Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 66865 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66865 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
The air around us crackles. Kip bolts upright, twisting his body toward me.
“What do you mean, you don’t know how? Everyone knows how—you put your hand down your pants, move it around, and boom, orgasm.” Sounds like she needs a tutorial of Masturbating for Dummies.
“I don’t think it’s that simple.” She giggles, patronizing me.
“Oh, but Teddy, it is. It really, really is that simple.”
“Yeah, probably because you’ve been jerking off since you were like twelve, and all you really have to do is move your hand up and down on your penis. There’s barely any work involved.”
No comment.
Suddenly I twist my body to face her, bending my elbow and propping myself up in her direction. “So let me get this straight—you’ve never touched yourself?”
“Of course I’ve touched myself.”
I roll my eyes. “The shower to get clean doesn’t count.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, she says,” I tease. “You’re really missing out if you’re not rubbing one out a few times a week.”
She groans, embarrassed. “Rubbing one out? That’s one I haven’t heard before.”
“It’s all part of self-love, Teddy.”
“And I bet you love yourself a whole lot,” comes her low chuckle.
She has no idea.
“Why do you even care?” she asks.
“I don’t. You’re the one who brought it up—I’m just the one who ran with it.”
“Actually, I didn’t.”
“Yes you did. You were all”—my speech gets high-pitched as I mimic her girl voice—“You must spend a lot of time blah blah blah…you know.”
“I do not sound like that.” In the dark, I hear her eyes roll.
“But you did say it.”
“Fine. I’m curious, all right? Sue me. You’re this giant of a guy, who must be—”
She stops herself.
“Spit it out, Teddy. Stop hesitating.” It’s driving me nuts!
“Fine! You’re this giant of a guy who must get…excited a lot. There, happy now?”
“And by excited you mean…”
“Horny, okay?” The words burst out of her. “Thank god it’s dark, my face is on fire.”
Yup. I made her say the word horny, and she sounds horrified, and it’s perfect.
“And you’re not? Horny?”
“Uh…when would I have the time? And please stop saying that word—it’s awful. It’s worst than the word moist. Or squirt.”
She hates the word moist? What’s wrong with the word moist?
“You hate horny? You don’t have time to be horny?” I say it again, twice, just to embarrass her. “You’re shitting me, right? Everyone has time to be horny. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“It’s perfectly normal not to be turned on all the time.”
“No. It’s not.” At least, I don’t think it is.
“How would you even know? You’re not a female.”
“No, but I’ve seen enough of them around campus and at parties to know most are sex-crazed lunatics.”
“Are you high right now?” she barks at me through the shadows. “Who are you hanging out with? Absolutely no one is running around campus like a sex-crazed lunatic, except maybe the guys.”
“False. I am not a sex-crazed lunatic.”
“What are you then? Because I doubt you’re a virgin.”
Definitely not a virgin. “No. I just swore off girls when they became too much trouble.”
“Trouble? How?”
“You know, wanting to get serious and shit.”
“Ah, so you’re one of thooose.” She drags the word out, as if she’s finally cracked my code, satisfaction lacing every syllable. “A commitment-phobe.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Pfft. Try me.”
“Nope. We are not having this conversation.” Especially not in the middle of the night.
“Oh, but we are.” If we were seated at a table, she’d be crossing her arms and leaning back, waiting for my reply like a boss. Giving me the stink eye. Puffing on a cigar, killing me with silence.
“Let’s just agree to disagree, okay? I don’t need to justify why I’m not into dating, and you don’t need to justify why you don’t like touching yourself downtown.”
“Oh my god.”
I uncurl myself, rolling to my back, gaze staring up at the ceiling in the pitch black.
“I have a question for you: what if I like it so much I never want to have sex with a guy?”
“What if you love jerking yourself off so much you never want to have sex with a dude? I don’t even know how to respond to that, Teddy.”
The thought is inconceivable.
“But that’s what happened to you, right? You masturbated yourself single. You don’t need a female. You have two hands to keep you satisfied.”
There’s probably an element of truth to that, but, “Sometimes it’s not enough.”
Jesus. Why did I admit that out loud?
“I could have told you that, and I’m not even doing it. You can’t replace real intimacy, Kip, no matter how hard you try.”
“Thanks, Mom. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Teddy only gives me a few seconds of reprieve before she hits me with her next assault. “Why don’t you like having people over?”
I sigh, long and loudly into the dark, tucking my arms behind my head. “Who said I don’t like having people over?”
I feel her shrug when the mattress dips, though I can’t see it.