Just About Sex Read Online Free PDF Page A

“DrSimoneIsAQuackdotcom.”
    Simone cocked her head. “Excuse me?”
    Sighing, Mary leaned over her shoulder and typed something on Simone’s laptop. Simone watched, with dread, as a Web site she’d never seen before sprang up. Dr. Simone Is A Quack ran the heading. The words scrolled like Sanskrit through her brain. She couldn’t make the meaningless images register.
    After a long minute she forced her gaze away from the heading and looked at the rest of the page. A picture of her—No! Not a picture! A caricature!—took up most of the screen. It was her, but not really. A way too big head on a tiny body. Her wispy hair, her big eyes, not her mouth. A big, gaping, screaming mouth. A hand raised, pointed index finger up, as if she thought she was so smart—a big, important know-itall spouting wisdom from a mountaintop.
    And…and there. Underneath the heading. A bastardization of her brand, “Advice about sex, love, and everything in between.” It said…oh, this was too horrible to look! It said, “Nonsense about sex, love and everything in between.”
    But there was more! Her chest heaving now, barely able to suck in a breath, she read the next little bit:
Welcome to my blog! I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of these faux experts spouting off on topics without any scientific basis whatsoever. And we listen to them! Why? What makes us think they know more than we do? Do we really need sex therapists to improve our sex lives? Are we that stupid? I don’t think so. But if we do need sexperts, shouldn’t we know a bit more about THEIR personal lives before we start taking their advice?
What do you think? Agree? Disagree?
—“Alexander”
    Amazingly, the site had thirty-one comments, which she could not bring herself to read.
    The other shoe had, officially, dropped.
    Simone made a twisted, choked sound. The room swam out of focus and she pressed her hand to her heart to keep it from slipping into full cardiac arrest. This could not be happening. This was not real. She was not looking at a high-quality, professionally designed Web site created for the sole purpose of making her look like an idiot. But as much as she willed it away, the Web site did not disappear. Planting her elbows on the table, she lowered her head to her hands and moaned.
    “Oh, Simone.” Mary’s hands fluttered down to pat Simone’s back and shoulders. “I’m so sorry. I thought for sure you’d seen it already. I was positive you’d have sued by now.”
    Simone raised her head. A lawsuit? That was the last thing she’d ever do; she couldn’t think of a surer recipe for disaster than drawing more attention to this…this debacle.
    The French doors opened again and several people—a Procter & Gamble exec, local TV anchorwoman and Cincinnati Bengal player among them—streamed in. Somehow Simone pulled herself together, stood and smiled. The show must go on. But when the new people saw her, they exchanged worried glances, murmured amongst themselves, and then smiled uncomfortably in her direction.
    Nausea tightened the sides of her throat and she swallowed compulsively as a new fear grabbed her. They hadn’t seen the blog, had they? Were they laughing at her? Was the credibility she’d worked so hard for all her life ruined already?
    “Don’t say anything about this,” she hissed out of the side of her mouth to Mary. Mary nodded and didn’t state the obvious—that it hardly mattered whether she said anything or not when the whole world could see it on the Internet.
    Simone said pleasant hellos to everyone and pointed them to the buffet table even though she felt as if someone had just kicked out six or eight of her teeth. She’d almost convinced herself she could fake her way through the meeting when the unthinkable happened: the doors opened and Alex Greene walked in.
    All her thoughts scattered.
    Dressed in a beautiful khaki summer suit with yellow tie, his bright gaze swept the room as if he was looking for