Sponging her neck, she said, "Well darling, now that that pest is out of your way, I'm sure you'll have no problem." There was an edge of warning in her delivery.
"Yes," he paused. "But there are many people in the company who still carry Peter's belief that ICP is bad and that Wallaby should concentrate on competing more firmly rather than yield to them."
"Darling, you've come this far, and you'll make it to the glorious end of your plan just fine. I just know it. Have you contacted William yet?"
"I sent him a message," Matthew said. He realized that he needed to check to see if William had received the memo and replied to it. His concern asserted itself. "William's not going to be pleased. He wanted me to exhaust every possibility to keep Peter onboard. But after seeing the way he reacted I doubt he'll stick around." Matthew stood. He had to use the toilet…but rather than use this one he wanted to use the one downstairs. "I better go check my e-mail," he said, excusing himself.
He hurried downstairs to his library office. He turned on his computer and hung his jacket over the chair. His Joey was outfitted with every add-on option, including a color monitor, a CD-ROM drive, a laser printer, and a mouse. Seeing the mouse lying there, he abruptly remembered Laurence and the thoughts he'd had of her yesterday in his car; he recalled too the image of her lovely hand clutching the manila folder less than an hour ago in his office. While the computer started up, he went into the library's small toilet. He stood before the toilet and opened his fly. At the same time he closed his eyes, concentrating. There came no flow. Instead, he felt himself hardening in his own hand. He locked the door, dropped his trousers to the floor, and seated himself. At the age of ten, Matthew Locke had had the good fortune of discovering masturbation. It had altered the course of his life forever. For whenever he became distracted from his studies, thinking about girls instead of geometry, he had simply relieved himself. It was to this dedication that he owed his success. It had enabled him to focus all of his energies on important things. He had achieved autonomous coupling - a boy and his hand. Even in college he favored this method. Of course there had been girls, but none of them ever proved worth the time or effort. Though this was the price he paid in order to come so far so fast, he had never seemed to fully grasp its relevance until the day he'd met Greta. The instant he'd laid eyes on her, her hands, he determined it was time to think about marrying. It was important to his career, and if he was going to do it, then why not with a woman who's hands were more alluring than his own?
Were.
But hers were not the hands he thought of now, holding him, stroking him. No, the hand he imagined in place of his own belonged to another woman, a girl, really, who he told himself he must resist.
He came, and she went.
* * *
It was one o'clock in the afternoon, and Peter was in bed.