Page 18 of Mara
Why would someone send me this?
Frowning, I picked up the flower and ran to my computer upstairs. A few internet searches later, I had my answer.
A marigold symbolized one thing…death.
After abusing B.O.B. and staring uncomfortably long at that damn flower, I settled myself on my bed and started clacking on my keyboard.
The dating site was atrocious, and the dates were worse than I’d expected, but I didn’t have a normal life.
If I wanted to upgrade from B.O.B., the gas station lay, or my co-worker, Kole, who was probably worse…if and when he came to work…
And now, my sister’s fucking boyfriend…
This online connection bullshit was my only healthy option.
I pulled up my profile and grimaced at my pictures.
One was a blurry photo of me holding Cheese, and the other was an awkwardly cropped photo of me in my scrubs, trying to hide my place of work. The way I cropped it made it look like I was a floating head.
My bio was cryptic enough to conceal what I actually did in my day-to-day life, while providing enough truth to keep me from having to lie. I tried the route of pretending to be a completely different person. However, I got the different personas mixed up and ended up bungling them together while looking like an idiot.
Half-truths were inherently better.
One thing I didn’t lie about was my sexual preferences. This site asked you a variety of detailed questions and matched your answers with those of others to determine compatibility.
I didn’t answer all the generic normal questions—if I wanted kids, hell to the fuck no, I could barely keep myself alive, and where I saw myself in ten years, probably dead.
It was overall better to avoid those kinds of topics. I didn’t know why I was even on the dating site. I would have fared better signing up for a link website to ‘meet a hot local.’
I didn’t really want my kinky tastes to land me in the grave or some weird sex disease, so dating sites were the only true option.
Sighing, I looked over the messages and filtered out the spam bots and weirdos to find the actual probable choices. There were about ten. No big surprise there. The introduction messages ranged from cheesy one-line pick-ups to straight-to-the-point ones. ‘Wanna fuck? With a winky face emoji.’
What was it with men thinking that kinky meant easy?
I scrolled to one photo of a man I had matched with. He was sporting Day of the Dead face paint.
Half of his face was painted with half of an actual skull. It was intricate and creepy—my favorite combination. I felt an allure to his eyes.
He wasn’t facing the camera directly. The photo was taken at night, and his hand wrapped around a pink leash.
I couldn't see what the pet was, but I imagined it was some massive Great Dane or maybe something far-fetched, like a poodle that matched the pink collar. I was shocked to see a message from such an intriguing man. This wasn’t a site for masked hotties. This was more the kind of thing where the dopey dads were looking for a second wife.
Where the fuck did you come from?
I thought shamelessly as I scrolled through the pictures of the man, each one more haunting than the last. There was an album that had a little lock symbol next to it, and I huffed at being denied access. I’d have to ask for permission to see that album, and that would ruin my anonymity while stalking this hottie.
Ignoring my better judgment, I clicked the button labeled: “Request Private Album.”
Holding in a breath I didn’t realize I had, I gagged on my own tongue when the green symbol by his name popped up.
Oh fuck me. That’s my luck. He just read a notification that I want to see his pictures…
I bit my lip in anticipation, clicking off his profile altogether in case he could see that I was stalking his pictures. I put my attention on the other messages in my inbox.
Ignoring the unoriginal perverts, I moved to the other, more classy messages.
Hi there. I can’t see all of you, but damn, you’re beautiful.
