Page 65 of The Man I Hate

“That is correct. Dirtiness deprived me of the diddle.”

“Is showering the only time you do the diddle?”

“No, no, no, no, no.” I shook my head in protest. “Not at all.”

“How often do you partake?”

“Whenever the opportunity presents itself.”

He rested his chin in the web of his hand and rubbed his stubble with his thumb and forefinger. “What qualifies as an opportunity?”

“Generally speaking? Five or ten minutes of solitude. I’ve done it at a stoplight and in the drive-thru at Taco Bell, once. There was a van from the old folk’s home in front of me, so the line was moving really slowly.”

“What gets your mind headed in the right direction? Are you a partaker of porn?”

“No, no, no,” I said. “A memory, the right song, or the smell of certain colognes set me off. Often, the slightest suggestive comment is enough. It doesn’t take much, as long as I’m not in a funk.”

He lowered his hand. “Interesting.”

“What’s your weirdest story?”

“In general, or masturbating?” he asked.

“Let’s go with masturbating.”

“The combat jack.”

I stared. “The com-what?”

“The combat jack,” he replied. “It’s jacking off while in combat.”

“Wait…how can—” I waited for him to laugh or say he was joking, but he stared back at me stone-faced. “When you’re in combat?” I asked. “Like, at war?”

“Right in the middle of it,” he replied. “We had contests. To see who could be the most creative. One of the guys did it while he was firing his machinegun.”

I couldn’t come close to reaching climax unless I was completely relaxed. Getting the job done while bullets whizzed past would be impossible.

“That’s just weird,” I said. “I need music and serenity. If there’s a horn honking in the distance I’ve got to throw in the towel.”

“You said you did it at a traffic light,” he argued. “And at a Taco Bell drive-thru.”

“I had the stereo playing and my eyes were closed.”

He looked at me like I was nuts. “You close your eyes?”

“Always,” I replied. “You don’t?”

He laughed. “Nope. I like to watch myself ejaculate.” He smirked. “The cum shoots out of the tip of my dick like a rocket. It’s really something to see.”

I swallowed a ball of desire as it climbed up my throat. “I think this interview’s over.”

“You were right.” He laughed. “It doesn’t take much, does it?”

With the right man, it didn’t.

As much as I wanted Braxton to be nothing more than a friend, he continued to inch his way closer to my heart each time we saw each other.

Even if it was through the lens of a cell phone’s camera.