The Venus Fix

Fifteen

Timothy sat in his room, at his desk, staring at his computer, supposedly reading a friend’s movie blog. The ambient glow from the screen was the only light in the room. For the past fifteen minutes, he’d been nursing a beer and was teasing himself with the idea of going online. He was swollen just thinking about it, but he was trying to hold off. Dr. Snow had talked about control. He had control. He knew he did. He had it with all sorts of things; he could have it with this. Especially now. After what he’d seen last week. It was so disgusting. It was still bothering him. How sick had that girl been? What had happened to her? When he’d told Amanda about her, she’d gotten all quiet. Freaked out. He knew why. Knew he never should have said anything.

He took another gulp of the beer. He’d just go online for a few minutes. No one would know. His parents were out- again-and the apartment was quiet and still.

Through the window he could see the snow falling, falling as if the heavens had an endless supply of the white flakes.

Dr. Snow said he should call someone when he felt like this. It was eleven-thirty and there was no one he wanted to talk to, and nothing he wanted to do except go online, find some girl and have her get him off. Maybe he’d find a chick who was into tea-bagging. His erection stiffened. He typed in the porn site’s address, but that was as far as he could get.

The image of Penny from last week, writhing in pain, stopped him. He’d dreamt about her every damn night and woken up drenched in sweat, because even in the dream, he didn’t do a thing to help her.

What had happened to her?

He needed to see that she was fine and back at work, didn’t he? That was a reason to go online: to make sure Penny was fine, even though the small secret voice in his head was telling him something bad had happened. He was afraid she had died.

If she had, she would be the second woman he’d known who had died. That’s what Amanda had said to him. Reminding him. As if he needed anyone to remind him.

He put his head in his hands and tried to picture Simone. It was getting tougher to remember. The images had lost their edges. Her face had become less distinct. She was fading. That scared him, too. Is that what happened to you after you died? You just faded away until no one remembered anything about you anymore? He could remember the girl on the Internet from Thursday night better than Simone. But Simone had been flesh and blood and he had touched her. He had smelled her skin and felt her lips on his cock.

He tried to shake off her ghost, but he couldn’t. She wouldn’t go away.

Sometimes he fixated on her like this and got himself all worked up over what had happened. His heart would start to race and he’d feel nauseous and panicky. He didn’t want to feel all that shit tonight. There was nothing he could do about Simone. It was too late.

Timothy clicked on the hard-drive icon, and then the document file icon. Next he clicked on the term-paper file. Inside of that he clicked on the American History file. And within that he clicked on the folder called “Presidents.” Inside were a dozen JPEGs, labeled GW1, GW2, GW3, GW4. And there was one MPEG. He moved the cursor over it and let it hover there.

No one knew he still had this. He’d lied and told Amanda he hadn’t kept it, and she’d believed him. Since last spring, he hadn’t opened it, afraid that if he did it would alert some spyware somewhere, and his headmaster and his parents and the girls’ parents and every college he had applied to would know that he was watching it.

That was ridiculous. He was a computer geek. He knew as much as anyone else about how the Net worked. There was no such thing as what he was imagining. But still, he couldn’t do it.

He wanted to click on the MPEG damn bad. He knew what he’d see if he hit the key. They’d fill his screen. The two of them naked, touching each other, the one pale, the other darker. He knew the way they’d lean toward each other to kiss and…

His erection strained against his jeans.

How could he? What kind of animal was he that he could still get a hard-on even now that she was dead? But he needed to come. Besides, it wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t asked them to make the movie. That was their idea-to entice him and show him how sexy they were and how much they were willing to do for him. And Hugh. And Barry. For all of them.

His head was fighting with his cock.

Hit the key, watch it.

Don’t watch it.

Don’t touch yourself.

I have to.

I have to.

Their images appeared on the screen. He fast-forwarded to the kiss, to where he couldn’t see their faces. He didn’t want to see their faces. Just the fucking kiss.

There it was. A long, slow kiss. A kiss that went on and on. He was transfixed. Under its spell. Lost in the sensation it aroused. He didn’t even know he was stroking himself. He was too far gone. The pressure was building.

When he came, exploding into his own hand, the clip was still running. He hit the stop button quickly. He hadn’t even gotten through sixty seconds of it.