Hello, and welcome to The Meaning Of…the very first blog post. I’ve asked a few writers and musicians to answer the question of “what’s it mean” about either a favorite scene or song, and I figured I’d better go first, since, well…it’s my blog!

See…writers, whether it’s a novel or a song or a poem…well, I’m going to guess that most of us use things in our work that have meaning. I don’t necessarily mean symbolism — you’ll never quite convince me that the color of the wallpaper in someone’s short story is a symbol of the character’s emotional issues with his father — but I do believe the author might’ve chosen a certain color of wallpaper because it’s what he had in his childhood bedroom (hey, and therefore, might actually represent his OWN issues with his father…)

Bottom line, writing is an intensely personal business, and it would be silly to think that the choices we make in colors, names, situations, etc. don’t have some meaning to us, the authors. I know I add personal bits and pieces, trivia, really, to my work as I write it. Pretty much whatever I’m eating, watching, reading or listening to is likely to end up in whatever book I’m working on.

So, here it is: The Meaning of Dirty…

Dirty — The title. I had an idea that I wanted to write a book about a woman who meets a man who just takes her on this sort of wild, sexual journey and they do all this stuff, and it was all really DIRTY, and I wanted to write a book called DIRTY that pretty much summed it all up. Of course, as I started writing it, I realized that’s not what was going to happen, and it wasn’t really going to be that book…and that it wasn’t about being “dirty” at all.

This is what happened. – The first line. Also happens to be the first line of Stephen King’s The Mist, and I remember reading once why he chose to start HIS book that way, that it was the same or similar to someone else’s first line. I tried a lot of other opening lines — including This is how it started. But none of them worked and I ended up with that. I’m not sure why — by the time the book was finished I’d gone through several versions, and made no connection to The Mist until later, reading something else, realized, there it was.

I met him at the candy store. He turned around and smiled at me. Yeah, just like the song. Not intentional. I was surprised enough to smile back.

This was not a children’s candy store. This was Sweet Heaven, an upscale, gourmet candy store. No cheap lollipops or chalky chocolate kisses. The kind of place you went to buy expensive imported truffles for your boss’s wife because you felt guilty for fucking him when you were both at a conference in Milwaukee. If you pay attention, this becomes an important detail later in the book.

He was buying jellybeans, black only. He looked at the bag in my hand, candy-coated chocolate. Also in one color. I’m fascinated by the fact you can buy M &Ms in only one color, or jelly beans in only one flavor, and they cost three times as much as if you buy them pre-mixed.

“You know what they say about the green ones.”  The rakish tilt of his lips tried to charm me, and I resisted.

“St. Patrick’s Day?” Which was why I was buying them.

He shook his head. “No. The green ones make you horny.”

I’d been hit on plenty of times, mostly by men with little finesse who thought what was between their legs made up for what they lacked between their ears. Sometimes I went home with one of them anyway, just because it felt good to want and be wanted, even if it was mostly fake, and they usually disappointed.

“That’s an urban legend made up by adolescent boys with wish fulfillment issues.”
His lips tilted further. His smile was his best asset, brilliant and shining in a face made up of otherwise regular features. He had hair the color of wet sand and cloudy blue-green eyes, both attractive but when paired with the smile…breathtaking. Dan, in my head, looks like Ewan McGregor. There. I’ll just say it.

“Very good answer,” he said.

He held out his hand. When I took it, he pulled me closer, step by hesitant step, until he could lean close and whisper in my ear. His hot breath gusted along my skin, and I shivered. “Do you like licorice?”

I did, and I do, and he tugged me around the corner to reach inside a bin filled with small black rectangles. It had a label with a picture of a kangaroo on the front.

“Try this.” He lifted a piece to my lips and I opened for him although the sign clearly said ‘no samples.’ “It’s from Australia.” It’s Kookaburra licorice, which is the BEST FREAKING LICORICE EVER MADE. I’ve bought it online in 5 lb boxes and had it shipped at an exorbitant, outrageous cost to me, that’s how good that licorice is. Also, black licorice is *my* favorite.

The licorice smoothed on my tongue. Soft, fragrant, sticky in a way that made me run my tongue along my teeth. I tasted his fingers from where they’d brushed my lips. He smiled.

“I know a little place,” he said, and I let him take me there.

* * *

The Slaughtered Lamb. It’s also the name of the pub in An American Werewolf in London. Awwww, yeah. Love that movie. There is a place in NYC called The Slaughtered Lamb, too. A gruesome name for a nice little faux-British pub tucked down an alley in the center of downtown Harrisburg. Lots of my books are set in Harrisburg because it’s familiar to me, though I do not live there any more, and it’s a big enough city to have “stuff” but also rural enough to have other “stuff” and frankly, how many books are set in Central PA? Not many, at least that I’ve found. Compared to the trendy dance clubs and upscale restaurants that had revitalized the area, the Lamb seemed out of place and all the more delightful for it. I once read a review of Dirty, back in the day when I  read reviews, that said I didn’t know what I was talking about, as Harrisburg was made of strip malls and had no “urban crime” or some such nonsense. Yeah, well, golly, since I’ve actually BEEN to the pubs and dance clubs in downtown Harrisburg, and I can tell you there actually ARE neighborhoods that are not “good” neighborhoods, I think I know what I’m talking about. So there, reviewer who maybe drove past Harrisburg once in 1987.

He sat us at the bar, away from the college students singing karaoke in the corner. The stools wobbled, and I had to hold tight to the bar. I ordered a margarita. Personally? I drink margaritas, if I drink, which is not often.

“No.” The shake of his head had me raising a brow. “You want whiskey.”

“I’ve never had whiskey.”

“A virgin.” On another man the comment would have come off smarmy, earned a roll of the eyes and an automatic addition to the “not with James Dean’s  Ohhhh, James Dean. Mmmmmm, James Dean! prick” file.

On him, it worked.

“A virgin,” I agreed, the word tasting unfamiliar on my tongue as though I hadn’t used it in a very long time.

He ordered us both shots of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey,When I was in Ireland, I toured the Jameson factory, which is the first place I ever really heard of it; therefore, it’s what my characters drink and also what I drink (when I drink, which is rarely, and if I’m not having a margarita.) and he drank his back as one should do with shots, in one gulp. I am no stranger to drinking,This, however, is NOT me, as Elle is quite the boozer and I’m not even if I’d never had whiskey, and I matched him without a grimace. There’s a reason it’s also known as firewater, but after the initial burn the taste of it spread across my tongue and reminded me of the smell of burning leaves. Cozy. Warm. A little romantic, even.

So, there you have it. The “meaning of” The first couple pages of Dirty. Interestingly (to me, anyway) while I was looking this stuff up, I found 15 pages of a short story called “One Two Step” that was a sort of precursor to Dirty, featuring the scene in the dance club when Dan asks Elle to dance for the first time, only they had different names (Reese and Elise) and it wasn’t told in first person. You can see it here.

–M