I was playing around today with the scene in MATEGUAS ISLAND where Bill first meets Maggie.  I wasn’t happy with the way I’d originally wrote it – it was just a little bit too benign, too “everyday”.  So I changed a few things and added this:

“She was standing close to him, her feet apart, hands on her softly rounded hips.  Bill guessed she was about twenty-five or twenty-six years old.  She was wearing tight jeans and a baggy sweatshirt but he could see the gentle rise and fall of her generous breasts as she spoke.  She was short, only about 5’3″.  Her face, framed by that mass of red curls, was pale and there was a rash of freckles across her cheeks.  Her eyes were a startling shade of green and seemed to dance seductively as she smiled at him.  And her lips,  full and pouty, were infinitely beguiling.  He began to feel a stirring in his loins as he watched her, his mind so overwhelmed by her presence that he could barely comprehend the words she was saying.”

I think that sets the scene just a bit better.  What do you think?

L.