This is a work of fiction. It contains explicit descriptions of sexual acts. It is not intended for minors.
*****
It wasn't something Jared would readily admit but he was in love. No, his love for his wife wasn't the secret; he loved Stacy deeply and would shout his devotion from the rooftops if given half a chance. His secret love was reserved for something else.
He loved his new TV. They'd had it for months now and he still thought it was just awesome.
The forty-inch flat-panel fit in perfectly in their cozy little house. He was almost infatuated with it. So infatuated in fact that he had begun watching it even when there was nothing on.
On Saturday nights there was nothing on. Well, almost nothing on. Nothing good certainly. But there was this one thing that came on every Saturday night that kept drawing him in.
So it was another quiet night at home on the couch with his wife. She sat to his left, curled up near the lamp reading. He glanced at her as the program began. She was in sweatpants and a T-shirt. Jared took note that she was also wearing a bra... around the house, she sometimes went without but she'd been shopping earlier in the day and had left it on.
He also suspected that she sometimes wore them to avoid inadvertently arousing him.
Jared also took note of the way his wife held her book. They were both avid readers but Stacy had a habit that bugged Jared Lancaster. She was horribly, horribly hard on books. She only ever read paperbacks if she could possibly help it and she always mangled them.
Jared knew she was currently reading a romantic adventure set in colonial Australia. She'd been feeding him high-points for days. Jared could tell how into a book she was by how tightly she curled it back on itself. Stacy Lancaster had completely broken the spine of her current victim. She was a little over half-way through and the poor tome was bent back on itself, looking like a butterfly at rest.
His wife treated the books she bought as disposable items to be read and thrown away. It always seemed odd to Jared... his wife was a bit of a tightwad really. She wasn't the kind to be wasteful. But as she had explained to him at least a dozen times, the comfort she got out of the tactile feel of clutching a book tightly in her hand was well worth the price.
As the movie began, Stacy made a pained noise. "What?" Jared asked.
"I don't understand how you can watch this crap." She said, looking up from the tortured pages.
"It's not that bad." He said defensively.
She sighed. "Yes, it is. It's horrible. The only thing interesting about these movies is the amazement I feel that they actually got made."
Jared tried not to pout. "Look, I know they aren't great but they're kind of fun."
Stacy held the book down in her lap for a moment. "Jared, I can appreciate camp as much as the next person but these things are just horrid. I can't believe dozens or hundreds of people actually spend months working to make these things."
They both watched briefly as the SyFy logo faded and the movie began. Jared raised a finger. "Don't start."
With feigned grumpiness, Stacy returned to her book. "Go ahead, enjoy your 'SeeFee'".
Fifteen minutes or so passed. Jared was left to argue internally with himself as the opening scenes played out. ~Okay, it's bad, but it's a good kind of bad.~ He thought.
As the movie went to commercial, Stacy looked up. "Did they just say what I think they said?" she asked.
"What?" Jared asked.
Stacy hadn't been paying any attention to the promos or the movie itself but the blurb just before the "FreeCreditReport" guys started singing had somehow got her attention. "Did that say 'Sharktopus'?"
"Yeah" Jared answered.
"As in a cross between a shark and an octopus?"
"Yeah."
She just stared at him for a few seconds. "Unbelievable."
She tried to go back to her book but for some reason couldn't. "No, really, unbelievable. Not only did someone come up with the idea of making a monster by combining a shark and an octopus, not only did they write a script about said abomination but then went and actually filmed it. Actors spoke lines about the monster and no doubt some computer artist came up with a design for the thing."
She pointed an accusing finger at her husband. "Not only was this travesty made but now YOU are going to sit here and watch it!"
"Well, don't you want to see what a sharktopus looks like?" he asked.
She just stared at him again. "Unbelievable" was all the answer he got and she lifted her book as a shield between them.