Nano 2012 Day Twenty-Two

Menelaus finished in the shower and started brushing his teeth after securing a towel around himself. It had been a crazy twenty four hours, now that he thought about it. Now he definitely felt spent, with Tina turning up. He half expected his own thoughts to turn to that he wasn't sure how he felt about her coming over but who was he kidding? He was ecstatic. A thought suddenly occurred to him. Crap, he was an idiot. He raced out and into the bedroom where Tina had changed back to her polo top and skirt. "hey!" he said

She sat up straight, "Yes? What's up?" she ran her hand on his stomach, "Hmmm..?" She looked up at him. He tried to ignore the feeling rising up in him that maybe he wasn't spent. "Umm.. aregnuonda..ahem." He swallowed the toothpaste in his mouth and took the toothbrush in his mouth. Idiot. "Umm.. are you on the pill?"

She smiled slightly, "Yeah of course I am. Do you think I would let you do.. all that.. without it? Or without a warning anyway?"

"No no.. of course not. All right then. No problem!"

He turned to leave and she said, "Hey Menelaus?"

"Yeah?"

"Seeing as we're asking questions, have you had a blood test lately?"

He thought about it, "Yeah I have actually, about three months ago because I was feeling faint all the time, the doctor found out I was deficient in vitamin D. Everything else was clean."

"Alright good."

"You?"

"Yes pretty regularly. I'm a girl, after all."

"Yeah but you know... stuff like herpes has.. err.."

"Has err what?"

"Umm.." his face burned red, "You know, girls can carry and not have symptoms."

"Don't worry, I don't have herpes. I've had deep blood work done, it would have shown up."

"Ok awesome. Well that's all sorted out."

"Yes, we can keep fucking in comfort."

"Hhahaa. Yes. Yes we can."

She smiled and leaned in and gave him a kiss. "Mmm.. minty."

"Yeah I should go finish brushing my teeth."

He turned and walked back to the bathroom and finished up. When he came back out Tina was in the lounge room watching tv. "Hope you don't mind that I turned on your tv?"

"Of course not, use whatever you want."

"Ok, I plan to!"

"Hah good!"

"Good!" She stuck her tongue out at him and then giggled and resumed watching tv. He went to the bedroom and got dressed then came back out. "Do you want anything to eat?"

"Hmm.. I don't know. What time is it?"

Menelaus looked around for a clock, finally finding his mobile phone. "Looks like it's ten past five."

"We should really get ready to go to the hospital soon."

"Yeah that's true."

"I might go home then and get myself washed and changed and stuff."

"No problem. You go ahead and do that. I'll see you at the hospital, OK?"

"Yup you'll see me there." Tina bounced up and came over to Menelaus and kissed him on the lips. He returned her kiss and their tongues met in their mouths. They kissed for a while, melting into eachother before Tina pulled herself back, "Mm mm! No, I need to go get ready, get off me you beast!" she squeaked and smiled. "See you at the hospital!"

"OK see you there!" Menelaus called back and smiled. Tina let herself out and closed the door behind her. Wow, Menelaus thought, nice girl. Really...nice. His brain appeared to be failing him. He decided to check in his fridge to see if he had anything he could make himself before going to the hospital. Nothing. Looked like he would need to get some drive through on the way, though he really didn't want to take it in with him or smell of it while he was in there. It was still early, he could go out and get it and bring it back. He decided he would do that. He found his keys and wallet and went out the door, travelled down the flight of stairs to the ground level of his block of apartments and out into the garage area where his trusty little red smoke signal generator was. He got in and turned the key. It started first go, which he saw as a good sign. He reversed out and drove to the nearest fast food joint he could think of with a drive through. Along the way he thought about, of all things, his high school band. He remembered the most talented member was probably the bassist, a lanky guy with long black hair. He wondered what had ever happened to him? They had lost contact when he had gone off the university to study jazz. "Why didn't I ever think of that?" He thought to himself. It might have been because he had never finished high school, preferring to hang out and play guitar and hang out with his friends and go out drinking. Now that he thought about it, he had been a bit of a bum. It was lucky he worked out his talent for copy writing and was able to turn his little freelance job into enough income to get him living in that apartment and not be starving or still relying on a social services payout. Those guys were worse to deal with than a proper workplace.

Over the years his core clients started referring other people to him and it just spiralled out from there. What he really wanted to be doing, though, was writing fiction. He wondered how this would ever come about. He would probably end up chatting to one of the people in the writing group about it in a couple of days to try and get some tips. Hang on, hadn't Calliope been published once or twice? He saw the fast food place approaching and turned on his indicator to turn into the drive through. He picked his food, somehow deciphering what the person was saying on the other end through all the static and left the place. Once he got home and finished off his meal, throwing away all the rubbish, he checked the time. Five thirty. He went and brushed his teeth then decided he probably had time to jump on his laptop for ten minutes.

He logged into the chat room and saw that Calliope was "in" there, though no one was talking. He knew sometimes people appears to be in the chat room when actually they were off doing something else, generally this was called being 'idle'. He sent her a private message. "Hey there, Calliope?"

"Hey there M" She answered almost instantaneously, "How are you doing?"

"Yeah not bad. I was just wondering, have you had a book published?"

"Yeah that's right. A couple actually, they're part of the same series."

"So they're fiction?"

"Fantasy, yes."

"How did that end up coming about?"

"Well... let me think about it. At first I was just sending my agent out to publisher houses and getting rejections back. Then I started sending it out to agents. Of course, at first I still got the same rejection slips back but one of them really liked the material and went out to 'fight' for it on the market with publishers. After about six months he found someone for me, and it was published a year later."

"Wow. That's pretty good. Still, a year and a half to see it published?"

"Well, that doesn't even include the revision I did. I went through four drafts! That took me about a year, and then I spent six months sending it out to publishers and agents before I found my agent."

"So four years?"

"That's right, four years."

"But it was quicker with your second novel?"

"Oh definitely, but that's because you don't have to shop around. Plus you have the help of an editor for your final revision normally. Although I try and get it as close to perfect as I can before I submit it. But yes, generally if your first book sells well, you're considered a commodity and just want to get your name out there. The problem is you don't want all your fans to think you're a hack because your second book is a pile of rubbish compared to the first."

"Don't the publishing company help you out with that?"

"You'd be surprised the sort of stuff they let out the door."

Menelaus looked at the time, it was getting close to six o clock. "I should get going, visiting my friend in hospital."

"Alright, well I hope he's doing a lot better."

"Thanks. And thank you for all the advice!"

"Don't mention it."

He closed the laptop and got his stuff together, then got in the car and drove to the hospital. It was an uneventful drive save for a man near town raving to everyone who went past about armageddon and how the agents of the end of the world wore white face paint. That's an interesting one, Menelaus thought to himself. Better than the Mayan crap most people were spouting anyway.

Once he had parked at the hospital he locked up and went inside to the front phone desk and asked where his friend was. While she was looking it up he heard, "Hello stranger" behind her and turned and saw Tina walking up behind her. "Oh hey there how are you doing?"

"I'm good. Have you found out what room he's in?"

"He's in Ward C, floor 4. Elevator is through there." The receptionist pointed down a nearby corridor.

"After you" Menelaus said and immediately felt ridiculous. Tina smiled and said,

"Why thank you." And walked on ahead. Menelaus made himself not check out her butt this time, this was not the place.

They got to the elevator area and pressed the button to go up. Menelaus found himself unable to say anything to her. He glanced at her, she smiled at him, he smiled back. They both looked towards the lift again. The number was counting down from Seventeen. Sixteen. Fifteen. It was taking forever.