Some time ago I decided to switch from writing YA to the more lucrative genre of romance. If you’ve ever browsed the romance books on Amazon, you’ll know that shirtless billionaires are the in thing. Here’s a sampling of what you can expect from billionaire romances:

I’ve apparently immersed myself too much in the genre, because last night I dreamed myself into a billionaire romance of my own. But it wasn’t just any billionaire romance. It didn’t hit the tropes. It wasn’t written to market. No, I dreamed about what it would probably be like to marry an actual, real-life billionaire. Here is an excerpt of what I can remember from the dream:

 

My disembodied torso of a husband and I were asleep in our luxury suite; the master bedroom was as big as the house I grew up in. Ah, the life of a billionaire. We lay entangled together in the black satin sheets on the king-sized bed, as blissfully content as two people who are asleep can be. Suddenly, I was awakened by a smash against the window. I sat up, pulling off my black-satin eye mask with the embroidered kitty-cat face on it and adjusting the strap of my black satin negligee. Egg yolk dripped down one of our floor-to-ceiling muntined windows.

“Get out here, you bitch!” a woman’s voice shrieked from outside the window.

“Ah, shit,” I muttered under my breath.

“What are you screaming about?” my husband’s abs asked.

“It’s not me. One of your psycho exes is egging the house again.”

“Well, why the hell isn’t the robotic security guard escorting her off the property? Did you forget to turn the security system on before bed?”

“Since when is that my job?” I protested.

“Wednesdays are your day. Didn’t you look at the chore chart?” grumbled my husband’s pectorals.

Of course I hadn’t. When in my life had I ever remembered to look at the chore chart? There was a reason my mom had given up on giving me those things as a child. If I were a real romance heroine, I would have chastised myself here for being useless, but I’m not, so I didn’t feel particularly remorseful.

“Well, do something about it. I have a headache,” said my billionaire.

I was about to ask how he had a headache when he didn’t even have a head, but then I realized that he did, in fact, have a head, but the features on the face were obscured­ — like the heroines in Japanese dating sim games, only with carefully groomed stubble on the jaw. I could picture any face I wanted on that head. I could have put a really handsome face on him, but the Sargon of Akkad video I watched before bed said that women are attracted to powerful men more than handsome men, and he probably isn’t wrong (don’t ask me, the last time I dated a man was in 2008), so I decided it didn’t matter in the end what his face really looked like.

“You drank too much champagne at our luxurious party tonight,” I said sympathetically. Like a true billionaire, my husband was a big drinker of strong spirits and consumer of various psychedelic and hallucinogenic substances;  I’m not a user of any of those things, but like a true libertarian, I don’t give a fuck what other people do, so his hangover was his problem. “I’ll take care of her.”

I stepped carefully off the raised dais that our bed was centered on went out to the veranda, gazing down at the Olsen twin lookalike standing on the massive lawns beneath our bedroom window. In the light of the full moon, I saw that her eye makeup was either smeared from tears, or maybe she was going for that smudged-eyeliner-raccoon-mask look.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I’m the one who should be up there right now, not you!” she screeched. “Why would he be interested in you? You’re a nobody! You must have lied to him about your background. He never would have married you if he’d known what you really are: an Italian!”

“I’m pretty sure he knew,” I said.

“You told him?” she asked incredulously.

“No, but he met my dad at the wedding and my dad is just one green hat shy of being a Luigi clone.”

Furious, she switched tactics. “What have you got that I haven’t got?!”

Growing bored with this conversation, I let the truth bomb fly: “I’m the only libertarian woman on the planet. I actively endorse his use of unpaid orphans to staff his business. I’m in favor of a 0% tax rate for billionaires. I don’t get embarrassed when he wears a monocle around the house. Also, I subscribe to PewDiePie.”

As she let out a feral shriek of rage, the android security guard came rolling up. He looked like the robot cop from Futurama, except with a better uniform because we have our standards. The guard hefted her over its shoulder and silently carried her away as she kicked and screamed.

I went back inside, adjusting the black satin robe over my black satin negligee. “I was handling her.”

“Not fast enough,” groaned my husband’s biceps as they tossed the smartphone he’d used to summon security back onto the nightstand.

“You know, hangovers are caused by dehydration,” I informed him sagely.

“You think I don’t know that? I’m a super genius. I know everything.” He pulled the pillows from my side of the bed and buried his head in them. Good, now I didn’t have to do anything about that smudgy, featureless face on his head.

“You want a Gatorade?” I offered.

“Absolutely not.”

“Are you going to punish me like Christian Grey for forgetting to turn the security system on?”

“That’s too much effort,” he said.

I looked at the bed. My side was now pillowless. “Should I sleep on the floor or something?”

“Just get some more pillows from the guest room and shut up.”

I smiled. I may not have been a true romance heroine, but I knew I’d gotten one of the good ones.

 

* * *

 

The next day, once he’d gotten over his hangover, he changed into a suit that was unbuttoned all the way down to his navel and we got into our self-driving limousine and went out to some airstrip or something to see a test on his new jet engine or flamethrower or whatever. All I know is that they were doing a ballistic test using a dead pig like on Mythbusters.

“That is the grossest thing I’ve ever seen,” I announced.

“It doesn’t bother me,” he said. “Back before I was a rich techno genius billionaire inventor, I used to work at a meat market in the humble Zanzibarbarian town where I grew up, making bacon for the one percent of the country that’s not Muslim. I’ve spent a lot of time around dead pigs.”

I snickered to myself, adjusting my hard hat and thinking about that joke from Rocky and Bullwinkle about the hog flogger. I’d have to show him the clip later, when all these workers weren’t around. It wasn’t a joke for polite society, but considering the fact that we’d fallen in love over memes and edgelord humor and were both registered in the National Database of Rich and Famous Nazis, I knew he’d appreciate it.

What was the point of this scene? I don’t know, it was a dream and dreams never make sense. But the hog flogger joke still makes me laugh even when I’m awake, so I figured I’d include it because like my dream husband, you’re all Nazis, too.

 

* * *

 

That’s all I remember from the dream, but I think we’ve got gold here. Next bestseller for the win.