“Well-Behaved Monsters” — catching up with our heroes

This scene from my brand new novel, Well-Behaved Monsters, finds our main characters Dylan, Joe, and Sid gathered at their favorite watering hole, Triads Lounge, for a state of the union type chat. Dylan and Joe both have serious girlfriends at this point, while Sid, as is pretty much always the case, remains unconvinced that tying oneself down makes for a wise strategy in this supremely action packed climate. And in fact Dylan is ambivalent about whether to stick with his lady, Miranda, or cut his losses and move on. A serious academic debate ensues:

“So what’s the deal with this Miranda situation, anyway?” Joe questions.

“Eh, you know,” Dylan says, chuckling through his exhale as he shakes his head, “it’s going alright, I guess.” Having smoothed over even that unannounced roadtrip to Kentucky, more or less, he’s back to spending every night at her place again, although conceding, “now she’s on this kick though where she’s trying to talk me into the whole dominatrix routine or whatever, with all the leather and shit…”

Pausing mid beer swing, Joe’s eyebrows shoot up as he replies, “what!? Are you serious?”

“Yeah, she’s been going on about this, the whole deal with her wanting to tie me up and beat me with the whips and everything else. I’m like, man, I really don’t know about…