I stood with a glass to the bathroom wall. ‘The name is Hutchinson.’ He spelled it out for the operative. ‘I was promised delivery to the hotel by today.’ His voice cracked. After five minutes of silence he ran a bath. I listened for another ten. He didn’t seem to be masturbating.
I had come to the hotel to finish my novel. The follow-up to my runaway success widely acclaimed as a triumph. My agent had resorted to sending one word texts. Finished? Done? There? Completed? Ready? I had responded, No, Nope, Nah, Nein, Non.
The phone buzzed. A new message from ‘agent’, ‘Tosser’.