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Category:
Literary Fiction
Publisher: Sortmind Press
ISBN-10: 1522846905
Type: Fiction
Pages: 574
Copyright: December 5, 2015
ISBN-13: 9781522846901
Price: $5.99 (eBook)
Computer technician Himal Steina realizes his dream of a mythic return to the sanctuary of a vast foggy university of Soul when he’s appointed writer in residence at the Soul Institute and falls in love with one of its numerous faculty goddesses, unaware that he’s blundering into a catastrophic jumble of power lust, romantic chaos, drug abuse, and gang violence.
At Moolka Waxtor’s farewell party in the English Department offices, Derrick Dexter recoils in dismay at their out of control lovemaking in a closet minutes earlier. How can he handle an affair with his flirty cousin? Should he try to escape the oppressive Soul Institute with her? How can he deal with his wife Jipo, TSI’s ruthless administrator? But Moolka, now fully in love with Derrick, tearfully declares she’s decided to stay at the Institute even as Director Alfred Burlcron hires a midlevel computer technician from Chicago, Himal Steina, to replace her as the writer in residence. Burlcron makes Himal one of the secret ruling caste of Overcrons, but Himal falls for Moolka and begins chronicling his feelings for her in the pornographic memoir TSI is committed to publish.
Blasted by days of inhalant highs, Burlcron’s fourteen-year-old son Mitar leads the Paint Sniffing Gang on a raid to vandalize the Institute’s library, then is dumbfounded when two gang members die huffing carburetor cleaner. When gang leader Angent Tunn runs afoul of the authorities, Mitar consolidates command of the gang and orders it to assault his own house. Police break up the attack, but Mitar and his girlfriend Rhea steal her father’s Cadillac and head to Mexico.
Solis Waxtor, Moolka’s father and Derrick’s uncle, lost five hundred million dollars turning the ancient Waxtor estate into a crackpot religious school; now, after years in exile in Africa as a soldier of fortune, Uncle Solis arrives in Linstar to help the college town prepare for National Soul Day. Neither Moolka nor Derrick have seen the vile old man in years, yet to their horror he guesses at their heretofore secret union at dinner. But by now both Derrick and Moolka have each betrayed each other, and Moolka graphically reveals to the entire restaurant that she and Himal are now lovers.
Yet when Moolka hears that Burlcron has hired the Kaiser Death Gang to protect his disintegrating kingdom, she plans an escape for herself and Derrick. As the Soul Institute confronts the wild inner forces it’s so piously sought to celebrate, National Soul Day is threatened by drug-addled teenagers armed with homemade explosives and illegal Chinese machine guns.
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
Goodbye Moolka
Friday, November 2
Derrick sipped his clear wine among the crowd beneath the banner. GOODBYE MOOLKA. It was good so many had turned out on her last day.
“I still can’t believe she’s actually going back,” Debbie said.
“I know,” Derrick muttered. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
Late afternoon light glowed through two sets of glass doors. Sixty people were jammed in the English Department lobby. Everyone already had enough wine to be laughing and forgetting that Moolka was really leaving the Soul Institute.
Moolka came up for a sideways hug. “There you are,” Derrick said, squeezing her. “We’re just discussing how awful it is for the millionth time.”
Moolka was short, with brown eyes, a round face, and long wild dark hair. She wore a loose-fitting top over big melon breasts.
“We can’t believe you’re really leaving,” Debbie said.
“I’ll always be here,” Moolka said, pointing first to her sister’s heart, then Derrick’s. “You know I’m really just going home.”
“But it’s turned into such a cesspool,” Derrick said.
Moolka shrugged. “No, really, Derrick. When I interviewed in September, the grounds were as beautiful as ever. It’s still the way it was, deep down.”
“Really? Really?”
“But of course it’s just like some cheap amusement park now,” Alfred Burlcron put in. Tall and sallow, the director of the Soul Institute extended his arm to Moolka for yet another sideways hug.
“Well, we can’t put a damper on Moolka’s plans,” Debbie said. “She’s doing good for herself to go.” Debbie Burlcron was even more gorgeous than her sister. There was a definite facial resemblance, and Debbie’s green eyes were as intoxicating as Moolka’s, her blond hair thick and long like her sister’s. But Debbie was taller, her face sharper, her voice deeper, her body excellently proportioned. Men drooled at the perfection of the director’s wife. Yet there was something irritatingly vacant about her.
“But she’ll really be running the place,” Derrick put in. “It can’t help but improve.”
Burlcron looked down on Derrick with Moolka under his arm. “Well, I suppose one can hope.”
“You’ll all have to come visit when I get it back on its feet!” Moolka laughed, punching Burlcron’s arm.
Nobody else would dare touch him like that, Derrick knew. How could the happiest, most carefree person here be leaving them?
“Oh! There’s Greg! Greg! Where’ve you been?” Moolka cried, embracing baby-faced Milton expert Greg McKinnon.
“How’s my Moolka?” Greg said. “Have you had any of Janey’s cookies over here?” Derrick watched Moolka’s trim little ass swaying as the two moved off.
“Man, I haven’t been back there since God knows when,” Derrick said.
“Well, when I was back a few years ago,” Debbie mused. “It’s really still beautiful. Well, except for those rides by the lake.”
“Yes, I’m sure Preston’s little theme park is quite lovely,” Burlcron snorted. “God, what a waste.” He emptied his red wine and searched for more. “Well, possibly our little Moolka will work miracles there. Who knows? Excuse me, please.” And he was off for the wine table.
Derrick let out some air. “Well--I bet she will.”
“I guess we’ll all have to start budgeting for monthly airplane tickets,” Debbie said. “We’ll have to visit all the time. We can’t just let her be all alone up there.”
Derrick winced. “It’s just that I haven’t been back there in so long.”
“And of course, Daddy being back in Chicago complicates things.”
“Really? Are you kidding?”
“He’s been back since late last year, that’s what Moolka said.”
“Are you kidding? He can’t be there!”
“Shhh! No, Preston seems okay with it. I guess he feels sorry for him or something. Somehow Daddy has money again.”
“No!”
Debbie considered her husband far away by the cookies. “Look, I don’t know how or why. Anyway, Daddy sent Moolka a letter in January asking how things were. So, a few emails back and forth …”
“I can’t believe this! Moolka’s writing him?”
“Of course. How do you think she landed the job?”
“God, I thought Solis legally couldn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Well, I don’t know all the ins and outs. I guess Moolka’s going to find out. It was all so edgy when she was up there. She never did see Daddy. Just Preston.”
“Huh. Why does that sound so typical? Well, maybe it was for the best.”
“I know. I’m not sure I could deal with him in person myself anyway.”
What was up with Debbie today? She never opened up like this. Was it because everyone was pretending to be so happy? Or maybe the wine? Hell, maybe she wanted him. Could that be it? God, she was sexy. Probably every man here wanted a piece of her.
Debbie looked across the room. “Well, cheer up, you’re actually gaining another cousin, not losing one. I’m sure you’ll have Lisa in one of your classes this year.”
“Huh? Oh--right.” Derrick followed her gaze to where a young woman in a long gray dress was spilling crimson wine onto a tablecloth. As she pulled back with a hand over her mouth she knocked a plate of sandwiches to the floor. Burlcron and Debbie’s daughter had been so moody and withdrawn her last couple years of high school that Derrick was startled by how much she’d grown up. She was an elegant if somewhat uncoordinated eighteen-year-old beauty.
Maybe it was the fuzzy gray turtleneck dress outlining that long slim body. Such a solemn oval face, such sculptured lips, with long brown hair falling well past her small breasts. Endless slender legs. Huge brown eyes. How would Aunt Jair have defined the new Soul Institute freshman? A first cousin, once removed? Now he had three beautiful cousins.
Wouldn’t old Alfred be pissed if Derrick began nosing around his daughter? Damn, her ass was nice in that clingy thing. Was she a poet? Was she an artist aflame with buried passion? He knew she studied music; surely she played haunting airs on the flute. She’d be shy in bed but Derrick would teach her fantastic things--
“Are you even listening to me, Derrick?” Debbie demanded.
“Well, sure. Something about this manuscript TSI Press got?”
She shook her head. “Derrick, I swear, your listening skills …”
“This weird book Alfred wants you to publish?”
“I mean, the thing is, Felicia won’t even let me read the thing, but she lets out all these hints about how insane it is, how it’ll destroy TSI Press.”
Derrick tuned her out. Across the room was Felicia McKinnon, Greg’s wife. His dearest friend on earth. The woman he’d never stop loving as long as he lived. He smiled at her outrageous attire: the faded overalls over the bright red shirt, the boots. The woman was a walking work of art. She lounged against a table, tall and lean, brick-red hair done up high, exposing that lovely neck Derrick used to kiss, out of his mind.
She had the spark. She had the life force. She looked ready to leap onto a horse and spur it to full gallop. She was such an exuberant female, so mystical, yet so down to earth. That wary look in her sharp blue eyes always stunned him. She defined Woman. Her breasts under those overalls were the most perfect he could imagine.
What did she see in that jerk husband of hers?
But when she’d broken it off with Derrick in February she’d said: “It’s all for Greg now.”
They’d never even been naked with each other, except the time he’d gotten her blouse off for a couple minutes before she’d ordered him to stop. Only much later did he realize he could’ve had her anyway if he’d just pushed it. Dammit, he’d blown his one chance to bed Felicia McKinnon. Well, maybe ending it had been for the best. But he still loved her, always would.
The chatter was deafening. Six-foot-four Tuttle Borgenfoen, chair of the Languages Department, rode high above the noise, cackling through some off-color joke in his erudite German accent. Everyone at TSI was crammed in here, it seemed, all twenty faculty, dozens of students and staff. They all loved their Moolka.
But in the last hour Derrick’s entire life had been ripped apart.
Had one hour changed his feelings for Felicia? It couldn’t be. He didn’t want to drown in passion again. Felicia was good for maintaining a balance. He knew he loved her, but all that passion stuff was in the background now, and didn’t it help him as a writer to be able to stand back and just watch the cosmic sexual forces of life at play? If he got lost in passion again it’d wreck his growth as a writer, wouldn’t it?
A playful punch hit his shoulder. “Repeat back what I just said.”
Derrick was caught in Debbie’s challenging emerald eyes.
“What did I just say? Play back your tape recorder again, Derrick.”
“Well, you were saying Alfred’s already a little worried about how crazy this manuscript is, and that he hadn’t read it when he offered this new guy the job.”
“Amazing. I don’t know how you do it.”
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