Guest D.C. McMillen

Apparently, I Get Around

I love to travel.

Okay, that is a bit of an understatement. Let’ just say I am insanely passionate about visiting other areas – any area of the world. You could offer to drop me off in the middle of a landmine infested war zone and I would probably be on board. In my mind, any travel experience, even the terrible ones (and there have been a few) are something to be cherished. You just can’t beat walking other people’s paths to learn how they live.

As I just alluded, I have had some, let’s say, interesting experiences. Like the time I had to fight off a horned cow for my admittedly unidentifiable food while the up-until-that-moment very hospitable tribe laughed at my predicament. The cow would have won, too. It was hungrier and I was wimpier. But then an old woman in the tribe took pity on me and beat it away with her cane.

Or the time a vendor in a market screamed at me for not wanting to buy his goods. Finally, I rolled my eyes and agreed to buy something, only to have him get equally as angry because I did not put any effort into my bartering. Geesh!

Perhaps some of my most memorable travel experiences happened during the summer after I graduated high school. I decided to spend my summer travelling Europe. I did it alone, which, by observation, was much less stressful than going with a bunch of girls. I met THE most handsome English man, who was filming a travel documentary, and we spent a few very memorable days and nights in Germany. Unfortunately, his itinerary sent him to Spain. I had nothing against Spain, but I was seriously looking forward to Budapest so we parted ways.

I hopped on a bus with a tour driver I had met at the beginning of my travels and off I went! Luckily the tour-goers did not mind. The driver dropped me at a campground, very late at night and, having been the only one to not have a reservation, I had to agree to share a caravan with four girls, who were together and one guy, a stranger to them. Well guess how many beds were in the caravan?

Three. Not four, which would have made sense, but three. Of course the four girls were already paired up on their side of the trailer, which meant I was stuck with stranger guy. I looked at the cramped, dirty floor and then back towards the guy. He was about my age and looked kind of like a puppy dog. I decided to take my chances with stranger danger. He could not have looked more pleased.

I gave him my best I-will-kill-you-in-your-sleep look and unrolled my sleeping bag. He slept under the covers, I slept on top. Sort of. Sleep did not come easily. Not just because Mr. Mouth breather was too close for comfort, but also because the camp’s security guard, who looked a lot like Saddam Hussein army fatigues, had decided that he would defend my honour, if need be. He spent the entire night sprawled under the caravan with a machine gun in hand! Holy shit.

The next day, I woke up much earlier than was my usual habit, thanked the security guard, who then walked over to a bush and hid in it, and decided to see who I could meet at the campfire. For everyone’s amusement but mine, word had already spread around the camp about last night’s adventure. Of course, after a spot in a new caravan opened up, I started to see the humour as well. I could go on with the story (yes, there’s more) but this is a guest blog, not a book.

And speaking of books...

(Do you like my segue?)

The Rusty Nail, a novella written by yours truly, has just hit the shelves at an e-book carrier near you. Here is a little more about it:

The Rusty Nail is a novella about a diverse group of characters who somehow find themselves acquainted with a dive bar in the wrong area of town. The entire novella takes place in the span of a single day, and I hope you will be entertained (and turned on) as each character discovers the good, the bad, and the ugly about their partners, themselves, and their hidden sexual desires.
This novella contains blatantly erotic, sexy and graphic M/F, M/M, F/F and even a couple of solo scenes. In other words, this novella is totally hot.

The Rusty Nail, excerpt

When Juan and I finally decided to get out of bed, I felt awkward and self-conscious. What we'd just done was a lot of fun and I was pretty sure I wanted to do it again but first I needed to sort out my thoughts and figure out how this might all work. Could I keep it from Gianna? I’m nowhere near as bright as her so I doubted it. I was right in the middle of trying to sort this whole thing out when I stepped on Gianna’s dress. Then I saw her shoe, then another one. And behind all of that was her scarf.

Those items of clothing led from the front door of the apartment to where I stood in front of the bedroom door. Slowly the implications of what the discarded clothing meant dawned on me. Juan had already gotten there. He asked if I had any idea how much she'd seen and I could only shake my head in horror. He asked if I wanted to stay with him but of course that was out of the question. After apologizing several times, he retreated to his own apartment. And I reached for the whiskey bottle.

I dropped another shot down the hatch and realized I was seeing double. Another and I was seeing triple. Maybe another would make me go blind and lose all feeling? Sadly, I would never find out. The bottle was empty. The door slammed shut and I instantly filled with both relief and dread.

Thanks so much for reading this excerpt! The Rusty Nail just released today, March 3rd, 2012, through Rebel Ink Press, and is available on Amazon, Smashwords, B&N, etc. I am pretty sure I will die from happiness if you pick up a copy.

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