by Mia Carson
“Did you know there are tons of gorgeous young millionaires and billionaires around us?”
“I guess,” I responded, frowning.
“There’s this app,” she went on. “I discovered it a few months ago while in college. It’s like a dating app, except that you’re not really going on real dates.”
“So, like you’re play dating?” I laughed. “What does that even mean? It’s either a date or not a date.”
“Kind of like play dating. Except you get paid for it.”
“Paid to go on a date?” I lowered my voice, almost afraid that someone could overhear us. “Like an escort service?”
“Not really. But it’s simple. You create an account, just like a dating app, and it matches you with a billionaire looking for someone to go with to an event or something. It’s not a date, and you never have to see the guy again if you don’t want to.” She punctuated the last part with a wink.
“Sounds too easy to me. How do I know the guy wouldn’t want sex?” I asked. “I mean, seriously, this kind of sounds like prostitution.”
“It’s all there on the app. You’re just getting paid to go to a social event. Unless you want to do more than that”—she winked again—“but even then, it can merely be no-strings-attached if that’s what you want.”
I was too suspicious of the idea to even consider it, but Ella all but wrestled my phone from me and installed the app. She created an account for me before I could object. At first I resisted, but I was so swept away by the atmosphere of fun and sense of make-believe that eventually I not only let her finish the profile, but even posed as she took a photo of me to set as my picture.
We returned to the apartment and for once, I did not cry myself to sleep.
Tia
The next morning, a Monday, I woke late. Ella had left for work earlier, but she was still taking care of me even in her absence. She had left a pot of coffee in the kitchen with a note: Be back by four. Have a great day!
I made myself breakfast and ate it in silence at the kitchen table. Bored, I decided I needed to occupy myself during the day to take my mind off the trials of life. I was considering jotting down a list of chores to do around the house when my phone rang.
“Hi, sweetie. You’re not bored, are you?” Ella asked.
“Hey. No, I am not. You’re forgetting that I know how to entertain myself too well,” I replied.
“Oh…” She sounded not at all happy about that. “Anyways, if you get bored or lonely, you just call me, okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
“And make sure you feed yourself,” she said, hiding what I knew was genuine concern behind a carefree laugh.
“I will,” I answered, touched. “Now get back to work. See you tonight.”
“Bye.”
After I hung up, I wrote Do laundry and Make dinner on my list. I don’t know how Ella found time to stay on top of everything, but absolutely nothing else in the apartment needed to be done.
It took me a good part of the day to do my laundry; I had let it go for too long. I finally finished at three that afternoon. I fixed myself a sandwich and watched TV for a while, welcoming the excuse to shut off mentally and ignore the pressing issues I needed to resolve—like finding a job. Around four, Ella called.
“I’m so sorry, babe! My boss is sending me on this stupid errand, and I don’t think I’ll be home for another two or three hours. I’m so sorry! Will you be okay?”
“I’ll be fine, don’t worry.” I said goodbye and ended the call. But as soon as I hung up, I realized that, with the approach of the lonely evening, depression was beginning to set in.
Desperate to avoid it, I busied myself in preparing dinner. I made a chicken pot pie and lemon meringue cheesecake for dessert. Once done, I showered and changed and made myself tea.
When I sat down with my cup, my phone buzzed with a notification from the app that Ella had installed. For as second, I wasn't sure what was buzzing, but when I finally picked up my phone and clicked the app, I had a match. I opened the request, and the name Neal Callaway appeared on my screen, along with a photo of an extraordinarily handsome and well-dressed young man. He had dark black hair, which was swept back, and grey eyes. His cheekbones were high, and he had what I thought were aristocratic features. I recognized him, which was the worst part. Almost everyone in town would recognize him.
Neal Callaway was the son of a Richmond industrialist, Brian Callaway. He had gone to college in New York, and while there, had started his own company that launched a range of mobile phones. Needless to say, five years after graduating from college, he was a billionaire. Neal’s family was still based in Richmond, so he spent most of his time commuting between Richmond and New York. He was, however, most famous for women’s attraction to him. Neal was a playboy, a lady’s man. He could woo a woman anywhere, anytime, with no apparent difficulty. But he couldn’t make a relationship stick. And Neal Callaway wanted a woman to accompany him to a social gathering—no strings attached—and had been matched up with me.
In all honesty, the idea disgusted me a little, because it dredged up so many bad memories. My history, as far as men went, was not the greatest. My dad had cheated on my mom with another woman and chose her over my mom. My longstanding boyfriend dumped me for dropping out of college to care for my incapacitated mother. Yet, I still believed in love. I believed in love, loyalty, and purity… and I had no respect for a relationship not based on these traits—or a person whose actions openly suggested a disregard of them. So the idea of even pretending to date a man who showed zero respect for women repulsed me.
But what bothered me most was that I was not as repulsed by the idea as I should have been. Maybe it was the depression or the loneliness, or both, but deep inside me, there was a yearning to escape the mundane life I had thus far created for myself.
I called Ella to ask how long she would be, but my call went to voicemail. I paced for a while, straightening the house, perfecting things that were already shipshape. I contemplated going out but had already cooked dinner. Besides, what would be the point of going out on my own?
Finally, I plopped down in front of the TV and browsed the channels aimlessly. After what seemed like forever, I found a channel airing a movie I liked. As I got up to turn off the lights, my phone buzzed. The notification said: Accompany Neal Callaway to a social event? Accept Or Decline.
I tapped Accept before I could stop myself.
Neal
I was standing in front of my office window on the sixty-sixth floor of World Building in New York City, when my phone rang. Mother flashed across the screen. I almost didn’t answer, but decided since I was leaving for Richmond in an hour, it wouldn’t make much of a difference either way.
“Hi, Mom,” I answered.
“Neal, my dear son,” my mother cooed in her falsely honeyed tone. “Where are you?”
“I’m in my office, Mom,” I replied, rubbing my temple.
“What?” my mother screeched. “Neal, you have to be here by evening!” The false notes of pleasantness in her voice had dissipated.
“I know, Mom, I was just about to leave,” I said, frustrated. I forced my jaw to relax. My mother had the ability to drive me insane from several states away. Yet, there was little I could do to put an end to that. As an only son, I had been born with the responsibility of making my mother happy. As the only son of a supposedly happy marriage, I had been born with twice the amount of responsibility.
“Your father and I have been preparing for this event for weeks,” my mother continued. “You know we want you here!”
“I know, Mom, I know,” I told her, exasperated. “Like I said, I was just about to leave. Now if you will excuse me…”
“Of course, sweetheart.” My mother had regained her sweetness. “Don’t forget to bring a date. Bye.” She crooned this last bit, blew a kiss into the phone, and hung up without waiting for a reply.
I faced my desk and began packing my briefcase. As I picked up a
file, my eyes landed on a small picture frame adorned with purple and white flowers sitting in a corner: my parents at their wedding.
“What the hell?” I muttered, picking it up.
As I looked at the picture of my parents, my mother standing in my father’s arms wearing a long white dress and heavy diamond jewelry, another, much more haunting image arose in my memory. My mother wearing nothing except similarly heavy diamond jewelry, screaming and running towards me, her hair flying all around her. Behind her, my uncle desperately collected his clothes, which were strewn all over the floor.
I was in fourth grade when it happened. I was sent home early because of a nosebleed. I still remembered opening the door to her room, and, too horrified for words by what I saw, sprinting back outside and running into a wall. As my mom screamed and ran towards me while my uncle tried in vain to retrieve his clothes, I remembered closing my eyes tight, hoping they would both just disappear. Afterwards, Mom made me promise not to say a word to Dad, and I did as I was told. However, I lost my faith in the common, make-believe crap like love and loyalty that day.
I pressed a button on the intercom. “Sarah, will you please come in here?” I said, my voice flat.
My secretary’s head appeared in the doorway a moment later. “Sir?” she asked.
“What is this?” I asked, waving the photo frame in front of her.
“It’s… it’s a photo frame, sir,” she replied nervously.
“That I know,” I shot back. “How the hell did it end up in my office?”
“Um… You know the interior designer you hired to redecorate your office, sir? Well, I think she put it there. She is famous for adding a thoughtful, personal touch to every space. Or something like that, I read on her Yelp page…” Sarah trailed off, noticing my irate expression.
“Please take it away,” I said, throwing the frame on the ground. “This is an office, not a living room.”
Sarah walked over and bent to pick up the frame. As she did, I noticed her subtly but deftly jutting her ass out, holding it there for longer than necessary before standing back up. She had only recently begun to do this. Her skirt was also an inch shorter than it used to be, and her heels higher. I looked down at the file in front of me as she stood up.
“Anything else, sir?” she asked coyly.
“Yes. Please tell my driver I will be down in a minute.”
“Alright, sir,” she said, batting her eyelashes. Another recent improvement.
As a successful twenty-eight-year-old billionaire, I run my own mobile phone empire. Last month I was named in TIME Magazine’s “10 Sexiest Billionaires in the Country” list. I could draw women to me with little to no effort. I hardly ever had to go on dates, yet I always had a woman in bed or by my side when I wanted one. I had the life I wanted once I had learned about the reality of my parents’ marriage. I had vowed that I would never marry, never fall into the trap of love, and never, ever try to share my life with another person. And now, men across the country looked at me with envy and women across the country wanted to be with me. What more could you want?
However, all that changed when I returned to Richmond, my hometown. My parents, for all their digressions, continued the façade of the happy couple. They slept with other people but appeared at parties arm-in-arm, smiling in unison and seeming unable to be apart. Sometimes I thought maybe they were soulmates. Or, at the very least, their souls were fashioned out of the same, twisted mold.
Yet, every time I went home, my mother obsessed over my “singleness,” and my dad made his usual “It’s about time, son, to get tethered to the ball and chain” comment. Over time, I had learned to ignore them. They made these statements mechanically, as if fulfilling a family tradition and nothing more.
I picked up my briefcase and left my office. Sarah was sitting behind her desk and looked up as I closed my office door behind me. “Are you going to be away for the weekend, sir?” she asked.
“Yes, Sarah. But please don’t hesitate to forward any important emails to me and keep me updated,” I said. I’m not going anywhere that matters.
“Have a great weekend, sir,” she beamed, furiously batting her eyelashes.
“Have a great weekend yourself, Sarah,” I said with a smile and walked away, purposefully ignoring her flirtations.
My phone rang again once I was in my car. Ernie, a friend of mine from college, was on the other end. “Hey,” I answered warmly.
“How are you doing, lady-magnet? Ditching New York and going to your parents’ thing?” Ernie boomed without a greeting.
“Yeah, headed to the airport now.”
“Steering clear of crazy stalker lady?” he laughed.
At one of Ernie’s parties, I met a woman and we chatted over drinks. Later, we ended up in my hotel room. The next morning, the girl told me in a chirpy voice “You know what? I am Laura!” Laura and I had slept together four years ago, and she had been trying to find a way to get together again since then. Things got weird, and I had to bring in my security to dispense with her just a month before.
“Ha-ha!” I jeered. “You’re a funny one.”
“Jokes aside,” he said, “did you try the app I told you about?”
“Yeah, I did. My mother has been pestering me for days to bring a plus one,” I replied, rubbing my temple.
“Did it work?” he asked, curious.
“I suppose. We’ll have to wait and see.”
The experience with stalker Laura had put me in a bad mood. Which is why, even though I could literally have taken any woman I wanted with me to my parents’ charity dinner, I had chosen to use an app suggested by Ernie. It would choose a suitable stranger merely to accompany me to the dinner and nothing more.
The app had matched me with a Tia Watson from Richmond. The girl in the picture was a pretty young thing—hazel eyes with long, straight, brunette hair. She had an exotic complexion with a small nose and full lips, and was posing in the picture in a way that suggested she thought the whole thing was humorous and ironic. I liked the look of her. For a girl I had only seen in a photo, I really liked the look of her.
Neal
I landed in Richmond at seven p.m. My driver, Todd, waited for me outside the Richmond Municipal Airport. It was a clear, beautiful evening, and pale, full moonlight glimmered faintly in the east. I had informed Miss Watson via the app messenger that I would pick her up at half-past-seven, and she had sent me her address.
We arrived in front of her building five minutes early. I rang her but my call was dropped. A couple of minutes later, the girl from the photo appeared at the entrance of the building, accompanied by another girl in jeans and a sweatshirt with cartoons on it.
For all I cared, the other girl could have been standing naked on the sidewalk. She would have been all but invisible to me, for I had eyes only for Tia Watson. She wore a modest red dress, not too long but not too short, either. Her hair hung bright and straight on both sides of her face, which was much more exotic than it had appeared in the photograph. On her feet, she sported low red heels, and her bare arms and legs needed no accessory, save one gold bangle.
The other girl hugged Tia—a warm, protective kind of a hug—and said something to her. Tia smiled and replied, then walked to the car. Todd held the door open for her, his expression bland, as always. A faint smell of lavender drifted into the car as she slid into the back seat and sat with a respectable distance between us.
I greeted her with a brief nod, then focused my gaze straight ahead. I was ridiculously afraid of revealing just how much I wanted to look if I let my eyes linger on her for a moment longer.
She seemed slightly taken aback by this less than polite acknowledgment and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The idea sent a surge of discomfort coursing through me. I wanted to comfort her, and the knowledge of that scared me. I remained silent. But I had to acknowledge that no woman had ever been able to captivate me so completely after only a glance.
She cleared her throat and said in a
timid, clear voice, “Hi, um…I’m Tia. It’s nice to meet you.”
Her voice was warm and mesmerizing, like a babbling brook. I turned my head and, for the first time, caught her gaze. I held it for much longer than was polite, letting everything I was feeling pour into that single gaze. Her hazel eyes flashed with momentary confusion as she read something in the intensity of my gaze. Almost instinctually, as if she had no control over it, her lips parted slightly in response.
The moment caught me by surprise, and deep in my gut I felt a longing I had never felt before. That single moment of craziness captured who I was, who I had been and would become, and transformed it into something entirely new. I sensed, even then, that there was no going back. The man who didn’t believe in love, let alone love at first sight, was fading and becoming a new man. The fallacious irony of these strange feelings was not lost on me.
I don’t remember making a conscious decision to kiss her. It seemed the only logical next step. I leaned over in my seat and kissed her on her beautiful, alluring, full lips. She resisted for the smallest moment, and then I felt her give in. Her lips parted, deepening the kiss, and I slid the tip of my tongue between them. Through the silk of her dress, I felt her nipples harden against my chest.
My pants instantly felt tighter, and a growl surfaced in my throat. I felt her squirm, as if unable to control herself. Crazily, the only coherent thought in my head was that I would do anything to get my mouth on those delicious nipples.
But before I could act on the fantasy, reality sunk in: the gates to my father’s estate were opening on both sides of our car.
I pulled back and swore silently that this was the hardest damn thing I had ever had to do in my entire life. Next to me, Tia took a breath—more like a gasp—which captured my attention again. However, she had also realized we had arrived at our destination. She dragged her gaze away from me to look out the window, took another deep breath, and ran her hand through her hair to smooth it.
