by Trina Novak
Man, he was doing a number on me. After less than a minute, I was already completely smitten.
And I didn’t know if I was just imagining things, but as we stood there, staring into each other’s eyes, I felt something passing between us. Something strong, something immediate, something that connected us. It felt like knowing. Knowing that our meeting was right in some perfectly indescribable way, that we both felt it, we both radiated it to each other. This feeling was louder than words, and as we looked at each other, I knew he felt it too.
In that moment, as crazy as it sounds, I didn’t need to talk to him. I just knew. I knew I was ready to jump on the first starbridge and hightail it straight to the far reaches of the Andromeda sector, straight into his arms. I’d leave everything behind – not that there was much to leave. No family, a job I hated, a few scattered friends – I was ready to take a chance. I was ready to go to him. I normally wasn’t so impulsive, but the feeling was overwhelming.
I wanted him.
Next to me, I saw Keptin’s tiny little foot jut out as he gave the holophone a swift kick. I heard cracking, popping static, and then all the lights on the front turned blue. “Ha! There!” he shouted. “When all else fails, just kick it. Can you hear us now, sir?”
The man smiled, and his deep voice echoed throughout the room. “Yes, I can.”
“Splendid,” Keptin replied. “Terribly sorry for the malfunction. Earth technology, as I’m sure you know, is not quite up to par with the rest of the galaxy. In any case, without further ado, I present Cassandra Wessex.” Keptin made a dramatic, sweeping motion with his arms, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said.
“The pleasure is entirely mine,” he replied. Ooh, he was smooth. “Though I have to tell you—”
Keptin, overexcited, interrupted him before he could finish. “I see you’ve already received and signed the paperwork sent from Celestial Mates, and I thank you for your very timely response. I must say, I think this is an excellent potential match.”
“Well, I—” The man started to speak once again, and once again, Keptin cut him off. What was he trying to say?
“If you’re both amenable,” Keptin said, his voice a little too loud, “and I don’t see why you wouldn’t be, I think we should just go ahead and make plans for an in-person visit. Let’s not waste our time with holographic nonsense. I want to get you two kids together as soon as possible. I have a really good feeling about this, don’t you?”
“Well, I...” The man sighed. He seemed to be having trouble finding the right words. “I... I’m so sorry, but I...”
Was I wrong about him? I thought I’d felt something, but maybe I was deluded after all. “It’s fine,” I said. “We don’t have to meet. If I’m not your type, I won’t take offense.”
“No, it’s not that,” he said, running his hand through his dark locks. “I apologize if I gave you the wrong idea. The malfunction with the holophone threw me off. And you... I’m...” He sighed and gave me an impossibly sweet smile.
“What?” Keptin and I both said in unison.
“I’m not the person Celestial Mates has matched you with,” he said.
Chapter Three
It took me a few moments to even process his words. I felt like all my hopes and dreams, along with my whole heart, had just fallen out of my body and were lying in a puddle on the floor at my feet. It seemed ridiculous to be so heartsick over someone – or, more specifically, a hologram of someone – who I’d only seen for a handful of minutes, but the heart is a strange thing. In an instant, your heart can latch onto someone, even if it’s only the idea of someone. A lifetime of hopes and dreams can get pinned on a fleeting idea. Then in the next instant, your heart can break. And as silly as it seemed, I truly did feel like my heart was breaking.
Of course. Of course he wasn’t the one. Because I, Cassandra Wessex, have always had terrible luck.
“Wait a minute, are you not...” Keptin opened a folder that had suddenly appeared in his hands from out of nowhere and pulled out a piece of paper. I never got used to his strange interdimensional ways. He squinted at the paper, then spoke again. “Are you not... Overlord Rollox?”
“No,” the man said, shaking his head. “I’m Commander Zarak. I’m just... I set up the holophone call for Overlord Rollox. He should’ve already been here by now, but it appears he’s running late.”
“My goodness,” Keptin said with a shake of his head. “This is certainly an unexpected turn of events. I apologize, this is entirely my fault. My supervisor at CM isn’t going to like this one bit.”
“No, I’m sorry,” the man, Commander Zarak, said. “Ms. Wessex, I apologize for the confusion, and for giving you the wrong idea. I...”
“It’s ok,” I told him. I tried to hide the disappointment in my voice, but didn’t do a very good job of it.
“Really. Cassandra, I’m...” he smiled at me: a sweet, sad smile that almost broke my heart in two all over again. “I’m really sorry.”
“It’s... yeah. Whatever.” I suddenly felt so self-conscious, like the girl at the high school dance who was standing alone in the corner. “No harm done,” I said, though obviously that wasn’t quite true. Still, I had a potential match to meet, and like it or not, it wasn’t Zarak. I put on my big girl pants, so to speak, and got to the matter at hand. “So, my match, Rollo?”
“Rollox,” he corrected me.
“Yeah, Rollox. Am I going to get to meet him, or are you just going to keep dangling yourself in front of my face?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt embarrassed, my skin flushed red. But I was cranky – I’d met and lost a dream of a man in the span of a few minutes, and I just wanted to get this meeting back on the right track.
“Of course,” Zarak said. “I’ll go find him, if you’ll give me just a minute.”
“Take all the time you need,” I said, trying not to meet his gaze. Once I knew he wasn’t the guy, it was too hard to look straight at him. I knew I’d have to get over my silly little insta-crush, especially if I wanted to make things work with the mysterious Overlord Rollox, but in the moment all I could do was sulk and try to ignore my feelings.
Zarak left, his hologram winking out like a burned out lightbulb, which left Keptin and I alone for a minute. I turned to him and gave him the most withering and exasperated look my face was able to make.
“Cassie, I’m sorry,” he said.
“No way, Keptin. You don’t get to call me Cassie. My parents called me Cassie, and they’ve been dead for ten years. No one calls me Cassie. Especially not someone who has managed to completely bungle this entire matchmaking process in the worst way possible. I mean, come on Keptin! I think your supervisor is right. Maybe you really do suck at this.”
“I fear you may be correct,” he replied. “Maybe I’m not a matchmaker. Maybe I should just go back to working in the zonberry fields. Those zonberries, they stain your fingers black, and they smell like rotten meat, but perhaps that’s all I’m good for...” He stuck out his tiny pale lip in a self-serving pout, but I wasn’t having it.
“If you’re looking for sympathy right now, Keptin, you need to look somewhere else,” I told him.
“Of course,” he said, sucking his lip back into its proper position. “I’m just feeling sorry for myself. If this match doesn’t work, well, I don’t know what I’ll do. It’ll certainly be the end of my career with Celestial Mates.” He began to pout again, and I rolled my eyes so fast I got dizzy. “Not that I’m trying to influence you, Cassandra. You have to follow your heart, of course. But still, let’s give this a chance, shall we? Lightning seemed to strike with this Zarak fellow. Maybe lightning will strike twice. Maybe Overlord Rollox will be even more to your liking, yes?” Keptin wiggled his slim little eyebrows in a way that made me want to throttle him.
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s see what happens. I’ll remain optimistic.”
We stood in silence, Keptin and I, in front of the
holophone, waiting for my true match to materialize. And I really did try to remain hopeful, despite my sour mood. I mean, who knew? Maybe Zarak was just a pretty boy, and I’d been dazzled by his uncommonly good looks. Maybe he was a chauvinist, an entitled jerk, an unsatisfying lover. Maybe he was a million different things. I tried to think of them all: I tried to think of every horrible reality. I didn’t sign up with Celestial Mates to become dazzled by surface charms, after all. I’d fallen for pretty boys before, pretty boys with no substance. Pretty boys with ugly hearts. No, I was in this for true love. I couldn’t get sidetracked by a momentary attraction. I wanted something deeper. And I hoped that Overlord Rollox, whoever he was, would be the true match, the deep connection that I’d been so desperately searching for.
Still, I couldn’t help but have a sinking feeling that the whole exercise was worthless. Maybe, I thought, I was a fool. An overly romantic fool. Maybe there wasn’t truly a perfect person out there somewhere for me, no matter how many galaxies away he might be. Maybe this ideal I had about true love just didn’t exist. Was I chasing a stupid dream? Was it ridiculous to think I could just run away to some distant planet and have some fairytale happily ever after?
A woman where I worked had found love through Celestial Mates. I’d seen it happen. At first I thought it was probably too good to be true, but it really was good, and it really was true. I remember the day she left the office to go live with her mate in Sector Seven. We baked her a cake, and she showed us pictures of her match: a handsome, brown-eyed man who lived on a planet filled with gorgeous red and green foliage. She was so happy, so excited for her future, and I got caught up in the excitement right with her. True love can find you, I thought, if you look hard enough.
The next week, as I sat at my desk inputting numbers into a spreadsheet for my boss, a low-level administrator for a galactic real estate corporation, I found myself staring at the Celestial Mates website. My finger hovered over the sign-up button, and before I knew what I was doing, I clicked it. As soon as I signed up, I felt a rush of excitement and I knew – I just knew that it was the right thing to do.
After four bad matches and a truck-load of dashed hopes and dreams, I wasn’t so sure anymore. As I stood in silence with Keptin, I wondered if Celestial Mates was just some big scam.
“What you thinking about?” Keptin asked.
“I’m thinking about how stupid this all is,” I said. “I’m thinking that contacting your agency may have been a huge waste of my time.”
“Oh Cassandra, don’t say that. I promise you, this is not a waste of your time.” Keptin turned to me and put his small pale hand on my arm. He was speaking in that tone I’d come to expect from him, like some kind of wise and all-seeing fortuneteller. “Love works in mysterious ways, Cassandra.”
“Well, you work in –” before I could finish my sentence, my holophone whirred back to life with a series of creaks and garbled digital beeps. For a moment, I turned my frustration to the holophone. If it wasn’t such a piece of garbage, maybe the whole misunderstanding with Zarak never would’ve happened. I wouldn’t have had to stand there, looking at him, connecting with him in some strange wordless way, getting my hopes up. That’s what I got, I figured, for buying a cheap off-brand holophone.
Two figures began to take shape before me in the blue light of the holophone. First, I saw the already familiar outline of Zarak, and my stupid heart began to flutter. His face came into focus, a face I felt like I already knew, a face I felt like I’d known for years. He smiled at me – another achingly kind yet sexy smile – and my stomach dropped.
Then, the figure next to Zarak began to take shape. I knew this was Overlord Rollox. I held my breath as his holographic image materialized in front of me.
And when I finally saw him, my stomach dropped again.
Chapter Four
Overlord Rollox looked… Well, I couldn’t think of a polite description. To be blunt, he looked terrible. He was like a giant Bassett Hound covered in slices of ham, a lumpy balloon, a pile of old pudding with a comically bad haircut.
I knew I said that looks didn’t matter, but this was ridiculous.
Then, I heard him speak. Things only got worse.
“Is this the human girl I ordered?” He barked, his voice gravelly yet nasal at the same time.
Ordered?!
“Well, this… This is… Not ordered, no, no,” Keptin stammered. “That’s not… That’s not how it works. But yes, Overlord Rollox, this is Cassandra Wessex, the potential match chosen for you by myself and the illustrious Celestial Mates matchmaking agency.”
“She’s…” Rollox pursed his lips and squinted at me. “She’s a little round in the hips, but she’ll do. Not bad.”
Round in the hips?! Not bad?!
“Rollox,” Zarak said, his voice sounding tense. “That’s an incredibly unkind thing to say. Ms. Wessex is a lovely woman. Look at her, how can you not think she’s stunning?”
I looked at Zarak and felt my skin immediately flush with warmth. He clenched his jaw, the muscles tensing underneath his chiseled cheekbones, then he bit his lip and grinned.
Good grief. I couldn’t even deal with the amount of sexiness that was pouring out of Zarak in that moment. I had other problems.
I turned my attention back to Rollox, and when I looked into his beady little eyes, my blood began to absolutely boil. “Excuse me, I am not round,” I said. “I’m curvy. And I’m very proud of that.”
“That’s all well and good, if you like that sort of thing,” Rollox said, “but I generally prefer a woman who shows a little more bones. Still, it’s nothing we can’t remedy.” He waved his meaty hand in the air. “We’ll monitor your food intake once you get here and you’ll be showing bones in no time.”
“Showing bones?!” I said, disgusted by such a grotesque turn of phrase. “I don’t think so. No. And another thing –”
“Now, now,” Keptin interjected. “I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot here, as you humans like to say. Obviously we’re dealing with two very strong personalities. Cassandra, Rollox, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Strong personalities often match very well together. Fiery passion! After all, when people smoke, they… catch on fire? No, that’s not how that expression goes.”
“Where there’s smoke there’s fire,” I offered. “And I don’t think that expression means what you think it means anyway, Keptin. And listen, I –”
“I don’t have time for this,” Rollox barked. “When can you get this girl to me?”
“Well, it’s really… It’s really up to Cassandra,” Keptin said. “It’s entirely her choice whether or not she wants to agree to an in-person meeting.”
“Her choice?” Rollox bellowed. “I thought this was already decided.”
“Both parties have to consent, Sir,” Keptin replied.
“Consent,” he muttered, as if the word literally tasted bad. “Fine. So is she coming or not?” Rollox asked, not even bothering to look at me.
Of course I wasn’t coming. Just as I expected, this matchup was another Keptin disaster – the worst one so far. And if Overlord Rollox thought I was going to hop on a starbridge and come meet his arrogant, disgusting, misogynistic ass he was even crazier than I thought he was.
But I didn’t have time to say any of that. As soon as I opened my mouth to speak, Keptin cut me off. It seemed like he was always cutting me off. What the hell was his deal?
“Let’s give Cassandra some time to think about this,” he offered. “I don’t think there’s any need to rush into a decision at this moment. It is, after all, a great and monumental decision. We’ll contact you again soon, Overlord Rollox.”
I could’ve slapped Keptin’s tiny, adorable little face clean off. There was absolutely nothing to think about. My answer was a big fat no, as big as my round hips that Rollox seemed to find so instantly distasteful.
“Fine,” Rollox huffed. And without another word, his holographic image popped like a balloon and he was g
one.
Zarak remained. Oh, Zarak, his hologram standing in my living room next to a potted plant, looking good enough to eat.
“I’m very sorry for Rollox’s temperament,” Zarak offered. “Still, I hope you’ll consider coming to Azakia.”
“I really don’t think that’s going to happen,” I said.
“Well, that’s a shame,” he said, his smile breaking my heart for the millionth time. “Good luck to you, Cassandra.”
“Thank you Zarak. It was nice to meet you. Good luck to you too.” It occurred to me for the first time that maybe Zarak was already married to some nice woman on Azakia. I mean, a catch like that – there was no way he was single. A wave of embarrassment and disappointment washed over me as I considered the possibility that maybe I’d imagined the whole thing – the looks we’d shared, so seemingly full of attraction and connection, the stolen glances, the warm smiles. Maybe he was just being nice.
I wanted to bury my head in the sand. I wanted to bury my whole body in the damn sand, round hips and all.
“We’ll be in contact soon,” Keptin said.
I didn’t bother to say anything else. What else was there to say? I just wanted to slink away, to forget this stupid day and this stupid matchmaking agency, and the stupid interdimensional idiot who matched me with a hideous buffoon. And most of all, I wanted to forget Zarak.
I gave him a little wave and he waved back, his face serious, solemn, and almost too beautiful to comprehend.
Then his holographic image flickered, and he was gone.
Chapter Five
Zarak switched off the holophone and stood in the dark anteroom, his eyes fixed on the spot where moments earlier Cassandra’s holographic image had stood. He tried to make sense of his feelings, but found that there was truly no sense to what he was feeling.
Every emotion possible seemed to course through him at once. He felt anger at Rollox for being such an unforgivable beast, and for having the good fortune to have lucked upon a match with such a captivating woman. He felt immense frustration at the cruel irony that a woman like Cassandra Wessex would be so impossibly close to him, yet so out of reach. Yet, strangely, he also felt happiness: happiness that such a woman existed, that he had spent a handful of time in her company. And aching need, yes: he felt that too. An aching need unlike any he had felt before with other women, and there had been a few. But the aching need he felt for Cassandra was different somehow. It felt not just sexual – though it was definitely, definitely sexual – it also felt like something much larger, much deeper, something transformative.