Point, Click, Love

by Molly Shapiro

  Exactly! thought Katie. How tired she was of all the pretending, how no one wanted to admit the truth. Look at Ed. He was older and wealthier and took her out to fancy restaurants and gave her gifts. And what did she give? Her companionship, her affection, and her body. No, there was no quid pro quo, but how long would Ed have kept pulling out his credit card if Katie had been unwilling to put out?

  This would be no different, except that she would be taking cash instead of jewelry—money that would help her keep her home and feed her children. Wasn’t that better than a bunch of useless merchandise? Wouldn’t the man feel all the more helpful and better about himself if he was making a real difference in someone’s life?

  Katie had been to so many of these dating sites that she wasn’t even fazed when she visited the Seeking Arrangement home page and found a good-looking older man, graying at the temples, flanked by two scantily clad women busting out of their bikinis. Katie wondered if she could compete with that, but figured it was worth a try. Either there would be a nice older gentleman in search of a woman like herself or there wouldn’t.

  When she posted her pictures—the same ones she used for the other dating sites—she couldn’t help but feel they weren’t quite right for a site like this. Maybe she needed one that showed a bit more skin. So she put on a black tank top that offered a nice but minimal glimpse of her cleavage and went into the bathroom with her cell phone. When she posted the photo, it looked a little like low-budget porn, but, Katie thought, what the hell. Over the past months, she had already snuck into a boyfriend’s house and watched as he screwed his old girlfriend. And she had already dated a man and his best friend simultaneously. How much further could she go?

  As she was composing her new profile—one that accentuated all she had to offer and hinted at all she hoped to receive—Katie got a text from Dave, quickly followed by one from Henry. They both had been texting her incessantly over the past couple weeks, and she had put them off by telling them she was too busy dealing with her job search to even think about going out. But now she was ready to cut the cord completely. There was nothing Dave and Henry could give her at this point, and she was tired of giving of herself with nothing to show for it.

  “Sorry,” she texted to Dave. “Cant see you anymore. Too much going on. Need to focus on job and kids. Please understand.”

  She would have liked to send the exact same thing to Henry, but figured they might compare notes. So she wrote: “Hen, time to move on.” She thought Henry would respond better to a more definitive break. “U r a fab guy. Take care.” For this last text, she decided to adopt the annoying language she had shunned for so long. But never again, she thought.

  The next day, Katie began to receive emails from arrangement seekers all over the country, even some from as far away as France and Dubai.

  “Nice to see some new blood!” read one. “Mind sending me a bikini shot?”

  Another had “Come to Daddy” in the subject line, and in the body it simply said: “Daddy’s gonna make you come!”

  One thirty-nine-year-old “Daddy” from Japan asked if Kansas City was near New York. Katie wondered how he’d managed to find SeekingArrangement.com but not MapQuest.

  A seventy-eight-year-old Daddy seemed annoyed that thirty-four-year-old Katie would have the nerve to put herself forward as “Baby” material. “If you really think you’re up for the role, maybe you should give us Daddies a better look at the goods,” he wrote. Katie wondered how this so-called “captain of industry” found the time to write nasty emails to women he wasn’t even interested in. Perhaps he was the self-appointed Seeking Arrangement police, on the lookout for “Babies” who were past their prime.

  Then came one with the header “A Touch of Class.” It read: “Why do women these days think they need to let it all hang out to be sexy? Don’t they know there’s nothing sexier than a little restraint? You seem like a classy lady. Bert.”

  Bert was fifty-seven years old, with a full head of dark gray hair and a brown complexion that looked fresh from the tanning bed. He listed his location as Wichita, Kansas City, Boston, and Brussels. His annual income was “more than $1 million” and his net worth was in the “$50 million to $100 million” range. He wrote that he was a “businessman” who was based in the Midwest but traveled frequently to the East Coast and Europe. His interests included opera, Renaissance art and architecture, tae kwon do, and cycling. He said that he was looking for a bright, attractive woman who could share his passions and introduce him to some of her own. His “budget” was “negotiable.” Overall, his description was brief and vague, as if giving too many details about his charmed life would elicit too much attention from eager young women.

  Katie was intrigued, but every time she moved to hit “reply,” her eyes shifted to the number “57.” He was fifty-seven, twenty-three years older than she was. Katie’s father was sixty-two, only five years older than Bert.

  Come on, Katie told herself, women do this all the time. She could tell that Bert was fit and in shape, probably in better shape than Ed was, and certainly had a lot more hair. She pictured Ed, with his balding head and significant paunch, and that’s what pushed her over the edge.

  “Hi, Bert. Thanks for the nice compliment. If you’re looking for a woman who is not willing to parade around in skimpy lingerie for the entire online world to see, then I may just be the one for you. Katie.”

  Bert replied a few hours later with a “.” He added: “I’ll be in Kansas City on Friday. Can we meet?”

  Katie agreed, but rather than meeting at a restaurant or bar, she suggested they meet at a park. For some reason, more than at any other time in her online-dating experience, Katie was nervous. She didn’t want to feel constrained, locked into a booth and obliged to fumble with napkins and menus and cutlery. She thought a nice early-evening walk around a rose garden would calm her.

  When Katie arrived at the large fountain at 5:05 p.m., Bert was already there. He was leaning against a black wrought-iron railing, talking on his cell phone. He was dressed in light-gray pants and a white shirt, his suit jacket slung over his shoulder.

  Katie walked slowly down the stone steps that led to the fountain. She wore a cotton print dress covered in pink and yellow flowers with a loose-fitting white cardigan. When Bert looked up to see her, he flashed her a smile but kept talking on his phone. Katie wondered whether she should take offense, whether he was being rude by not immediately hanging up, but she decided she was too relieved to be angry. She welcomed the extra few minutes to compose herself and assess the situation.

  Bert was a handsome man, well groomed, trim, maybe a bit on the short side at about five foot nine, but still taller than Katie. He clearly took care of his appearance—his thick hair gelled back from his tanned face, his teeth shockingly white from numerous whitening treatments, his nails clean and filed down to a perfect length. While his suit made him look younger, it also made him look out of place in the outdoor setting, as if he couldn’t wait to get back to his office or a lunch meeting or a jaunt on his private jet. Perhaps that was why he remained on his phone, trying to find a place of comfort and control. Katie wondered if she had made a mistake asking him to meet her out of his element.

  “Hello, you must be Katie,” Bert said, extending his hand. “Sorry about the phone. Some business I needed to take care of.”

  “No problem,” said Katie, shaking his hand. She felt a little like she was on a job interview. Then she realized: She kind of was.

  “Nice park,” said Bert, looking around. “I’ve never been here.”

  “Yeah, it’s so beautiful this time of year, with the roses starting to bloom and everything. Just thought it would be a nice change of pace.”

  “That’s what I like about you, Katie. I can tell—you’re different.”

  “I hope that’s a good thing.”

  “Most women I meet, they want to go to an expensive restaurant. If I’m lucky they’ll suggest the symphony. No one’s ever said a park.”r />
  “Want to take a stroll?” she asked, pointing to a pathway lined with roses and big stone arches. Feeling her nerves starting to surface, Katie thought she could walk them off.

  A moment of silence set in, and Katie felt obligated to fill it. “I used to come here a lot with my mom. She’s very into gardening.”

  “So you grew up in Kansas City.”

  “Yup. Never left.”

  “Do much traveling?” Bert asked.

  “Not really.”

  “But you’d like to?”

  “Sure. Who wouldn’t?”

  “You never know. Some people are homebodies,” he said. “What else would you like to do, Katie?”

  Bert had a way of making everything he said sound charged with multilayered meanings. What did he want her to say? Was he looking for something sexual? Should she say she loved opera? That she was dying to see the Sistine Chapel? “Right now I’m open to anything. I guess you could say I’m searching.”

  “Ah, yes, I remember those days,” said Bert. “Now I know exactly what I want and exactly how to get it.”

  “Lucky you.” Oops, thought Katie. Her sarcasm was starting to seep through.

  “Yes, I am lucky. Very lucky. But I also worked hard to get here.”

  Phew, Katie thought. Bert seemed to have taken her “lucky you” comment literally. Maybe he was one of those people who couldn’t register irony.

  “I’ll tell you something, Katie. If you’re going to be with me, you’ll have to have a better idea about what you want. Because I don’t want this to be a one-sided thing. I want both of our needs to be met. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I think so,” said Katie, not really knowing what he meant at all. On one hand, she felt like he was berating her for being a little lost. On the other, Bert seemed intent on meeting her needs.

  “Before I went on Seeking Arrangement, I’d date women and it would always end badly. You know why? Because each of us had expectations. Whether we knew it or not, we had them. But they were never verbalized, never set out. And so one or the other or both would always feel cheated, like we weren’t really getting what we wanted.”

  “That makes sense,” said Katie.

  “It’s just the way it is. Right?” he asked, without actually wanting an answer. “But then I thought, there must be a way to avoid all that confusion and disappointment.”

  “And I guess you’ve found it?”

  “I have,” he said. “You must be wondering why I do this. A guy like me—I should be able to get women, no problem. I know I’m older, but, still, older men, especially men with … assets, don’t usually have a hard time attracting younger women.”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “But I prefer it this way. I prefer to be up front about our arrangement. What I expect and what you expect.”

  “I see your point.”

  Bert stopped and looked at Katie, smiling. “Would you mind if we adjourned to my car? I have some things I’d like to discuss with you—in private. I have a driver with me. You’ll be perfectly safe.”

  Safe? wondered Katie. She hadn’t once thought about her safety being imperiled with Bert. But now that he mentioned it, should she be getting into a car with him? Did his driver serve as a safety mechanism or an accomplice?

  For the past months, ever since she posted her first photo on Match.com, Katie had felt like she was on a treadmill that she couldn’t get off. Sometimes it went fast and sometimes it slowed down, but no matter the speed, she constantly felt impelled to move forward, unable to veer off course, unwilling to hit the big red “stop” button. Here she was again, at a moment in which she had to decide whether to continue on or bring everything to a halt.

  “Okay,” she said, and followed Bert out of the rose garden and toward the street, where a black limousine was waiting.

  With just one seat in the back, it wasn’t a stretch limo, but it was elegant and comfortable, with black leather and tinted windows. Bert introduced Katie to his driver, Lawrence, then promptly closed the automatic window that separated the back of the car from the front.

  “We’ll have complete privacy this way,” he said.

  “Okay,” said Katie.

  “Look, Katie, I feel right about this. I’d like to give it a try.”

  “Okay.”

  “Here’s what I’m proposing. I’ve got a house in Wichita, but I’ve also got a loft here in KC.”

  At the mention of his house in Wichita, Katie immediately wondered if Bert had a family there—a wife, kids, dogs, cats. Why would anyone like Bert live in Wichita if he didn’t have a family? Any other time, Katie would have made a sassy remark about this pretend family, something that suggested her suspicions while remaining playful. But she felt oddly intimidated by Bert, unable to serve up her usual sarcastic comments. She wanted this relationship to work out, she needed it to work out, and she didn’t want to say anything that might threaten it.

  “I’m here roughly four times a month. I’ve also got places in Boston and Brussels.”

  Here again, Katie wondered. What was waiting for Bert in Boston, in Brussels? A family? Or maybe a nice young woman like herself?

  “I would like you to be available to see me four times a month. Most likely it would be two weekends and two weeknights, but that could vary.”

  Katie thought about her kids. She hadn’t mentioned them in her profile because, interestingly enough, the profile never asked “number of children.” Don’t ask, don’t tell, is what she figured.

  “Does that sound feasible to you?” Bert asked.

  Four times a month. That was it. It was a mere fraction of the time she spent with her previous boyfriends. Sure, it might require her to ask Rob for last-minute changes to their schedule or maybe even using a babysitter, but in the end she’d have much more time to spend with Maggie and Frank. “Yes, I think that’s very feasible.”

  “When I’m in Kansas City, I like to go out. I like to listen to music, see plays, the museum. I like to eat out, but I’ve also got a beautiful kitchen in my loft. I like to cook.”

  “That’s great,” said Katie. “I like to be cooked for.”

  “Can you tolerate sitting through an entire opera?” he asked.

  “I can more than tolerate it.”

  “Do you enjoy museums?”

  “I minored in art history,” said Katie. Actually, she’d taken only two art history courses, but she was never very clear about what it meant to “minor” in something.

  “Excellent,” said Bert. “Now the fun part.” He took out a notepad and a pen from his briefcase. “Here’s what I’m thinking for a monthly allowance.” He scribbled a number on the pad of paper and handed it to Katie.

  It read $4,000.

  “Now, if you divide that into four, you get …” He took the pad back and wrote out “$1,000” four times. “Each time we meet counts for this much.” He pointed to the “$1,000” written on the pad. “If you can’t make it to one of our meetings, you simply lose that amount.” Then he drew a line through the number. “But if for some reason I cancel our date, you still get that amount. Sound fair?”

  “Yes, very fair,” said Katie.

  “Good,” said Bert. “Like I said before, Katie, this needs to feel right for both of us.”

  He smiled and placed his hand gently on Katie’s knee. Then, suddenly, just as Katie was adjusting to the warmth of his hand, he withdrew it. “Oh, and one more very important thing. Never, and I mean never, do I want you to feel obligated to have sex with me. When I talk about dates, I mean just that—dates. It’s a date like any date. While I’m comfortable asking you to be with me on any given day, to go out, to have fun, to enjoy each other’s company, I am not comfortable requiring you to have sex. Is that understood?”

  “Yes,” said Katie.

  “Good,” said Bert. “Of course, it’s my hope that you and I will be able to … connect in that way. I would hope that we would have feelings for each other—desires. This is w
hat I would hope for. If that doesn’t happen—on either end—well, it’s something we would deal with, most likely by ending our agreement. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes, it does,” said Katie.

  “Good,” said Bert. Then he stopped talking and looked at Katie, smiling.

  Bert has a nice smile, Katie said to herself. He’s a good-looking man. Did she mind when he put his hand on her knee? she wondered. No, she didn’t mind at all. In fact, she wouldn’t mind if he did that again. Instead of doing that, though, he leaned in close to her. At first, Katie got a stronger whiff of his cologne, an agreeable, musky scent that she’d noticed when they first entered the car. But as he drew his face closer to hers, breathing out of his mouth, she noticed a sourness to his breath. Her instinct was to pull away, but she forced herself to remain still. You need to try this, she said to herself.

  At first his dry lips felt good against her own, but then he opened his mouth and thrust his tongue into hers. It felt cold, like an unpleasant dip in the ocean on a cloudy day. She held her breath, trying to avoid the smell of his, but he kept kissing her, moving his tongue in a circular motion, pulling her in closer. She had to breathe, and when she did she could feel her whole body shudder. The longer they kissed, the more his mouth engulfed hers, the more she found herself thinking about the wetness, the saliva, the moist and mushy insides of his cavernous mouth.

  Katie had not kissed that many men in her life, but the ones she had, she had wanted to kiss. She didn’t remember ever dissecting a kiss in this way, so conscious of the mechanics of it, the exchange of bodily fluids. This kiss was different. This kiss she wanted to stop.

  And finally, after months and months on that treadmill, jogging when it said to jog and sprinting when it said to sprint, Katie pushed the “stop” button.

  As she walked away from the car—as quickly as she could without seeming to run—Katie couldn’t remember what she’d said before pushing the door open and tripping out into the street. And because she had closed her eyes when she pulled away, she could only imagine the look on Bert’s face when their passionate embrace ended so suddenly. But none of that mattered, because it was already forgotten. All of it.