Live Love Rewind: The Three Lives of Leah Preston by Anne Glynn Page B

the man of your dreams?”
    “The man of my dreams would ask me out on a date.”
    “Maybe he’s shy.”
    “Shy is cute, when the guy is sixteen and you are, too. It’s a lot less cute when your crush is a full-grown man. Hunter asked me out after a single Tequila Slammer.” 
    “What’s going on with Hunter, anyway?”
    “He took his new girlfriend and the two of them moved to a trailer in Asshat, Texas. May they both rot in Hell.”
    “As long as you’re not bitter.”
    “How about you? Anything happening with Professor Handsome?”
    I never should have shared his nickname, Leah thought. She wished now that she hadn’t mentioned him at all. As far as Mary Ellen was concerned, Parkins checked off all of the boxes on Leah’s Dream Lover Checklist.
    Gorgeous? Check.
    Sexy accent? Check.
    Intelligent? Check.
    Talented? Check.
    Unobtainable? It wasn’t any part of Leah’s wish list but it was definitely part of her reality. Mary Ellen could put a check mark beside that one, too.
    “Where there’s life, there’s hope,” Leah said, feeling completely hopeless. “Talk to you in a few days, ‘kay?”
    Ending the call, she rolled over on her bed and returned the phone to its base. The Art of Whore sat beside the base, purposely ignored. She’d left the book on the top of the nightstand, undisturbed, since the night she’d carried it home from After Hours .
    Glumly, Leah considered the ancient tome. I promised. I have to at least try.
    Although I could just say I’d read it.
    She hated to lie, though, especially to a friend. Besides, Astrid knew her too well. She’d ask her questions about what she’d read, Leah would try to bluff, and she’d get caught. It wasn’t worth the grief.
    Pulling a blanket up to her chin, she reached for the book. “You are an utter waste of time. In a few weeks, Ian goes back to England and I’ll never see him again. He won’t remember me from Adam – or Eve, for that matter – but I’ll probably never forget him.”
    Vaguely hopeful that this tattered relic might somehow give her a way to forestall the inevitable, she opened the book. The smell of dust returned as she viewed the cover page. The illustration was wonderfully drawn, its delicate lines depicting a lovely Chinese woman. The woman’s kimono was open, her breasts exposed, and she gazed at the viewer without shame.
    “If I looked like you, I’d walk around topless, too,” Leah told the drawing.
    Flipping past the title page, she considered the Table of Contents. Each chapter had its own heading:
     
    The Opponent
    The Supplicant
    The Watcher
    The Aggressor
    The Conqueror
     
    Just five chapters, Leah noted . The titles aren’t too inspiring, they sound like something out of a kung-fu flick, but I can do five chapters standing on my head.
    I’ll be done before I go to sleep.
    She turned to the first chapter, only to find a new illustration. The Chinese woman was naked in this drawing, her kimono crumpled at her feet. Comfortable in her nudity, the woman’s legs were spread. A man knelt between her legs, his mouth on her sex.
    “Ah,” Leah said. Abandoning the text, she flipped to the next illustration.
    Completely exposed, the woman sat across from her lover, her legs open and her ankles resting on his shoulders. He was wearing some kind of ceremonial gown, open at the waist with his penis erect. He was about to penetrate his lover.
    Leah felt herself grow moist. Belatedly aware she was touching herself, she slammed the book shut.
    No, no , she told herself . Oh, no.
    Masturbate? To drawings?
    How desperate am I?
    Returning the book to the nightstand, she flipped the switch on the bedside lamp and the room went dark.
    Punching at her pillow, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.
     
    # # #
     
    At first, she wondered where she was. While the space around her was similar in size and shape to her own bedroom, it felt foreign. There was the same type of nightstand as the one she owned and a crude but