by Seth King
“Ah! So you admit it!”
“I…ugh, shut up. So I kind of hate men. Whatever. But you know exactly why.”
We both went silent. The words we couldn’t say hung heavily in the air between us.
“Of course, Hannah,” she said finally. “It’s just that you’ve gotta get over all that, like I did. You know what? I’d bet you a million dollars that you can’t find a nice guy without steamrolling him in five minutes.”
I glared at her. She was making me sound like some evil psycho maniac, all because I wasn’t the pushover housewife type. But I was sick of playing by my own rules and still failing. I was sick of letting the world call me a bitch because I wasn’t a dainty little Victorian woman. Maybe I needed to prove that I could be myself and flourish in this world that seemed to have it out for girls like me.
“You know what?” I asked. “Let’s do it. The bet.”
“How? I don’t have a million dollars.”
“Duh, let’s bet something else. Let’s bet that I can find a nice guy and make him fall in love with me without destroying him or pushing him away. You know how competitive I am.”
“Wait. You’re going to make someone fall for you?”
“Or at least be in a stable, equal, non-hateful relationship, yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because you just told me I couldn’t.”
“You’re kidding,” she said, sitting back. “Where are you going to find such a pushover?”
“Funny. No, I’m not even kidding. I’m gonna find a boyfriend, and if he falls in love with me, you pay my rent for three months.”
She considered the offer. “Okay, but if you scare everyone away as usual, you pay mine.”
“You know I can’t afford that. You’re the one with the fancy job.”
“Then I’ll move in that guy I’ve been seeing. Ready for a roommate?”
I shivered so hard, she noticed.
“What’s wrong? Did it get cold or something?”
“No, it’s…I’m fine.”
I looked away. Under no circumstances could Rachel ever find out about that night…with him. The Fireball shots we took at the minibar while we waited for her, the look we exchanged when she texted us that she’d missed her train and wouldn’t be making it, the cry I let out when he shoved me up against the wall…
I was still processing the events of that night, and what they meant to me. But I would move into a shoebox before I moved in with her asshole of a boyfriend. I’d have to move out, and our whole sisterly relationship would be shit out of luck. God knows we don’t get two pennies to rub together from our parents, anyway.
“Whatever,” I said. “We’ll figure that out later. In the meanwhile I’m going to find a guy and make him fall in love with me. Like, now.”
“How are you going to meet him? You know, you’re not exactly approachable...actually, scratch that. A raging cow in a porcelain factory would be more approachable than you.”
“Fuck off.” I glanced at the next table, desperate for a sign. That’s when I noticed that the two girls next to us were both immersed in this app called Spark, which displayed photos of nearby guys. If you both swiped “yes” on each other, you could message back and forth. But if they swiped “no thanks” on you, you’d never even know it. Yes, it was a slutty mess, but what other choice did I have?
“Spark,” I said. Her lips parted.
“You’re going to find a boyfriend on Spark? How much are you going to Paypal them?”
“You think someone would want to move in with you, considering how awful your morning breath is?
“Hmm. Touché.”
We shook hands, and suddenly I got a little panicky feeling deep in my abdomen. Finding a boyfriend on Spark, the most notorious hookup app around? I would really be rolling the dice with this one. But at the same time, I didn’t care how bad it got – I was going to win this bet. The consequences of losing were not an option.
Rachel leaned back and bit into an overpriced vegan muffin. “Get to it, babe. And God, we should say a little prayer for your first victim, whoever he is.” A crumb fell from her mouth, and she laughed. “Lord knows he’s going to need it.”
Penn Sparks
“You ready? It’s a big one. Sure you can handle it?”
The morning after the bathroom sex, I smirked down at Jess, the pretty young reporter from Fast Company magazine who was sitting in on my meetings for the day and then interviewing me personally at some point, too. So far the number of women I’d fucked and then rejected was at a grand total of one, but something told me there was a good chance this Jess character would be next. All I had to do now was draw her in.
“Yes, Mr. Spark. I know this is a big strategy meeting, but I think I’m up to the task. I’ll just try to stay quiet?”
I winked at her and watched as she melted. What I really wanted was for her to sit on my face and jack me off while I tongued her, but it was early, and all that could wait. So I turned my attention to the meeting of assorted Ivy League assholes I’d spent the past few years hiring away from other startups to help build my app. They sat around me at the bright yellow meeting table made of a reclaimed barn door that sat in the glass cube in the center of Spark headquarters, one full floor of a sprawling converted fabric factory in Brooklyn. Because I knew cheery colors fostered creativity and positivity, the brick walls around us and metal girders twenty feet above us were painted in vibrant reds, cobalt blues, and zesty lemons. It was like working in an adult day care, and I loved it. So did everyone else.
“Let’s run an ad on the screens during that EDM festival in Vegas,” I said twenty minutes into the meeting, which was already running long for my tastes. “I want every drunken grad student in that Godforsaken desert tent to be getting so many matches, every Port-O-Potty will be full of couples having meet-ups.”
Something about that last part made me shudder a bit, but I shook it off.
“You still on for Los Angeles next week for that award Fortune magazine is giving you?” one of my VPs asked. I hesitated, as fancy industry events were my own personal nightmare. Everyone thought Hollywood parties were cool and glamorous, but really they consisted of hundreds of strangers being thrown into a cavernous convention space together and being fed beef sliders from upmarket chain restaurants and cocktails mixed by sweaty, overworked temp employees. At the end of the night you were given gift bags containing things like useless two-hundred-dollars credits toward tropical vacations that actually cost three grand, and tools to clean your teeth without using water that could otherwise be bought at any drugstore. They were miserable on every level, and I did everything I could to avoid them. I was starting to avoid this entire world I’d just entered, actually…
“I don’t really give a shit about these magazine party things,” I said, “but it would be good visibility for the company, so we’ll look into my schedule, I guess.”
He stared down at his iPad with wide eyes. “Oh, and the mayor wants to talk to you about that initiative you’re funding, to get underprivileged youths into art programs? Do you remember?”
“Of course I remember, it was my idea. But just tell him I’m busy for the rest of the morning. I’ll just send the money later, he knows I’m good for it.”
“Too busy for the mayor? Doing what?”
I gave Jess a dark stare, and she perked up in her chair. I licked my lip slightly and saw the reaction in her eyes.
“To be decided,” I murmured.
For a few minutes I let Wade take over and talk strategy, and I sank into my chair and got lost talking to girls on Spark. Beth-Anne was cute, but her profile said something about only being interested in marriage, which was obviously a huge turnoff. I’d rather shackle myself to a radiator for the rest of my life than get trapped in a horrible marriage like my mother and stepdad’s. Antonia was sexy but seemed a little desperate, too, and kept hinting about wanting to get official with someone for the winter. As I scrolled through my growing list
of matches I couldn’t help but feel a little ambivalent about the whole thing. The words of the online critics rang in my ears, calling me a bottom feeder and a slut-creator. Each of my hundred matches probably had a hundred other matches, and each of those hundred probably had a hundred more, too, and so forth. In the history of humanity, promiscuity had never been so available to us. What kind of morality trap was I setting? Sure, I’d created some marriages, but far and away we were known as the no-strings hookup app. Had I created a monster instead of a masterpiece? By bringing people together, was I really pushing them apart? How many one night stands could someone have before they started losing a piece of themselves in the process? Was this one giant race to the bottom?
Were we using Spark because we were lonely, or were we lonely because we were using Spark?
“Okay then,” Wade said, “motto time!”
We all put out our hands and repeated our motto in unison: “Let’s bring the world together, one match at a time.”
This time, though, my voice could barely be heard.
As the meeting broke up and we all mumbled our goodbyes, a match popped up on Spark. “Hello, Hannah,” I whispered as I stared at the pretty blonde on my screen and messaged her a greeting. “You have no idea what’s coming for you.”
But first, I had to deal with Jess.
One cup of coffee later I sat at the table alone with Jess for the one-on-one portion of the interview. I hated these things, but I figured I’d play along to get out of calling the mayor’s office back.
“So, Mr. Sparks-”
“Call me Penn, please. Or Daddy, either one.”
She blushed and rearranged her arms. “Um. Okay, Penn. I was asked to do the interview a bit early. Last year you were Fast Company’s Most Creative Young Entrepreneur, one of People’s Most Beautiful, and you were an honorable mention in the TIME 100. The accolades go on and on – and all of this was before your twenty-fifth birthday on Christmas Day. How did you end up here?”
“Probably because of my habit of taking the word ‘no’ as a personal insult,” I began without hesitation. “I’ll be the first to admit that there are smarter guys out there. There are better guys out there. Guys who can sit and write a code that will blow your mind. But none of them have my drive. I came from a bad home and I knew nobody was going to help me, so I developed this desperate, restless, singular drive to succeed. That hunger propelled me during the day and kept me up every night – and still does. Basically, I’m psychotic. The money has changed nothing – if anything, it’s made me intent on topping myself. A lot of people told me this app would never work, and now I look down at them from my penthouse. But I’m still insecure. I still want to prove myself. I still want to see what comes next. I also like your shirt.”
She leaned back a little.
“Joking, of course,” I said flatly. “I’m quite the jokester.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just so hard to tell, with you being so deadpan and all…”
I stared at her. She flushed the color of the scarlet accent wall across the loft. I decided to plow through, though. “And I don’t get the whole age debate, either,” I said. “I’m young. Who cares? My generation has tools available to us that have never even existed before. When my elementary school updated computers in fifth grade, I asked for an old one as a donation and spent the summer before middle school taking it apart. When instant messaging became a ‘thing’ a few years later, I created a virus that crashed the accounts of all the asshole kids who pushed me around for being poor. In high school I created a game for Razr phones and sold the program to a Korean software firm for ten thousand dollars, which at the time seemed like a fortune. And in college I saw a gap in the online dating marketplace – young people wanted to meet people, but thought Facebook was too intrusive, and saw dating websites as too desperate and pathetic. So I turned e-dating into a game and created Spark.” I paused. “I’m not especially smart or talented or anything, though, I’m just using to tools available to me to create products I think will find an audience. I’ve also battled depression and anxiety on and off my whole life, and I found that working was my only way to drown out all the noise in my head.”
“Very interesting,” she said. “Do you have any issue with your app being known as ‘the hookup app’ instead of its given name, Spark?”
“Not from a marketing standpoint, no. Sex sells, and that’s not just a cliché. Humans are fascinated by sex, and they will always be fascinating by sex. At the end of the day we’re just animals with animalistic needs, and everyone feels sexual impulses – from the Pope right down to a porn star. It’s one of the things that unites us and levels the playing field. How we express and deal with those impulses is all up to us.”
“What about a moral standpoint?”
I glanced away. “Next question, please.”
“Okay. I also see you’re wearing your signature bowtie. Any significance behind your decision to eschew the traditional necktie?”
“Don’t know,” I shrugged. “I just don’t give a fuck about trends or rules. Never did.”
“Okay, then…you’ve been described as the world’s most eligible bachelor living outside Kensington Palace. But is it true that you use Spark yourself? Care to clear up that rumor?”
“It’s not a rumor. I like to test out the product from time to time, yes.”
“Why is that?”
“First of all, because I own it. Second of all, because I’m lonely.”
She leaned in.
“Going solo isn’t natural,” I said. “Why do you turn on the TV when you get home at night, even if you’re doing other things? You like that background noise, that buzz that reminds you that you’re not alone. We’re a lost generation, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find someone to wander beside us to lighten the load. Okay, here – look at that dude walking through the door right now. Then monitor your thoughts when you see him, and tell them to me.”
She turned and looked at my new employee, Scott. “I guess I’m sizing him up,” she said.
“Exactly. Everyone’s always scanning the room, searching for a partner, looking for someone to come over every night and drown out the silence. It’s just that we look at a screen instead of a face now. Souls have always merged, and always will merge. It’s just that the thing doing the merging is an app. My app, I guess.”
“And here I thought you were just trying to get a cheap lay when you invented it,” she smiled. “I’m impressed.”
“Well that, too,” I smiled. “But you don’t look cheap.”
She sat straighter in her chair, glancing down at my crotch. She wanted me to kiss her, and both of us could sense it.
“Well then,” she said after a moment. “And what do you look for in a match?”
“Me? Good pussy and an inability to commit.”
She swallowed. Hard. “Interesting. And you really don’t mind me using these answers?”
I stared at her. “I’m saying them, aren’t I? The only person I know how to be is myself. How the world reacts to that is none of my business.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just that you always seemed so…smart, and quiet, and serious. I never knew you could be capable of…well, dirty things,” she blushed.
“Oh, I assure you, a man can possess both a brain and a libido. One does not affect the other in any way.” I paused for a beat. “…Buuuut, on second thought, maybe anything X-rated can be taken off the record. My cousins might read this.”
She laughed, but I fixed my sexiest stare on her, relentless.
“Understood. And are your air conditioners broken?” she asked soon, adjusting her top.
“No, you’re just turned on.” A heated silence blossomed between us.
“Let’s move forward,” she said faintly. “Spark users often tell other Sparkers about themselves by writing a short biography, or ‘fireline,’ on their profiles. What would your fireline be?”
“I have no idea. I guess I don’t know myself tha
t well yet.”
“Oookay. Ah, I see.”
“What?”
“Well, I hate to bring this up, but what effect did your tumultuous family life have on you, besides fostering your ambition? Recently unearthed court records show that when you were thirteen, your mother-”
“That’s all for now,” I said as I rose from my chair. “The interview is over. Thank you so much!”
I shook my head as my childhood flashed before me. Why did she have to make me revisit that? And why was it making me so intent on fucking her now?
As she got ready to leave, I placed a hand on the small of her back, my voice a lush murmur. “Thank you for coming, Jess. It’s been a pleasure. And tell me, would it break reporter-subject protocol for me to ask you to share lunch with me?”
She blushed, her nipples growing pointy under her top. “Surely.”
My temp secretary cleared her throat to let me know I was being watched. We were drawing stares, and I needed to seal the deal before I started even more office talk. So I leaned in and tickled her earlobe with my stubble.
“And would it break client protocol for you to cum against the wall of my office shower?”
Her breath hitched. “I’m…I’m not sure.”
I exhaled hot air onto her neck, snaking my fingers around her arm. “Tell me, Jess. Have you ever had sex with a billionaire?”
Her heart pounded against my arm. She shook her head slowly, her eyes wide. Beads of sweat were forming on her upper lip, her nipples perking up under her blouse. I wanted them between my teeth, and I wanted that now.
“Well here’s the deal,” I said, “if you agree. I am going to walk into my office, and you are going to follow me, and then I would like to fuck you in front of my floor-length mirror while you watch. If you close your eyes or look away for any reason, I will fuck you harder. Unless you had other plans? Because that would be fine, too.”
She shook her head one last time. “I’m open.”
“Very well then. After you,” I smiled, holding out my arm as she took a deep, excited breath and started for my glass-enclosed corner office. This was going to be good.