Reading Online Novel

Worst. Person. Ever(80)



“It’s fine, Raymond. Really. Billy’s not into twinks. And Kyle does have camerawork in his genes.”

I stood there trying my hardest to feel fatherly, but I was coming up short. I tried figuring out the math of the past week. London … LA … Honolulu … macadamia-induced comas … the hunt for fuckable contestants … Wake Island … I couldn’t quite understand Fiona’s timeline. “Fiona, how did you get Kyle and Emma from the north of England to this island so fast? Haven’t all the airports been shut down?”

Fiona put on her guilty face, something I’ve only ever seen a handful of times. “Some were, some weren’t.”

“Oh. My. God. You stole them, didn’t you!”

“What was I supposed to do, Raymond? Let them die of radiation poisoning in some pathetic hick town? Besides, do you think they are even remotely traumatized? No, you don’t, because in my own way I’m a terrific mother.”

Across the room, my own mother was chugging a 26-ouncer of vodka. She belched and then ravaged Neal’s bowl of cocktail garnishes like a circus elephant.

“So who raised them?”

“Some goody-goodies I found during my abortion holiday. Talk about dull. But at least Emma’s not pulling a train at some party that’s being house-wrecked by a Facebook flash mob, and Kyle’s not carjacking pensioners for fish and chip money. Come on. Let’s sit down. I’m as tired as you.”

We sat in the Hello! magazine spread of a living room. Emma rushed back through the door, dildo mission accomplished. She came up to me from behind, put her hands down the back of my shirt and started administering a backrub.

“Father, you must be tired after working so hard on this television show. Let me give you a deep-tissue massage like the ones I give our border collies after a long day of sheep herding. It will leave you ever so relaxed.”

Neal, Fiona and Mother all cocked eyebrows in our direction.

“Perhaps not right now, Emma,” I said. “Maybe Neal can offer you a nutritious snack. Neal! Do you have something nutritious to feed my, um, child?”

“Eamon’s cooking up a feast as we speak.”

Next Kyle came over. “Father, can we go online and check out the island’s website?”

His expression was so earnest I couldn’t bring myself to tell him to fuck off. “Sure, why not. Neal, how do we go online?”

“In Grandmum’s room.”

A minute later we were trudging through dunes of crisp wrappers, cigarette packaging and tissues soiled in various earth tones. There, on the desk, was a Mac monitor covered with Mother’s grotesque old-lady undergarments. I used a ballpoint pen to punt them off the desktop, and touched the spacebar to activate the machine. I clicked on the browser and up came Survival: a website dedicated to smiles here on Survival Island.

“Click on it, Dad!”

I clicked on ENTER only to find …

Please take a moment to register!

It’s easy and fun!


Choose a user name and a quick password and you’re off!

Password must be fourteen or more characters long.

Passwords are case-sensitive.

Must contain one upper case and one lower case letter.

Must contain at least one numeral.

Must contain one non-alphanumeric character.

Must not contain a space.

Must not contain invalid characters tabs or letters using non–North American English diacritical or orthographical marks, e.g., ü, é, ę, œ, å, ī.

Must not contain forward or reverse fragments of five or more characters of your first name, middle name or last name, regardless of the case (upper or lower) of the letter.

Must not cannot contain forward or reverse fragments of five or more characters of your NetID/EnterpriseID, regardless of the case (upper or lower) of the letter.

Must not contain forward or reverse alphabetic sequences of five or more letters, regardless of the case (upper or lower) of the letter.

Non-alphanumeric characters must not be arranged in “emoticon” format, e.g., :), ;), <3.

Must not contain repeated characters in groups of three or more, e.g., aaa, 1111

Must not contain more than two sequential characters of user’s account name.

Must not contain more than two sequential characters of login ID.

Must not contain more than two sequential characters of email address.

Must not contain more than two sequential characters of initials.

Must not contain more than two sequential characters of first, last or middle name.

Must not contain more than three sequential numbers of user’s birth year.

Must not contain more than three sequential characters of user’s birthdate in dd/mm/yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy format.

Must not contain any common words or proper names of five or more characters, regardless of the case (upper or lower) of the letters.