“You want me to change what?” she asked, her body tense and almost shivering with the revulsion she was feeling. The bland cream walls receded and all she could see was the red glare of humiliation, that sickening feeling of dread and horror as the painful memories came back to haunt her. “Sex,” Nancy Kirkpatrick, Lana’s editor replied succinctly, a grin forming on her face as she watched her favorite writer’s shocked reaction. “We need sultry, exciting, passionate sex scenes,” she went on to clarify. Lana blinked and stared. Had her friend and mentor just said the one word in the English language which could horrify her more than any other? Spiders, sharks, snakes….ick. Public speaking…terrifying. But sex? Oh no! That one word sent her mind into a tailspin of painful memories. Lana suspected that her mouth had fallen open but she couldn’t do anything to change her stunned reaction. That word hadn’t really just been uttered, she told herself. It was impossible. Lana tried to convince herself that Nancy had said something else, something that probably rhymed with the word “sex”, all the while wondering if it was possible to spontaneously explode from anger and frustration.
