Angie & Ella's First Novel :: Sliptongue Magazine

Excerpt from Chapter XIII, ROMANCE NOVEL HELL, of the first Angie & Ella Epistolary Novel

by Robert Scott Leyse

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(Angie and Ella are second year associates at a midtown Manhattan law firm. They are fast friends and fond of reliving their escapades, as well as concocting new ones, via email. Angie is 5' 7" and has wavy chestnut hair. Her brown eyes easily flare with emotion, and she has a reputation for being somewhat excitable. Ella is 5' 5" and has raven black hair. Her blue eyes easily flood with silver light, and she has a reputation for being somewhat adventurous. Both, on account of their beauty of face and shapeliness of figure, routinely attract lingering glances.)

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Angie to Ella
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2003 8:14 PM

Guess what, Sweetest? Brilliant as it was - and there's no denying it was brilliant - I could strangle you for that romance-novels-as-chaperones idea of yours! Sure, we had a memorable time with the romance novels - they were an integral part of our ditzy-sentimental-dolls-subconsiously-decked-out-in-slut-clothes act, the perfect way to sham at being split-personalitied, put off the boys with syrupy slop after attracting them with skimpy "Come hither!" outfits; but now the act's reversed itself on me, and the romance novels have become the scourge of my life! You purchased them for game playing - they were to be used as props Wednesday night and, doubtless, for a future revisitation of the game. (Because, admit it: you adore the fact that the split-personality game brings out the wildest in you, and won't turn you loose until it's forced you to go to that special place where you're not fully responsible for your actions! Yes, you love it despite the fact you also fear it: being a bit disturbed at what the game brings out in you is an aphrodisiac like nothing else! Your declaration that we'll not be playing this particular game again rings a trifle hollow and false! You were a fired up savage beast when we arrived at my place afterwards, like I've seldom seen you before! And you want to taste of that again: we both know you're dying to do so!) But, now... Well, damn you for not taking the romance novels off my hands when you left! Damn you for irresponsibly leaving them on my coffee table! Sure, I fully intended to dump them in the back of my closet until such time as we'd need them again (Again I say it: we will!); but when I got home yesterday after a frenetic day at work I flopped on the couch and, robbed of all good sense by my state of exhaustion, picked one of them up, and... OK, so I started skimming the silly thing for a laugh; then I got caught up in a chapter in the middle and suddenly wanted to know what had happened before that and turned back a few pages; before I knew it, I was reading from the beginning! I'm (It's with red-faced shame I confess it!) at page 196 now! And it's all your fault! I curse you for having left the poison in my apartment, infected me with Romance Novel Hell!

It's all this cursed long hair wisping in breezes stuff as the idealistic heroine - decked out in a diaphanous silver-blue ball gown - stands sighing on the balcony of her mansion that overlooks the sea! And she thinks she loves the malevolent conniving son of a bitch when she really doesn't: her feelings have been poisoned by lies! The good man languishes in heartbreak and neglect! Will the good man prevail? God! Why do I care? And I have you to thank for this sickness, Ella!; so you'd better get over here and tear this romance out of my hands! I need Laclos! I need a dose of Liaisons Dangereuses to balance me! I want you to read Liaisons to me! It's the least you can do! I hold you fully responsible for this romance dreck that's spinning in my head and infecting me with sentimental mush!

I demand it: hop a cab here pronto and take this book away along with the others and hide them, shred them, burn them, whatever! You're the cause of my illness, so you'd better be the cure! Do it NOW!

Your,

RomanceRotAfflictedAngie

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Ella to Angie
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2003 9:02 PM

Ha ha ha! You're the eldest and wisest (As you're so fond of pointing out!) and, yet, you're not immune to the ridiculous temptations of a romance novel, as I am! You accuse me of being responsible for your affliction? You curse me for having placed the romance poison in your hands? How was I to know you'd be susceptible to that maudlin, emotionally messy (Yuck!), fluff stuff? How could I have dreamed my Miss Whippie wielding Angie would become absorbed in sentimental slush books, end up caring what happens to the heroine, melting and sighing and crying to the tune of sappy slop? How could I have remotely suspected you were a sucker for such trash?

At any rate, are you sure it would do any good if I tear the romance out of your hands before you read it to the end? After all, you seem to be a truly hopeless case! Skimming the book for a laugh, and then the book catches ahold of you and ropes you in and holds you prisoner? I really don't think you can be rescued from it, and don't feel you're being honest with yourself! To put it another way: if I were to take the romance away, don't you think it would come back to haunt you and that you'd find yourself trudging to the bookstore to get a replacement copy? Then how stupid you'd feel and truly be!

You've got to face facts, Honey: Romance Novel Hell is a fever, and you've got to let it run its course. You've got to surrender to the romance imagery, get your fill of the seaside mansions, courtship in bowers in well-manicured gardens, ribbon festooned swings under the gnarled branches of spanish moss smothered oaks; fill of the swoon-inducing glances, dizzying heart flutters, soul-draining sighs; fill of the villain who must be outmaneuvered by the loving man, the pure and true heart who must overcome the inherant wickedness of the world; fill of the moonlight assignations, picnics on rugged shorelines, long walks in shaded woods along paths strewn with roses! Sorry, but it's the only way! You've got to read all that mess until you're fairly retching with revulsion, get it out of your system! The only cure is to embrace the romance nonsense without reserve until it's attractions pale, and you find yourself desperate for a healthy dose of sassiness, sarcasm, common sense! As when I was a girl of seven and gorged myself on a box of pastries, until I was so ill with disgusting lard and sugar I could no longer endure looking at such things, and never ate them again! Same thing: you've got to gorge yourself on the rose-tinted melt-eyed crap until the very thought of it makes you scream, and there's no longer any temptation to remotely dabble in it!

So I'm not coming over because I don't feel there's anything I can do besides succeed in postponing the cure only you can bring about: I'd only be addressing a symptom, instead of the root cause. To paraphrase Ghandi: "An absent temptation is not a temptation; removing the object of desire from one's presence is not the same as overcoming it." In other words, for me to take the romance novels away before you've become legitimately disgusted with them is a false way of dealing with your affliction: it means you'll still be hankering after them; it means they'll return to haunt you and rope you back in! So do as I say, Dearest: read them assiduously until you're authentically sickened, then dispose of them of your own accord!

And besides, it's just too funny! I'm absolutely atitter at the thought of you enrapt by some romance novel nonsense, going ga-ga over the fate of some poor deceived lady in a flowing formal pining for everlasting love on a passion flower bedecked balcony in the moonlight on a steamy night in the deep South! I can picture you on your terrace, sipping a mint julip in an emerald gown with a magnolia in your hair while dreaming of the South and midnight trysts on the swing seat on the porch of a plantation mansion - getting gooey-eyed and mushy, bewailing the fact you weren't born on the Georgia coastline a hundred years ago! Too funny! Is that what's happened to you? Is that what's become of my formerly level-headed and healthily lustful Angie? Have you descended to longing to be a romance novel heroine?

At any rate, please do let me know when you revert back into being the sassy sarcastic strumpet that's near and dear to my heart - at news of which I'll joyfully come running! Because I reiterate: I can do nothing for you! Nothing, that is, except perhaps prod you to action with some taunting and teasing! - yes, infuriate you to action with some: "Na-na! Na-na-na! You're making a ninny of yourself, and I'm not! You're succumbing to sentimental tripe, and I'm immune! You're addicted to romance dreck, and I'm laughing!" In short, you're going to need to find the inner strength and wherewithall to beat this Romance Novel Hell affliction yourself! And believe me, Darling, no one's looking more forward to the moment when you emerge from this laughable obsession and punish me for daring to make fun of you than I am! Because, until then, I'll be without the tower-of-strength Angie I know and love, won't I?

Your,

TauntingTrampAtitter

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Angie to Ella
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2003 9:29 PM

So that's the sort of girlfriend you are? Instead of rallying to my defense, hightailing it over to rescue me from what's an affliction second to none, you uncaringly laugh! Instead of doing your damndest to take this debilitating drug of a romance novel away from me and effect my liberation, you seize the opportunity to thumb your nose at and mock me! Well, as they say, the true test of a friend is whether the said friend rushes to stand by one's side when adversity strikes; and you've sure proven yourself extremely deficient in that category! How can I trust you again? I sit here flayed alive in all of my good sense by romance novel imagery - a veritable flood of poisonous pictures of pure-hearted damsels wringing their hands in distress, vainly imploring treacherous two-faced seducers to spare them the agony of dishonor - and all you can do is inform me how funny it is!

So I'm on my own, then? I'm to cure myself of the sickness that you're the agent of? You don't care that your Angie's fallen by the wayside of stability on account of dangerous reading material that you've irresponsibly left on her coffee table? Oh, sure, you offer advice - that is, indulge in plenty of blather without lifting a finger to help! Well, we've had plenty of contemptuous words for the sort of people who mistake words for action - who spout platitudes and preach and do nothing else; and now you reveal yourself to be one of them! That crap about an absent temptation not being one; of needing to confront one's unhealthy desires oneself if one would obtain "authentic" liberation from them! Hey! Am I monk? Am I treading the path of self-denial in order to reach God? I'm simply a girl who's been undermined in my rationality by bad reading! The thing for you, as my best friend (Or is that: former best friend?), to do is to take the bad reading away from me and dispose of it! So what if I go and get more of it? In that case, you come over and dispose of that too! I don't care about meeting exacting philosophical critera when it comes to the ridding myself of this vice, just so long as I'm rid of it! But all you can do is preach and laugh! Boy, is Miss Whippie ever going to slash the laughter out of you when I'm well again! So start saying your prayers, because savage retribution's a comin'!

In the meantime - damn you! - I've got to get back to reading this poison! I'm dying to find out if the letter that the good man's written to the heroine has been delivered to her by the good man's trusted valet! It seems that the two-faced liar of a love-em'-and-leave 'em villan has surrounded her plantation with cutthroats without her knowledge, and that they're waiting to intercept anything that might undeceive her regarding his character! God! Why do I sit here on tenderhooks, hoping against hope that the letter - dipped in the good man's cologne - gets through in time to warn the heroine before she's irrevocably dishonored, deprived of her inheritance, paraded through town as a tramp? I hate you for putting me through this!

Your,

ByBestFriendAbandonedAngie

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Ella to Angie
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2003 9:46 PM

To whom am I writing? Is my Angie reading this email? I'm not sure if she is! I think I may have lost her somewhere in the hackneyed plot of the romance novel I left on her coffee table! If Angie still exists, then I fear the shameless melodrama of her chosen reading material has clouded her reason beyond repair! Note how I said: "her chosen reading material." I did that intentionally: to assume that Angie is a victim of unfortunate circumstances is logically incorrect! If Angie has picked up the romance novel and commenced reading and continued to read, then she has chosen to do so of her own free will! To assume that such a strong willed minx as Angie is reading romance trash against her will is to sell the strength of her will short! I do believe my Angie is very willfully reading the romance slop and casting a shadow over her clarity of thought because she wishes to become a crybaby prissy girl! She must have become alarmed at the degree of her quick wittedness, spirit, and intellgence, and elected to become a blithering idiot instead! After all, it requires far less energy and effort to be stupid than smart!

Is that it, Angie? Have you chosen to become one of the low-energied people? Have you grown afraid of how brilliant and ambitious and electric you are, decided to spend the remainder of your life uselessly pining for an impossible to obtain happily-ever-after existence? Have you just plain become lazy, opted to spend the remainder of your days in a sluggish daze?

Your,

WonderingWhat'sBecomeOfMyBestFriendWench

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Angie to Ella
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2003 11:37 PM

Ella, only one thing matters to me now: it's that the precious letter has, indeed, been placed in our heroine's hands by the good man's faithful valet; and that she's read it and been accurately apprised of the black character of the lying scoundrel who's secretly placed her under guard in her own home. But matters are far from resolved: our heroine still faces untold dangers. She must conceal what the letter's told her; should the villan discover she's been informed of the shameless levels of deception he's resorted to - made conscious of how unrepentently evil he is - all is lost: he'll cast aside the charade and carry her off by force to his chateau on the dreary island in the swamp! But our heroine is of such innocent, pure-hearted character: she has no experience whatsoever in masking her emotions! Will she be capable of concealing her apprehension when she's in the presence of the evil man? Will she be able to convincingly playact, appear to be happy when she's not? And, mostly: will her true love succeed in storming the gates with his small band of devoted followers and rescuing her before the villan's able to forcibly dishonor her in retaliation, out of sheer spite?

Ella, I may have wanted you to tear the romance out of my hands earlier, but not now! I'm beginning to appreciate the thrills of romance novel immersion! I'm sheer ashiverness inside; a whole wide world of shudderingly vivid suspense is opening itself up before me; it's very fulfilling to become attached to fictional characters, hold them close to one's heart, tremble with horror or surge with joy according to how miserable or happy they are! Romance Novel Hell? How mistaken I was! I'm in Romance Novel Heaven! In the fictional world I become a girl unto myself, no longer needing to leave my apartment - no longer needing to depend upon flesh and blood people who, when it comes right down to it, really aren't that dependable! So thank you, Ella, for not being dependable! Thank for ignoring my unenlightened request to hightail it over, and take this romance away from me! I'm even neglecting my work, and guess what? I don't care! As a matter of fact, it's fun - you can't imagine how fun it is - to ignore the commitment letter that Riker's counting on me to revise by Monday, and to be immersed in RomanceWorld instead! And the best part is that, when I'm through with this romance novel, there are three more!

Your,

RomanceRaptureRenewedAngie

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