Miranda Sherry is a full time television scriptwriter; putting words into the mouths of young innocents, and relishing in the subversive undertones she manages to squeeze in every now and again. She is an as-yet unpublished novelist, and her first novel, Eugenie’s Echo, was short-listed for the 2005 EULiterary Award, and, along with her second, Carrot vs Beetroot, is nosing around for a literary agent overseas. When she isn't writing (which isn't often) she watches embarrassing quantities of DVDs, and reads copiously.

She lives with a marvellous man, and two exceptional cats.

This is Miranda's first story for Something Wicked.

extract from Bad Boy Blues

It is a stifling night; the sky full of dark dust that clings to the grimy city windows and the sweat on Edie’s forehead. She doesn’t wipe at it because she is worried about messing up her makeup. Nightclubs are dark places anyway, nobody is going to notice if she looks a little grubby, but her make up is important: the prodigious quantity of black eyeliner that she wears when going out requires particular care.
  As she turns the corner into the street, the throb of the music from the club pushes up through the tarmac and seems to climb right up into the bones of her feet. She can’t wait to dance with it, to move every muscle beneath her boiling skin. Escape seems particularly necessary tonight; a hot pulse of desperation beats in her throat. As she approaches the oily- looking queue, she tallies up the male quotient of the crowd, eyes flicking over the dark- clad boys, hoping to spot something that’ll make her tingle. Hoping for promise. There’s nothing spectacular – a few maybes – but she’s pretty sure there’ll be some decent stuff inside. She joins the queue, and the hot dark breath of the nightclub entrance intensifies as she shuffles closer. It is a delicious, black, anonymous mouth. She feels her heart thumping beneath her black vest, the smell of spilled beer and cigarette smoke like a weird kind of magic potion that rubs itself into the sheen on her skin. She breathes it in like a lover’s breath, and steps into the throbbing dark.

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