PUBLISHER'S NOTE This ebook is best read at the smallest font setting on your device.

Flirtin' with the Monster

Life was good before I met the monster.

After, life was great.

At least for a little while.

Introduction.

So you want to know all about me. Who I am.

What chance meeting of brush and canvas painted the face you see? What made me despise the girl in the mirror enough to transform her, turn her into a stranger, only not.

So you want to hear the whole story. Why I swerved off the high road, hard left to nowhere, recklessly indifferent to those coughing my dust, picked up speed no limits, no top end, just a high velocity rush to madness.

Alone

everything changes.

Some might call it distorted reality, but it's exactly the place I need to be: no mom, Marie, ever more distant, in her midlife quest for fame no stepfather, Scott, stern and heavy-handed with unattainable expectations no big sister, Leigh, caught up in a tempest of uncertain s.e.xuality no little brother, Jake, spoiled and shameless in his thievery of my niche.

Alone, there is only the person inside.

I've grown to like her better than the stuck-up husk of me. She's not quite silent, shouts obscenities just because they roll so well off the tongue not quite straight-A, but talented in oh-so-many enviable ways not quite sanitary, farts with gusto, picks her nose, spits like a guy not quite sane, sometimes, to tell you the truth, even / wonder about her.

Alone, there is no perfect daughter, no gifted high-school junior, no Kristina Georgia Snow.

There is only Bree.

On Bree

I suppose she's always been there, vague as a soft copper pulse of moonlight through blossoming seacoast fog.

I wonder when I first noticed her, slipping in and out of my pores, hide-and-seek spider in fieldstone, red-bellied phantom.

I summon Bree when dreams no longer satisfy, when gentle clouds of monotony smother thunder, when Kristina cries.

I remember the night I first let her go, opened the smeared gla.s.s, one thin pane, cellophane between rules and sin, freed.

More on Bree

Spare me those Psych '01 labels, I'm no more schizo than most.

Bree is no imaginary playmate, no overactive pituitary, no alter ego, moving in.

Hers is the face I wear, treading the riptide, fathomless oceans where good girls drown.

Besides, even good girls have secrets, ones even their best friends must guess.

Who do they turn to on lonely moon-shadowed sidewalks?

I'd love to hear them confess: Who do they become when night descends, a cool puff of smoke, and vampires come out to party?

My Mom Will Tell You

it started with a court-ordered visit.

The judge had a G.o.d complex.

I guess for once she's right.

Was it just last summer?

He started an avalanche.

My mom enjoys discussing her daughter's downhill slide.

It swallowed her whole.

I still wore pleated skirts, lipgloss.

Crooked bangs defined my style.

Could I have saved her?

My mom often outlines her first marriage, its bitter amen. Interested?

I was too young, clueless.

I hadn't seen Dad in eight years.

No calls. No cards. No presents.

He was a self-serving b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

My mom, warrior G.o.ddess, threw down the gauntlet when he phoned.

He played the prodigal trump card.

I begged. Pouted. Plotted. Cajoled.

I was six again, adoring Daddy.

What the h.e.l.l gave him that right?

My mom gave a detailed run-down of his varied bad habits.

Contrite was not his style.

I promised. Swore. Crossed my heart.

Recited the D.A.R.E. pledge verbatim.

How could she love him so much?

My mom relented, kissed me good-bye, sad her perfume.

Things would never be the same.

I think it was the last time she kissed me.

But I was on my way to Daddy.

Aboard United 1425

The flight attendant escorted me to a seat beside a moth-munched toupee.

Yellowed dentures clacked cheerfully, suggested I make myself comfy.

Three hours is a mighty long time.

Three hours is a long time, astraddle a 747's wing, banshee engines screaming, earachy babies fussing, elderly seatmate complaining.

Can't stand flying.

Makes me nauseous.

I get nauseous when vid screens play movies I've seen three times, seat belt signs deny pee breaks and first cla.s.s smells like real food.

Pretzels?

For this ticket price?

For the price, I'd expect Albert to tone down the gripe machine. I closed my eyes, tried to shut him out, but second run movies can't equal conversation.

My wife died last year.

Been alone since.

I've been alone since my mom met Scott.