Holly and Her Naughty eReader (6 page)

“I don’t know,” I said. “It was
pretty intense.”

“Trust me Holly. If it was good
intense like you said, you’ll be sad you didn’t go back for more. I’ve been
through this. When you’ve got a high that’s hanging around, you need to take
advantage of it. Grab your Kindle now and read another book.”

Chapter 6

Deciding to take Vivian’s
advice, I went back to the Kindle and brought up a new book, this one a 99-cent
Hunger Games
knockoff titled
The Octagon In Winter
.

A lone flower, a daisy, lay quietly on the ground amidst the dust that rained
down from the heavens. The battle of Trichtostan was over, and all were dead
save Chanci, who reached for the daisy from beneath a pile of bodies.

And then Chanci was me, and I
felt the solemn wait of death on my back.

The solemn wait of death?
What the hell was that, and why was it in
my brain? I had this vision of the grim reaper, standing patiently at the end
of the battlefield, waiting to take me, but somehow I knew it wasn’t quite
correct.

Then I found myself craving a
“daisy butt” even though I had no idea what a daisy butt was. I imagined a girl
wearing Daisy Dukes, or the tailfeathers of Donald Duck’s girlfriend. In both
cases, I wanted to put my hands on the imaginary ass and give it a good
squeeze.

This story is so weird. Get me out of here
, I thought.

And I was back on the bed,
holding the Kindle.

I glanced at the screen, and saw
the words “solemn wait of death,” followed in the next sentence by, “Chanci
desperately wanted to hold the daisy butt found it to always be just beyond her
fingertips.”

Typos. On the first screen of
this novel there were two egregious errors that had floated into my brain while
I was the character. Those typos had changed the world. The author intended for
Chanci to long for the daisy, but instead Chanci wanted a “Daisy butt.”

I deleted the sample of
The Octagon in Winter
and moved on to
the next book in the carousel,
Basic
Principles of Self Defense
by Dolph “The Fist” McDougal.

This was a weird download for
me, but it was free so I grabbed it. I don’t read a lot of nonfiction, but I
remember thinking that this one sounded interesting. Written by an ex-Marine,
it promised an overview of what to do if you found yourself in a violent
situation.

I suspect
Basic Principles of Self-Defense
would have been a bore had I
simply read the words. But in this new world, where I lived in the books, it
was amazing! I wasn’t just reading about how to do a judo sweep or the correct
form on an elbow swipe; I was getting a one-on-one lesson from Dolph McDougal.
It was like that scene from
The Matrix
where Lawrence Fishburne and that surfer dude actor are training in the dojo,
with Dolph McDougal yelling at me to hit him harder.

“Don’t stop your punch at my
skin. Stretch out your arms and punch through me!” Dolph yelled. I tried to hit
him, imagining my punch going through him, but he blocked the punch and yelled,
“Too slow, try again!”

By the time I finished
Basic Principles of Self-Defense
, I felt
like I could hold my own in a fight. I was well-versed in knees to the groin
and open palms to the face, and had gotten to practice until I mastered the
techniques.

Next I went inside a fantasy
book where I rode on the back of a dragon. After that I entered a teen romance
where I was a mermaid who went ashore to pose as a high school student and
learn why the humans were polluting my home. I went into a book where I became
a smoking hot superspy with a penchant for tight leather pants, and another
where I was a frustrated housewife who had sex with my son’s best friend.

All afternoon, through the
evening, and into the night I visited one fictional world after another. It was
the most ridiculous fun I’ve ever had in my life. And after a dozen trips in
and out of the story world, I felt confident enough to swing the carousel of
books to the big one. I brought up my favorite novel of all-time.
Wuthering Heights
.

When’s the last time you read
Wuthering Heights
? If you haven’t had a
look at this novel since high school, please indulge me while I tell you why
this book is so great, and why I make all my 12
^th
graders read it.

Wuthering Heights
is the most erotic novel ever written. I
know--that’s not how you remember the book. In your mind, it was a long, tedious
exercise in foreplay, with Catherine and Heathcliff madly in love and never
able to get together.

But you see, that’s why the
novel is so intense. Social convention wouldn’t allow Emily Bronte to write a
hot sex scene, so instead she teased her readers with it. She teased so much
it’s clear to me that, in her mind, Catherine and Heathcliff got together many
times, and there was probably a more spicy version of the story hidden in a
drawer somewhere in the author’s study.

In chapter 11, Catherine, who
has moved on from her childhood love of Heathcliff and married Edgar, finds
herself meeting up with Heathcliff again. He has just returned from a three
year absence where he somehow became fabulously rich. Heathcliff comes into
Catherine’s house, the sexual tension is palpable, Catherine’s husband throws
Heathcliff out and forbids Catherine from ever seeing him again, and Catherine
locks herself in her room, where she is so sad she becomes sick and never
recovers.

Sound familiar? There’s no doubt
in my mind that Chapter 11 of
Wuthering
Heights
had a profound impact on Stephenie Meyer. The first half of
New Moon
owes a great debt to
Wuthering Heights
.
Boy and girl are in love, the cruel world keeps them apart, they
nearly die from the sadness of it all.

Isn’t it funny how these things
go? Half of Amazon right now is flooded with knockoffs of
50 Shades of Grey
, which itself was inspired by
Twilight
, which owes a great debt to
Wuthering Heights
. If you’re spending
your days reading about psychologically tormented sexually dominating
billionaires, I humbly suggest that you take a break and read
Wuthering Heights
to see how it all
began.

But I digress. Back to me and my
Kindle. I used the Table of Contents to bring me straight to Chapter 11 of
Wuthering Heights
and began reading
Emily Bronte’s delicious prose.

Sometimes, while meditating on these things in solitude, I’ve got up in
a sudden terror, and put on my bonnet to go see how all was at the farm.

This was a problem. The narrator
of this chapter was Nelly, one of the servants at Wuthering Heights. I most
definitely didn’t want to be Nelly, sitting from afar and watching the
star-crossed lovers quarrel. Telling myself I’d have to figure something out, I
kept reading.

The nearer I got to the house the more agitated I grew; and on catching
sight of it I trembled in every limb.

Now I was there, on the moors of
Northern England, looking at a stone mansion built in the 16
^th
century, thrilled beyond belief to be seeing this iconic house in person.

I was inside Nelly’s body, but I
could see Catherine feeding pigeons in the courtyard. She was so pretty. Young,
innocent, with long, dark hair and a heavy dress--I stared at her with a fierce
intensity, my mind so desperately wanting to be in her body rather than Nelly’s.

And it was done. In a bit of
magic as simple as imagining yourself in someone else’s shoes, I became
Catherine. I was in her body, “feeding some pigeons in the court.”

What an amazing moment. I had
found a new feature of my hallucination. Before, I had only been able to live
as the point of view character of the novel. Now, by my own choice, I was a
different player in the story.

As I knew he would (I’ve read
this book many times), Heathcliff approached me, and our conversation quickly
devolved into a passionate shouting match.

“I want you to be aware that I
know you have treated me infernally - infernally!” Heathcliff cried. “Do you
hear? And if you flatter yourself that I don't perceive it, you are a fool; and
if you think I can be consoled by sweet words, you are an idiot!”

“I’ve treated you infernally?” I
said, feeling a swell of sadness inside me. “How have I treated you
infernally?”

“You are welcome to torture me
to death for your amusement,” Heathcliff said, undressing me with his eyes as
he spoke. “Having leveled my palace, don't erect a hovel and complacently
admire your own charity in giving me that for a home.”

It was a marvelous fight, one
where your passions grew so hot you wanted to rip each other’s clothes off.
Alas, the story did not put us together, and soon enough, my husband Edgar
arrived and threw Heathcliff out. Then Edgar confronted me.

“Will you give up Heathcliff
hereafter, or will you give up me?” Edgar demanded.

In response, as Catherine had
done every time I read the novel, I ran to my room and locked the door.

Now it was time to feel the
beautiful agony of my sadness. I let it grow and blossom inside me, knowing
that, for Catherine, there was no greater injustice than the way she and
Heathcliff were being kept apart. It made her sick with depression, and she was
supposed to remain in her room for days.

But by nightfall, I was already
weary of it. It’s one thing to read a few sentences about a woman consumed by a
sadness so great she falls ill. It’s another thing to be that woman, and spend
hours in her body, wallowing in your own thoughts. Seeing things from
Catherine’s point of view, I felt foolish just sitting there. Why not just go
get what I want?

As I took it all in, the light
of a single candle glowing in the dark, cold stone walls all around, the moors
of England outside, Heathcliff across the way, I wondered if I had it in me to
change the story. It was a curious feeling. I knew full well what I was
supposed to do. In
Wuthering Heights
,
Catherine never recovers from this episode. What starts as a fit of anger on
her part devolves into actual sickness that ultimately kills her. As her
sickness reaches its climax, she and Heathcliff have another confrontation,
admit their love, and she dies in his arms.

What a raw deal.

As Catherine, I felt a part of
me wanting to play that role. I heard Emily Bronte’s words in my mind, guiding
my actions, taking me where the author wanted the story to go.

But I wasn’t Catherine. I was Holly,
and Holly wanted Catherine to get lucky. So when the house went quiet, I put on
my riding boots, grabbed a candle, and snuck out.

I would have loved to explore
the entire home. At the moment, I was in Thrushcross Grange, one of two houses
on the moor in the story. Both houses have held a fascination for me for years.
I’ve always loved watching the various movie attempts at
Wuthering Heights
, not only to see how the actors handle Catherine
and Heathcliff’s relationship, but also to take a look at the houses. The story
is set in the late 18
^th
century, but the homes were built in 1500.
Giant estates of stone, one step removed from medieval. They were like castles
for the landed gentry, and, as Catherine Linton, I was the lady of the house
and had full access to the place.

But tonight wasn’t a night for
sight-seeing. Grabbing my coat, and placing the candle gently on the landing, I
went downstairs and out the front door.

There was a cold mist on the
moors, glowing in the light of the moon. All around it was quiet. I took in a
deep breath of clean air. I was living in a world before the industrial
revolution, and let me tell you, the air was the crispest, freshest air I’ve
ever had the pleasure of breathing.

I walked behind the house and to
the stables, pulling out a beautiful brown horse and leading it gently into the
night. At this point, even though I was writing my own story, I allowed my
character’s natural instincts to take over. I didn’t know the first thing about
riding a horse, but Catherine did. In the book, she is touring the moors on
horseback by herself at age six. She is someone who grew up with horses all her
life and has no trouble handling them.

I put a saddle on the creature,
mounted its back, and was off, letting Catherine’s thoughts guide me across the
moor and to Wuthering Heights, where Heathcliff was staying.

I found him sleeping alone in a
spare bedroom.

I’ve always had a literary crush
on Heathcliff. Perhaps that was why this vision of him was, without question,
the most gorgeous man I have ever seen. His hair was long and dark. His skin
was a deep shade of bronze. His nose was sharp. His chin was broad. Even in a
deep slumber, he had a look of incredible strength to him.

I awoke him with a kiss to the
lips.

“Sweet Mother of Mercy,” he said
as he jumped up.

“Shhhh…” I said, placing my
finger over his lips. “It’s me. It’s Catherine.”

Then I kissed him again, harder
this time, using my tongue to invite him to kiss me back.

He pulled away, but only long
enough to look at me and whisper, “Is this a dream? If it be, then let me not
wake up.”

Now I climbed onto the bed,
putting the full weight of my body on his as we kissed. He gave himself fully
to his desire, a desire that had been nurtured since childhood when Father
brought him home from Liverpool, a gypsy orphan on the verge of starvation. As he
wrapped his arms around me, as we rolled back into the bed and he kissed my
neck, I felt years of passion coming to a head.

Oh Heathcliff, how I’ve loved you since I first saw you
, I thought,
giving myself over to my character, allowing all the memories to come flooding
forward as he ripped open my gown and grabbed my nipple with his teeth.