Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Popping in the other room, I start. “Ah!”
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Britney calls from the other room.
“Oh. Nothing. I just saw my reflection and thought I was somebody else for a moment. Read!”
There are a ton of mirrors in here and it caught me off guard. I kind of didn’t recognize myself. Which I don’t mean metaphorically, I mean I really thought I was a creeper. Creeping up and being a creep.
Stepping to the sink and turning on the tap, I pull my toothbrush out of the clear glass tumbler where I placed it and I turn it on. It’s electric, but not one of the big, old, cumbersome electric toothbrushes with the huge dock and all the awkwardness. It’s a new one that runs on a battery and is pretty much self-contained just like an old-fashioned, everyday toothbrush that you’d get at the drugstore, but that vibrates and promises to give your teeth an extra level of cleanliness.
The feeling of it vibrating in my hand makes me wonder how it would feel if I shoved it in my pussy.
What? What the fuck was that?
That is not the kind of thing I normally think.
Did… did the sexy hotness I just spent all afternoon writing do something to my brain? Did it open some closed quarters inside my mind where shoving a toothbrush inside oneself seems like a normal thing to think?
Regardless, it’s a good idea. Maybe that’s what I’ll write my next book about. A hot dentist and his dental technician and all the freaky-ass dentifrice-slathered boom-boom they have!
“Dr. Leatherwood, that’s not what the mold is supposed to be used for.”
“Don’t worry, Cardigan”—I’ve always wanted to name a character Cardigan—“I know the distributor. I can get more.”
Or whatever. Rough idea. I’ll work out the dialogue later.
As I get the bristles all pasted up so I can shove the stick into my mouth and get everything all good and frothy (I wonder if this is how I’ll think all the time now?), I catch a better look at myself in the mirror. And I pause.
I put the toothbrush down and lean forward, really examining my face.
And I think… I like it.
That’s not something I normally think about myself, but I think it now.
Somewhat slowly, I pull my eyeglasses away from my face and set them on the basin next to the sink. I take the toothbrush out of my mouth and place it down as well. I spit. I wipe my mouth. And stare.
And still… I like what I see.
It’s not some magic moment, like in a nineties teen rom-com where the nerdy girl takes off her glasses only to realize she’s been the hot girl all along. It’s neither as obvious nor as lazy as that. (I actually think my parents did an uncredited rewrite on one of those once.) It’s more… internal.
Nothing about me has changed, materially. My eyes are my eyes. My lips are my lips. My chin is my chin. And on and on and on. But inside, behind the eyes I see staring back, is something I don’t immediately judge as unworthy.
Huh.
I wonder what that’s about.
And then, suddenly, I see Britney appear, reflected behind me in the mirror.
“Hey. Are you… You didn’t read it already, did you? I mean, I know it’s not that long, but still…”
She walks over to me, puts her hands on my shoulders (I’m realizing that she also touches my shoulders a lot lately), stares at our shared reflection, and says, “I think maybe the last day or so has been a bit too much for you.”
I pick up my glasses, slip them back onto my face, and avoid looking into the mirror anymore.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I’m sitting in my personal conference room. I never understood why anyone would need a conference room inside an Aria guest suite. I mean, it’s good for roleplaying an office erotica, something Master Choke might be into, but Vegas is really not the place to have serious wheels and deals.
Still, it’s there. And I’m on a conference call. It feels appropriate to have this meeting in the conference room.
“Can you hear me now?” I tap my laptop screen because what else can you do? It’s a fuckin’ Boom call.
“I can’t hear you.” This is Terry. “It’s just lips moving, dude. Check your audio.”
“It’s not my audio, Terry.”
He’s squinting at me. “What? I can’t hear you.”
“Be right back,” Shawn says. “I gotta get Dawn some coffee.”
“What?” I say. “Bro! I’m having a crisis here! She can get her own coffee!”
Shawn pauses mid-air, his ass halfway out of the chair. “Maybe you don’t live inside an actual romance novel, Steve, but I do. And when my wife wants coffee, I get her some coffee. I’ll be right back.”
“Ohhh!” Terry yells. “Fuck, my bad. I didn’t have my buds in.” I look at his little screen-in-screen just in time to catch him shoving ear buds into his ears. “Can you hear me now?”