Odd, how time passes. Only two nights ago, her Portuguese lover had read to her on the couch: how the rain is pouring down on them, how it trickles between their breasts, how it lingers and disappears into the darkness of the pubis, how it finally drenches and flows over the thighs. She had imagined…

The first time her husband laid eyes on her, it was almost love at first sight. A traveling Cubicle Reconfiguration & Office Furniture Relocation Consultant, he stopped one Thursday afternoon to fill up in Fenwick and overheard the gas attendant telling tourists in a red T-bird convertible about the tea house’s BLT special: double decker…

Before the young lover, when she had only the Portuguese lover, the tea house woman avoided his street, not wanting to see the lights on in his house, or the silhouette perhaps of another woman keeping him company. Every Saturday night, she drove the long way to and from Beaman & Sons, where she has…

He is purple. Hard. Awake, he reaches with both arms and pulls the tea house woman toward him, onto him. They are—no, we are—chest to chest, and I am in your ear now whispering, You’re going to make me come. This is new. My husband always finished first, even on our wedding night, and he…

She surprises herself by taking a new lover. He is younger than her Portuguese lover, and choosing between them is as simple as putting their names into a paper bag and releasing one, folding it in half, and tucking it into her apron pocket for an afternoon. This morning she lies awake in bed, waiting…

The first word of the tea house woman’s story is dripping, which could refer to anything: the faulty kitchen faucet; the basement ceiling of the tea house after the flood; stems of wildflower bouquets pulled putrid from tall white pitchers; even her own wet cunt.

I write this book in offering to the tea house woman, that complicated figure who appears first as bride-to-be in We Take Me Apart and then, years later, as widow in Desire: A Haunting, which I have only just completed. To be honest, this is a bad period for me. It’s the end of a…

Thank you, Steve Himmer for hosting me, and thank you, everyone who came to read these essays and such during my month as the writer in residence at Necessary Fiction. As a coda, a palate cleanser, a parting shot, I’ve posted some photographs I took of animals this winter. I find it fascinating that the…

[Over the course of my month as writer-in-residence, I’ll be sharing artifacts that I’ve connected to fiction writing. I almost always start in one place and quickly veer off course. This is the first exhibit in the series.] Even as far as soap operas go, Dark Shadows is pretty awful. There are scenes where the…

Before going any further, I want to extend my thanks to Steve Himmer for inviting me to serve as the Necessary Fiction writer-in-residence for February. I’ve been looking forward to this! By way of introduction, my name is Richard Melo. It’s all right if you haven’t heard of me. I’m sure I would never have…