Read Online New Title 1 by Edward Lee, John Pelan - Free Book Online

his fifth erection of the day. “All right, I guess we can go to this wrestling match now.”
    The pause hung in the air. She looked at him forlornly, her lips pursed. “Listen, Captain, I can tell something’s wrong, and I think I know what it is.”
    Straker had to sort the statement; he had to struggle against his lust. “What? There’s nothing wrong.”
    “Yes, there is, Captain. It seems that you’re incredibly attracted to me.”
    “What, uh, what makes you say that?”
    “Well, for one thing,” she responded, “you’ve either had the end of a broomstick in your pants since the minute we met, or you’re carrying around a raging erection.”
    The observation jostled him. All he could do was lie. “That’s ridiculous. You don’t know what you’re talking ab—”
    “And it seems that you’re so attracted to me, you’ve had to masturbate to relive your tensions.”
    Straker gaped. “I have not!”
    She looked scoldingly at him. “Captain. When you used the bathroom, you forgot to flush the toilet. I saw your sperm floating in the water.”
    Straker’s mouth formed an O like a grouper’s, but no words came out.
    Then she glanced intermittently into the wastebasket. “And it looks like you’ve done it again right there in the garbage.”
    Straker could only stare. He could say nothing as his face turned red as a radish.
    She patted his shoulder consolingly. “Listen, Captain, I understand. I sometimes have this effect on men, and I apologize. Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll go wait in the car, and you can masturbate again if you’d like.”
    Straker nearly threw up as he watched her leave the motel room. Could anything be more embarrassing than this?
    The answer was simple: No. Nothing in the world.
    Nevertheless, he whipped it out one more time, and masturbated desperately until he was able to deposit yet another string of semen into the bag-lined plastic wastebasket.
    Asshole, he thought.
     
    ««—»»
     
    She didn’t say a word when he summoned the courage to actually walk out to the car and get in. They rode in silence for at least five minutes, heading for Route 154. Finally, Straker could bare no more of it.
    “Listen,” he said. “I couldn’t help it.”
    “Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “Men find me attractive. I know that.”
    Straker scratched his face. “Well, what about…”
    “Yes, Captain?”
    “Well, I was just curious. I mean, do, uh, do you find, uh, me attractive?”
      “No,” she said. She steered down the road, unaffected. Only after a commensurate pause did she add, “But that’s not to make you feel inadequate, Captain. I’m sure a good many women are sufficiently attracted to you. It’s just that I’m not one of them. It’s not an insult, you know.”
    “Sure,” Straker said. But what could he expect her to say? 38 now, growing a pot and losing his hair in back. He hadn’t lifted a weight in ten years, and the last time he’d had a suntan, Carter was in office. I’m a pud, he condemned himself. I’m an blithering idiot. I just let the most desirable woman in the world catch me beating off…
    “You’re not, uh—you know—you’re not like going to, uh, tell anyone are you?”
    She smiled as she drove. “Of course not, Captain. That’s not really the sort of thing I’d want to have put in the case file. And I don’t know what you’re so embarrassed about. Masturbation is a normal, healthy mode of sexual release. Everyone masturbates, Captain. I masturbate.”
    His gaze roved dismally out the window. “Oh yeah? How often?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. Periodically.”
    Periodically. That probably didn’t mean four times in little more than an hour. He’d really done it this time; humiliation could not be more complete than this. When had the last time been? Two months ago? No, more like three or four. And today’s earlier shenanigans with Traci Wilcox had been his first intercourse in over a year. It was Melinda Pierce’s fault, he