An All-Out Food Festival

The new Oysters & Chocolate anthology, Nice Girls, Naughty Sex, is now available!

NGNS is edited by those fabulous O&C honchos, Jordan LaRousse and Samantha Sade, and it contains my story "Eastern Daylight Time." (For complete lineup, go here.)

And, like my protagonist, you get a sample:

Today’s street fair, an all-out food festival, seemed like paradise, and Nancy wasn’t even hungry. She was simply happy to be here. She had donned the little peach dress that she’d picked up on clearance last October, and the white sun hat she’d had forever. Summer rippled through her blood vessels, and the vitality of the city pulsed up from the asphalt, straight through the soles of her sandals, to power her liberated strides.

She stopped just before an intersection. From her vantage point, the fair was infinite: The parade of delicacies continued in all directions, with the usual traffic diverted into another world. She hesitated while considering which way to proceed.

“Hey, Peach.”

She turned her head. The woman at the last booth on the block had beautiful gray eyes, and they were locked on Nancy’s.

“Want to try some vegan yummies?”

Why did the way she said that innocent word, yummies, make Nancy feel as if the woman were grabbing her ripe summer ass?

“Yes,” said Nancy, approaching the booth and forgetting that she wasn’t hungry. “I think I’d like that.”

She began to fish in her purse while the woman plucked some sort of dumpling from a curry-bright bath, depositing it on a plate with her tongs.

And then there was a hand on Nancy’s wrist, warm through the flimsy food-service glove. “Nothin’ doin’,” said the woman. “I’m giving you a sample.”

“Really? I mean . . . thank you.” Flustered but pleased, Nancy snapped her purse shut. She was turned on by the sensation of her flesh being handled, sanitarily, like a piece of food. It didn’t even occur to her to walk on, plate in hand, as she’d done with countless other tidbits at countless other street fairs. She felt she owed it to the gray-eyed woman to show her how much she appreciated complimentary morsels of inventive, skillfully prepared delectables.

The sauce was piquant and heady, like a complex perfume; and the filling tasted sharp, earthy, and savory—like an aroused woman, Nancy couldn’t help thinking. “Mm. What am I eating?”

The woman laughed. “I like your spirit, Peach: bite first, ask questions later.” The woman hesitated, and then her lower lip trembled almost imperceptibly as she extended her hand and added, “I’m Tina.” As they shook, Nancy saw hope in Tina’s eyes—for an instant her affect was ingenuous and vulnerable, rather than seasoned and breezy.