by Helen Cooper
“Girl, yes. It’s not just women who lie on these sites. I’ve met some guys who were using photos that were ten years too old or not even them. One guy I met used his best friends photo, child, he was not cute and it was so awkward.”
“Why?”
Capri whispered. “Well, we had been talking for about two months before we met and we had been telling each other we were in love. Let me tell you, I fell out of love with him, the moment I saw his potbelly and gray head.”
“Oh Capri.” Ella laughed.
“And my standards ain’t dat high.” Capri laughed.
“Okay, so I’ll see if any of them want to do coffee?”
“Yeah, that’s good. And if that goes well, you can always extend the date and do something else.”
“Like?”
“Sexing?”
“What?!?!”
“I’m joking girl. Like dinner, maybe ice-skating, bowling, you know fun stuff where you can be close.”
“Haha, I see.” Ella sipped some water. “Okay. Here is my standard response. Tell me how it sounds.”
“Okay.”
“Hi insertscreennamehere, thanks for your message. I was happy to see that someone as accomplished and funny as you would be interested in getting to know me. I am new to the online dating world and really hoping to meet a nice guy to get to know. I would love to grab a coffee this week if you are interested. Goldengirl.”
“That sounds okay.” Capri paused. “Though, it does sounds kinda generic.”
“I’ll add some more personal stuff for each guy in there. But overall it sounds good, yeah?”
“Yeah, it sounds good.”
“Yay me.”
“Girl, those guys are going to think they won the lottery when they meet you. Cute, blond, funny.”
“Aww, thanks Capri.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank your parents.” Capri laughed.
“Ooh. I just got an instant message from likestolisten,” Ella squealed. “Should I accept it?”
“Yes.” Capri sighed. “Look girl, I gotta go. Leroy is getting on my last nerves. I’ll speak to you tomorrow?”
“Sounds good. Thanks Capri.” Ella hung up and clicked accept on the chat link and laughed at the message likestolisten had sent her.
Likestolisten: Hi Goldengirl. I hope you don’t mind me messaging you instead of waiting for your reply. I’ve been checking my inbox all day for a response.
Goldengirl: Hi Likestolisten. How are you? I was just about to send you a reply message.
Likestolisten: Well, there you go. You just made my day.
Goldengirl: Well, I do like to please.
Likestolisten: I am not going to take that in the perverted way. I promise.
Goldengirl: Perverted way? Huh?
Likestolisten: Read your sentence back again.
Goldengirl: Oh, oops. Haha. That is not what I meant.
Likestolisten: Do you want me to hold on while you send me my message?
Goldengirl: I was just going to say that maybe we could grab a coffee sometime.
Likestolisten: Is tomorrow good?
Goldengirl: Wow, you’re fast.
Likestolisten: I guess that’s why I have a gold medal from the Olympics.
Goldengirl: You do not!
Likestolisten: No, I don’t! But wouldn’t that have been awesome if I did.
Goldengirl: Haha. Yes. It would have been pretty awesome. So why do you like to listen so much?
Likestolisten: It goes well with my job.
Goldengirl: And that is?
Likestolisten: Something I’ll tell you about later? It’s quite boring.
Goldengirl: Okay.
Likestolisten: So what do you do?
Goldengirl: Just finishing up my bachelors degree and looking for a job.
Likestolisten: Aw. Good luck with the job search. It’s a hard market these days.
Goldengirl: Thanks. I’m fully prepared to be a barista at Starbucks if need be!!!
Likestolisten: I’ll have a grande soy caramel macchiato please.
Goldengirl: Coming right up kind sir.
Likestolisten: Do you want to meet at a Starbucks tomorrow? That way you can grab an application as well and kill two birds with one stone.
Goldengirl: How thoughtful you are. We can meet by Union Square?
Likestolisten: Awesome. Around 7pm?
Goldengirl: That’s great!
Likestolisten: Awesome. I’ll let you go so you can respond to my message now!
Goldengirl: Haha. Bye.
Likestolisten: Bye.
Ella exited the instant message with a huge grin on her face. Likestolisten sounded like a really cool guy. She felt a bit bad that she had deceived him but she didn’t want him to know that she was an heiress and loaded. She wasn’t looking for a guy that was more interested in her fortune and family business than in her. She looked at his photos again and sighed. He was gorgeous. He said he was six foot with blond hair and brown eyes and from what she could see, he could have been a Hollywood star. She felt her body warm at the idea of going on a date with him. She ran to the bathroom to study herself in the mirror. She stared at her reflection and sighed. She knew she was pretty but she was so sad at her haircut. The pixie cut didn’t take away from her looks but she missed her long flowing blond hair; she felt like a boy without it.
Her ringing phone made her run back to the living room, she didn’t want Jacob to wake up and start crying again. Taking care of a baby was proving to be a lot harder than she ever thought and while it was kind of fun, she was already frustrated at how much he cried. She looked at the screen and saw that it was Joseph who was calling her and she quickly pressed end. She didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want him to drag her down the path of pain again. But she couldn’t stop herself from listening to the voicemail that he left.
“Ella, it’s Joseph. I miss you. I wish you were here to kiss and hold me. Call me, please. It’s important. If you love your brother and you want to make sure his life isn’t ruined. Call me.” And then the message ended. Ella was confused and scared. What was Joseph talking about? Did he have something on Max that could get him into trouble? Ella bit her lip and sat on the couch. She needed to make a decision. She may have to contact Joseph to find out exactly what was going on.
Chapter 9
Sophie
Sophie was more excited than she wanted to admit. In fact, she felt like there was something wrong with her for being so excited to visit a sex club. She didn’t want Max to know that she felt kind of turned on. She didn’t even want to acknowledge it herself.
“So are you sure you want to go, Sophie?” Max looked at her with a worried look on his face as he drove. “I don’t want you to be shocked.”
“I’m not going to judge you, Max.” Sophie smiled at him softly, studying the lines on his face. He looked like he had aged years in days. Oh her precious Max; she would do anything to wipe those lines away but she needed to know. She needed to see what his life had been like before her.
“It may be hard not to.” He made a self-deprecating face. “It’s a seedy place, Sophie.”
“Why did you go there?”
“I wanted to get away from my everyday life.”
“Why?”
“There were a lot of reasons why, Sophie.” He sighed. “You know—part of me was angry at myself for loving you, for wanting to be with you. I thought it was wrong. And then Alexis kinda swooped in and she showed me a different side to life.”
“She introduced you to the clubs?” Sophie looked at him in surprise.
“She has a lot of demons, Sophie.” He tapped his fingers against the wheel. “That’s how we bonded. We both wanted to escape the burdens of our lives.”
“What was wrong with her?”
“I don’t know.” Max looked at her in sorrow. “I never cared enough to find out.”
“But you were engaged.” Sophie looked at him shocked.
“Not
because I loved her. We were so high on cocaine the night I proposed. It was my way of getting her to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“From trying to fly off the top of the Empire State Building.”
“What?” Sophie’s voice cracked.
“She thought she was Superwoman. She wanted to go and save the world.”
“From who?”
“I don’t know.” He sighed. “I was selfish. I only worried about my own problems.”
“Oh.” Sophie felt sad.
“She was about to jump because she thought she could fly. And even though, I was high, I knew that something was wrong. That she shouldn’t jump.”
“Does cocaine do that to people?”
“I think she was on ecstasy as well, maybe even mushrooms.” He sighed. “I think she may have been in love with someone else as well. She reminded me of myself. She acted heartbroken.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. So I proposed. I told her she couldn’t save the world just yet because I wanted her to save me. To marry me and to stay with me.”
“You wanted her to save you?” Sophie turned her face and looked out the window with tears welling in her eyes. “That’s a lot to ask of someone you don’t love.”
“I only said it to get her to come to me, Sophie. You have to understand that. I didn’t want her to jump.”
“It just sounds like more than you would tell someone you didn’t love, Max.”
Max pulled the car into a parking lot and turned to Sophie. “Let’s go home, Sophie. Please. Let’s just forget this. This is not a good path for us to go down. I don’t foresee this doing any good for our relationship.”
“I need to see this, Max.” Sophie turned to him with pained eyes. “I need to understand how the Max I love could have gotten someone pregnant and not known about it. How the Max I love could have been with someone like Alexis. How the Max I love could have all these secrets. I need to know, Max.”
“I can’t lose you, Sophie.” His voice was pained. “I’ve been waiting all my life for you. I’ve literally gone to hell and back hoping that I would have a chance with you. And now that I have you, I can’t lose you.”
“Max, you will never lose me. There is nothing you could have done that will make me leave you. There is nothing that you could do that would make me turn my back on you. I’ve lived with my heart consumed by you for so many years that you own it by now.”
“I own your heart?”
Sophie nodded. “And you’re the only one that can return it.”
“I’ll never return it. Your heart is the most precious possession I’ve ever been given.” He smiled at her and kissed her hard before placing his hand over her heart. “The beat of your heart signifies to me, my own life, you give me life, Sophie.”
“And we have a wonderful life to live, Max.” She placed his hand over her stomach. “We’re having a baby, Max. Someone who will represent the best of both of us. Someone that was created by all of our love.”
“It scares me, Sophie.”
“Why?” Sophie looked at him in concern ignoring the people who were walking past their car looking in with interest.
“I’m scared I’m going to love our baby more than I love Jacob.” He looked at her with worry in her eyes. “I’m scared it will be evident and Jacob will be scarred for life, knowing that he wasn’t the baby that we wanted, that he wasn’t truly ours. That I never loved his mother.”
“Oh Max.” Sophie stared at him in wonder. “I had no idea you felt this way.”
“Maybe I should do a paternity test?” Max looked at Sophie for an answer.
“Do you know who the other father could be?” She looked at him frowning.
“Yes.” His voice was firm and he looked away. “Yes I do.”
“And would he make a good father?” Sophie paused. “And would he want to be in the baby’s life?”
“No.” Max’s face was hard. “He wouldn’t acknowledge the baby. He’s married, Sophie.”
“Oh.”
“And he’s an important figure. It would lead to a lot of trouble. I can’t say much more now.” He frowned. “It’s complicated and I don’t want you involved.”
“Don’t do a paternity test.” Sophie grabbed his hand. “A baby doesn’t need all this strife. He’ll never grow up happy in those circumstances. We will make good parents, Max.”
“Can you love him, Sophie?”
“Yes.” Sophie thought about Jacobs’s innocent face. “Yes, I can love him.” She bit her lip and started playing with her hair and looked out of the window. “I never told anyone this before but my uncle, the one that raised me, he dated my mother before she married my dad. And he really, really loved her. But then she met his brother, my dad, and they fell head over heels in love. And my mom ditched my uncle and married my dad. It was years before my uncle finally married his best friend, my aunt, and they say that he never really got over my mom. When she died, they say he was devastated.”
“Oh your poor aunt.” Max looked at her in sympathy.
“Yes, it’s quite sad.” She looked at him sorrowfully. “But my aunt never loved me less. She never looked at me with distaste or hurt or even hate. She loved me with all of her heart and while I was lonely I never doubted her love for me. I want to be that person for Jacob. No child deserves to feel like he wasn’t wanted or good enough. It’s not his fault that his parents made poor decisions.”
“And that is why I love you, Sophie.” He brought her towards him and they hugged awkwardly through the seatbelts. “Your heart is so huge.”
“Remember that, Max.” She grinned. “Now let’s go to the sex club.”
“Ha.” Max peered at her. “You look like you’re excited?”
She grinned at him and licked her lips.
“Oh my god, you’re excited to visit the sex club,” Max exclaimed. “Just what do you think is going to happen?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t have on any underwear.” She raised an eyebrow and he fanned his face.
“Sophie, you are trying to make me a bad man, aren’t you?” He grinned and started the car. “Then let’s go.”
“So where are we going?” She looked around her curiously.
“We’re going to Jersey to a secret club called ‘The Games’.”
“The Games?” She laughed. “Original.”
“It’s a starter club,” he explained. “If you like it, we can go to a better one.”
“Seedier one?”
“No.” He grinned. “I can tell you know nothing about the lifestyle, seedy is what you see on TV.”
“So these clubs aren’t seedy?”
“No.” He looked at her with a smile. “The clientele may be seedy but the actual club isn’t. We’re not going to some dive bar in a bad neighborhood.”
“Okay.” Sophie sat back and studied Max as he drove. He seemed very controlled for some reason. She could tell he was tense and she wasn’t sure why. He had seemed excited to find out that she was excited but something in his reaction had made her worry. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Maybe it was because he was excited himself. She wasn’t sure what that meant. Did he miss going to the clubs? Was this something he needed in his life? And just how far did he go? What did he mean about this being a lifestyle? She was worried that she wasn’t enough for him. She loved him more than life itself but if he needed to be with other women, that was not going to be an option for her. She would leave him because staying would mean breaking her heart.
Chapter 10
Max
Max drove steadily. He didn’t want Sophie to notice that his heart was racing. He hadn’t been to ‘The Games’ in a while and he wasn’t sure who would be there that he knew. He hoped that all the usual girls were long gone by now. He should have thought it out a bit better, this was the club he had always brought his new assistants to, to see if they would be comfortable with the role he needed them for. He wasn’t sure if Sophie realized that he
had come to these clubs without Alexis. And he wasn’t sure if he wanted her to know that. Something told him that she wouldn’t be as understanding if she knew he had fucked half the women who worked there.
“So what will we do when we get there?” Sophie turned to him and he smiled at the eagerness in her voice.
“We’ll leave it up to the moment.” He smiled briefly at her and turned back to the road so that he could think.
“Are you okay with us going, Max?” Sophie’s voice was tight and worried.
“Yes, of course.” He smiled at her while warning bells rang out in his chest. If he were a smart man, he would turn the car around and drive them somewhere else, far away from New Jersey and ‘The Games’. But he didn’t listen to his inner voice and kept on driving.
“Have you written any poetry lately, Sophie?” He attempted to change the subject as they drove in silence.
“No, not really.”
“Written in your journal?”
“Yes.” She laughed. “I try to write in it every day.”
“Can you remember anything you’ve written lately?” He looked over at her. “I’d like to hear it.”
“Not by heart,” she lied. She could remember her words of anguish as well as if she had written them moments ago.
“I wrote something recently.” He paused. “I wrote a poem.”
“You did?” She looked at him in surprise. “I didn’t know.”
“It’s something my therapist taught me to do, to express my feelings.” He laughed at her face. “I know, I know. I have a therapist. I’ll tell you more about it later.”
“I never knew you had one.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “How often do you see him or her?”
“As often as I need.” His voice was low. “There are some things I need to tell you but tonight is not the night.”
“Okay.” She reached over and squeezed his hand, her voice soft and sweet. “Whenever you’re ready, Max.”
“Thanks.” He pulled into the parking lot of a fancy restaurant. “I want to recite the poem to you before we go in.”
“Go in?” Sophie looked at the steak restaurant in front of her. “Are we eating first?”
