Dear Reader:
D.V. Bernard is a phenomenal writer and having read all three of his books without ever putting them down, I am convinced that one day he will be one of the most celebrated authors of all-time. His books The Last Dream Before Dawn and God in the Image of Woman should be required reading at colleges and universities worldwide. In this effort, How to Kill Your Boyfriend (in Ten Easy Steps) he steps away from his normally serious subject matter and entertains readers with a humorous, intriguing tale of two women who get caught up in a journey of both self-discovery and mystery.
I have no intention of giving this book away. That would be nothing short of criminal, but suffice it to say that it is unlike any other book I have ever read. I love authors who write outside the box and take risks that others tend to shy away from. I am one of those who believes in creating something new or putting a different spin on an old storyline. D.V. Bernard pokes fun at society’s tendency to want to do things in “numbered steps.” Over the past decade especially, self-help books and programs that get people excited about being able to quit smoking in three steps, being able to cook a gourmet meal in five steps, being able to lose weight step-by-step, etc. have become a huge consumer market. That is what makes this book a page-turner. You will not be able to stop wondering what the two main characters are going to do next.
One day D.V. Bernard will write a literary work that will earn him the Pulitzer Prize in Literature. I believe that with every ounce of my heart because he has the talent, the foresight, and the gift of putting pen to paper that mark a great writer. In a million years, I could never write like him and I am not ashamed to say it. His skills are far and beyond what most authors could ever imagine. Please check out his other books as well; you will not be disappointed.
I want to thank those of you who have been gracious enough to support the dozens of authors I publish under Strebor Books International, a division of ATRIA/Simon and Schuster. While writing serves as a catalyst for me to release my personal creativity, publishing allows me the opportunity to share the talent of so many others. If you are interested in being an independent sales representative for Strebor Books International, please send a blank email to [email protected].
Peace and Blessings,
Publisher
Strebor Books International
www.streborbooks.com
OTHER BOOKS BY D.V. BERNARD
The Last Dream Before Dawn
God in the Image of Woman
Strebor Books
P.O. Box 6505
Largo, MD 20792
http://www.streborbooks.com
www.SimonandSchuster.com
How To Kill Your Boyfriend (in Ten Easy Steps) © 2006 by D.V. Bernard.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means including electronic, mechanical or photocopying or stored in a retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages to be included in a review.
ISBN-13 978-1-59309-066-1
ISBN-10 1-59309-066-8
eISBN-13: 978-1-45163-996-4
LCCN 2006923547
Cover design: www.mariondesigns.com
Distributed by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
1-800-223-2336
First Strebor Books trade paperback edition June 2006
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Manufactured and Printed in the United States of America
DEDICATION
To crazy, homicidal women everywhere
When Stacy thought about it afterwards, she told herself that she had not intended to kill her boyfriend. It certainly had not been something she had planned. However, even she would have admitted that she had been somewhat annoyed with him lately. It had not been anything definite—just the usual ups and downs of a relationship. Once, he had bought the wrong brand of tampons, and she had raged against him mercilessly. If he had really loved her, she had argued, he would have gotten her the right brand. It had all been a sign from God, and she had wept bitterly while he clutched her shoulders and begged for forgiveness. After a few days of brooding and melodrama, she had been able to admit to herself that the entire argument had been stupid, and they had made love. Making love had always been her way of saying she was sorry. In fact, the week before she killed him, they had made love a great deal. It had gotten to the point where she had found herself being aroused as soon as she started yelling at him. And so, maybe the murder, unintentional as it was, had only been an escalation of their sex—a case of arousal gone too far.
Dr. Vera Alexander got out of the cab and stood looking at the storefront bookshop. It was in Midtown Manhattan—one of those trendy neighborhoods where everything cost too much and the droves of shoppers took a strange kind of pride from the fact that they were squandering their money. Vera surveyed her reflection in the bookstore’s windowpane. She was a slightly plump 31-year-old who always had a tendency to look overdressed. The socially acceptable stereotype at the moment was that gay men had impeccable fashion sense, so she trusted all her clothing, hair and makeup decisions to a flamboyantly gay Haitian called François. The style that year was to have one’s hair “long and untamed,” so, on François’ recommendation, she had adopted a hairdo that was so wild it seemed vicious. All the mousse and red highlights made her hair seem like some kind of diseased porcupine. Yet, it was the style, and she was pleased with her appearance as she stared at her reflection.
When she walked into the bookstore there was a smile on her face, because there were at least two dozen people there, waiting for her to sign copies of her book, How to Have Great Sex with a So-So Man. On the cover there was a picture of a beaming woman standing next to a slouching doofus. The bookstore patrons froze and stared at her when she entered; some pointed to her and whispered to their neighbors, as if in awe of her. A couple of them snapped pictures of her, or began to record on their camcorders. Whatever the case, the mass of them moved toward her and put out their hands to be shaken. Soon there was a line to shake hands with her. Of course, all of them were women. Vera shook their hands gladly, smiling at each one and thanking her for coming. The store manager was a bookish-looking woman in her late-twenties: gaunt and severe-looking, with a sarcastic look pasted on her face from years of suppressing her disappointment with life:
“Let Dr. Vera get set-up first!” she chastised the patrons like a kindergarten teacher telling two five-year-olds to stop pulling one another’s hair. Some of them groaned in disappointment, but Dr. Vera nodded to them, as if to reassure them that she would shake their hands later. They made room for her to pass, and she walked over to the desk where she was to sign books. A line had already formed; two women tussled with one another in their desire to occupy the same spot on the line. The store manager gave them her stern kindergarten teacher look and they calmed down.
Vera smiled at it all. She got out her fountain pen and sat down at the desk. Soon, she was asking the women their names and writing the same message in their books. She had developed a bad habit of writing and looking up at the person she was signing the book to. As a consequence, the message she wrote was usually illegible. Many people later discovered that she had misspelled their names, or she had written it merely as a line with a squiggly thing in the middle.
She had a good tempo going. In fifteen seconds,
she could sign a book, dispense advice on the mysteries of male sexuality and still have time to pose for a picture. Even the sarcastic-looking store manager seemed impressed. The woman did not exactly smile, but she exuded a kind of pleased smugness as she stood to the side, surveying the long line.
“Exactly,” Vera said in answer to one woman’s declaration of gratitude, “if you can teach a dog to shit outside, why can’t teach your man to please you in bed!”
Everyone in the store laughed; some of them applauded. Vera had used that line about 80 times since she started her book tour a month ago. She had had a dream once, where it had been the only thing she could say…but people loved it when she said it.
She nodded to the woman who had made the declaration of gratitude (as to dismiss her) and the next woman on line stepped up to the table. People were still laughing at Vera’s joke. However, the woman who stepped up to the table had a drawn, wretched expression on her face—like in those pictures of war refugees who had watched their children starve to death and their men butchered. The woman seemed about Vera’s age, but could have possibly been about ten years older. With her thinness, the woman seemed frail and detached—except for the intensity with which she stared at Vera. It was off-putting, and Vera instinctively looked away. She noticed the woman’s blouse: the nape of the neck was slightly frayed and discolored. Vera noticed a peculiar birthmark on the woman’s neck. It was heart-shaped with a jagged line through it—a broken heart. The store manager looked at the woman disapprovingly, wondering if she could afford the $21 price of the book.
The woman handed Vera the book to sign, and Vera came back to her senses. She tried to reassure herself by smiling. “To whom am I signing this?” she said.
The woman’s voice was low and ominous: “Don’t pretend that you don’t know me.”
Vera’s smile disappeared; all the background conversation in the bookstore seemed to cease. “I’m sorry,” Vera said, flustered, “…I don’t—”
“Don’t you dare pretend—you of all people!”
“I’m not—”
“I took the weight for you,” the woman went on, suddenly animated. “I carried it while you were doing all this,” she said, looking around the bookstore, as if all of it were Vera’s and the woman’s sacrifice had allowed her to attain it. “But when is it going to be my turn to be free?” the woman lamented. “…The things we did,” she said, beginning to sob, “they’re killing me—the weight of it all…! I can’t take it anymore—it’s too much for me.”
Vera had sat stunned for most of that; the store patrons had stood staring. Vera remembered that she was a psychologist and stood up, to calm the woman. “Please—”
“I’ve lost everything,” the woman cut her off, talking more to herself now than anything.
“Ma’am, please—”
“Ma’am?” she screamed, outraged by the formality and coldness of the term. “After all we went through—all those things we did…?”
The store manager came over, but Vera warded her off by shaking her head. Vera walked around to the front of the desk and tried to take the woman’s hand.
“No!” the woman screamed, as if brushing off a lover’s hand. And then, more calmly, “If you don’t remember me, it’s too late for that. It’s too late.” Her eyes were full of sorrow and desperation now: “You were all I had left.”
“Maybe you should sit down,” Vera attempted to reason with her once more. She again tried to take the woman’s hand, but the woman pushed her hand away. And then, with a disillusioned expression on her face:
“You really don’t know me…?” She stared at Vera’s face, as if searching for some clue of recognition; but seeing none, she bowed her head thoughtfully and started talking to herself again: “I guess it’s best that you forgot. I took the weight for you, but it’s too much.”
“Let’s talk about it,” Vera said, trying to think up every therapist trick she knew. “Maybe you can help me to remember.”
The woman started to walk away, as if she had not heard.
“Please,” Vera called after her, “—at least tell me your name!”
The woman stopped and stared at her as if considering something. At last she sighed, saying, “I’m the one who helped you to forget.” At that, she walked out of the store. When she got to the curb, she looked back at Vera via the display window; then, she turned and took a step into the street. The speeding truck hit her instantly. She was sent flying like a cartoon character. There was something unbelievable about it—like a cheap special effect in a bad movie. The truck tried to stop, but the woman’s careening body fell right in its path. There was the sound of tires screeching, and then a thud…and then silence.
For Dr. Vera, four years passed in a blur of success and controversy. As was usually the case, the controversy had fueled her success. The entire episode with the woman at the bookstore had been captured on some of her fans’ camcorders. The story got international attention. People called it “The Forget-Me-Not” incident, because of the woman’s rant on being forgotten. A couple of networks did exposés on Dr. Vera, trying to figure out the connection between her and the woman: if there really was some deep dark secret that they had shared…but there had been nothing. The woman had spent her entire life in a small town in North Carolina; she had had a history of mental illness and had been living with a family friend until she snuck away to come to New York the day before she died. With all the media attention, the camcorder scenes of Dr. Vera attempting to calm the deranged woman had made her seem compassionate and accessible; and within weeks of the incident, Dr. Vera had been approached to do her own radio call-in show.
Four years later, the Dr. Vera radio call-in show was not exactly a hit, but it was broadcast nationwide, and there was talk of a television version. Since the incident, her agent had been telling her how she was on the verge of greatness. Her last book, 10 Steps to Find Out if Your Man is a Cheating Bastard had been a number one bestseller…but that was two years ago, and she could not help thinking that her career was languishing.
As for her personal life, despite the fact that she was a relationship counselor, she was single and childless. It had been over a year since she had had sex, and the more she thought about it, the more certain she was that the young stud her agent had set her up with the last time had faked his orgasm just so he could get away from her! In bed, she seemed almost mouse-like—nothing like the voracious sexual beast she wrote about in her books. In college, two of her lovers had fallen asleep while making love to her. Granted, they had both been drunk at the time, but it had all set off a lifelong sense of sexual inadequacy—which was probably why she connected so well with her legion of fans. She knew how they wanted to feel about their sexuality, because she wanted the same feeling—the same fantasy. Her greatest fear was that people would discover she was lousy in bed. To a certain degree, she remained single because she was afraid one of her ex-boyfriends would write one of those tell-all books on her, cataloguing the horrific boredom of her sex. Every lover was a potential blackmailer.
And if all that were not bad enough, she was growing tired of being Dr. Vera. Her last name was actually Alexander, not Vera, but it had become an accepted practice for media doctors to go by their first names—like Dr. Phil and Dr. Ruth—as to give a false sense of intimacy to their fans. Being Dr. Vera required vast amounts of energy—as was usually the case when one lived a lie. Every day, she told lies about lovers who were a figment of her imagination; she dispensed sexual advice on things that she, herself, was terrified to try. And with each passing day, it became clearer to her that she hated doing her call-in show. Five nights a week, it was the same tedious nonsense: women calling up to find out why their husbands or boyfriends did not love them anymore; people trying to manipulate their lovers into doing something (stupid), or who were merely calling to hear a psychological professional justify their scummy behavior. She knew that something would have to change soon or she would crack. Every once in a while
she would have a nightmare where she failed totally at this life and again had to return to being a high school guidance counselor. The nightmare would motivate her to work harder for a few weeks, until she again felt herself on the verge of cracking.
“Okay,” Dr. Vera said after she had finished answering the last caller’s question, “—we have time for one more call.” She looked at the computer screen before her to see which caller was to be next, and then she pressed a button: “Matt from Minneapolis, how may I help you today?”
“Thanks for taking my call, Dr. Vera. I’m a longtime listener and first time caller.” The man’s chipper, excited voice annoyed her for some reason, but she retreated into her usual radio routine:
“Thank you, Matt. How may I help you today?”
“Well, Dr. Vera,” Matt began, “I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a lesbian.”
“Aren’t you a man?” she asked, frowning at the computer screen.
“Yes.”
Dr. Vera frowned deeper, and looked through the soundproof glass, at the engineer/producer. When she made eye contact with the huge, woolly-mammoth-looking man, he shrugged and bit into a gigantic submarine sandwich. Vera sighed and stared at the computer screen again, as if the answer to everything lay within it. She had trained herself to always give kind, considerate responses—even to the stupidest questions—but all she could think to say was, “Look, Matt, to be a lesbian, you sort of have to be a woman.”
“That’s a pretty sexist view!”
“How is that sexist?”
“It’s sexist to believe that a man can’t be a lesbian, just as it would be sexist to believe that a woman can’t be an astronaut, or have her own radio call-in show.”
Dr. Vera shook her head: “To be a lesbian, you have to be a woman,” she maintained.
“Not at all: a lesbian is simply someone who wants to have sex with a lesbian.”
“So, if I had sex with you, I’d be a lesbian?”
How to Kill Your Boyfriend (in 10 Easy Steps) Page 1
