Of Wineries and Women

by lishbish

After two years of a relationship with Holly, Artemis is dumped and moves to Barcelona, where he becomes a slightly successful food critic. He hates women and all they entail with a vengeance. Or maybe he just really needs a girlfriend. Strong T for drinking, drunkenness, cursing, and suggestiveness. Didn't want to go all the way to M, though.

1. Prologue

Prologue

Hey everyone! This is my first try at an original character. You don't meet her until the next chapter but I want her to be as "real" as possible. Hopefully you won't find any Mary Sues here.

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Artemis had absolutely no patience whatsoever for the entire female population of the world. Period.

…Except, possibly, for his mother. But that was it.

Women, according to him, were flighty, frivolous, seductive, and utterly distracting. Holly had walked out on him years ago, and he was through with those evilly beautiful creatures called women. After Holly left, he couldn't stand to stay in Ireland and be just that close to her. So he moved to Spain. He liked Spain, there it was warm most of the time, and there was no shortage of delicious food and wine. He had become what is now commonly known as a foodie, and when he wasn't devising plans for world domination, he was mercilessly killing the egos of every fine restaurant and winery Spain had to offer.

Just kidding.

He did critique food, but he was at least honest. When he tasted something he liked, he said so.

And Artemis was never one for world domination, either. He lived off of the Fowl fortune and what earnings he got from writing food and wine articles for La Verdad, the biggest newspaper in Barcelona.

It was a comfortable, if slightly boring and lonely, life.

Of course he still had Butler, and of course he had a few friends from his job and the various restaurants he was often found at. But he often craved more.

Attention from a woman.

Ugh! They were everywhere! The daughters of winemakers and wealthy restaurant owners, to beautiful Spanish models and actresses, to common whores.

But none of them interested him.

The daughters of his friends were either too young or ridiculously spoiled, the actresses were vapid and silly, and the whores probably all had some sort of horrible disease.

But good lord, were they distracting.

Ugh. Women.

I'm not going to beg for reviews, but tell me what you think! It will be greatly appreciated! And yes, I am quite aware that this is too short. The actual chapters will be longer, so bear with me si'l vous plait.