Q*pid

by Xavier Mayne

  “One might almost say romantic,” Drew replied. He gave a half shrug, as if he was not all that hopeful his meaning would be understood—or he was maintaining deniability, in case it was.

  “I’d like to thank you,” Fox said. “For this weekend.”

  “Oh?” Drew replied.

  “You helped me see what was holding me back. Why I wasn’t finding the woman of my dreams. Our talk this morning really helped me put it in perspective.”

  Drew blinked several times, but then a wide smile broke out across his face.

  “I’ve been trying to undo the train wreck of that first time,” Fox continued. “I’m never going to break free of it unless I change completely what I’m looking for and how I go about finding it.”

  “Wow,” Drew said, beaming. “That’s… incredible.”

  “So starting tomorrow I’m throwing away the spreadsheets. I’m going to take the matches that Q*pid finds for me, and I’m going to go on a date without a plan, without a script, without any of the baggage that’s been holding me back. I’m going to find the woman who’s right for me, not the version of myself I’ve created in Excel.”

  Drew’s expression changed several times, leaving Fox wondering what he was thinking. Finally, he found the words he was looking for. “That’s great. Good for you. Somewhere out there is a woman who has been looking for you. Now you’ll be able to find her.”

  “And I owe it all to you. Thank you for being the best friend a guy could possibly want.”

  Drew smiled, but there didn’t seem to be the same kind of enthusiasm behind it as there had been before.

  “Look,” Fox said, stepping closer to Drew. “I know the last couple of days have been a little weird. For both of us. But I think we’ve been able to help each other, right?”

  Drew’s smile faded, but then he nodded. “We have. I see things a lot more clearly now.”

  “Awesome,” Fox cried, putting his arm around Drew and giving him a good jostle. “I knew you were bouncing back, just like me.”

  “Yep, just like you,” Drew repeated. He faced into the wind, blinking against its sting until his eyes were watering. “We should get back.” He turned to Fox. “Gotta get ready for the week, right?”

  “Right,” Fox agreed. But he noted the change in Drew’s manner. “We’re okay, right? We’re good?”

  “Yeah, we’re good,” Drew said, his smile returning. “Great weekend. Terrific.” He turned and started down the path toward the resort. “I’ll take point on the way back.” He didn’t look behind before striding away.

  “Sounds good,” Fox called. He wasn’t sure Drew heard him.

  “THANKS AGAIN—for everything,” Drew said as Fox pulled up outside his apartment. “This was a really intense weekend.”

  “We should do it again soon,” Fox said, smiling brightly.

  “Yeah, let’s,” Drew said as he opened the car door. “No, don’t get out—I can grab my bag.”

  He walked around the back of Fox’s car and fished his duffel out of the trunk. He closed it, then called out “Thanks” one more time.

  The silhouette of Fox waved, and he drove away.

  Drew was alone.

  More alone he’d never felt in his entire life. Actually, he felt as though this weekend had opened up an entirely new life, and now he was standing in it, alone.

  He hefted his duffel and walked up to his front door.

  Inside, he was no less alone. In fact, all he could think of was how full of life his apartment had been last weekend, when he had made dinner for Fox, and then Fox had come back and they had gone to the marimba concert together. It had been a hint of what they could be together, and now they were nothing.

  Now his apartment was back to being the empty, lonely, friendless place where dwelt Drew, the empty, lonely, friendless man. Twenty-four hours ago he was in bed with the man he thought he was falling in love with, and now he was utterly alone.

  How had this happened? Though he was currently not all that happy with his dating life, it’s not like he had been hiding from the world. He needed to step back and think about his situation objectively. Approach it like a research question.

  All right, then. He dropped his duffel in the middle of his living room, went to his kitchen, and made himself a cup of coffee. This was his ritual when starting a new research project. Then once he’d sat himself down at the kitchen table with a cup of the strongest, cheapest coffee he could find—he got his beans at the back of the dollar store—he set about looking at his situation as analytically as possible.

  Question: Was he falling in love with Fox?

  Proposition: He was falling in love with Fox.

  Why? Because he was lonely. Why? Because he had been focusing on dating and his seminar papers, and not on having friends.

  Therefore, counterproposition: He was not actually falling in love with Fox but was actually missing platonic friendship.

  He could discount the counterproposition because he felt for Fox the exact flutter in his stomach he had felt every time he began a relationship with a woman. Therefore, he was certain, he was actually falling in love with Fox. The counterproposition was therefore invalid.

  Redirect: He was actually gay, as the Q*pid computer seemed to think, and he had fallen for Fox because he was the first man Drew had met after finding that out.

  But was the redirect therefore true? Was Fox simply a target of convenience, having shown up at the precise moment that his online dating service clued him in to his new sexual orientation?

  Ah, that was the nexus. In order to answer his research question, he needed to ascertain his sexual orientation. Not assume it, as he had always done. No, for the purposes of this research project, he had to establish sexual orientation as a dependent variable, not a given. If what he felt for Fox was simply the result of his letting himself admit his homosexual feelings for the first time, then it was less about Fox and more about Drew discovering himself.

  And that would mean that Fox hadn’t just broken his heart.

  Because that’s what it felt like.

  Drew knew what he needed to do.

  Chapter FIFTEEN

  “FOXY, I’M an old married man. It’s past my bedtime.”

  “It’s nine o’clock on a Sunday night. Even senior citizens stay up this late so they can watch the news and complain about the government.”

  Chad leaned close to the phone. “Well maybe those senior citizens don’t have a hot wife who likes to get a little freaky after a long, oppressive Sunday night dinner with her stick-up-the-butt family,” he muttered in a low voice.

  “Eww.”

  “Don’t be the bitter old bachelor,” Chad scolded good-naturedly. “It’s not a good look for you. Anyway, you got about three minutes before things start heating up here. Although I can set the phone on the nightstand if you want to watch.”

  “You are a sick fuck,” Fox said with a laugh.

  “Thank you, sir. Now, what can I do for you?”

  “Want my table at Table?”

  “You mean for this Saturday?”

  “No, I mean forever. I’m going to give it up.”

  “You’re not going to do Saturday night at Table? God, Foxy, is it really that bad?” He shook his head in exaggerated agitation. “Look, I keep telling you: it’s a dry spell. Normal humans have them all the time. You’ve never experienced it because you’re a love god. Sometimes you have to be patient.”

  “Thanks for that almost-sympathy, but in actual fact I do have a date on Saturday.”

  “Then why are you giving up the table?”

  “It’s just not… me, I guess. Anymore, that is. I’m changing my game. I’m going to have her over to my place. I’m going to cook dinner for her instead of taking her out.”

  Chad looked at Fox as if he had lost his fucking mind. “You have lost your fucking mind,” he said.

  “Your concern is noted,” Fox said sarcastically. “Do you want the table or not? Last chance—I’m goi
ng to call right now and cancel it.”

  “Of course I want the table. Switch it to my name, and I’ll enjoy it until you come to your senses.”

  “Okay.”

  “Because you’re going to crash and burn with this whole Julia Child thing.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, buddy.”

  “No charge. And I’ll be here to help you pick up the pieces of your shattered manhood.”

  “You have no idea what that means to me. You really don’t.” Fox laughed, then leaned close when he saw motion in the corner of the camera’s view. “And it looks like it’s time for you to get your manhood shattered, so I’ll be going now.”

  “You can’t shatter steel, my friend.”

  “And there’s yet another image I’ll have to wash out of my mind with bourbon.”

  “Happy to help, buddy. Enjoy celibacy!”

  “Fuck you, you empty-headed asshole!”

  Chad grinned and cackled lasciviously as Fox hit the End button.

  VEERA, HAVING taken an actual weekend away from work—she’d even turned off her work phone, the first time she’d ever done so—arrived at her desk Monday morning and immediately pulled up her Archer windows. She scanned his vitals to ensure he was functioning normally, then she checked the secondary windows where she had set various monitors of the particular metrics she wanted to track. One of these windows, at the far lower corner of her monitor, was flashing orange.

  The text in the window titled Few, which flashed from orange to white to orange again, simply read Status change: 2 profiles.

  “Holy balls,” she said. This was a term she’d picked up from a developer from Michigan, and one she repeated several times under her breath. “Archer, were you right all along?” Veera shot to her feet and ran to the nearest empty conference room. She flung the door shut, then dialed with a shaking finger.

  “Good morning Archer,” she said.

  “Good morning, Veera.”

  Before he could go any further, she burst into her question. “Archer, tell me about the status changes for the discordant match Few.”

  “There have been two profile status changes since we last discussed the customers you have grouped and identified as Few.”

  “Tell me about those status changes.”

  “Yesterday at 20:35, the customer known as Fox accessed the Q*pid app. He opened his match queue, selected the first profile in it without reviewing any others, and sent a message. The match profile responded favorably, and they have planned a date for Saturday.”

  “Oh,” Veera said. So it hadn’t worked out after all.

  “Yesterday at 21:05 the customer known as Drew reactivated the Q*pid app. He changed his Parameter Three setting to male. Then he—”

  “He changed his Parameter Three setting to male?”

  “Yes, he changed his Parameter Three setting to male. Do you wish me to speak more slowly or increase the volume of my vocal output?”

  “No, that won’t be necessary. Continue, please.”

  “Then he accessed his match queue and reviewed it for thirty-three minutes. He selected the top match and sent a message. The match profile responded favorably, and they have planned a date for Saturday.”

  Veera sank into a chair. What was going on? Fox had gone back to dating women, but Drew had switched to dating men. What could possibly have happened between the two of them?

  “Archer, do you have any more information about them?”

  “My configuration does not allow me to share any additional information about these customers, if such information should exist.”

  Veera was not pleased to again have bumped up against the security measures she herself had put in place, but she was resigned to them. “Thank you, Archer.”

  “You’re welcome, Veera. Will there be anything else?”

  “No. Suspend voice interface.”

  “Voice interface suspended.”

  She hung up the phone, but remained in the conference room staring at the wall long enough for the light to switch off because it detected no movement in the room. Then she sat in the dark a while longer.

  “YOUR PLACE is really nice,” she said as he opened the door and welcomed her in.

  “Did you have any trouble finding it?” Fox asked as he shut the door behind her.

  “No, your directions were quite thorough,” she said, handing him her jacket. “Oh, something smells amazing. What are you cooking?”

  “It’s a Peruvian stew—I was inspired by a friend to try something new. I hope you’ll like it.”

  “I’m sure I will. It’s so nice to finally meet a guy who likes to cook.”

  “I don’t get to do very much of it, I’m afraid. Actually, I haven’t cooked dinner for anyone in a long time.”

  “Well then, I’m honored,” she said.

  “Can I pour you a glass of wine?”

  “That would be lovely, thanks.” She looked around the room. “This is really beautiful. You must have a terrific decorator.”

  “Did it all myself, actually. Kind of threw it together. When you spend as much time as I do in hotels, you get some ideas, I guess.”

  “A chef and an interior designer, my goodness,” she said. “You really are a Renaissance man.”

  “I’d caution you to reserve judgment until you’ve both tasted my dinner and seen my media room. You may have reason to doubt my taste in both regards.”

  She smiled at him. “And modest too. My, my.”

  Fox smiled back. This was going very well indeed.

  “WELL, THAT was an amazing dinner,” she said, setting her napkin on the table by her now-empty plate.

  “Thanks,” Fox replied. “Though I’m sure I didn’t do it justice. Drew got the spices balanced a little better, I think.”

  She looked across the table at him silently for a moment. “You think a lot of your friend Drew, don’t you?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You’ve talked about him all night,” she said gently.

  “Sorry… I had no… sorry,” he stumbled. “I didn’t realize I was doing that.”

  She smiled sweetly. “Honestly, if he were a woman I would think you aren’t over her. I’ve had dates with guys who couldn’t stop talking about their exes, but this is the first time I’ve had a guy talk about a friend of his. Are you trying to set me up with him?”

  “No, not at all,” Fox blurted. He was reeling, completely blindsided by her suggestion that he had been talking about Drew all evening. “Sorry, I won’t talk about Drew anymore.”

  “Can I be honest with you?” she asked.

  “Of course. What is it?”

  “I don’t normally bring my work home with me—my friends are generally happy that I don’t try to analyze them the way I do my therapy clients—but I feel like I have to say something. Have you really thought through your relationship with Drew?”

  “What do you mean, ‘thought through?’”

  “What I mean is that friends don’t talk about their friends the way you talk about Drew. This evening I’ve gotten to hear about how he’s an amazing cook and how smart he is and how much he must work out and how thoughtful he is. You even somehow managed to convince me that attacking you and trashing a hotel room was one of his finest, most caring moments. Still not sure how you did that, to be honest.”

  “You’re right. I don’t know why—”

  “Stop,” she said, holding up her hand. “I’m not upset about it at all. I think it’s great that even in this weirdly masculinist age you’re able to be open and honest about how much you love your friend. If more guys could do that the world would be a better place. But I think your relationship with Drew goes a little beyond friends—or at least the way you feel about him is beyond friendship. Again, I think that’s sweet and lovely.” She looked across the table at him, an expression of genuine compassion on her face. “I think you’re a great guy, Fox. And I think you’d be happiest if you give this thing with Drew a try.” She g
ot up from her chair. “I’ve had a lovely evening, but I think I should be going—”

  He rose as well. “Wait, are you saying you’re leaving because you think I should be with Drew?”

  Once again she smiled sweetly at him. “I’ve been looking for a great guy. And lucky you, you’ve already found one.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Give Drew my best.” She turned and walked to the door, where she picked up her jacket and showed herself out.

  Fox stood in his dining room, utterly stunned.

  “DREW?”

  He looked up, heart pounding. There he was. They were really doing this.

  “You must be Reid,” Drew said, getting awkwardly to his feet. He nearly knocked over the tiny café table on which his latte sloshed, dribbling a little pool of milk. They shook hands. “Please, sit.”

  “Thanks.” He sat, tossing his messenger bag under the table and setting his cup of coffee atop it, next to Drew’s. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting.”

  “No, just got here,” Drew lied. He’d gotten here almost an hour ago, in the throes of an anxious suspense that made breathing a challenge. He had been obsessively watching every arrival and departure, hoping to see no one he recognized because they might immediately perceive that he was here to meet a man. A man he’d arranged to meet through a dating app. A man.

  “My dissertation group ran a little over,” Reid explained. “Our advisor wants proposals by the end of the month, and everyone’s kind of freaking out.”

  Drew smiled sympathetically. Now that was a form of anxiety he would admit to. “That’s the worst phase,” he said. “Mine got approved last semester, and right up until I got that email I was certain I was going to be thrown out of the university as an academic fraud.”

  Reid nodded. “Yep. Had that dream last night.” He sipped his coffee and looked at Drew for a long moment. “I was really surprised to get a message from you.”

  “You were?” Not as surprised as I was to find myself sending it, Drew thought.