How To Be a Mistress

Title: How to Be a Mistress

Word Count: 114,000

Genre: Fiction / Romance novel / Erotic romance

Year written: 2003

Intended audience: Women

History: In 2004 after this manuscript was finalized—at a time when lightheaded chick lit was all the rage—I sent it around to a few agents.

Here were some of the responses (paraphrased from memory):

“Too much sex!”

“No woman has this kind of sex life.” [Said by a woman agent.]

“There’s no genre this fits into…so it’s unsellable.”

“I’d be happy to work with you on making this more ‘chick lit.’ I think we can do it and I’d be willing to work with you. You’d have to take out anything too serious and tone down the sex stuff quite a bit…it’s too realistic.” [Note: I turned down this offer.]

Synopsis:

 Laila Webb is a best-selling author.  Sort of.  For years she’s been ghostwriting for famous French sexologist Madame Normandy, and finally Laila’s been offered a book of her very own: A sassy, instructional guide tentatively titled How to be a Mistress.  She has a mere six months to crank out a fully-written, researched text.  However, contrary to what she claimed to get the deal (including a whopping advance), she has no idea what she’s writing about.

Laila learns very quickly that good mistresses don’t talk, and is forced to make her publisher an entire arsenal of false promises in order save face and buy time.  With the clock furiously ticking and her head barely above water, she meets a man...a married man.  And decides to become the subject of her own research in hopes that the hands-on experience will propel her towards finishing the manuscript that’s going to make or break her career.

It’s at this time that Madame Normandy also becomes a mistress, a different variety of mistress since she’s already married.  It’s throughout Madame’s affair that Laila’s able to see the easy mistakes that can lead a mistress to her early demise, the many ways to get hurt, and get caught, and when Madame unexpectedly becomes pregnant, and her “mister” decides to desert her, Laila recognizes that she’s dancing on dangerous ground, as well.

It’s around this time that Laila’s married man proclaims his love for her and promises to leave his wife, and Laila finds herself standing by in anticipatory horror as each of his “attempts” to leave seem to keep him even more married. 

All the while, Laila’s flanked by a colorful cast of characters who mostly support her quest.  There’s the brainy Rhea, who makes her living as a Jackie Kennedy look-alike, the lovable Christopher, who will only date men who don’t speak English, and the irresistible Nicolette, who justifies her using and abusing men through her quest to have a baby.  And, of course, there’s Laila’s flamingly gay publisher Julien, and his effervescent tactics towards getting her to write a fluffy and sellable guidebook as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, Laila hasn’t written a word.

Slowly but surely, several other mistresses consent to tell Laila their tale, all very different stories, but similar in their matter-of-factness.  It’s the mother ship of all mistresses Laila’s looking for, a French mistress named Jocelyne who’s theoretically lived the good life as a wanton woman over the course of decades.  Once she meets Jocelyne, Laila realizes that her so-called research has transgressed into a full blown love affair, and she’s now in too deep to turn back.

Her attempts at writing a little, light guide leads Laila to the reality of the “situation”, all the magic, all the hardship, and what it really takes to be a good mistress.  It’s her very own harsh story that she ultimately writes, but reality simply isn’t what her publisher was looking for.  Laila fully succeeds in demolishing her career, and eventually succumbs to the enchanting, heartbreaking, irreplaceable world of mistress-dom, trading her writing life for that of “the other woman.”