Man Overbored

By Paul J. Laverty

Chronic masturbators, mass adulterers, punk rock clergymen, giant incontinent lobsters, sex workers, terrorists, murderers, child-killers, drunken sailors and a ship which is on the brink of going down with its 3,000 guests completely unawares. A lot of strange things happen on cruises that you don’t hear about in the brochures, but in Man Overbored, buoy oh buoy are you about to.

Welcome aboard the QE3 (Queen Elizabeth III), the world’s most luxurious of luxury cruise liners. Setting-sail from Portsmouth to New York, it looks to be another wild acid-ride much like any other, only on this trip a mysterious force is boring a hole through the ship’s core and threatening to tip them all into the unforgiving sea.

Inspired by the stylings of John Kennedy Toole, Irvine Welsh and Hunter S Thompson, Man Overbored is a novella of strange interlinking stories and even stranger characters bound together by the fact that black, white, gay, straight, rich, poor, smart or dumb, weird or even weirder - they’re all in the same boat, and they’re all about to die.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul J. Laverty
• Release date: Feb 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463661529

Book preview

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MAN

OVERBORED

PAUL J. LAVERTY

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First published in 2019 by Roadhouse Media

Copyright © Paul J. Laverty

ISBN: 978-0-6485187-0-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

Edited by Shannon Hick & Paige Sutton

Cover art by Supun Tharaka

All enquiries should be made to the author at [e-mail]

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For Anna x

pauljlaverty.com

www.twitter.com/pauljlaverty

ROOM 11.013

NO TUGGING

The Madeira segment was repeated on the Queen Elizabeth III’s own TV channel reminding Gideon of that sign he’d seen the day before. It was the segment with the girls bouncing the beach ball back and forth on the virgin sand. Those three tanned, hot-oiled, golden-haired girls in the banana-coloured bikinis.

He remembered the words had been printed on the ship’s hull, large and unmistakable to all who embarked via the gangway. Alice had taken his hand, something she’d never before done in public, and pointed. Remember that, Gideon, she whispered. There’ll be no need to do any of that on here. Not now that we’re married.

She knew that he tugged, alright. If it was an Olympic sport, he’d be the Michael Phelps of it. His bedroom closet had been a crammed, musty cave of depravity. There were magazines, DVDs and vintage VHSs celebrating the practice. There were butt plugs, vibrating cock rings, blowjob simulators, and sex dolls dedicated to it.

Still, he was a careful tugger, believing he could hide his pursuit. He knew his mother and twin sister didn’t suspect, and neither did the two girls he’d dated in high school.

Yet Alice was different. Alice was nosy. So nosey that she could smell it. On her second visit to his house, while both their mothers drank tea and gossiped about the church choir, and their fathers admired each other’s new vehicles in the driveway, Alice found the lot. She threatened to cancel the engagement, the marriage and leave him. She threatened everything. Everything that is, but fuck him. Despite this being the one thing which would have ended a decade of frustration and made him gladly toss the whole hoard into a giant trash bag there and then.

No, she didn’t fuck him, but she did order him to throw it all into a giant trash bag alright ‒ seven of them in fact ‒ against his will. The mothers and fathers didn’t know what to make of their betrothed offspring carting Gideon’s old toys past the lounge and the identical Chrysler 300s and into the trash cans.

But no, she still didn’t fuck him, not in the two months before their wedding. Not even on their wedding night as Alice booked a separate bedroom at the Topeka Marriott blaming an adverse reaction to the Shirley Temples, or the blue cheese, she couldn’t be sure.

As they walked on-board the QE3 for their honeymoon, Alice explained that things would be different. She was ready, and the week they were sailing from Portsmouth to New York was the perfect time in her ovulation cycle for them to conceive.

Gideon had wanted to get to it as soon as they put down their luggage, however a series of all-too-convenient obstacles blocked his path. As they stepped foot off dry land, Alice spotted an old friend from bible school and they overindulged at the complimentary chocolate fountain giving her a headache. This sent Alice to bed, setting up Gideon for an early dinner followed by an early night. He wasn’t even allowed to watch a movie.

The next morning she claimed she’d suffered a breakout from all the sugar she’d consumed over the past week. She left Gideon, his penis poking through his boxers, and hurried to the beauty spa for an emergency facial.

No tugging, she reminded him on her way out as Gideon half-watched the TV that he’d put on while Alice showered. He hadn’t tugged, hadn’t so much as looked at the thing, since she’d thrown out his stash nine weeks ago.

Since Alice departed, he’d learned all about the Fabio Perez collection in the ship’s art gallery. There were also jewellery making classes guests could attend (another potential cock-blocker should Alice find out about them, he thought), and a piece about how the ship’s plush new red carpet was laid.

Gideon was dozing, not quite awake though not quite asleep, when the Madeira segment came back on. As the Irish Sea breeze drifted pleasantly through the open balcony door, the button on his boxers rose that little bit higher. With Alice back who-knew-when, and no doubt armed with a myriad of fresh excuses not to get down to business, now seemed as good a time as any to do what he’d had a decade of practice doing. To do what he’d put his 10,000 hours towards and end the drought.

So, as the girls in the banana bikinis batted the big ball around on the hot sand in the sun with their golden hair, and their bronzed oil skin glowing in their tight banana bikinis, and with… and with… their big--

I said no tugging!

But it was too late. Gideon was immersed in the moment and had lost all concept of time. He hadn’t heard the cabin door click and had reached the point of no return. There’d be no baby making tonight, at least not till later. If ever.

As Alice slammed the door behind her and stormed back down the hallway, Gideon cleaned up and thought of how