Smile, Hon, You’re Reading a Dirty Story in Front of Several Dozen People

First of all, prior to the Smile, Hon reading at Atomic Books tonight, I hit myself in the head with a door and may have broken a toe, in two mostly unrelated incidents. It makes me wonder if it is my own, non-verbal equivalent of telling my alter ego to “break a leg,” only in the case of reading a saucy story about feet, it is “break a toe.”

The reading itself was fabulous. I am unpracticed as a reader, but still I got great feedback. People laughed in the right places (and a few surprising places), and got quiet in the right places. I heard someone say “this is good.” When I got to the part about a “metafetish” a klatsch of nerd men laughed behind me, and I was very, very happy.

After I read, a man sat down next to me and asked, “So how long did it take you to pick out the shoes you were going to wear to this?”

Another person asked for my autograph, and for a moment between saying yes, and putting pen to paper, I fretted, as it had never occurred to me to come up with a signature for my alter ego. With pen in hand, I discovered that my alter ego’s signature looks a lot like mine, but girlier.

People told me my story was great. The men offered compliments, and some of the women wanted to talk to me about shoes. The most interesting feedback, though, was watching the body language of the audience as I read. I couldn’t see much because I was reading, but the footboys and the gals who love them made themselves known, at least to me.

I can’t wait to read again, smutty or otherwise. Performance me has not gotten out in a long time, and it felt great to be in front of a crowd. My reading was not perfect, heck, the story isn’t perfect, but the experience was right on.