ALL ABOARD THE LOVE TRAIN
TAMARA Lush furiously taps at her keyboard, describing in titillating detail how a sultry newspaper heiress falls for a Cuban hunk who, fortunately for her, also happens to be a billionaire businessman.
The pair’s ensuing lusty antics would make any reader blush.
But the people around Lush — from the businessmen in their starched shirts to frazzled moms juggling babies on their laps — have no idea that she is using their Amtrak train as her own racy writer’s den, penning provocative prose as a conductor walks the aisle and people hop on and off.
Lush, who gained fame among romance readers in recent months for her raunchy tale “Tell Me A Story,’’ knows she is one of the more unusual picks for Amtrak’s writers-inresidence program this year.
The married, middle-aged woman is among 24 artists chosen to crisscross America by rail to give them the time, and hopefully inspiration, to create.
“I’m certain I have many flaws in my writing,’’ Lush, 45, admitted to The Post as she rode a train earlier this month on her way from Orlando, Fla., to San Francisco.
“My plotting can be weak, my word choice may not be the best,” she said.
“But my sex scenes,’’ Lush said, “I know, are damned good.”
LUSH writes naughty stuff, the kind of lusty chick lit that uses words such as “moist,’’ “lick’’ and even some c-words to rev up her growing fan base.
During her 15-day writing trip, which began Jan. 10, Lush has been working on a new book, “Constant Craving,” which tells the tale of the heiress and her Cuban dreamboat.
A new writer, Lush only became famous over the past two years with “Tell Me a Story,’’ which throws sassy heroine Emma into the arms of dashing billionaire real-estate developer Caleb.
“I wanted him,” gushes Emma in the book, after spying Caleb at one of her book readings.
“His features — high cheekbones, a slightly big nose, a strong jaw — wouldn’t have stood out on their own, but the combination was irresistibly masculine. Intriguing. F--able.”
About two hours into Lush’s trip — somewhere between Orlando and Jacksonville — word began to spread among the Amtrak crew that she was in her sleeper car continuing to work on “Constant Craving.”
Amid the excitement, one female staffer downloaded an excerpt of “Tell Me,” which is set in Florida, on her phone during her break.
“Oh my God!” the employee exclaimed, her eyes lighting up as she read Lush’s prose.
The excerpt included Emma dripping, “When he said my name, it was like slipping into a bed of velvet — sumptuous and tactile. “Are you going to kiss me tonight? “I fought the urge to lick him. His bottom lip brushed my lobe, and I’d never felt such arousal before. What the hell was happening here?”
Giggling, the employee put away her phone.
“I’ll get back to that tonight!” she said, fanning her face.
Lush, 45, is rightly a celebrity on Amtrak — she beat out more than 600 writers to land a spot in its creative program.
Under the deal, she gets a free 15 days of travel aboard its trains, including a spot in a sleeper car, and gratis meals.
Lush said she’s proud she was chosen because it proves her genre has become more mainstream.
“Erotic literature is a very valid art form,” Lush said while taking a break from work to sit in the dining car with a coffee, staining the rim of her cup with pink lipstick.
“It’s a basic story about what women want,” she said.
“Women want to read about a nice, good-looking guy who can give them an orgasm. Women want a nice, happy ending.”
LUSH — her real name, honest — was born in California from French-Canadian stock and grew up in Vermont with a single mother.
Although her mother, Carolyn Lush, didn’t like it when she found her daughter’s stash of “smut” — including Erica Jong’s “Fear of Flying” and Xavier Hollander’s “The Happy Hooker” — in her daughter’s bedroom in the 1970s, she defended the girl’s right to read it.
“My mother was a feminist and thought romance novels were not
“I wanted him the second I looked into his steel blue eyes . . . I was long overdue for male attention. At least, that’s what I told myself as I took in his charcoal suit, his crisp white shirt, and the platinum glint of a wristwatch dial. I hadn’t been kissed in a long time — not well, at least.” — The opening chapter off “Tell Me A Story’’
feminist,” Lush said. “But when a neighbor complained that I was bringing dirty books to school and reading them aloud, my mother told them, ‘Well, at least she’s reading.’ ”
Lush longed to be a writer but didn’t know what kind to be.
After graduating from Emerson College, she started a series of journalism jobs, including at The Burlington Free Press, USA Today and the St. Petersburg Times.
In 2008, she joined the Associated Press in Miami.
Lush still works for AP as a writer-at-large covering Florida crime and mayhem.
She reported on the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting earlier this month and broke the news that the Ringling Bros. circus is closing.
The attractive writer said she dated many men before deciding to take a page from one of her romance novels — and settle down with a shirtless man she met on the beach.
Marco Kornfield, an affable Italian, bowled her over with his smile and sex appeal. The pair married five years ago, and she says her husband continues to rock her world by being cheerful in the morning and washing the dishes after every meal.
Lush said the good life got her thinking.
“We weren’t going to have children, so I had the luxury of time. And I wanted to do something. I wanted to start writing novels,” Lush said.
She said she thought about true crime — “but then ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ happened, and everything changed.”
The 2011 erotic thriller by E.L. James was about a literature student who begins a bondage-based affair with a young entrepreneur named Christian Grey.
It pulsated through the country, earning the writer millions of dollars.
So, Lush dusted off her copy of “How to Write a Romance,” bought a treadmill desk — and tucked into her new moonlighting gig.
She got into a routine: Work for AP during the day, have a romantic dinner with her husband at 6 p.m. to clear her head, and by 7 p.m., hop on her treadmill to write sexy smut for three hours before bed.
Within months, she emerged with “Hot Shade,” the story of a journalist who covers a plane crash on a Florida beach and meets a mysterious Italian man.
To her surprise, she said, writing the smut scenes was the easiest part.
“His hands ran up my thighs . . . Spreading me open, he inhaled sharply,’’ Lush’s heroine says breathlessly.
“I whimpered and turned my head to the side. A huge lock of hair fell over my face.
“‘There?’ he asked, his thumb circling softly.”
Boroughs Publishing Group bought the rights to “Hot Shade’’ for a few thousand bucks and put it out in limited-release paperback, launching her new career.
LUSH’S TRAIN picks up speed after stopping in Savannah, Ga. During dinner, which consisted of chicken, green beans and a glass of red wine, the wait staff was unusually attentive.
“Porn is what men want,” Lush told The Post over the meal, relaxing as the evening set in and the train headed northward.
“Women want to fall in love and relive the process of falling in love. We want to have fun after a day of conflict.”
After peddling a second novel, “Into the Heat,’’ to Boroughs, Lush changed course and decided to self-publish “Tell Me a Story.’’
She hired editors and graphic designers to worry over Web sites and digital sales, freeing her up to just write.
Her most recent installment is “Tell Me A Fantasy,” uploaded the morning of Jan. 17, hours before her train trip began. It revolves around Caleb’s rakish brother, Colin, as he woos sexy older jetsetter Samantha Citrouille.
After a long day of traveling and talking, Lush retired to her cabin and closed the door for some needed shut-eye.
At 2 a.m., though, inspiration hit, and she opened her laptop once again to the 90,000-word first draft of “Constant Craving,” which is due in the fall.
Maybe the heroine, 30-something Justine, shouldn’t get preg- nant by Cuban lover Rafael after all.
Lush rewrote the plot as the train glided through North Carolina and into Virginia.
“My mouth was uncomfortably moist,” Justine says in a new scene. “Rafael’s gaze made me feel naked. Made me want to be naked. With him.”
Last Wednesday, approaching New York’s Penn Station, Lush declared she was happy with the edited plot twist and shut down her computer.
She was about to spend three days in the Big Apple, meeting with digital-publishing sales gurus, before hitting the rails again, heading to Chicago.
As the skyscrapers of Manhattan came into view, Lush smoothed her dress and freshened her lipstick.
“You know,” she said, smiling. “The reason I write romance novels is for the ending.
“In my stories, the heroine always wins. She gets the handsome man and the orgasm. And, I ask you, what can be better than that?”