The Door to Lost Pages

by Claude Lalumiere

  I look at them. They’re a fantasy.

  I run back home.

  Wake up girlfriend. Dog growls and jumps out of bed.

  Take my clothes off. Kiss girlfriend. Have sex. I cum right away. But then I make her cum once, twice, three times. I love her.

  I sleep for fifteen hours.

  Lying in bed, waking up. I feel so good.

  Then, phone call from Jasper. How’s the story coming along?

  I lie.

  Phone rings again. Kasturi. Where’s that Lost Pages novella I promised her?

  I lie.

  Phone rings again. Savory needs to know when I’ll hand in the manuscript. Book’s listed in the new catalogue, he reminds me.

  The phone. Again. Halpern. Still wants a new Lost Pages story for that Di Filippo book.

  Fuck.

  I haven’t written anything for months. Way behind.

  I don’t feel so good anymore.

  Step out the door, walking dog.

  It’s not a house across the street today.

  It’s a lush garden, with a giant apple tree in the middle. With a naked man and a naked woman. They kind of look Jewish, except that the guy isn’t circumcised.

  They’re contemplating the apple tree.

  There’s a snake slithering around. A luminous, seductive snake.

  This is too weird.

  Girlfriend says she’s worried about me. I seem troubled, distracted. Asks about my writing.

  We fight. It gets real ugly. She storms out.

  I know it’s my fault.

  Fuck.

  Today, the house is a bookshop.

  Not just any bookshop.

  Lost Pages. The bookshop from my stories.

  The stuff my dreams are made of. Cliché, but true.

  I walk up to it. I peer through the window.

  Inside, a man and a girl in her teens. Lucas and Aydee. My characters. Me.

  I haven’t written anything for months.

  I hear barking.

  I look back toward my house. My dog is looking at me through my office window. Barking at me. Telling me to come back.

  I think about my girlfriend. I love her.

  She loves me.

  I haven’t written anything for months.

  I open the door to Lost Pages and step inside.

  Acknowledgements

  Portions of The Door to Lost Pages have previously appeared, in different form, in Interzone #178 (April 2002); OtherDimension.com (July 2002); Interzone #186 (February 2003); Intracities (Unwrecked Press 2003), edited by Michael Jasper; SDO Fantasy (April 2004); and The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 4 (Robinson 2005), edited by Maxim Jakubowski.

  About the Author

  Claude Lalumière (lostmyths.net/claude) is the author of the story collection Objects of Worship (ChiZine Publications 2009) and the chapbook The World’s Forgotten Boy and the Scorpions from Hell (Kelp Queen Press 2008). He has edited eight anthologies, including the Aurora Award nominee Tesseracts Twelve: New Novellas of Canadian Fantastic Fiction (Edge 2008), and he writes the Fantastic Fiction column for The Montreal Gazette. With Rupert Bottenberg, Claude is the co-creator of Lost Myths, which is both a live show and an online archive updated weekly at lostmyths.net.

  Back Cover