Motel. Pool. Read Online Free PDF Page B

national anthem played and the test pattern came on the screen, half the bottle was empty and Jack was passed out on top of the bedspread.

Four

     
    J ACK PICKED up the bottle and considered drinking his breakfast, but his stomach rebelled at the idea. He showered and shaved instead, dressed in clean clothes, and ventured into the glaring sunshine. A half-dozen people were splashing in the pool, while a few more lounged nearby. They were loud and cheerful: vacationers without a care in the world.
    The Bluebird Café was crowded and noisy, and Lillian wasn’t on duty. Instead, Jack’s waitress was a girl about his age who flirted with him and accidentally brought him ham steak instead of sausage. His stomach settled once he’d filled it, but the rest of him remained in turmoil.
    The market was open, so he bought a six-pack of beer. Then he went up to his room and waited for Sam’s familiar footsteps. Jack wished he could see the parking lot, but the angle was wrong. He wished he could go swimming, but then he might miss seeing Sam. So he moved restlessly between the bed and the chair. He watched television for a few minutes at a time, but the soaps depressed him, the news bored him, and Johnny Carson and Art Linkletter failed to amuse. He ended up leafing through the Gideon Bible, hoping that the familiarity of the passages would calm him. But although he was reminded of the Sunday-morning smells of sweat and perfume, and although he could almost feel the scratchy collar of his church suit against his neck, he wasn’t soothed.
    The fan in the window moved hot air around the room but didn’t cool anything. Jack’s skin itched.
    Almost out of desperation, he lay on the rumpled bedspread, unfastened his pants, and began to stroke his soft cock. Usually he jerked off while imagining himself screwing movie stars, or sometimes he pictured fans so adoring that they dropped their trousers at a twitch of his finger and then begged the great Jack Dayton to give them a fucking they’d never forget.
    Today, though, Jack’s thoughts turned elsewhere. A handsome face with a few days’ growth of whiskers, a head of dark curls, sad hazel eyes, a full mouth that quirked into a crooked smile. This fantasy man didn’t resemble anyone Jack had ever met, and yet Jack felt as though he knew him, memories of the fellow tantalizing him like a word on the tip of his tongue. The man was soft-spoken, and his equally soft hands skimmed over Jack’s body. He was on the short side, lean, with a nicely proportioned cock jutting proudly. Jack was perplexed as to why he imagined a tattoo of an octopus on the man’s chest. He had previously seen tattoos only on the arms of former sailors—World War II vets, most of them—and this guy didn’t look like a sailor. Also, why an octopus?
    But the tattoo didn’t matter for long, not after its owner pressed lips and tongue to Jack’s body and Jack responded by bending him over the dresser and licking sweat from the knobs of his spine. Jack sank inside the man and felt the torso beneath him shudder, the man making guttural sounds of encouragement and ecstasy. Soon Jack was lost too, crying out at his own release.
    A good orgasm usually relaxed him, but not this time. He washed up and rearranged his clothing, but he felt even more on edge. It was as if someone was waiting for him or he was late for an appointment. He felt as if someone was lingering in the room, just out of sight. Maybe the place was haunted.
    He drank all the beer, then went to the market and bought more. He didn’t eat lunch.
    Sam wasn’t coming. Probably he didn’t take Jack’s threats seriously. Probably he shouldn’t. Christ, Jack didn’t want to ruin Sam or anyone else—not even Benny Baxter. Jack understood what Sam meant when he said the industry was a business, and Jack had always been well aware that Sam took business very seriously. You didn’t get the fancy houses and the Oscar nominations if you acted like an