EMMA: I don’t care that you’re a celebrity, that you’re famous, or rich, any of that. What you can do for me has nothing to do with your literary prowess.

[Pause.]

My husband. He’s obsessed with you. He forces me to read your novels. All of them. They’re a little too intellectual for my taste. I prefer a book that gets right to the action, you know, the sex and violence. But I see the appeal. There’s something in them … a freedom from inhibitions and cultural judgments … this devil-may-care, do anything attitude … let’s just say I find them intriguing. Anyway, you’re all he ever talks about. He has all these different theories—what you’re planning to do with different characters and so on, who’s going to end up with who, who you’re going to kill off, you know, which characters are pretending to be something they’re not, hiding their true identity, pursuing dark, hidden objectives—he goes on and on about it. Endlessly. I mean, he won’t shut up. It’s like a disease. You’ve infected his brain with this imaginary world of yours, and there’s no room for anything else in there. Not his family. Not his friends. Not me. We can’t even have a good fuck anymore without him forcing me to act out some scene from one of your books. He especially likes that last one. Yeah. The whole dungeon thing. Could you do me a favor? Could you write a love scene that doesn’t involve the woman being whipped to a bloody pulp? Not that I didn’t enjoy it as a change of pace, but—

[Pause.]

Talk to him. My husband. Break this spell you have over him. Disillusion him, make him hate you, I don’t care, whatever it takes. Can you do that for me? Can your restore my husband to the world of the living? Slay the zombie? If you can, I’d be very grateful.

[Pause.]

I might even offer a reward.