Divine: A Novel (3 page)

“Item for item,” I cut in before he has a
chance to speak. “A perfect match. My list as a whole is exactly the same as
yours. They’re both gender-narrow-minded-specific.”

He leans back and pours a second glass of
wine while our pasta is served. I did win. I can’t believe he’s going to stay.

“I’m not protecting myself and I wouldn’t
have taken option two all the way. I just wanted to see your reaction,” he
says.

I knew it.

“If you took off after I suggested we
could fuck tonight, I’d know you were either a prude, or unable to handle a
joke. And if you said we could skip dinner and fuck right away, you’d be too
easy for me, not worth my time either way, but you did neither.”

I swallow again. That was hot when he
said he’d fuck me, throwing it into the mix of options, but I was correct; he
wasn’t serious. Damn.

“Is Div a nickname?”

And just like that, after my nasty list
and his comment about fucking, we start a new conversation as if he just sat
down at the table.

“It’s short for Divine.”

“Middle name?”

“O.”

“O what?” he asks.

“Just the letter O. I think my parents
fell asleep while filling out the birth certificate. No name, just a letter.”
This part is always the worst. Where did you grow up (Pittsburgh), go to school
(Pittsburgh), got any siblings (no), what do you do for
fun
? What does that even mean, fun? Like kill people? I suppose
that could be considered fun.

Forget I just said that. What I say, do,
and think are three very different things.

This is what I do for fun.

“I like to drive around town and listen
to music.”
I watch porn.
“I bake
sweets - cakes, pies and cookies.”
I
write erotic novels. “
I spend a lot of time reading.”
I’ve seen you jerk off and I know you have a nice dick.

That’s true, actually. I’ve looked in the
windows of his home. I’ve even sneaked into his backyard and climbed the
stairwell to his second floor balcony. I got to watch him jerk off. I got
lucky. Most nights he’s on his computer or reading, but that night was a treat.
It turned me on beyond belief. He was standing in his bedroom with one hand on
his dresser while the other yanked it. A bit strange that he wasn’t in his bed
or sitting down, and then when he came he just let it shoot out. Another
surprise. He didn’t try to catch it or cover the tip. His cum stuck to the
front of the dresser and slid slowly down until it dripped onto a rug.

That’s
what I do for fun, Mr. James Daniel Keller. I watch you pleasure yourself. I
already know you have control over that thing in your pants, and I know you’re
single. You’re home alone whenever I check on you.

Wait, you find that deceitful? Sneaky? I
happen to think of myself as brilliant. I want to know what I’m getting into
before I get into it, or it gets into me, if you know what I mean.

Voice, check. Scent, check. Dick, check.
Three down.

CHAPTER
THREE

T
hat was... ummm... interesting? It was a
good date and it turns out Daniel Keller is a townie. Born, raised, and
schooled in this university town of thirty thousand. And now he writes product
reviews. He gets paid for articles and to write reviews for companies in order
to boost their sales and ratings. He does it for authors and musicians
sometimes as well. No joke. I almost spit out my meatball when he told me.
Isn’t that ironic? And I thought what I was doing online by having a street
team was unethical...

I didn’t fuck him, by the way. He didn’t
get to any bases, and when he moved in for a kiss, I stepped back leaving him
high and dry. No nooky and no phone numbers were exchanged, not yet. I have too
many other things to do tonight. I have to talk to the Dick Sluts. I need to
sell some books. I need to make some money so I can quit my fucking job. I
can’t let Dan distract me from my plans. This is important; it’s my life, my
future. The guy’s sexy and I like him, but he’ll have to wait.

Violet
Cuddlecock

Have you Sluts read my new dark erotic
novel? It might be an ugly cry for some. Something different than all the rest.
You won’t be disappointed!

65 people like this.

Violet Cuddlecock’s my pen name. It’s a
good one for the genre. Better than a few I’ve seen recently. It’s as if
everyone has jumped on the ‘Grey, James, Beautiful, Millionaire, Promised, Step
Brother, and so on’ bandwagon, trying everything possible to make their books
and names sound like the popular ones. Anyone else notice that? Well, they may
just be the smart ones because I went the alternate route and their books do
far better than mine. I’m not a clone, at least not that I’m aware of, but
writing a book is similar to creating a piece of art, it’s impossible to be
truly original, so I should’ve jumped on that train like all the rest.
Everything’s been done anyway, so what does it matter? My students shake their
heads when I tell them that about their designs, but it’s true. No matter what
you write or create, it will remind someone, somewhere, of something else.

I know this, but I wrote it in my post
anyway. Something
different
from all
the rest
.

So my street team gets to work. I sit in
bed with my laptop and my long list of Facebook fans, asking them to comment on
my post. I want it to stay at the top of the newsfeed. Every time there’s a
comment added it jumps back up. That’s no secret; I’ve seen a lot of authors do
this on other sites. They post their book, readers comment, and then when it
starts to disappear into the Facebook vortex they add a short sentence to boost
it back up. Like,
thank you,
or
glad you enjoyed it!

It makes me want to vomit, seriously,
this isn’t something that I’m proud of, but I play the game and it works. After
a while more people post that the book sounds good, some say they just
one-clicked, while others post that it’s on their TBR list. Marketing, my
friends. The entire world is run by ads. When you don’t have a publisher, this
is one way to sell books, homegrown advertising.

Oh fuck, there she is. Another author
named Kimmy Firestorm.

Jesus, now that I think of it, authors’
names in the erotic genre are perfect for the WWE. Erotic books and
professional wrestling are one and the same. Next match in the ring will be
Violet Cuddlecock versus Kimmy Firestorm.
Ding-ding-ding.

I should’ve called myself Firestorm; that
is
a good name, it goes along with my
dark auburn brown hair.

I’m a member of over forty author and
book sites and Kimmy’s on every one of them. She’s one of those Facebook whores
who clog the wall with multiple posts. Every fifteen minutes,
Buy my books, sweeties! I love you all!
XOXO!

I want to send her a message, reminding
her of the rules, but I hold back.

Yes, these sites have rules. You can’t
flood the wall with the same thing over and over (Kimmy), and don’t beg people
to buy your books (Kimmy).

I admit it, I’m a competitive bitch and
some of my fellow authors; like Kimmy, make me want to pull my hair out because
people love them so much.

She writes what I call PG-13 Kid Romance.
Not much sex, the women hold out, a deep emotional bond forms between the
characters... they have weak libidos, never fucking until the end... nothing
like real life. My books are one-hand-two-finger reads that get you hot and
heavy from Chapter One. How did she get accepted into the Sluts?

I slam my laptop shut and head for the
kitchen for a Miller Light.

My life is
meh
.

Mediocre and uninteresting.

I should just go ahead and do it, kill
someone, brush away the meh for a while.

Mehhhhh.

I walk around my living room with a beer
in hand sounding like a sheep. Mehhh, bahhh, mehhh.

My God, I’m going insane. I need some
friends.

Everyone in my life outside of the
university and Dan are online. My author has thousands of Facebook friends, but
I have only thirty-two, real ones, people who are connected to Div. Most of
them I met in high school or college, and none of them live in the area.
They’re all back in Pittsburgh. It’s a place I’ll never return to because of
the bad memories. My mother died...

There’s a knock on my door.

I’m in my robe, holding a beer, making
animal noises, thinking about my dead parents at nine at night, and there’s a
knock.

I know it’s
him.
Dan. He wants more, but my house is off limits. Always. No one
can come in, no one can see how I live or what I own; it’s private.

He knocks again.

I step onto my front porch and into the
spring night, shutting the door quickly so he can’t see inside. The smell of
rain is mixed with the scent of greasy French fries from the Burger Castle
that’s down the road. His hair is wet. Shiny. Dripping. An image flashes
through my head of his naked body sprawled out on his bed with his hands tied
to the bedpost and his dick stuck in a jar of caramel. I lick my lips.

He moves closer as if it’s a sign, but I
grip the top of my robe, signaling not to touch. His grin’s contagious. Sexy
bastard. Uh, he has the face of a young Casey Affleck. I’m in trouble.

“Div,” he whispers with a hand placed
next to my head. “You asked me out to dinner but then you refused my kiss.” His
breath smells like a cinnamon Altoid. “I haven’t been rejected since I was
fourteen. But that’s how you play, right? It’s what you do to lure men back to
your house?”

If he only knew.

“Divine Hallowell,” his voice is soft and
suggestive as his lips brush against my ear. I close my eyes and inhale. “I bet
you fuck like a wild animal.”

Mehhh.

I’m a taster. I like to nibble and
chew... and he’s not coming inside just yet. In my house (ever) or in my vagina
(right now).

I retreat, turn the deadbolt and exhale
then slide down the back of my door and listen for his footsteps. It seems like
an eternity before he walks away and I can finally take another deep breath. Do
I know how to pick ‘em, or what? He could be in one of my novels, or better
yet, I could be a character in one of Kimmy Firestorm’s books.

Except I won’t wait until the end (the
last scene) to fuck Dan. It will happen soon. I make a mental note to buy a jar
of caramel.

The remainder of my beer is poured down
the kitchen drain before I crawl back into bed with my laptop. I want to tell
the Dick Sluts about him, my new man, but the posts can only be book related.
Damn. Instead, I post on my regular newsfeed as Div, knowing my thirty-or-so
friends don’t give a shit. And sure as I’m caking my ass with body butter,
waiting for a response, staring at the screen for ten minutes, the post gets
zero likes.

Porn is better than Facebook anyway. I
haven’t forgotten that. It was what I was going to watch after I finished my beer,
but there’s no escaping it now, not after seeing Dan all wet and drippy on my
front porch.

You think I should’ve fucked him, right?
And sometimes when I say
you
, I’m
referring to Violet Cuddlecock. The only other person, or I should say, the
other presence in my life. You would’ve fucked him, I know.

Yep.
Sucked and fucked within the first two hours of our date.

Violet and I are not the classic alter
ego duo you’d read about in a book, not even close to the good and evil split
persona you’d expect. We’re both fucked up in our own way; she’s just more
honest about it. If she wanted to kill someone, she’d do it, where I’d only
fantasize about it. If she wanted to fuck Dan within an hour of meeting him,
she’d tell him flat out. She might just say that to him soon, and it might come
out of my mouth when she does. Every so often, that side of me, my old self
that I can’t let go, reappears. I call her my pen name because the content in
my books are based on a time in my life when she was real, a younger and wilder
me.

And no, I don’t have a split personality.
Violet’s just the little voice in my head, a voice that’s been with me since my
mother died, and one that gives me strength and power to do the things Div can’t
do on her own. I’m not crazy. I mean, everyone has an inner voice, mine may be
stronger and more abrasive than others, a bit pestering at times, but it’s not
uncommon and I am getting better at pushing her aside. Maybe. I think.

So the porn... I need visuals, images;
that’s why I love these online sites. But I can’t find a video that will turn
me on enough to climax. Years ago it was quick. After a minute or two I was
done. Everything back then was hot. Now I feel as though I’ve seen all the
videos ever made. Nothing gets me off anymore. I sit in bed with my fingers
over my clit, moving slowly, scrolling through site after site, but
it
doesn’t happen. Every once in a while
a video will surprise me. The guy’s loud, talkative, he grunts and shows his
best cum face... and then it ends. It never lasts long enough.

Yeah, I know the videos are like ten or
fifteen minutes in length, but who in their right mind watches the entire
thing? I guarantee you everyone’s just like me, you slide the video to the end,
just before the cum shot. That’s the good part, the part that
should
cause a quick arousal.

An hour passes, and I’m still searching
for something new and exciting.

Bride
fucked by best man

Fire
station ho’s

Cum
shot compilation

I came across one a week ago that was
incredible. It was a young guy fucking an overweight hooker in a hotel room on
a hidden cam. And then I noticed it was a series. The hooker taped all of her
“clients.” Same room, same outfit, same camera angle, same position, different
guy. But now I can’t find any of them. I forgot to bookmark it.

That’s something I shouldn’t do anyway,
bookmark porn sites. Someone would be bound to come across it if I died. I’m
unsure who that would be, but someone. That’s why my vibrator is at the very
bottom of my box of pads. No one in their right mind would dig through feminine
products if they were called in to clean out a dead woman’s house. The box,
along with my vibrator, would get tossed. And by the way, I bought that toy
with my Christmas bonus last year. Every faculty member receives a whopping
thirty bucks, and there’s no better way to spend that money than on fake dick.

I smile, thinking that Violet would never
hide it. She’d leave it out for everyone to see. As a-matter-of-fact, she’d
leave it inside herself so when she was undressed at the coroner’s office, a
big dick-shaped device would be jutting out of her hole.

I guess the problem with this porn thing
is I’m always looking for something
different
.
Just one more click, one more video, one more search and I’ll find it. And it’s
not anything hardcore either. I’m not big on viewing BDSM or rape videos when I
masturbate.

Nothing works tonight.

It’s frustrating.

I can’t do it.

Even the vibrator isn’t doing the trick.

Fuck!

But yet I stare at my laptop, my eyes
glazed over after hours of watching the screen. I love the imagery, the motion,
the sounds, it’s all consuming.

 
I’m going to fuck Daniel. He’ll be able to
make me come. He’s the type. Tomorrow.

My
Div
Hallowell
Facebook site still shows zero likes on my post. Screw my
friends. I’m going back to the Dick Sluts. The Sluts are always posting, always
commenting, every few seconds there’s a new question, a new pic, and a new...

Someone doesn’t like my book... another
author... wait, wait... let me read this...

Hayden
Night (Author)

Have you Sluts read Violet Cuddlecock’s
novel? What did you think? I found it slow and dry, not as good as some of the
others in the genre. Have you guys read mine? It’s much darker and dirtier...
cheaper too!

94 people like this.

No fucking way. That bitch! The nerve of
her to use my book to market her own. Don’t fuck with me.