The Masturbation Scene Itself

   When he entered his room Gavin Sterling was no longer sure that he wanted to empty himself of desire. Orgasm, after all, was unreliable; it changed your mood, like dreams. Gavin foresaw the probable outcome, saw himself perched down on his knees, quivering above little puddles of sperm sauce. Emptied of anticipation and desire. The appropriation of anything coveted in imagination had a habit in Gavin’s life of falling short of expectation. Sometimes he believed this was the fault of the male orgasm - that abrupt pyrotechnic eviction from the embrace of one’s comforting yearnings and their occult energies. Gavin was sure the female orgasm, altogether less evangelical, less systematic and goal-posted, was a different kettle of fish. But he was a male and the only orgasm available to him was the streamlined provisions of the male one.

    Grand Theft Auto was always an option, he thought, practicing some dance moves in front of the polished mirror. Throwing back his shoulders and making imperious flat-palmed signals with his outstretched hands as if putting to rest the misgivings of an entire populace stationed somewhere far below his swaying form he thought how bizarre it was that the otherworldly Evie should appear again just as he was bemoaning his lack of a companion to take to Rome. “Ohyo Ohyo,” he shouted in agreement with the bass heavy rap tune rattling the framed photo of his mother and father by the bed. His mouth puckered like a feeding fish as he punched the air with war-mongering fists and remembered the night his fingers had gone probing inside Evie’s knicker elastic.    

     Despite his earlier misgivings Gavin inserted the disc into the machine. He held it on PAUSE while he made a vagina in his book case, inserting a soft pouch of pink tissue paper between a heavy biography of Napoleon and the softer, still unread paperback edition of Martin Amis’ Money. 

   Three men were spying on the plucky peroxide heroine through double-glazed french windows. Speaking into a phone she was dressed in a transparent black negligee and sprawled on a sofa, patterned with garden flowers. Gavin had to imagine what she might be saying since for fear of his flatmate overhearing he had turned the sound down. As the three men unzipped their flies Gavin remembered the excitement of finally convincing Evie to publicly slander his enemy and felt his blood ripple with cleaving dedication. The humiliation he had indirectly received at Felix’s hands still though thirsted further revenge. What did he care if it was no more Felix’s fault than Lord Byron’s himself that his childhood sweetheart had incessantly made plain her attraction to young Mr. Chantley’s celluloid image? What in Gavin’s mind became her marked preference for the actor had incited a jealousy which first undermined the previously facile nature of his self-confidence and then heralded the demise of their relationship.

     “Dickhead,” said Gavin, on his knees with his trousers and boxer shorts rucked around his ankles. Grasping the wooden cabinet for all he was worth he continued thrusting his manhood into the handmade pink yoni.