by Brent, Amy
“Wow. Okay. I take it my work will follow me home this weekend then?”
“Unfortunately, it might. But you won’t be alone. Your notes will give me direction on where to take their advertisements. So the sooner you get started—”
“The sooner we can both have our weekends. Got it.”
I shut my office door and took the folder to my desk. The second I flipped it open, I grimaced. The advertisement was all over the place. So many colors and shapes. I had no idea where my eye was supposed to be. I could hardly read the text on the page, so I had to flip over to the application to figure out what the company was about.
And I laughed at the irony of it.
“Save the Date,” I said to myself.
I scanned the description of the business, and the tagline—“Where novice meets nimble”—told me exactly what I was looking at. I flipped through the mounds of pages outlining everything from a redesign of the company’s website to a billboard over the highway they had commissioned that looked like shit. I slid my hand down my face and drew in a deep breath.
This new company specialized in helping people out with dates, but not just any dates. It helped inexperienced daters and lovers find experienced daters and lovers.
“Where novice meets nimble,” I said, giggling.
That was a hell of a tagline. I didn’t really want to change it. It was silly, but playful enough to plaster all over a billboard and not ruffle the tail feathers of the conservative community. But the colors they used on their website and their ad made it look as if the business was tailored to children, and that would ruffle some feathers. I began jotting down notes for my boss and making basic sketches for him to mull over. All the colors had to go. For something like this, two colors that complimented one another on a grayscale background with a bit of black was plenty. And the logo? Scrapped. We would have to start fresh with that.
I did make sure to jot down the website address before turning my first round of official notes over to my boss.
“You’re a star. You know that?” my boss said.
“Keep that in mind when promotion time comes around,” I said, winking.
“Trust me. I always do.”
“And yet I’m still project manager.”
“I can’t afford to lose you! But you’re about to outgrow your seat anyway. And what’s this about redesigning the website first?”
“Yeah. The logo is terrible. It can’t be salvaged at all. If we redesign the website and try out a few logos, we’ll only have to do the billboard once.”
“I love it when you buckle down while in stress mode,” he said.
I sighed. “It’s a blessing and a curse.”
“Clock out for lunch. You deserve an early shot at the weekend. Keep feeding me these notes. These are brilliant, and with them we should be able to nail this client—no pun intended.”
I giggled at his joke and shook my head.
“I’ll be in my office if you need anything!”
“Clock out for lunch, Ava!”
I nestled back in my office before going over to my miniature fridge. I pulled out my lunch and sat down, then clocked out and got to work. I pulled out my phone and went straight to the website to sign up for their services. They had an online dating service, but for those who wanted to meet face to face with an advisor first, they did have programs in both Los Angeles and downtown Manhattan.
I scheduled a face-to-face session to go over my options for three thirty that afternoon, then got myself back to work.
As the day wore on, I grew more and more nervous. A couple times, I even pulled out my phone to check their cancellation policy. But I had already paid for the one-time session, and that fee was non-refundable. When I found myself trying to talk myself out of it, the money was the only thing that kept me hanging in. As I went back and forth with my boss on color schemes and possible logo designs, I found my heart thumping loudly in my chest as the minutes wore on.
By the time my boss dismissed me at three in the afternoon, my hands shook with a vengeance.
I slid into my car and drove to my appointment with the finalized notes in my purse. I had a little bit of work to do this weekend, but not much. More of a back-and-forth with my boss to finalize designs before the design team and the coders got to work.
I clutched my purse tightly against my stomach as I headed into the Save the Date headquarters. I rode up the elevator before it dumped me out on the fourth floor of a generic office building, and right away I was assaulted by colors.
Holy hell. They had all those loud schemes plastered everywhere.
It gave me a headache just to walk through, but I pushed on. There was no going back. I’d be out fifty bucks if I didn’t show up, so I might as well see what all the fuss was about. I buried the folder in my purse and covered it up so they didn’t know where I worked. The last thing I wanted them to find out was that the advertising agency they’d hired was sending them clientele.
That wouldn’t go over well with anyone, including my boss.
“May I help you?”
I whipped my head over to a cheery woman sitting behind a bright pink desk. Yikes.
“Um, yes. I have an appointment at three thirty,” I said.
“Ava Leary?” the woman asked after looking at her computer.
“That’s me.”
“Right through that door at the end of the hallway. We’ve been expecting you.”
I turned and faced the door. Oddly enough, the hallway seemed to grow, getting longer and longer the farther I walked. I was sweating and my knees knocked together. I finally got to the door and pushed it open, finding a smiling woman on the other side. She came over and shook my hand, but her voice seemed muffled. Her office was bright, too bright for something like this.
“Miss Leary?”
“Yes?” I asked.
“Would you care for something to drink?”
I nodded as I cleared my throat. The kind woman ushered me to a seat in front of her desk before a glass of cucumber water was placed in my hand. I brought it to my lips and chugged, not caring about how I looked. The glass trembled in my hand as I set it against my thigh, then I looked at the woman as she sat back in her desk chair.
“Let me guess. You stumbled upon our services accidentally and you’re here to lose your virginity,” she said.
My jaw dropped.
“Don’t worry, it’s more common than you think. It’s why we’re here,” she said, smiling.
“You mean people come to you all the time to lose their virginity?”
“Mostly men, but yes. That’s how our company got its start, by helping those ready to take the next step in intimacy find someone they are comfortable taking that step with.”
I nodded as I wrapped my hand tightly around the glass.
“Before we get started, I’m Clara Robbins.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Robbins.”
“Now, first and foremost, just because you’ve come to this meeting doesn’t mean you’re locked into anything. Even if you decide to schedule something with us, it’s still and always your choice. If you get to your pre-arranged date and something seems off, or if you’re not ready after all, you’re under no obligation to do anything. We set up the circumstances. You make it happen.”
“Okay. That’s good,” I said. That could be an excellent tagline to use. I committed it to memory for work purposes. “So, what exactly is this meeting for?” I asked.
“To get a feel for you. Your likes, your dislikes. How you want to lose your virginity. We’ll talk about your sexual fantasies and your hobbies. Then we’ll schedule you a date for you to leave here with, and I’ll get to work finding the perfect match to show up and greet you.”
“Wow. Okay.”
Holy shit. This was happening. I was going to plan how to lose my virginity.
“First off, what do you not enjoy?”
“Come again?” I asked.
“Sexually. What don’t you
enjoy?”
“I haven’t had sex. How would I know?”
“Do you like being choked?”
“What?” I asked.
“Okay, so you don’t like being choked. What about being tied up?”
“Huh?”
“Peed on?”
My eyes bulged.
“Food play. Do you like food play?”
“I don’t like any of the things you just mentioned.”
“Let’s slow down then. I’m asking you for your kinks, fetishes—what you enjoy when you watch porn.”
“I don’t watch porn.”
“Okay. I’ll note that as well. When you masturbate, what gets you off?”
“Uh—clitoral stimulation?”
“Good. So you like oral.”
“I don’t know if I like oral. I’ve never tried it,” I said.
“Then we’ll put ‘overall clitoral stimulation,’ and that will encompass toys.”
“I do use those.”
“Good! Now we’re getting somewhere.”
She blasted questions at me at lightning speed, and I tried to answer them to the best of my ability. I fed her my hotel room scenario: candles, rose petals, drinks, romance. The works. She typed with fury on her laptop, and I slowly began to sink into the comfort of answering her questions.
We talked about how I enjoyed the movies, how I’d like to experience a real date where a man came to pick me up. But not for the first time, obviously. I’d want to be safe. We outlined a variety of kinks and fetishes I might want to try while wholly avoiding anything that had to do with pain, tying me down, or otherwise inflicting unwanted bodily fluids on my person.
I shivered at the thought.
“Okay. We’ve built your profile with your hard limits, soft limits, questions, and the things you know you want. I’m going to let our computer run the algorithm. Then I’ll personally filter through the men who pop up. You wanted a man, right?”
“Yes, a man,” I said.
“Good. Okay. As for now, your date is set for this Monday evening at seven. Once I find a man for you who can accommodate that time,” she said, handing me a card, “your appointment will be confirmed via text message. If you’re having second thoughts, you can cancel with no questions asked right through that text.”
“Okay. That’s—uh, wait a second.” I furrowed my brow at the appointment card she handed me. “This says you’re sending me to a hotel,” I said.
“Yes! And it’s a wonderful hotel as well. Four stars. Luxurious accommodations. And it has a kitchen that’s to die for. Since your ultimate fantasy involved a hotel, we’re going to give you that. Rose petals, dinner delivered to your room, a spa tub fit for two—the works.”
“You just booked all that?”
“We have partners who advertise with us, and with those advertising perks come the ability to use their facilities at an allocated cost.”
“How will payment work, exactly?”
“Should you choose to go through with the night, you and your partner will split a flat-rate fee. We’ll bill you, and you can either pay it outright or you can call us and set up a six- or twelve-month payment plan.”
“And how much will this cost?”
“Around three fifty for each of you.”
“That’s not bad, if split over six months,” I said.
“Good! Well, you have your appointment and I have my algorithm running. So, just leave the rest to us. Oh! And don’t forget this.” She held out a sheet of paper for me.
“What’s this?”
“A list of things you need to have done before the appointment. And don’t worry, the man has a list of what he has to do as well. We don’t believe in one-sided grooming, you know.”
My eyes widened at some of the things on the list.
“Uh-huh. Okay. Well, thank you for your time,” I said as I stood.
“Good luck, Miss Leary! And if you have a wonderful encounter, we would greatly appreciate referrals.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
I walked out of her office wondering how the hell I was going to accomplish everything on this list in one weekend.
Logan
“Why the hell are we here again?” Hunter asked.
“Because Camilla’s working tonight.”
“I thought you said she didn’t want us showing up while she was working.”
“I want to keep an eye on her tonight.”
“Uh, dude, you're sounding a little off. What gives?”
“Camilla’s been acting funny, and I want to surprise her. That’s all.”
“Uh-huh. You think she’s cheating, don’t you?”
“I know she’s not cheating, but I think our relationship could use a bit of spontaneity. I thought maybe coming to see her before yanking her into the bathroom for a quickie might spice things up a bit.”
“Trust me, she doesn’t have issues with spicing anything up.”
I shot Hunter a glare as we walked through the archway of the strip club. He threw up his hands in mock defeat as the haze of the club hit my face. The music was loud and a woman was already onstage, spinning around on the pole and working on raking in tips for the night.
“Come on. Let’s go find Camilla at the bar,” I said.
“I’ll meet you there. I’m going to go check something out first,” Hunter said.
He made his way to a seat right at the edge of the stage. I shook my head. I didn’t need him to help me look out for her anyway. I shuffled over to the bar and sat down in a darkened corner as my mind began to swirl.
We were supposed to have gone shopping. She even gave me a place to meet her. Then she never showed. Out of all the months we had seen one another, never once had she stood me up. At first I’d been worried. I had called her and texted her, thinking she had gotten into a wreck or something. Then I saw she had read all my messages and never replied.
Something was very off, and I wanted to know what it was.
I searched the bar for Camilla, but I didn’t see her, which was strange because she had said she was working tonight. A bartender I didn’t recognize came over and took my order, so I sipped on a whiskey sour and kept an eye out for her. Dancer after dancer hit the stage, and I watched Hunter blow all his money on them. I watched him get dragged into a room for a lap dance. I watched him get accosted by a bouncer for touching too much. I kept one eye on the bar and the other eye on him for two solid hours.
And there was no Camilla in sight.
“Come on. Let’s go,” I said.
“What? Are you serious? Candi’s about to hit the stage, man.”
“Hunter, let’s go.”
“But I singled out a whole forty bucks for her,” he said.
“You can come back another night, any night. But I’m ready to leave and I’m pretty sure you hitched a ride with me.”
“You sure you don’t want me to buy you a lap dance? You seem a little tense.”
I wanted to smack the grin off the man’s face.
“Holy hell, Logan. Lighten up. I take it you didn’t find Camilla?”
“No. She said she was working, but I haven’t seen her at all. We’ve been here for two hours and she’s nowhere to be found.”
“Wait a second. Two hours? Man, time flies when you’re staring at titties.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously! I thought we’d only been here for, like, forty-five minutes or something.”
“You need a girlfriend.”
“What I need is to get you out of here before your head pops off and destroys this place. I would like to come back, you know.”
Hunter grabbed my arm and walked me out of the strip club. I looked back one last time. One last chance to see if Camilla was anywhere, but she wasn’t. She had lied to me. She had told me she was working and she wasn’t. She had told me we were going shopping and we hadn’t. She had left me standing outside some girly boutique for almost an hour before I bailed to try to get in touch
with her.
“Didn’t you just see her this afternoon anyway?” Hunter asked as we got into my car.
“That’s the thing. She stood me up,” I said.
“She what?”
“Yeah. She gave me a time and a shop to meet her at. Then she just didn’t fucking show up.”
“Oh, Logan. That’s not good.”
“She’s had her nose stuck in her phone for weeks now. I take her out and I barely get two words out of her. The last date we went on, Ava turned up and sat down with us. I ended up talking with her more than I talked with Camilla!”
“Look, what I said back there was a joke, but Camilla is that type of girl.”
“She’s not cheating.”
“I don’t know, man. Always on her phone? Lying about work? Standing you up? That’s classic cheating behavior.”
“That’s classic ‘I don’t want to be with you anymore’ behavior.”
“Which leads free-spirited women like Camilla to cheat.”
He had a point, and it was a point I didn’t like. I white-knuckled my steering wheel before I sighed and pulled out my phone. I couldn't let her onto my anger. If I did—if she knew I’d been to her work looking for her—she’d pull away even more. At least I figured she would. I pulled up a text message to Camilla and grew angrier when I saw our message history. Ten messages from me, all read, all ignored.
We need to talk.
I sent off the text message, then followed it up with a phone call. I backed out of the parking space in front of the strip club and grew more agitated with every ring that went unanswered. Where the hell was she? She was obviously okay. I had half a mind to call Ava and ask her where her best friend was, but I didn’t want to drag her into anything. This was between Camilla and me.
“At least you aren’t in love with her. Right?” Hunter asked.
I shoved the phone into my pocket and drove my friend back to his place. I didn’t say a word as he got out, and I drove home in silence. I checked my phone as I shoved my key into the door of my brownstone in Manhattan, grimacing at the text message.
It had been read, but I got no reply.
Throwing my phone on my couch, I stripped off my clothes. I left an angry trail of fabric behind me as I made my way up the stairs and into my bathroom. I showered, removing the glitter and smog from the strip club. I shook my head as Hunter’s little comment crept to the forefront of my mind.
