Elle Jams was an average woman with an exceptional mind. She spent her days reading smutty novels, drinking absynthe and wondering what it would be like if she could be one of the characters in the books of her favorite author, Chrysanthamum Clear.

Chrysanthamum was known for her deep and well thought out erotic fiction. Her stories were completely and utterly unique. One of Elle's favorite stories was about a shy, dumpy woman in her late 40's who was seduced by a three year old accomplished man child. He was so mature, so sexy, so intense for someone so young. The torrid love affair seemed to leap off the pages, and burned a desire within Elle that could not be quenched, except for turning the pages of her e-reader.

'How in the world could she come up with this stuff?!' Elle often wondered to herself.

That morning, like each morning, Elle grabbed her shoulder bag and stuffed her needed paper work, lunch, snacks, candy canes (even though it was April), an extra pair of socks, three pairs of clean underwear, last night's leftover pizza, a box of twinkies, ho hos, a can of hairspray for her perpetually unkempt hair, 8 stale bags of fritos, a screwdriver (the drink), a phillips (an actual screwdriver), 14 kittens, and about a half dozen boxes of pens that no longer worked. Yes, all of it was necessary.

While this may seem excessive, it was routine for Elle. She lived to be one of Chrysanthamum's heroines, and wished she could be ever bit as demure, charming, and useless as them. Things seemed to happen for Ms. Clear's ingenues, things that seemed to happen because of their intrinsic flaws and inner beauty. It was all Elle wanted, to be one of these women in her stories, to be real. As a result, Elle set up a strict regime of events that mimicked Ms. Clear's characters.

Elle waited by her door, biting her lip, until she was promptly 12 minutes late for the bus, and proceeded to go about her day in a rushed manner, for that is what all misguided heroine's must do. It was a difficult and time consuming job to make sure she was constantly late and missed her appointments after spending hours setting them up, because how else was she going to have that one happy misstep that would change her life forever?

Upon reaching the bus stop, Elle watched the tail end of the bus she was supposed to miss scoot along down the street, and stamped her foot in routine defiance. Wiping her hair from her forehead, remembering to bite her lip, and stare like she had just received a lobotomy, she turned around and found an empty seat on the bench in the bus stop. Elle dug her e-reader out of her coat pockets and flipped it open to a particularly salacious page of Ms. Clear's latest novel, "The Lies I Tell Myself to Sleep at Night." She was about to get to the really good part, it was only the 90th time she'd read that book in the past week, when her e-reader lost power.

"UGH! You have got to be kidding me! Don't die on me now!"

A very fat, but pleasant looking woman in a large brown overcoat with deep pockets, looked over the top of her glasses at Elle.

"Things just aren't going well for you today, are they?"

Elle perked up, these were the words she had been waiting for her entire life. "Why yes, I mean, no, things are not quite what I planned." She continued, "Typically, I wake up, forget to comb my hair, pull it into a tousled ponytail, spray it lightly with hairspray, brush my teeth, drink a cup of coffee, ignore the box of donuts I purchased yesterday, grab my things as I rush out the door, and wait for the third bus to arrive, before heading into work." She stared into the woman's beady eyes for a moment, waiting for a tidbit of wisdom to drop. Only the sound of cars passing by filled the bus stop. Elle glanced back at the woman, she was writing furiously in the smallest spiral bound notebook she had ever seen. Not only was this woman writing, but she was staring at Elle as she was writing this. Elle felt slightly violated, curious, and above all angry. Was this woman writing down her actions, her words, did she feel as if Elle was a threat? All these thoughts and few more about a cat running across the street filled her head.

"What are you writing?"

She pulled away, not looking up at Elle, but writing across the tiny pages, "Oh, I suppose it's just an old coat I've owned for ages, and a simple house dress underneath. I'm not sure if they are any well known designers."

"WRITING! What are you writing?!"

The woman stopped writing and studied Elle, "I'm sorry, I'm writing..." She let the word trail off a bit before continuing, "...a story."

"Oh." Elle sighed in embarrassed exasperation. "I, well, uh..."

"Here, let me introduce myself, I'm Chrysanthamum Clear." She extended a hand towards Elle.

Elle Jams stared at the hand in disbelief, "As in 'The Lies I Tell Myself to Sleep at Night' and 'I Only Like One Color and it's Varying Hues to Describe the Mundane' and 'Baby Mama Drama: The Maurice Pogwog Story' author Chrysanthamum Clear?!"

"I see you know my work well."

"Know you? I breathe, eat, and live you!" Elle sat very close next to Chrysanthamum, "Your stories are my life! How in the world do you come up with such great ideas, no don't tell me, it will only break the magic, actually, yes, tell me how you do it."

Chrysanthamum pushed her glasses up on her nose. "I'm terribly sorry, you have me at a great disadvantage. You seem to know me, but I don't know you."

"Forgive my impulsiveness," She pulled back and blew the strands out of her face, "My name is Elle, Elle Jams."

Chrysanthamum grabbed Elle's and hand shook it.

"You are forgiven."

Elle took a deep breath, here was her idol, the woman who created everything she wanted to be, the goddess of her fantasies, the master of the key to a universe she had never known until a few years ago, and Elle stood dumbfounded, as if the mere presence of greatness had stolen the words she wanted to say to her from her lips. Out of vexation for what to say or do next, she bit her lower lip. She could taste a bit of copper from the perpetual wound inside her lip.

"Doesn't that hurt?"

"What?"

"Your lip. It looks like you bit a chunk out of it."

Elle brushed her hand across her lower lip, a streak of red colored her home manicured, or rather, poorly manicured nails. "Oh my god! I'm seriously bleeding!"

Chrysanthamum reached into her pockets and pulled out a large, and slightly used monogrammed handkerchief. "Here, this should help that nasty bleeding."

She pressed the white cloth to her lip, it was a bit scratchy and a little salty from the obvious boogers attached to it, but Elle didn't care. This was the hanky of a genius, and it was touching her skin.

The two women stared at each other, somewhat uncomfortably, awkwardly and a bunch of other adverbs that end in 'ly'. Elle was still desperately trying to not bite her lip so the bleeding would stop, and the other looked as if she was babysitting a troublesome child. Time seemed to hold still as their eyes locked. In the excruciating silence that followed, a child was heard crying across the street, a taxi cab rolled up and left, two birds pecked at a cigarette butt in the gutter, and an old woman crossed the street by herself. Nations rose and fell, empires were created and forgotten, the stock price of glittter went up by 15 points, and 73 porn flicks were made. It had been approximately 30 seconds.

"I think the bleeding has mostly stopped. Would you like it back?"

"Keep it, you can tell your friends you met me. It'll make your life more ... interesting."

"Thank you!" She gushed.

At that moment, a luxury vehicle approached and paused by the curbside. Elle could not remember if it was a limosine, or a chariot. She was transfixed upon the literary genius in front of her.

"Well, it appears that my ride is here, this has been a delightful meeting. I hope you have a wonderful life." Ms. Clear nodded her head at Elle and with much haste, jumped into the rear of the vehicle.

Elle was dumbstruck. She had just met Chrysanthamum Clear. She was holding her handkerchief. She had touched her. She sat down on the bench where Ms. Clear had been sitting. There was a lump underneath her and Elle reached under her bottom to find Ms. Clear's small notebook, alone and left behind.

Chrysanthamum closed the door of the town car and leaned back into the leather seats.

"Where to ma'am?"

"Home. Please."

She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. Right now she hated her publicist. It was her publicist Jeanie's brilliant idea to roam about in the world researching her next novel. It was a concept she had a hard time wrapping her head around. Why should she experience life as one of her 'ingenues' to 'keep it real'? Ridiculous. She wrote what every woman wanted: sex. Sex on bathroom floors, airplanes, kitchen counters, chained to train tracks, mountain tops, glass elevators, in dungeons, on beds of hot coals, park benches with bums, with unicorns and harpies, inside tunnels of elephant feces and in front of reality tv judges. She wrote reality better than any other fiction writer.

And her audience loved it. Audience like that woman, what was her name, the one that was biting her lip...that's right, Elle. Typically, her fans would pull out a hard copy of their favorite novel and insist she sign it, and she would. Then they'd be on their merry way, and she on hers. But every once in a while, there'd be the 'one'. Elle seemed a bit over the top though. The pressing against her, she could still 'feel' her body pressing through her overcoat. Chrys shivered, creepy people and their lip biting. She was really familiar, though. Had she met her before? Was she a stalker? It didn't matter, Chrys would never see that crazy lady again.

In the fifteen minutes she'd left her house Chrys had learned nothing new. Life was the same outside her door as it had been ten years earlier, before her first novel was published. Of course it was a different era, different world leaders, people had changed their views about religion, the trees had gotten taller and she was living in a very different neighborhood, but things were the same. Even the dead lady across the street was still dead. At least she thought she was dead, pasty, walked around at night in her pajamas with her tiny poodle in pasty makeup, why people put makeup on their dogs, she'll never know. However, that old lady was most definitely, positively, dead. Anyone with that many wrinkles couldn't possibly be alive.

Chrysanthamum thought, that's a brilliant idea, I'll have a story about a dead old lady with wrinkles, and zombies, and people having sex on her dead body. Brilliant.

"Max?" She tapped on the back of the driver's chair.

"Yes'm."

"Call up my publicist, I need to talk to a ghost."

"Ma'am?"

"Jeanie! Call her now!"