by Maia Starr
Ryan, deadly serious, looked me in the eye. “This is about more than just your happiness. This is about the future of the clan. This is about your father’s legacy. So sit back down.”
It wasn’t a request.
“I assure you, Mr. Carter,” Angie said, “we will work with you to select a wife that you will be more than happy with. We aim to please, and so will she.”
“Let me sleep on it,” I said.
“Of course.” Angie pulled out a clipboard with several sheets of paper. “In the meantime, let’s get you started on your background check and legal requirements so that if you do decide to proceed with our service, we don’t need to waste time.”
She handed me the clipboard and I began reading through and signing the documentation.
Chapter Two
Amelia
A lot of vegan bakeries aren’t very good. The main problem is with their egg substitutes. Without a proper replacement for egg, baked goods may still taste good, but they lack the proper emulsification to stay together, and so you get muffins that crumble in your hands.
Here’s my secret: banana.
I know, it sounds crazy, but banana is a solid replacement for egg. It sticks together well and, as a plus, adds a sweet taste that goes well with pretty much everything. Chocolate brownies with a hint of banana flavoring are to die for. Try one and you’ll never go back to eggs.
I know this because of my work at the Sunshine Bakery, a plant-based establishment catering to vegans throughout San Francisco. Every single day, I’d go in, excited to come up with new ways to make old favorites without having to rely on staples like cow’s milk, egg, or gelatin.
Of course, the nicest compliment is when somebody takes a bite of something and gives you a quizzical look: “Are you sure this is vegan?”
And you can assure them that no animal was harmed in the making of that cupcake. Nothing had to die, and nothing had to suffer. It’s just pure, guilt-free enjoyment.
I had one of those customers the day I saw the ad right at the end of my shift, allowing me to walk to the train like I was floating on air, proud of myself and my hard work.
Maybe it was the dopamine flowing through my blood that made everything happen. Maybe if I had left before that customer had come in, I wouldn’t have even looked twice at the ad on my phone.
But the fact is that he did, and as I sat on the train, going through social media, the ad popped up:
“Interested in Marrying a Dragon?”
I, like everyone else, had seen the dragons flying around the city from time to time, diving below the Golden Gate Bridge or gliding above the streets, but if I’d ever met one, I didn’t know about it.
They’re such beautiful and graceful creatures, I always liked to fantasize that they were just as interesting in human form, but I’d never known before. They were part of a different class of people, the dragon-shifters, and though I’d always wondered what it would be like to kiss one or even—it was hard to even say it—go to bed with one, I never believed it was something I’d get to experience.
I remember once, early in our relationship, when Xavier, my current boyfriend, asked me if I had any sexual fantasies. And I said I always wanted to be with a dragon. Just the idea sent a shiver down my spine and a warmth throughout my body.
He didn’t react well.
Xavier is a shifter, but he’s a wolf-shifter. And he hates dragons. And just suggesting that I would like to be with a dragon, as a fantasy mind you, really upset him, to the point that he kept bringing it up any time we’d fight. As if I’d love him more if he was a dragon.
That’s not true. I loved him with all my heart. He just made it difficult sometimes because anytime I tried getting close to him, he’d push me away. And any time I spent any time away from him, he’d accuse me of cheating.
My friends told me our relationship was unhealthy, and it was. They warned me about getting in a relationship with a shifter, particularly one who seemed to fetishize human relationships, but what other choice did I have? He took care of me and kept me safe, and I didn’t need to worry about losing the roof over my head. Not to mention, he was very handsome, if nondescript, like a model in a magazine ad.
The truth, if I could be honest with myself, was that I had no way of leaving. He controlled my bank account, the lease was in his name, and he was very emotional. Even the suggestion of leaving could send him over the edge, and that was a little scary.
But so long as I didn’t leave him, and kept things going smoothly, things weren’t too bad. He was a kind man, so long as he got what he wanted, and it wasn’t too much work to give it to him. Smile, cook him food, compliment him, and tell him he’s right about everything. I could live a very comfortable life with him, so long as I followed the rules.
Of course, clicking the ad would not be part of those rules.
I looked over my shoulder. If he’d even seen me on a page with that ad, he’d be furious. But I was on the train, heading home, and he was nowhere around.
So what was the harm in clicking it now? Just as a curiosity? What he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him, right?
I held my breath and clicked the button. There wasn’t even an application form, just another button asking me to submit my profile. If anybody was interested, they’d contact me with more information.
Again, with no real risk, I clicked the link and submitted my profile. And then I forgot about it.
“You’re late,” Xavier said, a slight hint of a growl in his voice. No, “Hi, how are you?” or, “I missed you all day.” Just a two-word sentence with the subtext that he’s hungry and I need to cook him dinner.
“I missed the train,” I said. “I’m always cutting it close.”
He looked at me with suspicion, then sniffed the air and nodded.
“If I’m late in the future, you’re welcome to reheat something without me,” I said, putting on an apron. “How does pasta sound?”
“I’m hungry,” he said. “As long as it’s fast and has some meat in it.”
“Spaghetti? Meatballs?”
“Sure.”
Easy enough to make. I pulled some ground meat out of the fridge, put it in a bowl, and began to add some seasonings.
The growl in his tone left once he became aware of himself, once the process began. “I’m sorry, babe,” he said. “You know how I get when I’m hungry.”
“I do, hon.”
“It’s the hypoglycemia.”
“I know.” I went to the sink, washing my hands. Growing up, we always called it being “hangry,” but whatever it was, I was hoping that I could get things going before it came back. I started mixing the ground beef together with the seasonings and rolling it into tiny balls.
“You know,” he said, “I’m really lucky to have you. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Starve probably.”
“I’m sure you’d be just fine,” I said, “but I appreciate it.”
“And so beautiful, too. Every time I look at you.” He put his hand through my hair, and I felt a nasty chill on the back of my neck. I don’t like being touched when I’m trying to focus.
A drop of water fell on my head. I looked up, and it was coming from the AC vent.
“Did you call the super about that?” I asked.
He looked up at the vent. “Oh, right. Yeah, I’ll call him again tomorrow. He just said to put a bucket underneath it.”
“It’s supposed to get warmer the next couple of days. I don’t want the AC going out.”
“I know, I know. I’m dealing with it. It’s not a big deal,” he said.
I guess it could have been worse. But the apartment was falling apart. The AC dripped from time to time, the furnace made terrifying noises during the winter, the walls were thin, and no matter how many bait traps we set, the roaches never went away. Still, rent was relatively cheap for San Francisco and plenty of people in the city didn’t have a roof over their heads.
“Could you fill a pot halfway with water a
nd put it on the stove?” I asked.
He huffed. “Fine,” he said. “I’m just trying to give you a little affection. Plenty of women out there who would kill for that kind of attention from me.”
“I know,” I said. I heard him turn the sink on and fill the pot with water as I finished up with the meatballs. “I guess I’m lucky to have you, too.” I smiled at him, but he wasn’t looking at me.
“I’m going to go watch the game.” He left the kitchen, and I let out a sigh of relief.
That night, he came to bed and passed out beside me, a result of the carb-heavy dinner and one too many beers. I thought about my life and wondered if this was it. Was this what I had to look forward to, day in day out, for the rest of my life? Hoping that, defying the odds, my handsome boyfriend would one day calm down and be the man I wanted to love. And he’d propose, and we’d live happily ever after.
More likely, he’d keep on being the man he currently was, but with a beer gut and less hair. What if this was the part of the relationship that I’d one day look back on with fondness? What if this was the peak?
I was twenty-five years old, still young, but I knew thirty was just around the corner. And this wasn’t the life I wanted. But what was I going to do about it?
I thought about the marriage agency. Yeah, right, I told myself. I may as well have counted on winning the lottery as a way out.
No, I was stuck, and if you can’t have the life you love, then you may as well get used to loving the life you have.
It was a lot like what I dealt with at the bakery. I can’t use egg, so I just need to find the right substitute to make it work. What could I do to make the relationship I was in work for me?
Chapter Three
Glenn
Angie called me to come back to the office, saying she had some women I was definitely going to want to take a look at. I still wasn’t convinced that the Fiery Hearts route was the way to go, but I had nothing better going on, so I took the five-minute drive to see what she had to offer.
“I’m not going to waste your time,” she said. “We’ve got some women for bargain shoppers, but I know that that’s not what you’re looking for. You’re looking for the best we have to offer, aren’t you?”
I sighed. “Do you have any idea how demeaning this is? These are people you’re talking about.”
“Oh, like I haven’t heard that before,” she said. “Think of this as the ultimate dating app. Everybody needs to go through an approval process, and if they’re not interested in you, you’re not getting married. All we’re doing is facilitating the connection as well as the eventual separation.”
“What if I pick someone and we fall in love and want to stay married?”
Angie shook her head. “Are you familiar with NRE?”
“NRE?”
“New Relationship Energy. It’s that feeling that you get when you start seeing someone for the first time. Your heart beats a little faster. Colors seem brighter. Cheesy love songs don’t seem quite so cheesy.”
I nodded.
“It fades. Reality intrudes, and we start to see other people for who they are. This is science: NRE doesn’t last. After six months or so, the only reason that we stay with someone is because it’s easier than finding someone new. Ask any married couple, and if they’re honest, they’ll tell you that even if they ‘love’ their partner, they’re not in love with them like they were when they first met. By six months in, no matter whom you pick, you’ll be starting to fall out of love. After a year, you’ll be begging for someone new.”
“You’re very cynical,” I said.
“Do you want me to provide the studies? This is science. Two hundred years ago, we thought bloodletting cured disease, but science taught us otherwise. Five hundred years ago, we thought the sun moved around the Earth, but science taught us otherwise. This is the same idea. Life-long marriage was thought to be the best way to pair up, but science is showing us that it isn’t, and there’s a better way. This isn’t cynicism. This is reality.”
She grabbed her tablet from a drawer of her desk and pressed a few buttons.
“We got your background check back and everything looks good. The next step is for you to answer some questions on a survey regarding what you’re looking for.”
She handed me the tablet, which had several questions ranging from hair color to bust size to level of education.
“This doesn’t seem very romantic at all,” I said.
“You need to break from your current way of thinking. The reason it doesn’t seem very romantic is because you’ve been programmed into believing what others say true romance is. This is faster and more efficient and will, therefore, better match you with a compatible partner than the more…traditional method.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And if it doesn’t work, we offer our money-back guarantee. If you don’t like the wife we provide, you can exchange her for another or ask for a complete refund so long as it’s within the fifteen-day window.”
I looked at her in disbelief. “Do you wake up each morning proud of yourself and what you contribute to this world?”
She matched my look and, with complete confidence, responded, “Truthfully, yes. Yes, I do.”
I filled out the form to the best of my ability, hating myself more and more with each question I answered. I pressed submit to reveal a page of compatible women, complete with smiling pictures and brief bios.
Angie was eager. “What do you think?”
“They’re all very pretty,” I said.
“Pretty? They’re downright gorgeous. And any one of them can be yours. Take your time, go through the bios, and let me know which ones you like.”
I flipped through the screens one at a time, looking at the pictures. Some had filters, some were clearly professionally taken, whereas others were amateur selfies. There were all sorts of women, and none of them were anything more than pictures on a page. A smiling Japanese woman who liked hiking. A bookish, fair-skinned woman who looked like she may have been into doing the Sunday crossword outside on the patio. Another woman, athletic-looking, maybe Hispanic, who probably had unlimited energy and woke up every morning at dawn for a daily five-mile run.
But there was no spark. How could there be? They were just images on a page, triggering stereotypes in my mind of what “type” they were, and so it’s no surprise that none of them jumped out as anything special. Perhaps I’d meet one of them, and we’d hit it off right from the start, or perhaps we’d bore each other within minutes of meeting each other, wishing that we’d opted for a one-night stand rather than a year-long marriage.
Of course, how bad could it really be? This was a sham marriage, through and through; all we had to do was be intimate enough to get her pregnant, and then the obligation was over. In a sense, it could be the most honest relationship I’d ever had. She’d get a few nights with a dragon-shifter, if that’s what she wanted, and probably a healthy payday, and I’d get an heir to the clan and the billions of dollars worth of inheritance owed to me by my father.
“They all look…fine,” I said.
“Just fine?” Angie asked.
“Yeah, just send a message to all of them, I guess. Whoever responds first is fine with me.”
She looked on in disbelief. “You don’t seem particularly excited about this.”
“Well, that’s because I’m not,” I said. “But if this is truly what my father wanted, then I guess let him have his dying wish.”
I pushed the tablet back towards her and, in the process, grazed the “Next” button.
“Wait,” I said. I pulled the tablet back to me.
Her green eyes seemed to look right at me, no matter how I held the screen, and I couldn’t stop looking at them. On the surface, perhaps she wasn’t the most conventionally beautiful woman in the world, but there was a quality to her that I couldn’t put my finger on that drew me to her, as if I had known her forever without having actually met her. As if there was some preternatura
l force pulling us together and every moment in each of our lives had prepared us for this.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
A sly grin slid across Angie’s face. “Did cupid’s arrow just strike?”
“No, I just…”
“You’re blushing.”
I could feel it. I was blushing and denying a crush like I was in grade school. “I just think she’s pretty.”
“May I?” she asked for the tablet. I handed it to her. She pressed a few buttons. “I can’t tell you her full name until we get both side confirmations, for privacy reasons, but I can tell you it will be Amelia Carter. She’s a baker that our algorithm has tagged as an ‘ISFP,’ or introverted, sensing, feeling, perceiving, according to Myers-Briggs. She’s new to the system. Actually, it looks like she just signed up last night. I think she’d be a wonderful match for you. Would you like me to reach out?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Go for it.”
She clicked a few buttons on her tablet and put it away. “We’ll contact you as soon as she gets back to us, regardless of how she responds.”
“Okay, great.” I tried to hide the excitement in my voice. I left the office, and for the first time in a long time, I felt a sense of optimism.
It was later that afternoon I received the call from Angie.
“Congratulations, Glenn,” she said. “You’re engaged!”
I was surprised it happened so quickly. I didn’t know what to say. “Okay, so what’s next?”
“Do you want to know her full name?”
“The woman I’m going to marry? Yes, of course.”
“Amelia Davis. Lucky girl, if you ask me. Now, the nature of the package is that, from here on out, we will be mostly invisible. We’ll just be doing a little tinkering behind the scenes to make sure everything works out for you. The only thing left for you to do is to go to the Sunshine Bakery on Hyde St. within the next two hours and order a raspberry scone. Can you do that?”
