[EXCERPT FROM WELCOME TO HELL out TODAY via Terror House Press]

I’d meet women at the beach for first dates, where we’d find a bench and watch the sunset as the crashing waves created an ambient soundtrack. I can’t spend my days sitting on a beach, not using my time productively makes me nervous- a horrible consequence of too much time wasted- but at night I like listening to the stories of women.

Typically divorced, but not always- the ones who were married are usually the more mentally stable- they’ll cite a dead bedroom and an unmotivated husband as their chief concern for initiating the separation. There will usually be a pang of regret over disrupting the lives of their children, and the inconvenience of sharing custody, although this is understood as collateral damage. They had all heard of Tinder and were “excited to try it,” with the initial burst of male interest serving as enthusiastic confirmation that they made the right decision. You’ll know how long a woman has been on her own by the way she talks about meeting men.

A woman new on the scene will be enamored by the attention- so many options, often exceeding her wildest fantasies. A gym-rat in his early-thirties, looking to relieve a bit of stress after leaving the office; the twenty-four year old bartender; the frat guy cheating on his teenage girlfriend; everyone vapid and interchangeable- all wanting to fuck a woman over forty. She always knew she could do better than her husband- and with the maturity of age, now she’s comfortable enough with her sexuality to indulge without regret.

And even if she had more fun than she ever thought were possible on those lonely nights, sitting under the glow of her television, with an open bottle of wine, playing and replaying the eventual conversation she’d need to have with her husband; even if she had gotten to live out the female version of every man’s fantasy, with the only limit being a time predestined by her own genetic code, a threshold causing the attention to taper- she’ll one day realize that coldness had always surrounded her, even if she couldn’t always feel it.

WELCOME TO HELL

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