Brian Lumley is the bestselling author of dozens of novels, including the Necroscope and Vampire World series, and his Titus Crow and Dreamlands series, both of which take place in H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. He's also written more than 100 short stories, which have been collected in numerous volumes, such as the vampire-centric A Coven of Vampires, and recent releases The Taint and Other Novellas and Haggopian and Other Stories. Lumley is a winner of the British Fantasy Award, and in 1998, he was named a Grand Master by the World Horror Society.
It raised eyebrows when twenty-six-year-old Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith married eighty-nine-year-old oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall. It seemed such a shameless example of a relationship built on mutual exploitation rather than mutual affection. But is that really so different from most relationships? Is it the case, as one character in this story ponders, that "all relationships are bargains of sorts"? Maybe so, maybe not. But in the case of this story, most definitely so.