CHAPTER ONE

"A wild, poetic exhalation that sparkles and hoots and flies"

- The New Yorker

IT WAS LATE when he came to the house. He came with an east wind that threatened the city with bone-cracking frosts and constant rumours of snow. All day the wind had battered the windows, lifted curtains, squirted through keyholes and made the carpets levitate. At dusk the storm seemed to hesitate, inflated the shadows it found in the street and wrapped its fury in darkness.

My mother had fallen asleep in front of the television in the back parlour where she’d settled herself for the world wrestling tag-team championships. Father was locked in the cellar. I was at work in the kitchen, sitting at the table, molesting a pair of Janet’s shoes. I don’t remember how I first persuaded Janet to let me loose in her wardrobe, but once the custom had been established it became a weekly ritual to carry her hoard of shoes to the kitchen for an ardent evening of wax and polish.

The collection assembled for my admiration on that particular occasion contained: one pair simple black court shoes; one pair jaunty red lace-ups with rolling tongues; one pair white sling-back sandals with spiky, scuffed high heels; one pair charcoal grey stilettos; and one pair dainty suede ankle boots that, with a measure of gentle persuasion, would accept my hand as far as the wrist. This little harem of shoes could make me feel absurdly elated. I felt aroused in the knowledge of their possession, debauched by my fumbling and fondling.

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1

MR ROMANCE

 Every family is a secret society, with its own language and beliefs. Skipper shares his parent’s boarding house and falls in love with one of the lodgers, the astonishing Dorothy Clark. Skipper plans her seduction. But Dorothy intends to push him into the arms of Jesus. It’s a love story that becomes a battle for mind and body. An erotic fable of obligation, loneliness and obsession.