Free Hooked by Michael Harris, Ruth Harris

together?” she asked.
    “Some things are worth waiting for,” said Gavin for whom there was no mystery. Cleo’s money, which had gotten her everything she wanted, prevented her from getting the man she wanted. He was unwilling to be Mr. Cleo Eames Talbot, a doctor from a modest background married to a rich socialite. Now that he was a millionaire himself, he belonged in her world because he had earned the right to be there.
    “I don’t want to waste any more time,” she said. “Make love to me—”
    “Say it—”
    “I love making love to you—”
    “Say it,” Gavin demanded, holding her by the shoulders.
    “Fuck,” she said. “I love fucking you—”
    Gavin smiled and released her. “Okay,” he said. “Now prove it—”
    She was obsessed by his body. When he was shaving in the morning, she would go into the bathroom in order to see him standing at the sink, naked except for the towel around his waist. He understood why she was there and reacted by removing the towel. She had the smoky glass of the shower removed and replaced with clear glass because she liked watching the water pour over his naked body.
    When she wasn’t with him, she pictured the slim, hairy legs; the narrow arms with the muscular biceps; the flat chest and stomach; the heavy brown pubic hair; and his penis, average in length but unusually thick and round, able to fill her with pleasures she had never even imagined.
    She lived in a state of almost constant arousal but after a while she realized she was never truly satisfied. She could not bring Gavin to orgasm. He would groan at all the right times but Cleo became convinced that his performance was just that: a performance. She sucked him and had intercourse until she was sore; she had climax after climax; but what she wanted most of all eluded her. She longed to see his milky fluid in the palm of her hand, to taste it in her mouth and feel its heat and liquid power deep inside her.
    “You want something more, don’t you?” Gavin said.
    Cleo nodded. “I want you to come inside me—”
    “I don’t have to,” he said. “I have something better—”
    “Better?”
    He got up and walked across the room. He opened up his medical bag and took out a hypodermic and a syringe. It took her a moment to realize what was happening.
    “You want to give me what you gave Gail, don’t you?”
    “You saw her, didn’t you?” he said, preparing the shot. “It’s even better than sex. Better than anything—”

19
    Gavin talked about little except medicine, about new discoveries, about clinical advances he heard about from other doctors, about treatments he himself had created and was trying, about patients he was able to help that other doctors had given up on. His enthusiasm was palpable, contagious, and in the beginning Cleo shared his excitement.
    Gradually, though, she lost interest because she didn’t understand what he was talking about. When she asked him to explain, he did so patiently, but his answers were far too technical for her to follow. She nodded and smiled but eventually had to admit to herself that what fascinated him, bored her. How many hemorrhage problems of the adrenal cortex could she enjoy listening to over filet mignon?
    Conversely, it distressed her that Gavin rarely asked her what she did during the day. Whenever she spoke about her charity work, the boards she sat on, the friends she lunched with, the plays she thought he might like, he yawned and picked up a newspaper or medical journal. Cleo tried to make their evenings more interesting by entertaining or accepting invitations to dinner parties. Gavin went grudgingly but rarely engaged in conversation. Once, at one of her own dinner parties, he fell asleep between courses.
    Gavin’s patients irritated her. They started arriving at seven in the morning and, often enough, they were still there at midnight. Cleo regretted that she had had the guest suite converted into offices when she saw the waiting room