A Divorce For Christmas is a short Christmas story (approx 10,000). It is available at Smashwords for $0.99 and will be on Amazon and Barnes and Noble soon.
All Lori Harper can think of is having a baby. But it isn’t proving to be easy so she has ramped up her efforts. With How-To-Books in hand she has become a woman with a mission. With ‘things’ down to the clinical, Brad is feeling anything but amorous. In fact he has had enough of the command performances.
Unable to live this way any longer Brad asks for a divorce. Lori is so caught up in her body and getting pregnant that she is blindsided. To make matters worse things come to a head right after a very unsatisfactory frustrating act that Brad has barely been able to complete.
Lori is at first in denial but when Brad rents an apartment she asks for time. Christmas in less than a month away and their families are intertwined to an extent that it will affect everyone’s holiday. Besides she is still convinced Brad will change his mind.
Excerpt
Brad ground his teeth to keep the oath he wanted to shout from escaping. He rolled away from Lori and lifted his arms over his head. Moonlight filtered in from the window and danced across the bed. His breathing slowed and the room fell silent with nothing but the click of the electric clock disturbing it. This had to stop. He couldn’t do it anymore. He was through! Quitting! No more command performances. With new resolve he swung his feet out of bed and pulled on his briefs and pants.
“What are you doing?” Lori sounded concerned but not enough to risk moving. Nothing short of a fire would get her out of bed. No, the latest in a long list of how-to-get-pregnant books said not to move for at least a half an hour after intercourse. Knowing Lori she’d probably still be lying in the same position in the morning.
Brad headed for the door, but with second thoughts strode around the bed and nudged Lori’s leg for a spot to sit.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t? For cripes sake Lori, moving your leg isn’t going to make a damn bit of difference. I doubt that fiasco we just performed impregnated you and . . .” His voice trailed off. He took a breath and continued. “And, I sincerely hope it didn’t because . . .” Again he couldn’t finish what he was trying to say. He took another deep breath and tried to ease the pain around his heart. “I don’t think I want children anymore.”
Lori gasped at his words. A tear trickled out of the corners of her eyes and he felt like a heel. A sob escaped with her words. “I don’t understand. You’ve always wanted a family. You said you wanted two, maybe three. We planned it all out and have been trying for over a year.” Another sob escaped.
Brad handed Lori a tissue. He was hurting and now she was, too. He’d tried, heaven only knew how much, but with all her concentration on a baby she didn’t hear him when he asked her to give all the time schedules a rest and just enjoy each other and let nature have a chance. She wouldn’t even consider counseling when he asked her to go with him. Still he’d never meant to say the things he had or at least he hadn’t meant to say them in anger and frustration. Watching Lori wipe her eyes, he got a glimpse of what he’d become. The deterioration of their marriage was changing them both and he didn’t like who he was anymore. How had he let it go on for so long? With a sigh he got off the bed. “I’m sorry. You are going to hate me but I can’t do this anymore. I know I should wait until morning to say anything more, but since we’ve gotten this far . . .” He looked away. This was hard, but it wasn’t going to get any easier. With a sigh he said, “I want a divorce.”
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Indie Author Fringe is an online workshop put on by the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLI). They are putting on the next event this coming Saturday, June 3. It starts at 10:00am Eastern time. But the good thing about Fringe is that you can view the workshop sessions anytime. And you can pick which ones you want to do. I usually try to do one session a day sometimes skipping a day.
