by Alana Davis
I smiled at Charles. I quickly looked down at my cellphone and hoped for the thousandth time that it would light up with a phone call or text from Leon. Even an email would be better than nothing at this point.
“I have to ask you a question,” Charles said.
“Of course.”
“How did you come to match Rebecca and I? I mean, how did you manage to find her?”
I smiled wider. The truth was that I hadn’t found Rebecca at all; I had found Charles. There were a few men who might have been a possible match, but there were always hold-outs. Either the men seemed intellectually inferior to the point that it would pose a problem, or they were looking for a less driven woman.
Charles was seeking a woman who could be his equal. A woman who wanted to be a kept wife, a trophy at home cooking meals and cleaning the house did not appeal to him at all. I remembered our interview well.
“I need a woman that can challenge me. And I mean in a lot of ways. I’m not a young man anymore, I’m not talking about sex,” Charles said. When he said it, there was no shame or awkwardness in his voice like so many of the other men who had spoken to me about anything related to sex. “I want a partner who is going to make me think. I need someone who has their own life, their own desires, their own interests, but can share them with me. I just want someone that I want to spend time with and share my life with.”
Charles romanticism stuck out immediately. I wrote furiously even as my old tape recorder rolled on. I was trying to remain impartial, but as Charles went on and on, I became more excited that I had found Rebecca a match.
I remembered how I had felt when Marilyn had walked in my office and presented herself to me. She too had seemed a perfect match, but now it was clear that something nefarious had taken place. Despite all of that, I had not known she was trying to get back into Leon’s life. Whether I sensed it or not, mistrust was not the only feeling I had. Unlike the excitement I felt towards Rebecca and Charles becoming a match, I had felt dread towards the idea of Marilyn and Leon together.
“Well, I didn’t exactly find her,” I said politely. I always explained my process to new clients, but when they were matched with someone who was everything they were looking for, their shock usually led to them asking me how I did it. “I screened a lot of clients. I have files built up and I take notes on your personalities and certain aspects of your views towards relationships. While I do ask you about your interests and views on things like religion and politics, those are far less important than you’d think. Simply because two people are Catholic and love horseback riding doesn’t mean they were meant to be.”
Charles laughed. His face was warm with the air of new love. “So what is your algorithm then?”
I stopped to think about this. If I could figure out exactly what my algorithm towards relationships was, could I then apply that very same equation towards myself?
“I don’t use one, unfortunately. Dating websites use those, and while dating websites are often successful, I mean, even I have to admit a lot of people find partners through those sites, I find that any kind of rigorous equation or algorithm has a high failure rate. I simply go by your wants, needs, and a general impression of your personality.”
Charles sat back his chair, a furrow crossing his brow as he contemplated this. “It definitely works for you. I’ve done a lot of research on you, Miss Facet. People absolutely rave about you on every website I could find on you, and I did my homework. I even wrote to a few of your ex-clients and they wrote long emails about how great you were and how well you came to know them personally. Simply put, I was impressed. So even though my mathematics background cries out against your method of feeling it out, I have to applaud you.”
I had felt my way towards Leon Christensen thrusting in and out of me as the fire burned in the background. The same intuition that had proved to be so helpful in building my business from the ground up served to leave me alone, next to a dead fireplace with no trace of the client that I had apparently seduced. How would my ex-clients feel about that?
“Thank you, it has served me well,” I said, thinking that it served me well at least in my professional life. “Although, I have to agree with you that it’s anything but mathematical.”
We shared a smile.
“I’m just glad that your intuition led me to meet Rebecca. At the very least, it’s been a very long time since I’ve been so interested in someone,” Charles said. The happiness in his face faded slightly. I remembered our first interview again and his sadness crossed the room and hit me hard, harder than I thought it could have.
Charles had married young. He had described her as the most beautiful girls he had ever seen. They had grown up next to each other on a small street in a small town in New England. Her name had been Lori and her hair had been a golden blond that he said always reminded him of summer even when snow covered everything in sight. They had gone through grade school together and then married before college.
She died giving birth. Even now, when Charles told the story, his face grew heavy and tears welled up in his eyes. His voice grew hoarse and every word was labored in its delivery. Charles recalled his pain with amazing clarity, as though it had happened yesterday.
They had waited to have children. In their thirties, they decided that it was time to either have a child or give up on the idea altogether. When Lori became pregnant, they had rejoiced.
“I never really got over losing Lori,” Charles had said at our first meeting. “I love my son, Brandon, more than I can even describe and I wouldn’t trade him for the world, but there are times when I miss her so much that it pains me to look at him. He looks just like her. Most of the time though, it’s really nice that he looks like Lori. He even has some of her mannerisms, believe it or not.”
Leon’s eyes burning with tears as he stared into the fire. A story of a childhood loss that still weighed on him. His confession, honest and without motive. The look of complete loss on his face.
I fought back tears again. I steadied my voice as best I could before I spoke again. “Well, Charles, I’m ecstatic at the results so far. As of now, can I consider your file on hold?” I asked, my voice solid and without any slight hint of emotional strain.
“What does my file being on hold mean?”
“Essentially, it means that you’re not interested in being matched up with anyone else. We retain your information, and consider you off our matching possibilities, but I still may link up possible matches with your file in case you come back. After six months of you being on hold, we consider your case officially closed.”
“You can consider me on hold, I suppose. I’m hoping that you and I never have to work together again,” Charles said, laughing. “Well, unless you’re looking to invest in my hedge fund.”
We shared another laugh. Charles shook my hand and a wide smile spread from ear to ear across his face. We said our goodbyes and Charles left my office, practically dancing to the door. When he passed April, he also said a cordial goodbye and April giggled. She turned backed to me and her face was positively bright with happiness. She gave me a big thumbs-up of approval and I gave her one back. It was our customary gesture for a job well done.
I made more coffee. After the meeting with Charlie, I was exhausted. I knew that I had to stay and finish up some work, but all I wanted to do was curl up in my bed and sleep away the entire day and forget everything that had happened. Deep down, I knew that if I went home all I would see is the fireplace and the empty floor where Leon and I had embraced each other.
His hands had been so gentle. His fingers had brushed against my skin softly as they plucked away the buttons on my blouse. My nipples grew hard in remembrance of the previous night. His eyes stared into mine, bloodshot and wanting.
No, I told myself. I was not going to sit here all day and think about last night.
I walked out to April. “April, please hold all of my calls. Unless it’s a state of emergency or fire rains from the sky, don’t
disturb me until four o’clock,” I said. April was nodding as she wrote down four pm. “Oh, and while you’re at it, order us some lunch. It’s on me, of course. Just give me a heads up when the food gets here.”
“Where should I order from and what would you like?” she asked.
I stopped to consider it. I wanted Leon here. That’s all I wanted. I wanted him to lay down with me and wrap me in his muscular arms and hold me close. He’d slide inside of me slowly and I’d feel every inch of him push into me. His tongue would work against mine with steady pressure until his cock was fully inside of me. Then his hands would wrap around my ass and move me back and forth on him, my wetness sliding up and down on him.
April stared at me. I shook my head slightly and turned back to her.
“Something Asian, I don’t care. Get me vegetables or tofu. Spicy. Make sure to get a big salad on the side,” I said. I really wanted a big steak and potatoes, but I would try to at least attempt to keep it healthy.
April wrote down everything and nodded. She was scanning websites, finding something that caught her attention. I left her and returned to my own office. Rather than turn on the overhead light, I opted to turn on the numerous lamps I had strewn about the office. I closed the door behind me and pulled the shades shut. With the window closed as well, I was completely alone and private. The lamps gave the office a calm feel to it, which I liked. I sat down at my desk and closed my eyes, resting my head on my outstretched arms.
Sleep wavered in and out. The pressure of my arm pushed against my forehead, but the feeling was far away. The beginning of a dream started to paste itself over the darkness and I was still conscious enough to realize that I was falling into a dream.
Leon stared at me. His hand was between my legs, sliding in between my lips as it moved up and down. His other hand held me against him. I could feel his cock, hard and rigid, against my ass cheek. He was moving me up and down on his hand, his fingers penetrating me in an explosion of pleasure. The fire blazed in front of us. My skin felt alive and hot. I thrust my hips against his and his abs flexed in response.
I awoke with a start, the dream washing away in an instant. My vision cleared and my office came into view. With the blinds closed and only the lamps on, it was no wonder I fell asleep. Cursing myself for being so stupid that I could fall asleep on the job, I got up and turned on the overhead light.
The harsh light cast down on me. My head swam with the thralls of a brief sleep and my eyes hurt at the flood of new light. I told myself to suck it up and that I would soon grow accustomed to it. After a few minutes, the nap hangover cleared and the light seemed much less harsh.
I looked through my schedule and pulled out the files of clients that I had upcoming meetings with. The nearest meeting was with a woman who ran her own bridal flower store. I laughed to myself when I remembered her; we were both in the business of love yet we were both loveless ourselves. I had thought to make the joke to her, but decided against it and kept my silence.
The file contained everything I needed to know about her to get some preliminary matches. Unless I was absolutely sure that I had a perfect match, I typically let the client go through a summary packet of their potential match, picture not included. From there, the client would choose two or three people that they felt looked the most appealing through their profile. From those three, I would then show the client the pictures of the potential matches, but unattached to any particular file.
This method was helpful in establishing the client’s interests in types of people and how they looked. Sometimes the first match worked out, sometimes it provided me with a better basis to move forward.
I opened the bridal flower shop owner’s file. My eyes blurred as I tried to read. I would find myself halfway down a page without any idea of what I had just read. To get through the first page of the folder took me close to twenty minutes.
Under her history, I read that she went to a boarding school. I tried to imagine Leon as a sixteen year old boy. He was undoubtedly handsome, albeit smaller and less muscular. The beginning of his sixteenth year must have been an optimistic one for him. At a prestigious school, surrounded by friends, hounded by young girls who threw themselves at him, he must have felt like a king. Then Kevin died.
Kevin Bowers, the poor boy. I thought of all of my feelings at the age. Every time something bad happened, it was as if the world had ended. Every emotion rang like a church-bell in my heart, overbearing and demanding of all attention. What broken-hearted sixteen year old doesn’t consider ending it all?
Yet Kevin Bowers had gone and done just that. His life ended at the end of a belt attached to a ceiling fan. What if I had found my best friend hanging from the ceiling. I couldn’t begin to imagine the shock of it, how it would haunt your dreams for weeks, months, and years. The guilt might be enough to drive you crazy.
Leon Christensen, no longer the sixteen year old kid he was once but now a grown man, had been deeply affected by the trauma he had experienced on the day his best friend had taken his own life. I wondered if his sexuality had something to do with that day. Was he drawn to being a dominant out of some need to control? If he could assert control in some fashion, did that mean he wouldn’t be subjected to any more pain like the pain of that day?
These were questions I had no answers to. I barely knew Leon Christensen, but from what I did know, I wanted to know him more. There was no denying that truth of that. Even now, feeling slighted and hurt, I wanted to get inside Leon Christensen’s head. He was certainly in mine.
I returned to the folder. With a fierce determination that probably gave me another wrinkle in my forehead, I pressed on. By the end of the flower store owner’s file, my eyes refused to cooperate with my will. I made some brief notes in her file and tossed it on my desk to start a fresh pile. I looked over to the unfinished stack of client folders and sighed. It seemed like a tower of folders before me.
I rubbed my eyes. When I opened them, I felt a pang of sadness hit me like an electric shock. The folders before me were depressing for the first time ever. They weren’t depressing because they were pathetic; the folders represented hope. These people all wanted love and they were looking to me to deliver it. Meanwhile, I couldn’t even decide how I felt about one man who I had sex with once.
What had happened between Leon and I could be boiled down to simply sex. We had both wanted physical gratification and we got it. It just happened to have occurred on the anniversary of his best friend’s death. And my sadness over his pain wasn’t because I felt any sort of real feelings towards him. No, if I had seen that story on television or in a movie, I would probably have been just as moved to tears. The fact that it was a person who I had interacted with only gave it someone to attach those feelings to.
I put on some music. I turned up the expensive speakers and got up from my desk and walked over to my private bathroom. It was small, tiny by any standards. Sitting down on the closed toilet seat, I locked the door needlessly. The light cast shadows all around me. All around the bathroom were pictures of the sea and paintings of all things maritime related. It had seemed a fitting little decor.
My eyes closed. I slowly bit my lower lip with increasing pressure as I started to form a picture of Leon in my mind. There was no sadness in his eyes. He stood before me, naked and glistening with sweat. My hand found the wetness between my thighs and I focused all of my frustration and angst into that area.
The fantasy washed over the bathroom. Soon my surroundings were all gone and there was nothing except the growing pleasure of my hand’s movement and the image of Leon before me. His cock was as hard as stone and wanting. In his eyes, I saw nothing but lust. When he looked at me, everything about him looked hungry. He pointed a finger at me and beckoned me towards him.
I was clad in leather. A thong stretched tight over my thighs connected in the back to a string that was supposed to be a bra. My nipples poked around the sides of the tiny bra, hard and wanting. Around my neck there was a leather col
lar that was pulled tight and connected to the rest of the leather garments. My hair was pulled back tight and I wore crimson lipstick.
I was on all fours and I slowly inched my way towards Leon, taking my time to move very slowly. His cock pulsed with want and I could see him clenching his fists as he watched my body flow with every move towards him. When I reached him, he put his hand under my chin and raised my face to look at his. His cock was inches from my face, the warmth of the blood that flowed down there radiating from it.
Leon lifted me up and turned me around. On my feet, he pushed me against a wall and spread my legs. His cock rested against my ass cheeks and one of his hands grabbed the ponytail that was tightly wrapped on the back of my head. He pulled back and I looked up to the sky, moaning loudly. His free hand moved between my legs and found the spot that made me cry out loudly.
Hot breath warmed my ear and his tongue slowly slid around the lower lobe. Through the breathing, his voice was clear and seductive, barely above a whisper.