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.
Macdaddy typed, “Cool.”
“What brought you to the site, Macdaddy?” Callie asked, for what felt like the zillionth time since she’d begun this. Meaningless conversation suddenly made sense to her.
“I hate the bar scene. I want to find my soul mate.”
On Heavenly Hook Ups? That was reaching… ”And you think you’ll find that here?” Callie asked.
“I’m sure going to give it a try. That’s why I Im-ed you. We have a lot in common.”
Callie skimmed his profile again. Well, they both liked coffee. Certainly soul mates shared a good love of coffee. It went without saying…on the commonality scale that rated as a big, fat ten.
“So have you been on any dates?” Callie typed into the small box.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And I didn’t find my soul mate.”
Duh. “So you’ll keep looking?”
“For as long as I have to…”
Callie sensed a loneliness in Macdaddy that she couldn’t pinpoint, but was decidedly there. Maybe she was just being sensitive to the fact that most everyone who placed a profile on Heavenly Hook Ups was probably lonely. With the exception of her, that was.
“What are you looking for in a man?” Macdaddy asked.
Callie scratched her head. Someone who didn’t sleep with anything that had fake boobs and bleached blonde hair and pitched a hissy fit when she chipped a nail? No, that sounded bitter and she wasn’t a lot bitter over Frank anymore. He was just a pig.
What did she want in a man? She hadn’t given that any thought at all. She only knew she didn’t want Frank or a derivative thereof—Callie hadn’t thought past that notion in two years since her divorce. “I want someone real. Someone genuine and faithful. Someone who will want me as much at fifty-eight as he does right now.” Callie’s answer surprised even her.
“Isn’t that what we all want?” Macdaddy asked.
Callie twisted a strand of hair before typing, “Yeah, I guess so.”
“What’s your idea of a romantic evening?”
Anything that didn’t involve her getting a divorce lawyer? “I’m not like most women, I think. I don’t need candles and wine and all the frills. I think it’s romantic if you just hold hands when you walk through the mall while you window shop.” That much was a true statement. She loved to hold hands and kiss…and she’d better stop this right now, Callie chided herself, but it couldn’t hurt to be honest while lab rat hunting, could it?
“I like to hold hands. Want to hold hands with me?”
Um, no, she thought. “LOL, “Callie typed instead, because she didn’t know what else to say and Macdaddy’s words didn’t just look needy, they felt needy.
“Are those your initials?”
“?.” Callie typed a question mark.
“LOL. Are those your initials?”
Callie laughed. She forgot that sometimes not everyone was as familiar with cyber-speak as she was. “LOL=Laugh out loud. It means, I think you’re funny.”
There was a pause in the screen and then, “What’s your name?”
Shoot. Should she give her name? It probably didn’t matter. She wrote her column using a pseudonym. “I’m Callie. You?”
“Mitch.”
“Nice to meet you, Mitch.”
“Nice to meet you too, Callie. Wanna have a cup of coffee sometime?”
Wow. That was quick, they hardly knew each other, but she had a deadline to make, so there was no time like the present and if she followed the guidelines set up for safe dating she’d be alright. Mitch wasn’t exactly a dream come true, but he was nice enough, hopefully he was harmless enough too. She wanted to interview all different varieties of men—every flavor at the ice cream counter. “Sure, that’d be nice.”
“When?”
Callie looked at her calendar on her desk with the cute cats on it. Huh, totally blank. Go figure. She could squeeze him in between mopping the floor and scrubbing the toilet. “Well, why don’t you tell me what your expectations of a first meeting are?”
“I just expect to meet you and have coffee.”
Oh, okay, so they weren’t hitting the sheets? Deal. “Sounds like fun. When would you like to meet and where?”
“How about tomorrow at say, five?”
Callie grinned. Gotcha in my clutches now, Macdaddy. “Okay, where?”
“There’s a coffee house on San Pedro. How about there?”
“Sounds great, Mitch! I’ll see you then.”
“Take my cell phone number, just in case you get lost or something comes up.”
Callie wrote it down and said goodnight to Mitch, heading back to her inbox to tackle more e-mail. Cool, she had a date.
Her first in thirteen years.
Yippee Skippee.
She could hardly contain her excitement. Now back to the business at hand. Answering e-mail and finding more interviewees.
From: PrinceCharming
To: Writer66
Subject: You are amazing
HI,
OMG you are GORGEOUS! We wrote briefly last week and now I know why you stopped, you are WAY out of my league. To say you are stunning is a huge understatement. Although I realize you are too good for mere mortal men and way out of my league, I wanted to take this opportunity to say that you are magnificently gorgeous. A true Goddess sent from Heaven to grace us all with your beauty and presence. I hope the man you ultimately choose realizes what a special gift God has blessed him with in you and he better drop to his knees every day and worship you and thank God for you. I hope you find all the love and happiness you seek and never settle for second best. My God you are so beautiful. I am 39, 6”1, 165 lbs, athletic, smoke/drug/alcohol free, funny, romantic, attentive, affectionate, caring, warm, loving, great kisser (LOL) and a retired United States Naval Officer now living in the California area. What do you think, pretty good? You are amazing.
Whoa.
Callie leaned back in her office chair and tried to remember having contact with Prince Charming, aka Goddess spotter. Oh! Maybe he’d e-mailed her prior to her placing her picture on the site. The response to just her profile alone had been a slow, steady stream of e-mail. Ten or fifteen tops, but when she’d placed her picture on the site the responses had picked up in volume and intensity. Well, actually, they’d exploded. How did you answer an e-mail where a mere mortal claimed you were a Goddess?
This was simply ridiculous. Callie Winston a Goddess? If she was such a damn Goddess, then why was she divorced? If she was a Goddess, dark haired and dark eyed as she was, then Callie could only imagine what these men would think of Frank’s squeeze. Goddesses were thin and blonde and waif-like and had names like Mandy and Candy.
As Callie read PrinceCharming’s profile, she realized that while they shared some things in common, she couldn’t go out with someone who thought she had Goddess tendencies. It was just too bizarre. Though maybe being a Goddess had its perks…
To: PrinceCharming
Subject: Re: You are amazing
Hello PrinceCharming,
Um, thank you for the very kind words, however, my Goddess status doesn’t allow me to date mere mortals. I’m joking…but, really, I’m just an average girl.
Thanks for the ego boost here in sunny California,
Writer66
Callie shipped off a reply that she hoped would burst PrinceCharming’s illusions of all Goddesses. She began to read subject headers that caught her eye instead of the more typical Hello, hot stuff.
The subject line “Awesome” was there again and Callie’s breath hitched in her throat. Brian_SOF had replied back? She couldn’t explain it, but her heart rate sped up.
Just a little, mind you.
Callie opened the e-mail while she looked at his picture again. Damn him for being so cute and so far away. He’d have been a great subject to interview. Big, brawny man joins date site. Hotties need dates too. Come to think of it, why did someone as cute as Brian was, join an online dating site?
Because he wants to hook up and boink, Callie. He was in the service or whatever, so dating had to be tough in between picking bad guys off.
To: Writer66
From: Brian_SOF
Subject: Re: Re: Awesome
I didn’t mean any harm by calling you awesome and distance is relative to someone like me. Tell me about your writing. Are you published? What’s your name? Oh, and tell the tofu loving, surfer boys I said hey.
Brian
Distance is relative. Was age? Brian was two years younger than she was, according to his profile he’d never been married, but was no stranger to serious relationships. He had no children and he was a Gemini, whatever that meant in the scheme of soul mate searching.
But he thought she was awesome. In all of the e-mail she’d received, the comments on her bedroom eyes and sexy lips, no one had said she was awesome.
It wasn’t such a big deal, it was just a word. Shrugging, Callie replied to the gun-toting Brian.
To: Brian_SOF
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Awesome
I’ll be sure to pass that along to the surfer dudes. LOL. I write a column for a magazine, so yes, I guess I am published. I do dabble in fiction occasionally. Seems I’ve been writing a book forever, in one way or the other.
Callie thought about her writing ambitions for a moment. No one who’d e-mailed had asked her anything in depth about her writing, except this Brian. Which made him what, Callie? Sensitive? Caring?
Please.
But her negative thoughts didn’t stop her from continuing her e-mail.
Are you in Iraq right now? I see from the picture on the site you must be in some sort of military capacity? Are you stationed overseas?
Writer66
Oh, P/S. My name is, Callie.
Callie didn’t know why she needed to know where Mr. Top Gun was, she just did and sharing her name wasn’t a big deal, she guessed. His approach to her made her curious. He had a different take than the rest of the buffoons she was getting e-mail from.
Yawning, Callie took one last look at Brian_SOF’s picture.
He didn’t have to be so good looking, did he? And so young?
An older, more mature man who wanted forever, not temporary, was a much safer bet. That was if forever was what she was looking for. She wasn’t, she was looking for the scoop.
Callie was too tired to answer any more e-mail tonight and too tired to try and figure out soldier boy’s motivations.
Besides, she had a date tomorrow.
Well, aren’t you the captain of the cheerleading squad, prom queen and Shania Twain all rolled into one?
Clicking off her computer, Callie wished it were Brian she had a date with and then she thought, the one hormone she had left was affecting her thinking.
Repeat after me, Callie Winston. Dates are to be treated as lab rats.
* * * *
“I’m sorry, say that again? You have a what?” Callie’s best friend and editor at California Hip, Katherine Nix, said into the phone.
“I have a date. You know, like I meet a man and go somewhere with him? A date.” Callie responded with a chuckle at Katherine’s surprise.
“Um, yes, sweetie, I do know what that is
, but do you?”
“Of course I do, Katherine. I’ve been on a date before.”
“But that was when big hair and ripped sweatshirts were fashionable, honey.”
Callie rolled her eyes as she hooked the phone over her shoulder and cleaned the toilet. “Look, it’s for my column. Research.”
Katherine snorted. “I thought you were just going to research the online thing, not do it.”
“What better way to get the skinny than to actually do it myself?”
“How very sacrificial of you.”
Callie twitched a little as she sprayed cleanser into her toilet bowl. “Look. I gotta be in it to win it, ya know. I can’t get people to talk to me and tell me why they’ve resorted to the Internet for a date if I don’t keep a low profile. I write humor, Katherine, I can’t think of a more amusing way to write this than to experience it myself. Some of these people probably don’t want anyone to know they’re even on an online dating site. So, I go on a few dates sorta undercover, I have some coffee and I get some readers. I’ve been on dates before. I know it was a long time ago. So what?” Callie flushed her toilet with satisfaction and set about cleaning the sink.
“Because dating is different now in two-thousand-five,” Katherine reminded her. “There are all sorts of things you need to be aware of and I don’t want you going alone.”
“Okay, I’ll bring you to meet Mitch, my date. I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.”
Katherine sighed. “You know what I mean,” she chided. “You make sure I know exactly where you are at all times and you better call me if he gets out of line, because I’ll whack his ass.” Katherine paused and took a deep breath. “Mitch, huh? What’s Mitch look like?”
Callie tried to draw up an image of Mitch, but Brian’s got in the way.
Crap. It had to be that gun he had in his picture. It was sexy or something.
“Mitch is a very nice man, who looks pleasant enough and so far, he’s the only man who wants to have coffee with me. So Mitch wins the booby prize.”
“How does this date site thing work anyway? Did you put your picture up?” Katherine asked.
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