Waltz This Way

by Dakota Cassidy

  Small like your dick, Tyler? Callie grimaced at her thoughts and said instead, “Right. No problem. You won’t regret this,” as she zipped out of his office and back down the hall to her own, before Tyler took it back or she chickened out and wrote another penile implant column.

  So here she sat—three days later, with more than a response or two, in one fine mess of cyber communication. Callie swung her chair back to face her computer with determination, prepared to tackle this with the intent of getting the real scoop.

  Hookay, so she only had ninety-eight e-mails left to answer. No time like the present. Maybe looking at the profile before reading the e-mail might help her determine if the e-mail was going to scare the shit out of her or not.

  Some of the profile pictures were too funny. What made a man put a picture of himself up with a feminine hand on his shoulder and the rest of said female’s body hacked off? It was just a smidge obvious that whoever owned the hand was once part of the couple and now she’d been obliterated from the picture, much like their relationship, Callie supposed.

  Oh, now he wasn’t too bad. Callie glanced at tall, dark and semi-luscious’ profile. Six feet tall, brown hair, brown eyes, two-hundred muscular pounds. An accountant. His occupation screamed solid and secure. However, his userid made Callie cough.

  Wenchhunter.

  Ohh, and a big, studly wench hunter at that, Callie mused as she looked more closely at Wenchhunter’s pictures. Some of these men could really benefit from some help with their grammar and spelling. It would seem Wenchhunter fell into that category, because he wanted a woman who wasn’t clingy and injoyed life. A healthy set of mams was a high priority on Wenchhunters list too.

  Callie glanced at her small breasts and winced. Well, her mammary glands weren’t winning any awards on their southbound destination.

  Oh, God. Was this what they’d all be like?

  Okay, it wasn’t fair to judge a man on grammar and his lust for mammary glands alone. Callie clicked on Wenchhunter’s e-mail titled “Look no further”.

  To: Writer66

  From: Wenchhunter

  Subject: Look no further

  Writer 66,

  Has anyone ever told you, you have very sexy lips? How come your not writer69?

  Gary

  Cuz she was born in nineteen-sixty-six? Sex, it was all about the sex. Any innuendo that had to do with sex was not the way to this chicks’ heart, but what did she know? Callie hadn’t dated in thirteen years. Maybe this was the new approach of the millennium, but not with her.

  Loser.

  Callie’s fingers twitched, as did her right eye. E-mail made people bold and she intended to be just that right now in the sharp-tongued way only Callie knew how to do.

  From: Writer66

  To: Wenchhunter

  Subject: Re: Look no further

  Hi Wenchhunter,

  Because I hate sex…

  Frigid in sunny CA,

  Writer66

  Callie grinned. Oh, she had an evil tongue and it was bound to get her into some major trouble if she kept this up.

  A small box popped up to the left of her computer screen, startling her. As a matter of fact several small boxes with glowing yellow lights popped up.

  The instant messenger.

  She’d forgotten that the site offered instant messaging as a feature. You could get to know your victims via bad come-on’s and all of the latest pick-up lines as you typed to one another in real time.

  Oh, goody! More bad grammar and spelling to amuse her. Callie moved her mouse to one of the blinking yellow lights to find Alpha_Male’s profile staring at her. His very confident smile gleamed back at her. He had a suit coat thrown over his shoulder in the picture and he wore a very jaunty smile. Well, he was as good as any to start with. Callie tried to read his profile as she glanced at his type written message in the instant message box. “Hey there, you’re very attractive. I like your profile. Very strong and confident.”

  Yeah, that was her, hotter than snot and more confident than a Victoria’s Secret supermodel in her thong and angel wings. Callie snorted and typed back. “Well thank you, kind sir.” He was, after all, fifty-eight, according to his profile. Addressing him as sir was definitely in order.

  “Sir?” he questioned.

  Oops. Had she offended him? Callie quickly tried to correct her mistake. “I was trying to be polite.”

  “Are writers polite?”

  Aren’t they? “This one is,” she answered back. Callie skimmed his profile and balked. Boy, he sure defined pompous, even if he did look pretty good for his age. Alpha_Male had the libido of a teenager, or so he claimed anyway. Only guys who were exceptionally self-conscious about other underlying issues were usually the ones who bragged about their libidos, and by the way—what alpha male boasted he was an alpha male? It would rather be like Callie touting she had boobs. She just did.

  Alpha_Male typed, “So be polite to me, Writer66 and tell me your name.”

  Yeah, sure. “Ernest Hemmingway.” Just call me, Ernie. Callie giggled again at her audacity.

  “So are you a transvestite?”

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on there. No need to get nasty, little big man. What kind of pot-shot was that? Alrighty then, we were bringing the big guns out now. Callie’s fingers itched and set sail without thinking. “You know, Alpha Male, I see in your profile that you claim you have the libido of a teenager. Is that via aid of Viagra or foot pump?” Callie clicked send with an oomph. Slam dunk, baby!

  There was a long pause on the screen. Callie figured he’d just go away now.

  And then again, maybe not. The words just below the small screen said Alpha_ Male was typing.

  Asshole.

  “You know, trying to flirt with you is like trying to charm a cop out of a traffic ticket.”

  Was this a rare form of flirting known only to the senior set? Insulting someone was the new way to flirt? Alpha_ Male had just let loose a good tweak and Callie was ready to go with it. Forget going with it—it flooded her in waves of irritation as her fingers clicked out a note back to Alpha, frickin’ arrogant Male. “Tell me one more thing, Alpha_ Male. Do you use the transvestite line at the senior citizens’ home at basket weaving classes as a way to pick up chicks? I think you ought to go back to charm school 101 and skip the crunches with the old foot pump.”

  The screen remained blank. No reply from Alpha_Male.

  Gee, too bad, so sad, you overbearing, pompous freak.

  The earth was full. Go home.

  Callie’s attention returned to the bigger screen and cringed. Jesus, the instant messages were like swarms of flies, popping up left and right and she didn’t have the foggiest idea of how to turn it off. She opted to ignore it in favor of the gigantic flood of e-mail she still had to answer. Not to mention the men who had “whispered” to her.

  Callie had received three e-mails from Heavenly Hook Ups with the pictures and profiles of men who were too chicken to actually take the initiative and e-mail her, but chose to “whisper” their interest in her instead. It was an easy way to express your desire to communicate, yet get away unscathed if the party you were interested in didn’t express interest back.

  Sissies.

  Callie was going to ignore those now and spend her energy on responding to actual e-mails instead, skipping the men whose locations were undesirable, or at the very least sending a pleasant e-mail thanking them.

  Scrolling the overflowing inbox of her e-mail a picture of a man with a gun caught her eye. Callie grimaced.

  Boys and their toys.

  Oooh, big toys too. That was quite the gun. A sniper rifle, she presumed. Well, shit, he must be in some branch of the service.

  Callie clicked on Rambo’s profile before she opened the e-mail. Brian_SOF was his userid. SOF? Soldier of Fortune? Callie sighed. She didn’t need any warriors, thank you very much, but his picture captured her eyes anyway.

  Daaaamn. He was cute. Sorta half devil may care and the other
half all intense. His wavy, dark hair was cropped shortly above his ears and he had a sprinkling of stubble over his cheeks, chin and above his lip. A nice firm jaw, with a smile to match. He sure looked happy for someone who needed a big gun like that.

  He wasn’t your typical hottie. This Brian didn’t have the slick look of some of the boy-toys she’d seen so far. But he was hot in the way only men who were secure could be. It didn’t look like he minded having his picture taken, yet he wasn’t posing either. The pictures weren’t of him bare chested and hamming it up for the camera. Just him and a gun…a big gun. He didn’t hold the gun like he was playing at being a tough guy either, rather it seemed a perfect extension of who he was and the job—whatever the job was—that he was doing.

  Not a pretty boy for sure, kind of gruff and rugged, but playful.

  A real manly-man this Brian_SOF.

  Callie shivered as she ran her mouse over his profile. He probably couldn’t spell for all his testosterone and ammunition. As she read over his stats, she found herself sighing like a stupid girl in high school. Well, he was big. Like really big, He weighed nearly one-hundred pounds more than her and topped her by ten inches. Callie loved men who were tall and if they weighed a lot more than her, then her ass could only be an object that appeared smaller than it really was.

  Hmmm, mmm good.

  And he lived six flippin’ hours away. The site provided data on the distance between you and your potential interest, which was helpful, but she was getting an awful lot of mail from men who lived too far for her to interview.

  This was beginning to push her buttons. Didn’t Brian read her profile? How much more clearly could she define California residents only? Rambo lived in Arizona and originally hailed from Mississippi.

  A redneck. How predictable.

  Even if he was a brick-shithouse redneck.

  Callie opened his e-mail and began to read.

  From: Brian_SOF

  To: Writer66

  Subject: Awesome

  Hey writer66. I just had to drop you a note and tell you that your pic is awesome. I’d love to hear from you sometime.

  Brian

  Callie sat for a moment and thought about that. No one had ever called her awesome. Not that she could remember anyway. The word awesome glared at her and she smiled, but he still lived too far away to interview and it looked like he was in Iraq from the pictures she viewed in his profile, yet she felt a strange compulsion to e-mail him back anyway. What difference did it make if he lived in Arizona or Zimbabwe? Callie wasn’t in this to find her soul mate. She just wanted an article for her column that would bring in a flood of readers and keep her from being jobless. Truth be told, she was just a little flattered too…only a little and she couldn’t quite figure out why, she just was.

  Brian_SOF’s picture and e-mail stirred something in Callie that she couldn’t define and didn’t want to. She didn’t spend much time looking at men because Frank, her ex, had ruined her ogling for good. No one since her divorce had made her libido do the dance of lust, yet Brian_SOF’s gave her a tingle. Still, it didn’t matter, Brian lived too far away so she could ogle all she wanted to.

  Callie clicked reply.

  To: Brian_SOF

  Subject: Re: Awesome

  Dear Brian,

  Well, thank you! Your e-mail made me smile, but would you answer one question for me? Why would you choose to e-mail someone who lives so far away from you? I’ve gotten a lot of e-mail from overseas and out of state. The writer in me is ever curious. I live in the land of surfers and tofu lovers and a cute guy e-mails me, and he has lots of potential, but he lives six hours away!

  It’s just not fair! Anyway, thanks for the kind words!

  Writer66

  Callie sent it with a smile and a sigh of resignation. This was about research, not a concentrated effort to actually find the man of her dreams. He didn’t exist—not after her ex, Frank the freak. She didn’t need any dates for like real.

  Just guinea pigs. Little test mice to take out of a cage and toy with, then safely return. No harm done.

  No matter that they might be as cute as Brian. Ah, well, what was a little harmless flirting over cyber space anyway?

  Chapter 2

  Callie pushed the gate open to her small apartment and let it swing shut behind her, anxious to leave the day behind. She stuck the key in her door and turned it, giving a cursory glance around at her plants on her small cement patio. They needed watering, but she was too tired to do it.

  She shoved open the door to find her favorite mammal on the entire planet safely back in her apartment. Callie and her ex-husband of ten years shared custody of their beagle, Aston. Ludicrous, sharing custody of a dog to be sure, but nonetheless it was part of a divorce agreement that by far would go down in the history of divorces as the one closest resembling The War of the Roses.

  Frank had fought her tooth and nail on everything, including Aston. He didn’t really love Aston. Aston was a possession, just as Callie had been.

  “Hey, Aston. Did the mean old wicked witch of Beverley Hills get your nails clipped?” Callie referred to Frank’s latest high-maintenance hootchie as she stooped to scratch Aston’s floppy ears. She got a whiff of the expensive perfume that Frank’s honey bathed in and wrinkled her nose. Aston flopped down on the floor and sighed with a long snort. “I know just what you mean. She smells like a two-dollar whore, huh?”

  Callie giggled to herself and rose to read the note she knew Frank would leave on her white tiled kitchen counter. She scooped the monogrammed stationary off her counter and stuck her tongue out at Frank. He’d been too busy house hunting with his floozy to make Aston’s grooming appointment. He’d make it up to her and pay for the next one.

  Good, Frank, Callie thought, you do that right after your big-haired babe gets her manicure. She was too tired to even call him up and bitch over it—not that she did that anyway. Her protests were meek at best and Frank steamrolled them anyway. She sucked at confrontation.

  Callie decided to shower and change, then slough through more of that damn e-mail. Last count was four hundred or so, minus the freaks, the really flat-out scary guys and the ones who lived in India.

  Stripping off her clothes, Callie turned the handles in her shower to full blast and stepped in, letting the hard spray pound her aching muscles. She squeezed a handful of her favorite shower gel into her hand and lathered up.

  For the first time in a long while, Callie looked down at her body, paying close attention to what she really looked like. What she might look like to a man that wasn’t Frank, who liked silicone boobs and bleached blonde hair. Ed whatever’s e-mail had stirred up some insecurity about her body.

  And this mattered why? That was simple, because she had to date the men who were contacting her if she hoped to achieve her next column. She’d been very honest about her body type when choosing her stats on the date site.

  Callie was average, plain and simple. Not fat, not skinny. No unsightly lumps, but no six pack abs either. Skimming her hands over her breasts with the gel, she paused to give them a good once over.

  Okay, so they were small, but they were real. Surely that counted for something in the land of plastic? Sighing, Callie washed her hair and turned the shower off. Why should she give a rat’s fuzzy ass if the men she chose as lab experiments liked her body? She wasn’t sleeping with them, they were her unsuspecting prey.

  Fodder for the masses.

  Callie toweled off, twisting her hair into a knot on the top of her head and dug in her dresser for some silky nightwear. Her best friend Katherine didn’t understand her obsession with all things Victoria’s Secret. She never failed to remind Callie she slept alone, but Callie loved the feel of silk against her skin. One of her rare indulgences, one she refused to give up, sexless and partner-less though she might be.

  Who needed a man when you could have silk pjs?

  Aston traipsed into her bedroom and moaned, before flopping down at her feet. Callie slipped
a toe under his belly and gave him a gentle nudge. “Was Frank’s hootchie that bad, buddy? What’s she doing to you anyway? Does she still call you sweetums? Ick. I don’t blame you for being disgusted.”

  Heading to her desk in the corner of her room, Callie flipped on her computer and yawned as she waited to log on. She needed to handle some more of this e-mail and get some beginning stats. Night had settled and the inky black twinkled with stars, dotting the horizon over her apartment complex. Callie tugged the blinds closed and crossed her legs as she situated herself in her chair, turning on her desk lamp.

  The moment she logged onto the site with her username and password the instant message boxes exploded at her in a rainbow of faces and profiles with blinking yellow lights everywhere.

  Wasn’t there a way to turn this damn thing off? The site had a spot that displayed who was online and how many users were available for you to scam, er chat with.

  Cool, but how did you turn it off?

  Macdaddy’s face floated in front of her, enticing her to click on his picture merely because his userid cracked her up and his locale was convenient. She moved her mouse over his profile as he messaged her. “Hey, sexylips.”

  Callie cocked her head. What was it about her lips? She just had to know. “Sexylips?” she typed back.

  “Yuppers. You have the sexiest lips I’ve ever seen.”

  Well, then Macdaddy had never seen Angelina Jolie’s lips, had he? “Thank you.”

  “So you’re a writer?”

  No, the userid Writer66 was all just a sham. Callie sighed. She was getting tired of answering the same questions over and over and she’d only just begun. She’d done plenty of that in e-mail when men asked if she really was a writer. “Yep.”

  “What do you write?”

  Eulogies? No, that might frighten Macdaddy and his profile was okay. He was nice looking in a soft way, but she couldn’t afford to reveal her covert status either. He was forty-two and lived nearby. He was sporting some pluses in his favor. Callie crossed her fingers that he’d be decent enough to go out with. “I freelance.” Which wasn’t a complete lie. She did help her mother write her Christmas cards every year.