and elsewhere. “Sarah said I shouldn’t stay long,” he protested, trying to do the right thing. Under normal circumstances they would have never been left alone in a deserted
drawing room in the early hours of the morning.

Emma took off her nightdress and threw it on the floor. She stood before him, her golden skin glowing in the firelight. “Then we won’t take long.”

Trent groaned. “But propriety, my love.”

Emma laughed. “I’m the Harlow Hoyden, Alex. The last thing anyone expects from me is propriety.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lynn Messina
is the author of nine novels, including the best-selling
Fashionistas,
which has been translated into 16 languages. Her essays have appeared in
Self, American Baby
and the
Modern Love
column in the
New York Times,
and she’s a regular contributor to the
Times
Motherlode blog. She lives in New York City with her husband and sons.

The Girls’ Guide to Dating Zombies promo

Not all the good ones are married or gay…

“Lynn Messina’s writing style and story-telling prowess are
 
incredibly enjoyable and entertaining.
”
—
Book Fetish

“Light, funny and often cringe-worthy
—but in a good way—
The Girls’ Guide to Dating Zombies
 
makes you really appreciate men and offers ways to view them in an entirely new—and quite flattering—light.”
—
New York Journal of Books

“The writing is snappy and well timed, original and
often
 
laugh-out-loud funny.
 
It’s like drinking a glass of champagne while getting your feet nibbled on by a school of piranhas.”
—
Sticking to the Story

“Seriously,
 
go out and read this book,
 
you won't regret it.”
—
I Just Wanna Sit Here and Read!

“Lynn Messina has topped the charts in my book with a
 
laugh-out-loud hilarious
 
‘guide’ for women who want to date…zombies?”
—
Reviews by Molly

“[
The
Girls’ Guide
] made me think, it
 
made me laugh out loud,
 
it had some great action…and of course, it provided some yummy romance.”
—
Words in Sync

“This is a well written book, and
 
zombie lovers will inhale it.
”
—
The Write Path

Excerpt

And now a special excerpt from

Lynn Messina’s hilarious novel

The Girls’ Guide to Dating Zombies

Available now!

1

The Sweet Treat Sofa

The High-Fiber Breakfast Hour
’s Sweet Treat segment kicks off every morning with a flashing red light, a piercing police siren and a dancing pink panda carrying a sign that says,
I LOVE HIGH-FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP FLUFF FROM FUNFOODS
, across the set. The crowd hoots and hollers because everyone loves a pink panda hopped up on sugar.

The director points to the host,
who smiles into the camera as it cuts to her from the audience. “Good morning and welcome back to
The High-Fiber Breakfast Hour.
Joining me on the luscious pink sofa today is an extra sweet treat for you: Hattie Cross, author of
The Girls’ Guide to Dating Zombies.
” Delia Fortune, a former Miss America with a towering strawberry bouffant and sparkling superwhite teeth, turns to me with a searching
look. “Hattie, we have lots of ground to cover, but I’m going to get right to the nitty-gritty and say, Zombie sex. Ewww.”

I laugh. It’s completely forced and fake, but I’m on a national morning show with a pink panda and a strawberry bouffant. If I can’t roll with a few
ewwws,
then I should have stayed in bed. “Fair enough. The thought makes a lot of women go ewww.” I look to the audience.
“Am I right?”

The response is mixed. Some women clap, but an almost equal number boo. I’m not surprised. Zombie sex has been around for almost as long as variant Y zombies.

“I can tell from the response that some of the ladies here have tried it.” Another round of cheers follows. “I’ll admit that sex with a zombie isn’t the ideal situation. The ideal situation is sex with a human male.
Who here has had sex with a human male?”

Dead silence.

“None of us, right? Because human males haven’t existed for the average woman in twenty years. So if you keep that in mind, zombie sex isn’t bad at all. It can certainly be more satisfying than masturbation.” I turn to my host with a twinkle in my eye. “I’m sorry. Can I say
masturbation
on morning TV?”

Delia twinkles back.
“Of course. It’s 2020. You can say anything. But let’s get really real: Zombies smell. They lose body parts. Their flesh is decaying.”

I nod profusely. “All valid points. However, with the right drug regimen, these conditions can be controlled. For example, Zombreeze neutralizes zombie smell from the inside. It can even make your boyzomb smell like roses. I devote an entire chapter to zombaceuticals
in my book.”

“I’m glad you brought up drugs. Isn’t it true that you have to medicate zombies for them to have sex? Doesn’t that underscore how unnatural the act is?”

“All living and reliving things have a sex drive,” I explain. “It’s the basic nature of the beast. Sure, you have to use certain chemical stimulants in order for the zombie to perform physically, but the drive is there.
Think of the late-twentieth-century male suffering from erectile dysfunction. It’s the same principal.”

The audience cheers again. “All right. But kissing. You have to admit that’s pretty gross.”

“Oh, completely,” I say with girlish glee. The effort of being so aggressively upbeat is starting to make me lightheaded, but I stay the course. “Kissing a zombie isn’t for everyone. It’s certainly
not for me. But that’s a decision each woman should be free to make. Again, I refer you to late-twentieth-century practices that some women chose to perform and others didn’t. I think of kissing as the equivalent to what used to be described as swallowing.” I nod to the audience. “You know what I’m talking about, right?”

The cheers turn into howls and last a full thirty seconds.

Delia
quiets the audience with a wave. “All right. We’ve talked about the worst part of dating a zombie. Now let’s talk about the best. What tops the list?”

“Never having to sit by the phone waiting for him to call. No mind games. No wondering if he likes you or doesn’t like you. No obsessing,” I say, referring to the common neurotic female practice that was at the heart of dating human males
two decades ago.

“I can get behind that,” Delia says.

“So I’m starting to win you over?”

She tips her head slyly but doesn’t concede anything. “How many women would you say in the United Provisional Authority are dating zombies? Just how big a phenomenon is this?”

“According to a survey conducted by Geiser and Meyser Zombaceuticals, thirty-eight percent of heterosexual women
worldwide are currently in zombie relationships,” I say. “And that number is growing daily. More and more women are realizing they have no other options and are opening themselves up to new experiences. I think in the future one hundred percent of hetero women will be dating zombies.”

“What do you say to those critics who claim dating zombies is an abomination?”

I shrug. “To each her
own. But I don’t tell them how to live, so I’d appreciate it if they don’t tell me how to.”

“Zombie marriage?”

“Unnecessary. But not because the reliving don’t deserve full civil rights. It’s merely that marriage was a defunct institution long before the H1Z1 variant Y zombie virus wiped out almost all men on earth. We don’t need it.”

Delia nods thoughtfully. “As you yourself mentioned,
you believe zombies should be kept on a strict drug regimen. Many in society believe that in medicating zombies we are in fact turning them into, well, zombies. What do you say to that?”

As the topic turns serious, I let go of the exaggerated enthusiasm and feel a bit more like myself. But I’m still lightheaded. The set is hot and stuffy; the lights are beating down with more force than a
dozen suns. “There is indeed a strong movement afoot to stop medicating zombies. The organization Zombie Love Now, for example, likes to argue that zombies shouldn’t have to conform to mainstream expectations through artificial means. They believe zombies are perfect the way they are. Naturally, I respect their opinion and their right to hold it, but of course I disagree. Without medication, zombies
would be a chaotic force on society the way, say, a schizophrenic would be. Medication controls their hunger impulse, so that they feed only three times a day rather than all the time. Medication helps with limb retention, so arms and legs don’t fall off. According to reports, Geiser and Meyser has a drug in the pipeline that will actually regenerate neurological growth, making zombies capable
of rudimentary thought.”

“Thinking zombies?” Delia asks. “That sounds like science fiction.”

“I know. It just goes to prove that with the right drug regimen, there’s no reason why a zombie can’t be the perfect life partner,” I continue. “Lots of human females take medication for a variety of conditions. I think we owe it to zombies to give them the same consideration we give our mothers,
daughters and even ourselves. Anything less is treating them like a special category, which, I believe, is exactly what groups like Zombie Love Now are opposed to.”

This argument earns additional cheers from the audience. I smile appreciatively. Prepping for
The High-Fiber Breakfast Hour
has been completely draining. For three days I worded, reworded and honed my answers to the obvious questions,
ignoring my work, no doubt to the annoyance of my colleagues. A little controversy can only help book sales, but I don’t want to inflame Zombie Love Now. I’d rather not have a national organization coming at me with both barrels loaded.

“Tell us about you,” Delia says. “How did Hattie Cross become a zombie-dating expert?”

“By going on a lot of bad dates.”

The audience laughs.

“But I also have a bachelor’s degree in zombie psychology and a master’s in men studies,” I say. “My dissertation was on the male response to the plague and how that affected the rate of its spread. Having a keen and clear understanding of men and their behaviors is integral to the experience of dating a zombie, so I try to impart those insights to my readers.”

“And you write the Girls’
Guide to Dating Zombies column in
The
Daily Scoopage,
” she says.

“Yes, once a week I relate my dating ups and downs for public consumption as well as answer reader questions and give tips. It was while working on this column that I realized there was a huge demand for accurate information in regards to zombie dating. Like me, most women didn’t have a clue.”

Delia raises an eyebrow
in surprise. “
You
didn’t have a clue?”

My face heats up as I answer the question honestly. “Not a one. My mom had never dated a zombie, nor had any of my girlfriends. I had to figure it out on my own through trial and error. Eight years ago, I would have given my right arm to have something as informative and practical as the
Girls’ Guide.
Realizing that is what made me decide to write the
column in the first place,” I explain.

The real story, of course, is a little more complicated. When the executive editor of
The Daily Scoopage
suggested the column, I was horrified. The last thing I wanted to do was spoon-feed advice to dim-witted, sad-sack singletons who couldn’t be bothered to pick up a real newspaper.

Oh, no. I was too good for that. As an intern at the high-minded
weekly
The Xombie Review,
I had a healthy contempt for the down-market
Scoopage
and its partially illiterate readership. Every issue was the same relentless mix of gossip, rumor and insidious insinuation that the world isn’t quite the straight-laced place we think it is. Conspiracies on the origins of the plague abounded, with a new theory presented every week or so.