The One Who Got Away - CH 3

Chapter 3

Part One: Six years earlier

"I slept with Seth."

"You WHAT?" Kay's friend Micah almost dropped the ice cream cone she was holding, and her jaw practically fell to the ground. 

They were sitting on the grass in a public park; around them were families, groups of students and smooching couples, all enjoying the sunny spring afternoon. 

Micah looked unsure of whether to be shocked or excited. "When? How? Why? And what the fuck, Kay?" 

Kay smirked sheepishly at her own ice cream. "Last night." She shrugged. "It just… happened."

"Uh huh", Micah said with a scoff. "Right."

"Really! I didn't mean to do it." Seeing the alarmed look on her friend's face, she quickly clarified: "I mean, I wanted to, we both did. It simply wasn't planned."

Micah gave her a lazy smirk. "You just accidentally fell on top of him?"

With a laugh, Kay rolled her eyes. "We were at Glow and then his car conked out. So I invited him to crash at my place."

Now Micah rolled her eyes as well.

Kay gave her a look. "What?"

"So much for 'It wasn’t planned'."

"But it really wasn't!" Kay protested. "I don't know what happened, Micah, we suddenly… wanted each other."

Her friend lent her a telling look. "You didn't ‘suddenly’ want each other. He's always had the hots for you."

Kay averted her eyes, trying not to smile. "Oh please."

"What I really want to know is: Why? Why would you sleep with Pretty Boy? Doesn't he have a girlfriend?"

Kay scowled at her. She hated when Micah called him that. Sure, Seth was good looking – he even was what one would have called 'a beautiful man'. But obviously naming him 'Pretty Boy' was not a compliment on Micah's side. She didn't know Seth well and somehow had never really warmed up to him. Not that she had ever directly said so, but Kay suspected she didn't get what Kay saw in him as a person. From the moment Kay had introduced him to her at a party, Micah had immediately categorized Seth. Guys who looked like that couldn't be cool and multi-layered – Micah’s theory. The fact that Kay knew him much better and could attest for the theory not applying here hadn't been able to sway Micah in her preconception. That was Micah for you – quick to judge and hard to bring around.

"No, he doesn't have a girlfriend." Kay told her, not able to withhold the annoyance from her tone. "And will you stop calling him that? It's offending me." 

At that, Micah laughed out loud. "It's offending you?"

Kay rolled her eyes, snorting. "And unfair to him, obviously. But you're implying I'm not a good judge of character. Do you seriously still think I would be such close friends with Seth if he was some shallow bore?"

"Girl, come on." Micah put her hand on Kay's knee. "I never said that. He's obviously a nice guy. Him and I just don't vibe well, that's all."

"You are the one not vibing", Kay corrected her, holding up a finger. "Seth's got nothing to do with it."

Micah sighed. "Look Dude, can we not argue about this? 'Cause I really, desperately want to fucking hear all the details already."

Kay huffed. Normally, she wouldn't have let this go. But right now, the part of her that needed to process last night was stronger. She took a deliberate, long lick of her yogurt ice cream, then intensely looked at her friend. "It was the best sex of my life."

New Book!

 Hi everyone, Devo Girl here with news that I have published another novel about a blind guy. 

It's about a real person, Vasily Eroshenko, a blind man from the Ukrainian/Russian border, who traveled to Tokyo in 1915 and got involved with anarcho-feminist activists. It's told from the point of view of Kamichika Ichiko, also a real person with her own wild history, who was one of his closest friends. 

This book is a little different from my previous novels in that it's not a romance and it doesn't have a happily ever after ending. As we know from history, the leftist activists in Japan did not succeed in preventing the fascist militarism that led to WWII. But when I learned the real story of Eroshenko, I just had to share it with you. I think you'll agree that the things he achieved were amazing, and his writing on ableism is still relevant today. Also Lovis says it's devvy. Thank you, Lovis!! 

If you liked my previous historical novel set in Japan, Flowers by Night, you will love this one too. 

Eroshenko is available now for pre-order on Amazon, to be released on Feb. 10. If you don't want to support that corrupt company, I totally get it. The book will also be available in wide release, including Bookshop.org. I will update those links later.

Please do pre-order and leave reviews. It makes a huge difference in the visibility and availability of the book. Thank you!

Eroshenko

by Lucy May Lennox

Tokyo, 1915

While WWI rages, half a world away, Tokyo is a hotbed of radical ideas, as cosmopolitan intellectuals and activists from around the world cross paths in a rapidly modernizing city. Socialists and anarchists, musicians and artists from Japan, China, Korea, India, and Russia all passionately advocate for a more just and equal world.

Blind Ukrainian Vasily Eroshenko is drawn to Tokyo in search of greater opportunities and respect for blind people. At a salon for radicals on the second floor of a bakery, he meets the anarcho-feminists of Bluestocking magazine, fearless women fighting for bodily autonomy and free love. 

Kamichika Ichiko is a contributor to Bluestocking and the first woman reporter at the Tokyo Daily News. She is most at home among the Bluestockings who dress like men and engage in “sister” relationships. Yet she is drawn to Eroshenko and helps him publish his political fables.

As Eroshenko becomes a celebrated writer and public speaker, he becomes more outspoken in advocating for socialism, feminism, and disability rights, but the authorities will not long tolerate this disruptive foreigner. 

Based on extraordinary, heartbreaking true events, Eroshenko is a wild fever dream of utopianism, polyamory, artistic creation, jealousy, and persecution, unfurling against the backdrop of Japan’s belle époque, called Taishō Romanticism. When high and low, East and West, old and new intermingled, these activists dreamed of a better world, trying to stem the tide of growing fascism.