Gaga for the Gargoyle (Fated Dates)

Chapter 1 – Evangeline

F uck. I need to get laid.

I set my vibrator down. The toy did its job, getting me off. It’s one of those dildos with a thrusting feature and an extended piece that massages the clit.

I came, and it was good.

So why do I feel so empty? So…unsatisfied?

I need to be dicked. I need to be fucked so hard, my cunt is sore for days. I’ve never had good sex like that, especially with my ex-husband, who is the only man I’ve ever slept with.

My phone dings on the bedside table, reminding me it’s time to get ready for work. I am not looking forward to this shift. Last night, from the moment I clocked in at seven p.m., it was non-stop patients. I didn’t even sit down and eat until I got home at eight in the morning.

At least the night goes by fast when I’m busy. I don’t have to think about my life’s failures. I mean, sure, I have a decent job. I’m a night nurse in New York City making enough money to afford a cute one-bedroom apartment in NoLita.

But I’m not happy. I haven’t been for a while.

I’m a divorcée, and my ex-husband treated me like shit. He weaponized my height and weight. I’m five foot one and 250 pounds. He criticized what he considered my lack of dreams—I don’t want to be a doctor. I love being a nurse; I just want to care for people in need when they’re at their weakest. He made me believe I wasn’t worthy every damn day until something clicked, and I realized he was wrong, and he was the one who wasn’t worthy of me .

It’s been six months since our divorce was finalized, but our marriage had been dead for years before that. Working to build myself back up from his verbal abuse has been exhausting.

It’s also been rewarding because for the first time in my life, I’m getting to know myself. I’m discovering what I like and what I hate, without anyone telling me what I should like or should hate.

Now, I’m more than ready to move on. I’m ready to start dating again, but fuck, I’m terrified. Mostly because, how do I go about it? Do I go to a bar? That’s something I did in my twenties, and I wasn’t even on the market then. Going to bars at age forty while single? I think I’d rather yeet myself into the ocean while on my period and make friends with hungry sharks. See, that’s another thing. Yeet? Are people my age allowed to say words like that? What if I go to a bar and blurt out slang that’s no longer ‘in’? Yeah, no bars. I’d feel too out of place.

I could hang out in the produce section of the grocery store. Maybe find me a date who can cook me dinner—and breakfast, if it’s a good enough date. I’m a horrible cook. I can make scrambled eggs and pancakes, a simple pasta dish or a kickass salad, burgers are easy enough, and chili is my specialty dish. Beyond that, I’m clueless.

Wait. No. Cooking dinner for someone is such an intimate thing to do. Staying the night and having them make breakfast the next morning screams second date, which potentially leads to a third date, then commitment, and I’m not looking to be tied down to another man.

I’m not looking for a soulmate.

As if those even exist.

God, I sound so bitter. I blame my ex for that. Maybe I should just download a dating app since I’m wanting more of a hookup right now .

I pick up my phone and groan. The apps and my shitty dating life will have to wait until tomorrow morning because I’m about to be late.

My shower is quick since I don’t wash my hair, which is something I do once every couple of days. I pick out a fresh pair of scrubs from my laundry basket—I hate putting away clothes. After pinning my thick, wavy brown hair into a tight bun at the top of my head, I give my adorable black cat Birdie—because her meow sounds more like a chirping bird—a kiss on the head and leave.

The hospital I work at is a few blocks away. Walking there should only take five minutes, but sometimes I get distracted by the buildings and stop to admire the stunning structures, especially the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. I discovered the church a few weeks ago after taking a different route to work. I’m not religious at all, but there’s something about the building that’s...familiar. Comforting.

Sometimes, after a rough shift at work, and once the parish opens at 8:30 a.m., I’ll go inside and sit in the pews, closing my eyes and listening. The silence is heavy yet healing.

The gothic architecture is hauntingly beautiful. My eyes are always drawn to the highest point of the building...as if something is up there, waiting for me. It doesn’t scare me. It’s intriguing, tempting almost.

The church is closed when I go into work, and if I wouldn’t get arrested for trespassing, I’d hop the fence and go find what’s silently calling to me.

Tonight, the church’s pull is nearly too strong to avoid. It’s...painful as I walk away. My stomach twists, and nausea washes over me. But I can’t stay tonight. I can’t linger and stare into the void like I do some evenings because I’m already late for my shift.

When I get to work, my coworkers are running around. The chaos has already started: gunshot victims, people with chest pain, people who were hit by falling debris from a building—literally my worst fear. Actually, my apartment catching fire is my worst fear because I will die trying to save my cat instead of myself.

Speaking of fires, halfway through my shift, we get a call about a massive blaze at a nearby high-rise. Dozens of patients are heading our way to be treated for smoke inhalation, burns, or injuries sustained while trying to escape in a panic.

I barely have time to breathe by the time my shift ends. The only thing I ate was a granola bar I keep in my scrubs pocket for nights like tonight, and I didn’t sit down once, unless sitting on the toilet to pee counts .

When I leave work, the sun is out. It’s summer, and the morning is warm. I bask in the golden rays and the slight breeze that smells like the bakery on my block. I consider stopping for an apple cinnamon muffin or a cream-filled donut, but I’m trying not to spend any unnecessary money. New York City is expensive and moving here drained me of my savings.

Once home, I make myself a bowl of cereal and sit on the couch watching the morning news, tuning out the details of the apartment fire. Most of the patients I treated tonight told me everything I needed to know: hearing the alarms, seeing the smoke filling the hallways, running down thirty floors of stairs to safety.

Not everyone made it out alive.

My phone beeps with a notification, and I open it to find a red bubble hovering over a new app.

Kiss-meet.

A dating app? Huh. That’s weird. I didn’t download this. At least, I don’t think I did. Wait. Did I do it before going to work? The night was so chaotic, it’s possible I downloaded it and forgot.

I open the app, and it takes me to a screen to fill out my details.

Okay. I guess this is happening.

Name: Ev a

No. Brandon called me Eva. Since moving to Manhattan, I’ve been introducing myself as Evangeline. I left Eva in Upstate New York.

Age: 40

I cringe when entering that number. I never thought I’d be on a fucking dating app at my age. Oh well, maybe I’ll meet someone my age. Or a silver fox in his sixties. Or some hot twenty-something-year-old who wants to date a plus-size cougar.

Height: 5’1”

Eye Color: Blue

Hair Color: Brown

Location: Manhattan

I hit submit, and it takes me to a screen to upload a picture. I choose a recent one that shows off my body. I know men can be weird about fat women. Most want to fuck us but not date us. Right now, I’m okay with that. Like I said, I’m not looking for commitment. Still, I put a whole-body photo so they can’t be surprised that I’m a big girl.

The picture is from my first day after moving here a few months ago. I accepted the nursing job and left the small town where I grew up in Upstate New York. I had to leave. I couldn’t stand being in the same town as my ex-husband anymore, even though I had long moved out of the home we shared and lived in a studio apartment I could barely afford on my school nurse salary.

I’m smiling in this photo. I asked a stranger to take it while visiting the Top of the Rock. It was the first time in years I felt happy. My chipmunk cheeks are dimpled, and my blue eyes light up with something other than sadness and defeat. I’m wearing a purple spaghetti strap sundress, which shows off the floral tattoos along my arms, shoulders, and chest.

The tattoos consist of white heather flowers, which symbolize protection. I also have purple Evangeline lilacs because ever since I was a kid, I’ve been obsessed with the flower that I share a name with. My mother told me Evangeline means the bearer of good news. She said I was her rainbow baby. She always worried something was going to take me away from her.

Not some one. Some thing.

She’d keep white heathers around my crib and throughout the house for protection. As I grew older, she’d tell me stories about supernatural beings who lived among us. Beings that could be evil. Beings that wanted to harm me. She’d stuff my backpack with the flowers before I left the house for school and made sure I wore the heather bracelet and necklace she made me—pieces of jewelry that Brandon threw away one day, thinking they were trash .

I was furious at him, which prompted me to get the tattoos the next day. He hated them, but I didn’t care. The tattoos weren’t for him or me. They were for my mother who’d been begging me to get them since I turned eighteen.

Me marking my body with ink might have been the moment Brandon fell out of love with me. We’d fight constantly after that, especially if it involved my mother.

He hated that I kept her in my life.

I was ten years old when my father found out she believed an evil being wanted to kidnap me. He sent her away to a psychiatric hospital where she remains today. I try to visit her once a week, but she doesn’t talk much anymore. Sometimes, I go just to sit with her, or read to her, or let her know I still love her.

I haven’t seen her in months, ever since I moved to the city and work a busy job. I don’t have a car anymore either and the train ride to the hospital would take at least two hours because the town isn’t along a main line.

Birdie jumps into my lap and jolts me out of my thoughts. She rubs her face against mine and chirps, letting me know it’s time to eat.

“Okay, Birdie Girl. Let me finish this, and I’ll get your breakfast. ”

I take one more look at the photo. My hair is styled perfectly around my face in waves. I gave myself bangs and a wolf cut a year ago, and now I’m obsessed. I’ve always liked the clothes and style of the seventies and eighties, and now I have the hair to match.

“Here goes nothing,” I say and tap submit.

The app processes and takes me to an empty page, where I assume my matches will be displayed. I search for the section where I can swipe or heart profiles, but I must be exhausted, because it’s nowhere to be found. My brain is struggling to function.

Okay. I’ll figure that out when I wake up this evening. I exit Kiss-meet and set my phone on the table.

After feeding Birdie and showering the night away, I crawl into bed and fall asleep dreaming about a sexy man, tall and packed full of muscles with...lavender skin?