Page 8 of Mark my Words

“It’s a little...” His cheeks turned a rosy shade of pink, and he bit his lip before he glanced in my direction. Interesting...

“Oh, my God, give it here. I’m sure I can handle reading a sex scene without turning into a bumbling, blushing mess.”

Sam sputtered as I pulled the tablet from his hands. “I’m not...uh...” He cleared his throat before he shifted in his seat.

“Grow a pair, Sam. Just because Evans kept it PG all these years doesn’t mean Chase has done the same. I can handle a little bit of racy dialogue.”

He pushed the tablet toward me, and I started reading the highlighted passage. The scene involved a detective and a prostitute getting into an argument that ended up with them angrily fucking against her couch. It was in the original manuscript pages that Chase was sent when Adrian asked for her help. I’d read it before, but the dialogue flowed better this time. It was more provocative, and you could tell that the characters had real explosive chemistry.

The vague descriptions of awkwardly moving body parts and semi-clothed interactions had been morphed into a choreographed dance of passion. I had to admit that I was pleased with how well Chase’s style had meshed with Evan’s.

“Well...” I sighed as I licked my lips and ran my finger along the edge of my collar. I usually was desensitized to this kind of thing, but it had painted a vivid picture of the torrid act with the edits.

“There were a few comma splice errors that I marked, but otherwise...” he trailed off.

“Yeah, I saw those.” I nodded, swallowing as my mouth dried out a little. I cleared my throat, my voice huskier than it usually sounded. “Nice catches.”

“Was there anything else that needed to be addressed, or should I leave it?” He still wasn’t looking at me; his cheeks tinted a soft shade of pink.

“Well, maybe suggest eliminating the repetitive words a little. He says...” I pointed to a paragraph toward the middle where the word cock was used at least three consecutive times.

“Please don’t tell me you’re going to suggest ‘pulsating member’ or something cliché,” he laughed as he scooted closer and tried to glance at the paragraph I had highlighted.

“No.” I rolled my eyes again; if I spent much more time with Sam, they might get stuck there permanently. He looked relieved, and I laughed as I typed up a few alternative sentences that could be swapped out. “Let’s restructure the paragraph to avoid mentioning it so much.”

“Cock,” Sam smirked.

I frowned at his random use of the word, wondering if he secretly had Tourette’s. “What?”

“You want him to take out the word cock.”

“Well, yes.” Another eye roll. Had he not been involved in this conversation?

“And replace it with what?” he asked, his bright white teeth chewing at his lower lip a little as he stared at me.

“Not replace, just reword. Allude to it.” If the whole page were full of cocks, readers would tune out at the repetitive phrasing.

“This isn’t some flowery love scene,” Sam said in a low voice, his fingers nervously tapping on the table’s edge.

I cleared my throat and sat back in my chair, turning to face him. He didn’t seem to be messing with me, but I didn’t understand why he’d want to repeat the word so much. It lessened the impact if every fifth word was cock. “Yeah, thanks, Mr. Obvious. I’m aware.”

“You realize that many of his readers are male, right?” He asked curiously. I knew that a large part of the market segment was male, but it wasn’t an exclusive hold on the subject.

“Women read mystery novels,” I pointed out in a bored tone. I was tired of the MAST writers and editors pigeonholing their female readers. They needed to embrace that thousands of women loved a good suspenseful plot.

“I wasn’t saying that; I was only pointing out that this is a scene being written for a sixty percent male audience.”

“And?” I wished he’d get to the point and say what he wanted instead of dancing around it.

“Women may like the flowery allusion of a penis, but men want to read things written a certain way,” he said with a shrug.

“So, the word cock needs to be on the page...” I looked over and counted the times it appeared on the page. “Eight times.”

“I know he used it often, but I fail to see an alternative.”

He wanted some other options that men would respond to, fine. “Dick.”

“Hey, you don’t need to call me names.” He smirked as he bumped my shoulder.

---