Original artwork by Brian Talgo

Only the broken know true freedom…
Angel no longer gives a damn. The stranger does. One of them is wrong.

Billed as “Edge City after the lights go out” and “…no frills and a gritty, thrilling read.” 

“If you don’t need a romance, and you don’t have to have all things pink and fluffy, this is a really good read. Not a nice one, but a decent one.”

Dance Macabre is noirish short fiction that flirts with erotic sensuality.

Angel, middle-aged, former mob enforcer, broken in body and spirit, treads the murky shores of Miami’s South Beach underworld. With the aid of former Cuban porn star-turned-author, Martina del Gato, and her publisher-lover, Blake, Angel puts her poor life choices and dangerous past behind her.

Or does she? A blind date with a mysterious stranger takes Angel on a sensuous journey fraught with peril—at risk: her body and her soul. What path will Angel choose?

If you dance with the devil, who will lead, who will follow?

Excerpt:

He keyed us in, a complicated alarm system I knew I’d have trouble breaking, high-end stuff. Way above my pay grade. Dad had been more about kicking the doors in, me as backup, cop show silly, but effective. One, two, punch. Yeah, Daddy’s little girl, all Rambette. I sometimes think he got off on that. I wondered how this stranger got his rocks off. That thought pulled me into a dark, cool foyer. He closed the door, no longer a threshold, one barrier down.

I waited. A soft shushing of chilled air echoed through the narrow space, an extension to the long night. I leaned into his warmth, skin prickling, unsure. I’d left the beat behind, the grind, the pulsating crush of skin-on-skin. It was long gone, not even a memory, just a thirst, gagging dry and hot.

He led me through a labyrinthine set of hallways, strung asymmetrically with arched doorways into shaded, high-ceilinged rooms, spare. Polished teak floors gleamed, tabling an occasional brightly patterned, slippery-backed cotton rug. White walls, uninterrupted, devoid of decoration, lent a coolness that caressed the skin, the senses, with a blank nothingness. Black and white, I framed the shots, images freeze-framed and stored.

“In there.”

He inclined his head toward the entryway—a bedroom, with a double bed and a patterned throw in riotous oranges, reds, greens and purples. Harsh and garish. It seemed a waking nightmare after the lush starkness of the rest of the house. I moved forward, drawn to the singular focus—a bed. Nothing else. No chair, no vanity, no closet. A cell. I reeled and backed into him, solid, the touch at once impersonal and sensuous, electric.

“I’ll bring you water.”

He turned and left me, hollowed out, taking my air, sucking my lungs dry ‘til my eyes teared. I leaned against the door-less arch. Interesting. An open cell. Trapped, yet not.

His footsteps unnaturally muted, he strode down the long hallway and stopped near, yet at a respectful distance, from me. Carefully he pressed a bottle of chilled water into my hand.

“Here. Drink this. The bathroom is down the hall to your left. Sleep.”

“Who are you?”

“Sleep, now. We’ll start tonight.”

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