Cassandra reached a hand down to help me up. She pulled me to my feet. “You did great,” she said. “I’m proud of you.”
My heart was racing and my head was spinning. I couldn’t process what was happening. I tried to speak, but nothing comprehendible came out. She gave me a pat on the back. “It’s all over. They arrested twelve more of them at the party—and my dad says they arrested over fifty of them back in New York City—all high-ranking members. It shouldn’t be long before they nab everyone.”
I felt a warmth growing in my chest. Was it true? Was I really free from Steve and the organization? Was I really free to live my own life?
“You’re welcome to stay here until you get your life back together,” she said.
“Thank you,” I finally managed to say. My heart was still racing, and I still wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened.
It took a few days for everything to sink in. A police officer came by with a truck full of boxes. He brought them into the house and then left without saying anything. I looked in the boxes and saw that they were full of my old stuff: my old computer, my old books, and my old clothes. I could be myself again—I could be a man again.
But as I held up one of my old t-shirts, a cool tingle ran down my spine. I didn’t want to put it on. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like any of the stuff in the box. It seemed like years since I’d seen it, though it hadn’t even been a whole month. It seemed so strange to me that I would have ever worn any of the clothes. It just wasn’t me. The closet full of female clothes—those seemed more like my style. The makeup that sat on the dresser—that was me.
I finally knew who I was.
THE END
TINDER GIRL
Darren hasn’t had much luck with the ladies, so he joins Tinder. But even on Tinder, he’s not getting much attention. He wants to know what it would be like to be popular with women, so he creates a fake profile named Duke and uses pictures of some stud he finds on the Internet.
As he’s swiping right on every pretty girl he sees, he comes across a familiar face: Lexi, his crush from the office. He swipes right, and sure enough, they match. And it’s not long before Lexi tells Duke her big, hard secret. And now Darren knows more than he should.
CHAPTER I
Lexi Pupinski was beautiful. She had long dark brown hair and stunning fair skin. She always wore a deep red lipstick, which perfectly matched the bottoms of her shoes. And the dresses she would wear into work—Darren wasn’t the only guy who found himself staring at her with drool trickling down his chin.
But Darren was the only guy who was too afraid to talk to her. Everyone else made their moves on a semi-regular basis. The break room was usually empty, unless Lexi was in there—then suddenly eight different guys would decided to take their break. Sometimes Darren was one of them, but he was always too afraid to say anything to her.
Though he always thought that he would be able to talk to her. He would see her from across the office and his heart would start pounding with confidence. The pep talk he gave himself the night before would come rushing back to him and he would stand up tall and ready and proud of himself. And then he would walk up to her and she would look at him with those eyes, and everything would fall apart; his confidence would disappear in an instant. He would look away quickly, and he would suddenly feel small and weak. He was obsessed with that smile, but it was too good for him—too far out of his league.
“Hi Darren,” she would say as she passed his desk. His lips would part in an attempt to say hello back, but no hello would come out. Sometimes a noise would come out—a sort of whimper accompanied by a red-cheeked smile—but that was the best he could do. Then he would watch as she got settled into her own desk a few cubicles down, and then he would watch as the guys in her neighbouring cubicles tried again. “Looking good today, Lexi. Get a haircut? New dress?”
And as soon as 5:00 PM hit, Darren would go home alone, eat dinner alone, and stare at his computer screen alone. He liked to read motivational blogs, and they usually worked; they usually got him psyching himself up, convincing himself that he wasn’t worthless and he was in Lexi’s league. “Tomorrow I’ll talk to her,” he would tell himself. And the cycle would start all over again.
But even when he was all psyched up, he still knew deep down inside that Lexi and him would never be an item. She belonged with a man like George Clooney or Brad Pitt—not Darren Yuckers from Red Deer, Alberta. So Darren was smart enough to have a backup: an online dating profile—a few online dating profiles, in fact. He had a profile on every popular dating website, including Christian Mingle, even though he wasn’t Christian, and J-Date, even though he wasn’t Jewish. He was open to the idea of converting if the right girl came along—or if any girl came along for that matter.
Darren also used Tinder, the dating app. He always felt awkward logging into the app, knowing it was designed for horny young college students, but he wanted to make sure he was covering all the bases. He’s been using the app for a month already, and he’d only been matched with robot accounts. He fell for the first robot account—he said, “Why is such a beautiful girl interested in me?” and she replied, “50% off sunglasses, today only!” It still took Darren a few messages to realize she wasn’t a real person.
Darren swiped right on most girls. He never thought of himself as much of a catch, so he figured it would be best not to be too picky. He only swiped left on the girls that scared him: girls with face tattoos and piercings all over their bodies. But he got very few matches—and the matches he did get didn’t last long—usually not more than five minutes of conversation.
But Darren wasn’t too upset about his online dating failings. He didn’t mind living alone. He didn’t mind sitting at his dinner table alone each night. And he could live with having a queen-sized bed all to himself. He’d recently started getting into meditation, and it was easy to meditate without anyone around… So that was a silver lining.
And then he would go into work and he would see Lexi Pupinski at her desk, and he would suddenly feel terrible about his lonely dinner table and his empty bed. If he could have a girl like Lexi, his life would be a dream—better than a dream, in fact. Because even in Darren’s best dreams, he didn’t get with girls like Lexi.
It was around lunchtime when a large basket of flowers was delivered to Lexi’s desk at work. She looked so happy as she read the card and smelled the flowers. Apparently she was in a relationship now. And Darren couldn’t help but smile—at least she was happy. At least she was with a guy who knew how to make her smile. Though Darren’s smile was also filled with sad jealousy. He could have been the one buying those flowers—and maybe he would have been the one, had he ever had the balls to talk to her.
Maybe she would have found Darren to be incredibly interesting. Maybe he was exactly her type… Darren saw terribly average guys with stunning women on the streets all the time. Maybe Darren could be one of those lucky terribly average guys. Or maybe he was just doomed to a lifetime of watching other men buzz around Lexi like hungry wasps.
Darren saw Lexi’s new boyfriend that afternoon. He came into the office to pick Lexi up. And Darren was hardly surprised. He was a tall, buff man with a chiselled jawline and a sandpaper stubble beard. He was wearing an expensive Rolex and around his neck he wore a shining gold chain. He was everything Darren wished he could be—and he was everything Darren wasn’t.
At least Darren had his solitude…
CHAPTER II
It was that night, after seeing Lexi’s new boyfriend, that Darren became terribly curious. He found himself looking through male profiles on Tinder, wondering what it would be like to be so handsome and so lucky. He wondered if all the jock accounts were getting lots of hits from the ladies. Surely they must be—surely someone must be getting all the hits, seeing as Darren was getting none.
And Darren had the idea to create a fake profile using some pictures he found on Google Images. He just wanted to see how much of an advantage buff, hand
some guys really got—or if they had the same struggles as Darren.
Darren spent a few hours tinkering with the photos in Photoshop, slightly changing facial features so that the girls couldn’t search the images to see that they were lifted from the Internet. Once he was done tinkering, he started crafting a profile. At first he listed a bunch of fake interests and hobbies and even a fake job as an investment banker. But before pressing publish, he realized that fake hobbies and a fake job would defeat the purpose of his experiment. So he copied and pasted the information from his real profile, only changing the name from Darren to Duke.
Then he hit publish. He swiped right on a number of profiles and then he waited. And it didn’t take long before his inbox was dinging with matches. His heart plunged into his stomach—it was exactly what he set out to see, but he hated seeing it. Apparently his looks really were holding him back—and he wasn’t even an ugly guy. He was just average—just painfully average.
He sent messages to his matches, and they replied quickly. He conversed with them the way he would converse had he been on his real profile. And strangely, the girls didn’t run away. They kept the conversation going. Darren stayed up all night chatting with a girl named Melissa. She was a dog groomer from Darren’s hometown. She was recently out of a relationship. It was around 2:00 AM when she finally admitted that she was just looking for a guy to fuck, to get back at her ex. “Do you want to come over and fuck me?” she asked. “I’ll only send the photos to my ex—and I’ll try not to get your face in any shots.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Darren said. His heart was racing. He’d never been invited over for a booty call before. And technically, he wasn’t being invited now—Duke was. The man in those photos was being invited over for a booty call.
There was a long silence from Melissa, and then a photo appeared in Duke’s inbox. It was of Melissa’s bare crotch, her legs spread. Her pussy was slightly agape and glistening with moisture. “I’ve already been touching myself,” she said. She sent another photo a minute later, with her fingers deep in her snatch.
Darren’s heart stuttered. “I have to work in the morning,” he said.
“At least send me a photo of your erect cock, on top of this picture,” she said, and then she sent a full nude mirror shot, featuring her perky tits and all. Darren’s heart was a stuttering mess now. Getting an erection wasn’t difficult. Getting her picture onto his iPad and taking a photo of his cock and the iPad together wasn’t hard either. But pressing send—that was hard. Darren had never sent a dick-pic before. There were no nude pictures of him anywhere on the Internet. How did he know that this Melissa girl was real? What if she was just a scam, collecting dick-pics for some pornographic website?
Darren sent the photo. It was the most exciting moment of his week—maybe the most exciting moment of his year. It was two minutes later when Melissa replied. “I wish that cock was inside of me,” she said. And Darren’s heart skipped a beat. The photo of his cock wasn’t lifted from the Internet—it was a photo of his own, real cock. And she liked it. She wanted more—she was literally now asking for more photos. So Darren sent a couple more from a couple different angles. “I just came so hard,” Melissa wrote. And then she sent a photo of her dripping pussy, with an image of Darren’s cock on her iPad. She wasn’t kidding.
“Now send me a photo of your beautiful face,” she wrote. Darren’s gut turned.
“I think I need to get some sleep,” he wrote.
“Just one photo.”
Darren found himself on the Internet, trying to find another photo of the guy he originally used. But he couldn’t find anything. “You there, Duke?” Melissa asked.
“Yeah,” Darren replied. “I just need to go for tonight. Good night!” He closed down his Tinder and then he turned off his phone. It was too much excitement for one night. His heart wouldn’t stop pounding and he couldn’t get the image of Melissa’s bare pussy out from his head. So of course he didn’t get any sleep that night.
He was tired at work, struggling to keep his eyes open. He would get a small burst of energy every time he checked his phone and saw that there was another Tinder message waiting for him. He didn’t check his messages there at work, but he was looking forward to checking them when he got home, even though they weren’t technically messages for him—they were messages for Duke—messages for some poor guy who made the mistake of publically posting his pictures on the Internet.
But even though Darren knew the compliments awaiting him weren’t technically for him, he couldn’t help but bask in the moment. He couldn’t help but think that some of the compliments had to do with the information on his profile: his hobbies and interests, and not just his pictures. But deep down he knew that wasn’t true. Deep down, he knew he was just hijacking another person’s life for the sake of some silly experiment.
CHAPTER III
Darren didn’t delete the profile. Even after a week, he decided to keep it. It became part of his nightly routine: chatting with girls on Tinder as Duke. He knew it was wrong but he couldn’t help it. It was nice getting a bit of attention for once in his life, and it was nice talking to girls through the safety of anonymity.
He kept telling himself that he would delete the profile and return to his real profile—and he even tried a couple of weeks later—but his real profile just wasn’t the same. He got almost not hits, no matter how many times he swiped right. No one cared about Darren—everyone wanted Duke. He ended up matching up with the same girl on both his Darren profile and his Duke profile. He tried chatting the girl up as Darren, and it only took a few messages before she said, “Sorry, Darren. I didn’t mean to swipe right on you, but you seem like a nice guy. But you’re just not my type.” And it was only a few minutes after that when he received a message from her on his Duke account. “What are you doing tonight? How badly do you want to fuck my little pussy?” Darren didn’t message her back.
But he knew the other girls he was messaging back were no different—none of them were swiping right on Darren, and if they were, it was probably by accident.
It was a Wednesday night when Darren was mindlessly swiping right on profiles as Duke, hoping to start a conversation or two, when he came across a familiar profile: the profile of Lexi Pupinski. Darren froze as he stared at her picture. He took a few seconds to look closely at her image, to see if it really was her, or just a doppelgänger who happened to be named Lexi. But it was her—Lexi was on Tinder.
Darren read through her profile and saw that she was looking for something long term—no games. “I’m ready to settle down with the right guy. Maybe that guy is you,” her profile said. Darren’s heart throbbed and then he swiped right—as Duke.
Then he put his phone down as his heart rate increased. He had to take a deep breath to regain his composure. He felt a warmth burning in his chest. The biggest crush he’d ever had was back on the market. If there was ever a time to chat her up at the office, that time was now. Maybe she would reject him, but there was no harm in trying. If he didn’t try, then he definitely would never end up with her.
So the next day at the office, he found himself keeping a close eye on Lexi. She was dressed to kill—wearing a short red dress and her long hair down. She had an amazing glow about her, and Darren wasn’t the only one who noticed. Matt came up to his desk a few minutes before lunch. “Did you see Lexi today? Isn’t she a babe?” he said.
Darren smiled and his hands trembled. “I guess so,” he said.
“You guess so? Look at her—she’s a ten out of ten. Too bad she’s dating that rich guy,” he said. Matt had no idea that Lexi was no longer dating that rich guy—or she was sneaking around on Tinder behind his back… But that didn’t seem like Lexi. Lexi was sweet and happy. She wouldn’t cheat on her boyfriend—at least that’s what Darren liked to think. But he knew that he didn’t know anything about her. He’d literally never talked to her before, unless you count the incomprehensible mutterings he made when she said hello
in passing.
Lunch came. Darren watched as Lexi got up and left the office. She was going out for lunch. But Darren had a whole speech planned—he was finally going to talk to her, so he couldn’t just let her leave. He had to catch up to her and chat her up before someone else beat him to her. So he followed her down the stairs and down the street. He kept his distance, trying his best not to come off as a creep.
He watched as she turned and went into a little café. Then he went inside too. He found himself behind her in line. He could smell her amazing perfume and he could feel her warmth radiating off of her body. He wanted to reach out and feel her soft skin. He wanted to spin her around and tell her that he was madly in love with her. But instead, he just remained silent and terrified that she would turn around and think that he was following her—which was exactly what he was doing.
And his nightmare came true: she turned around and looked right into his eyes. His heart plunged down into his gut and fizzled away in his stomach acid. She stared for a moment before smiling. “Hey,” she said.
Darren’s lips parted and he nodded his head. A sound came out that closely resembled “Hello.”
“I thought I was the only one in the office who knew about this place,” she said. “Have you tried the turkey sandwich? It’s my favourite.”
Darren shook his head. “No,” he said. “But maybe I’ll try it today.” And his heart started racing—he was talking to her. He’d said his first words to her—at least his first words that were actually real words. “I like turkey,” he said. He felt his cheeks turning red.
Lexi laughed. “It’s my favourite. But all their sandwiches are good. I think I’m going to get the pastrami today.”
“Pastrami is good,” Darren said, and then he watched as Lexi went up to the counter to order her sandwich.
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