The Lady in the Paint

By David Xavier

A man bored with his life and marriage discovers, in the least likely place, an outlet for new possibilities of love and excitement. It's a path he jumps for immediately, a path where madness and fantasy collide, and the consequences are all too real.

The Lady in the Paint is a psychological thriller that delves into reality and fantasy, madness and cognitive dissonance, and how, depending on who you ask, things are more real than we know.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Xavier
• Release date: Apr 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005079413

Book preview

The Lady in the Paint

David Xavier

When I first saw her she was on the floor against a wall and people were stepping over her as if she were invisible. But she had the mischievous look of a hidden secret and she directed it right at me, she froze me in place. My eyes went to her repeatedly and we kept catching each other's glances until it didn't matter anymore, there was no hiding it, and we stared without apology.

Usually I couldn’t stand those things, estate sales. Buzzards going from room to room of old furniture that smelled of warm dust, digging through junk and trinkets, the owner of which was recently put under. It was all old and used, last handled by arthritic hands that had handled their last. It wasn’t my thing. I always stood by the punchbowl and muttered as people raced about the pickings. Every so often my wife Sylvia went by and dumped a few things with me, saying how she'd been looking for this for so long, or that she'd always wanted one of these.

I was standing with a pile at my feet and a glass in my hand when she caught my eye, this woman on the floor, and I took a double look. Someone had leaned her against the wall to get to something else and I had a clear line of sight, shy at first, until we were both burning holes in each other.

It would be out of the ordinary for me to leave one of these junk sales with a selection of my own, I usually went silently all the way home with my hands on the wheel while Sylvia went on about her salvaged pieces. But I had to have this woman on the floor. She had