Courting Guinevere (The Davonshire Series Book 1)

by Olivia Gaines

  Yet, dating was not a new or foreign concept to her. She had dated in high school and gone to the prom. She had briefly dated in undergraduate, graduate, and medical school. High school dating options were limited for those girls the football players considered thick around the ankles. Other players who were less tactful would just outright call her a fat chick. Although she had a beautiful face with expressive brown eyes, it was often shielded by a very large IQ that showed up in the wrong spots in conversations, even amongst her own peers.

  Four years at Yale surrounded by like-minded chemists, researchers, and scientific automatons made her feel like a queen among the peasants, but isolated nonetheless. Graduate and post-graduate work at Johns Hopkins brought forward a different sort of man, drawn to her brilliance, but shocked to learn it was not covered by naiveté. Her work of the past ten years was her work, not to be shared, showcased, or overshadowed by a man who was her inferior, who sought to dominate her research with pretty words, pillow talk, and sexual prowess. Even more shocking to the graduate fellows and faculty mentors was her ability to see through the muck and go straight to the cause and effect. It was a skill that made her rich.

  In her first year at Johns Hopkins, she managed to isolate the gene that triggered emotional eating. The discovery led to the development of a chemical compound that could subdue the desire to graze by turning off certain receptors in the brain. Combining the pill with diet and exercise, she broke a cardinal rule and used herself as a test subject. She lost 100 pounds.

  The pill, however, was not without side effects and caused the stomach to generate more acid than was needed, resulting in acid reflux. Applying the principles of an antacid mixed with a water-soluble bromide, she was able to develop a pill that took care of those symptoms. To reduce the side effects, she created a purple protective coating over the pill to prevent the bromide from attacking the central nervous system. This pill made her the first five million.

  The second year, after losing the weight, she noticed the increase in exercise and progesterone had a diminishing capacity on the libido. This led to the creation of a tablet to combat that problem in not only men, but women as well. The pharmaceutical companies were paying close attention to her work, which also paid for her medical and doctoral schooling. She was promised more fame and glory if she would work on a project that would combat depression in soldiers returning from combat. Turning down the fame, but taking the glory in the form a private, fully funded lab was all the reward she needed. In her new lab she had the ability to conduct wondrous research.

  The drug had a limited number of side effects, but one side effect gained the most attention: it decreased the desire to smoke. In the pharmaceutical world, she was a goddess with a golden touch. Her work could make you skinny, combat your depression, make you stop smoking, and fix your digestive issues, each by popping a single pill. These pills required ingestion for the rest of the patient’s life or a good portion of the journey to a new one. It was revenue gold to pharmaceutical companies.

  Yet there was no pill to cure what ailed her heart at that moment. She was lonely. She wanted a family. She wanted children. She wanted a man.

  Picking up the remote, she clicked on the television. She opened a sugar-free fitness water that she grabbed from the fridge and began munching on a microwave bag of popcorn. I may as well see what is happening in the world of reality.

  A quick gaze at the clock on the wall said it was 10:15 pm. Her eyes started to tear up opening what she knew to be a floodgate as seated herself upon the tower that would house the weekend pity party for her sad, misaligned life. On a Friday night in a very large city in New Jersey, she did not have a date, nothing to do, and no one to call to go out with and even have a drink. She dabbed at her eyes with the hem of her tee as a light flickered on the television screen and the colors of the ad caught her eye.

  “Log on now and start searching for your perfect match on this free communication weekend.”

  She watched the happy plastic couples on the screen before her wide watery eyes darted over to the desk that held her laptop. Her eyes went from the laptop to television, from the television to laptop, and then slowly swept back and forth across the room as if she had just stumbled into a den of sleeping bears. Deliberately rising from the couch, the lonely lady sat the popcorn bag on the table as she sauntered across the room, eyeing the laptop with mild curiosity. A devilish grin formed across her lips and she logged in to her system.

  Her first stop was at Yahoo to create a dummy email address that could feed into her main email account. The next stop was to the dating site where she was prompted to answer a series of questions about what she was looking for in a mate. A screen name and avatar was next. Chuckling, she chose the name “Guinevere.” She did believe that in order to find the right man, some honesty was required, so she added her actual age of 35 and her location near Princeton, New Jersey.

  The weekend was about to get interesting. She was fully aware that on her first try, she could not expect to find a soul mate, or even a warm body, to share that over-sized bed that taunted her nightly. But she could at least find someone who had read a book.

  This would give her three some things. First, it would provide her something to look forward to. Second, something to shut up her sister. And finally, something she could tell her parents that she was doing outside of her lab. Tentative fingers ran across the laptop screen as she secretly said a little prayer that somewhere out there, Lancelot had heard her plea and was mounting his trusty steed to come galloping to her rescue.

  She closed the laptop, holding onto a blind faith that told her that her boring personal life was about to change. Smiling optimistically, she tuned into Showtime to catch up on the last missed episodes of Dexter. She chuckled at the brashness of Debra, wondering if the character would ever find someone to love. Melancholy began to seep into her spirit. She knew her family often worried and wondered the same exact thing about her, locked away in her ivory tower of research.

  13

  The Lady Enters the Court

  Guinevere did not realize that she’d fallen asleep until the strange pinging noises rousted her from her slumber. Gently rubbing her eyes, she pushed herself upright, while attempting to untangle her legs from the coverlet. There it was again. Ping. Then another pinging sound, and another, and yet another caused her head to slowly turn in an attempt to locate the nerve-racking sound. She sat still in the darkness of the room, listening like a cat waiting for a mouse to poke out its head. There! Her head snapped in the direction of the coffee table. The noisy pings were coming from the laptop.

  Moving the notebook to her lap, she opened the cover with the slow realization that she had not logged out of the dating site – there it was again, another ping. Frowning, she ran her fingers across the touchpad and the screen came to life. In the past three hours she had received 75 messages! She quickly glanced at her avatar and reread her posting to make certain that what she had written did not include a double entendre.

  Scanning the names, she saw a King Arthur. She deleted his message. The romance betwixt Arthur and Guinevere didn’t end well in the story, no need to play with it in real life. Besides, any man who would deem or name himself king was a few keys shy of a kingdom. Good start. This left 74 messages.

  Opening the first message, she noticed it was from someone who was 64 years old. Hmm…not lonely enough to date my daddy’s buddies. Her daddy was stubborn enough, she couldn’t imagine trying to discuss what she did with someone who was still upset that the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles.

  She needed to edit the parameters of her requirements. She could date someone ten years older and possibly someone five to seven years younger. A couple of clicks of the mouse and her number of messages dissolved to a cool 35, which was her age and today, her lucky number.

  There were several matches in the greater New Jersey area and one that was even as close as West Windsor. She was able to send a free icebreaker, but a membership was
required to actually see anything in detail. She quickly reviewed the membership information. It would cost her ten bucks a month for a year’s membership! Thinking what the hell, she went ahead and subscribed for a year.

  Membership now activated, the computer screen came to life. The pings started again, but this time from people who wanted to chat. Uncertain of how to turn off that function, a ping came through from HairyLarry1212. Curiosity got the better of her and she opened his IM, and screamed. She wasn’t sure if it was a man or a Yeti.

  He was covered in hair from his rooter to his tooter and he even added a few shots of his tooter, which was also freakishly smothered in hair. She said a prayer for the hairy guy that some woman with a straight razor would come into his life.

  What if there are women out there excited by men with this much body hair?

  Guinevere shuddered before her mind went back to her job and she began to think of a depilatory that could aid men covered in excessive body hair. If she could come up with something, she would definitely offer poor HairyLarry1212 free samples.

  The instant messages kept coming and she chatted with a few, only to find they were either shallow or in search of a booty call. A new message came through from TheBlackKnight who claimed to have a 10-inch sword. She didn’t think that was an instrument of pleasure but a weapon of mass destruction, and she quickly blocked him from sending her any more messages. She knew that next he would want to send her a pic of his favorite weapon. Yeesh!

  She liked this application and quickly figured how to maneuver through the users. The lady was about to log out when in the lower left hand corner she noticed a new match, Gawain. Guinevere sent him a wink and logged off the computer.

  Her eyelids had started to droop, so she packed up and headed toward the bed for the remainder of her night, suddenly feeling a little more cheery and a lot more excited about her Saturday. She had not found Lancelot yet, but she hoped that Gawain would at least be on a noble quest. If nothing else, he had at least read a few books. That was always a great conversation starter.

  14

  The Online Meeting

  A morning that started off at a slow crawl quickly flourished into a galloping sprint. A blueberry power shake was body fuel pumped in after a three-mile run. It was a jaunty mile and a half up the trail, a mile and a half back. The closet – overrun with mail order clothes that didn’t quite fit and mail order shoes that were beautiful on the page but painful on the feet – was high on the list of things that would change starting today. If I expect something new to come into my life, I have to rid myself of the old to make space.

  Utility size garbage bags were brought into the bedroom, followed by a quick pulling of clothing from racks, folded and stuffed in bags that were placed by the door to be donated to a women’s shelter for ladies who were also trying to change their lives. It seemed silly to throw them away just because they were of no use to her. The items of clothing deserved a life elsewhere.

  After a quick shower, Guinevere pulled out her laptop to log in to the company server to check her email. A quick scan revealed there was nothing in her business email that couldn’t wait until Monday to be addressed. Out of curiosity, having filled out the questionnaire on the dating site, she wanted to know if any there were any new responses from her potential knight. She was also curious to see if the wink she had sent to that Gawain fellow had elicited a response.

  Guinevere logged first into her new Yahoo account to find 47 messages, two from Yahoo with a warm welcome, two from the dating site with her welcome and login info; three were spam and the other forty were responses to her posting on the site! A smiled filled her face, the home office and, slowly, her heart. She was proud of her willingness to try something new and somewhere hidden in these messages was a clue from her Lancelot.

  Logging in to the matchmaking site, she began to scroll through the messages. She sorted the responses by location, then by age, and lastly by screen name. At the end of list, third from the bottom, a single name popped out at Guinevere. It wasn’t the Lancelot she was hoping for, but a response from the knight on a quest.

  Gawain had written back!

  He was 39 and lived in San Francisco. The emotions which were charging through her were powerful as found her palms sweating and heart drumming.

  This is a sign.

  A quick morning jog around the neighborhood took him up Crookedest Street and back to the corner bakery for bagels and lox. There he grabbed a cup of coffee, picked up the morning paper from Joey at the newsstand, and briskly walked home. In his kitchen, he added more sugar to the coffee, munched on the bagel, and stripped down to his skin before heading toward the shower, only stopping briefly to power up the laptop.

  The night before, when Gawain had signed into the courtship site and filled out the questionnaire, he was presented with 20 possible matches. He also noticed there were several messages from women who were ready for … something of which he was uncertain. Five he felt were too young, two were too old, and three were physically unappealing.

  Too skinny.

  Too short …

  Too weird – what is she doing with her tongue? Gawain was frowning at the screen image of the woman with the purple eyebrows and split tongue. With the other ten missives, he opened a line of communication.

  The one that caught his eye and held his attention was a 35-year-old Guinevere in Princeton, New Jersey who had “winked” at him. Realizing he was stark naked in the middle of his kitchen, he looked up to see old Mrs. Deantag watching him closely. Knowing his naughty bits were hidden from her view, he was almost tempted to jump out and wiggle it at her like some neophyte male stripper. He smiled and held up his cup of coffee to let her know she had been spotted. Blushing like a schoolgirl, she left the patio in a hurry and closed her drapes. Gawain polished off the cup coffee, like it was the last swig in the jug of mead as he, still whistling, made his way to the bathroom.

  The shower infused Gawain with new energy and he was open minded about the potential of his weekend. He was anxious to open dialogue and have someone to talk to, a potential new friend and possibly a lifelong mate. It nearly depressed him a bit because he also felt a little stupid, too, admonishing himself for believing that he and one other person would have the same idea, log in to the same site, find each other, and then live happily ever after.

  The detachable showerhead was his private friend that rinsed the soap from his face and the conditioner from his hair. Many conversations, songs, and time alone was spent with Mr. Showerhead of late. He gave an extra rinse down there, smiling at his other friend with the hopes that he, too, would soon have a permanent companion.

  As he completed the morning cleaning routine, his mind raced through thoughts about the women who would respond to his request. It was a nearly shameful emotion that washed over him leaving him feeling like a goober. I am actually looking forward to a weekend of online chatting.

  A chuckle started in the back of his throat and resonated through his chest and exited his mouth in a loud guffaw. He imagined a sour-faced librarian type who spent her evenings on her social media pages blogging about her feelings. I’m okay to talk to her as well.

  He had winked back at Guinevere before heading to the shower and noticed she had not winked or responded back. As his disappointment began to rise, in the bottom left corner he saw a flicker that signaled Guinevere was now online. His heart began to beat rapidly and he felt a surge of something he could not put his finger on.

  He paced for a minute, went to the fridge, and grabbed a bottle of water. Gawain was grateful that his housekeeper had not stocked the fridge and pantry, because she never knew if or when he would be home. There were a few staples. However, she never bought any beer since she believed it was the Devil’s brew. This meant a trip to the store, his least favorite thing to do.

  He clicked the name Guinevere and opened a dialogue box.

  Live Chat

  Gawain: Hello, Guinevere

  He waited for
a response. He chugged half the bottle of water while reaching in the pantry for a bag of pork rinds, realized he had just had breakfast, and opted instead for an apple.

  He was nervous.

  The system pinged back.

  Live Chat

  Guinevere: Have you begun your quest, Sir Gawain?

  His heart skipped a beat again. Then he recognized she could have googled the name, but he was too stoked to analyze the small stuff.

  Live Chat

  Gawain: I am gathering my gear.

  He waited for a response and his phone began to chirp. He looked at the caller identification and saw that it was his brother. Wilfred could wait a few minutes.

  Live Chat

  Guinevere: Gear? Explain….

  He pressed the screen on the phone to ignore his brother’s call. The lady had his full attention and now he wanted to have hers. She was on the hook and he had but to reel her in….

  Live Chat

  Gawain: All of the items needed for my quest to find you and win your heart.

  He logged out of the system, shutting down the computer as he grabbed his wallet and car keys and headed for the garage. He was down to his last bag of pork rinds and two beers – this was one quest he would not begin without the proper supplies. Guinevere could wait for his return. The phone he carried would automatically sync to the blue tooth in the car, and once he pressed the start button to bring the engine to life, he returned the call to his brother.