1. The Mateless
The Mateless
“ H ow about I pick you up at eight?” Alexander’s voice booms through my phone’s speaker from on top of my desk.
And it was Alexander . Not Alex or Xander. Alexander .
Cathy and I laughed that it was the reason he didn’t have a soulmate. There wasn’t anything wrong with his preference. It was the way he said it. He stressed the point with a haughty impression, like it elevated him above the rest of us.
People who give us rude looks when we laugh seem to forget the obvious part: soulmates don’t work that way.
I could only joke about a mateless with another mateless. The rest of society frowned upon trivializing the worst fate that could befall someone. They shut the fuck up once they realized I was one of the fucked over ones.
Being a card-carrying member of that club gave my mouth the right to say whatever I damn well pleased.
Now Cathy laughs at me since Alexander and I have been dating for almost a year.
Kids are a soulmate-only offering, something already excluded from my life whether I’m with Alexander or any other mateless.
I might as well find someone to keep my bed warm at night and maybe cook breakfast in the morning.
Alexander knows my room service order.
Good enough.
“Sounds good.” I end the call and look around the station. The four other officers not on patrol are glued to their desks, blatantly eavesdropping on my call.
I had put the call on speaker for them. Let them live vicariously.
Maybe even shine some hope into their lives.
Or give them something to laugh at behind my back.
They are all mateless, too. Something common amongst the dangerous occupations.
Sometimes, a mated pair would enter the force together, determined to show the world they cared about something other than their soulmate.
They didn’t.
It was the plus and minus of finding the other half of your soul. They are your everything. Everything else comes second. Always. Every. Time.
It took me a while to stop hating every mated person out there. Now that I have settled into my proper place in the world, I just avoid them. It helps to keep me from throwing punches.
Cathy catches my gaze and smirks before getting up and heading straight for me. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a high ponytail, secured by a simple rubber band, as she typically does. Blue eyes stare at me from above as her palms land hard on my desk.
“Still shoveling mediocrity down your throat and pretending it isn’t shit, Kira?”
“It’s better than holding out for a ghost,” I challenge back with a pointed stare.
Cathy winces, and her K9, Rex, whimpers by her side.
I win this round with an intentionally low punch.
Cathy had one conversation with her soulmate on the day she hit puberty. They exchanged names and ages, then quickly realized there was a decade-long age gap. Her soulmate insisted they refrain from further contact until she turned eighteen.
Too bad he died before that.
Cathy messaged him on her eighteenth birthday and was met with silence. She searched his name and came across his death report. Now, she keeps pictures of him she found online, printed, and pinned to her bedroom walls. She hates that she keeps them, but can’t bring herself to remove them.
She loves me for giving her a hard time about it. That way, it’s not just her beating herself up. The mateless have to take care of each other. We all know no one else will.
Cathy said something clicked inside her when she first saw her soulmate’s eyes on the monitor.
They had never met, but she suddenly felt they had known each other their entire lives.
Next came the agonizing, crushing realization that she would mourn someone she had never met for the rest of her life.
If she could, she would dig that part out of her soul.
The hole left behind would be better than mourning something she never got to have.
The only thing that helps now is dark humor and violence, just like all the mateless.
“But Alexander ,” Cathy whines, getting back to the topic of making fun of me .
“Excuse me, but you were the one that set us up.”
“I told you there was a creep in the corner staring at you.” Cathy stands straight, putting her hands on her hips. “That did not mean stride over to him and shove your tongue down his throat. That was all you.”
“Whatever.” I smile at the memory. It made a hell of an impression.
“But you’ve been with him for a while now…” Cathy’s trailing silence attempted to ask what her lips didn’t want the blame for speaking.
“Maybe.” I shrug, not wanting to say the word marriage out loud any more than she did. It tastes too much like desperation.
I look around, catching the other officers listening in again.
“At least I know that I’m getting laid tonight,” I say loud enough that they know I’m talking to them, too.
“It’s Friday night. Bet I get some ass tonight, too,” James says, raking a hand through his short sandy hair.
“I keep telling you, all you have to do is ask.” Cathy slides James a mischievous smirk. Rex whines again.
“You let me know the day you hand in your resignation papers, doll.” James winks, ending their flirtatious romp with a dose of sobering truth.
The only ones allowed to date within the workforce are soulmates.
“You just want that promotion, and you know you’ll never get it without getting rid of the competition,” Cathy says, before returning her attention to me. “Don’t settle, Kira.” She taps my desk to punctuate her point.
Rex follows by her side as she returns to her seat. The large brindle shepherd lays down on the floor with a loud huff. There is less than an hour before our shift ends, and no one has anything better to do than sit and wait.
I drive the cruiser home, the same as every other day. It allows me to volunteer for emergencies at night. There isn’t anything better to do most of the time, so why not? It’s not like I have a family to come home to.
As long as I’m sober when I get the call.
My house looks identical to the others on the street. They are all one bedroom, one bathroom, and given free to the mateless. The politicians like to tout them as accommodation. As if we are all diseased. They act like we could spread our infliction to them.
As a police officer, I am acutely aware that the mateless are responsible for nearly all crime. Ninety-eight percent of the population finds their mate by the age of twenty. After that, they are ideal citizens. The only type this society wants.
Really, they’re too busy wrapped up in each other to notice anyone else. Let alone hurt them.
I unlock my front door, grabbing the handful of mail from the box before heading inside. The air smells stale, and I move from room to room, opening windows to let in the breeze. It’s a hot summer evening, but I would rather the heat than the stench of loneliness.
There are several hours to waste before Alexander picks me up, and I already know what to wear. The choice isn’t difficult. I only have four nice outfits that I wear on rotation.
Alexander has seen them all and doesn’t have a favorite.
I close and lock the door to my bedroom, a habit from childhood I haven’t been able to break.
There is something unsettling about sitting in the middle of the living room by myself watching TV or standing alone in my kitchen cooking a meal for one.
It feels like a neon sign, baring down behind me and blinking in an advertisement.
Alone. Alone. Alone. At least, my room feels like a place where only I belong.
Alexander doesn’t get to come into my room, not even to cum.
I open my nightstand drawer and pull the cuff and pen out. There’s enough blood left in the tube that I won’t need to put the cuff on, so I place it beside me instead. Cathy’s words swirl in my mind, jumbling my thoughts from the drive home.
It isn’t settling when you are stuck on the lowest rung.
I unbutton my work shirt and throw it to the floor before brushing my fingertips against the skin of my forearm.
I couldn’t begin to count how many times I have written to my soulmate over the years.
Sometimes I sent doodles, while other times I sent hateful words just to get out some of the anger.
There hasn’t been a hint of a response in the twenty years I have been trying, not even when I drew a penis on my forehead.
My soulmate wouldn’t have been able to miss that.
Still, I never got a response.
Once I reached my mid-twenties, I realized Mr. Perfect wasn’t coming to sweep me off my feet. I am destined to live alone.
Bringing the pen’s tip to my skin, I can feel a tremor of anticipation belonging to that desperate child inside me. The one still waiting to hear from her one true love. The sensation is addicting, it practically begs for me to send more unanswered messages.
Maybe I just like hurting myself. My incident reports would agree.
Things are getting serious with someone else. Better come claim me before he does.
I set the pen down and watch the crimson letters sink into my skin. The hairs on my arm stand and shivers race down my spine. A second later, the sensation is gone, leaving my heart pounding while the reality of my life comes crashing back.
I’m alone on my bed, staring at my arm for no good fucking reason.
My eyes roll, and I laugh at myself, mentally making fun of my pathetic ass. The degradation helps.
So does vodka.
I get up and grab the bottle bedside my TV, taking a large swig. The bite makes me wince, but I love the burn as the warmth spreads down my throat. It’s why I prefer the cheapest bottle despite being able to afford better.
I don’t want it if it doesn’t hurt.
Each sip is a bitter reminder of my loneliness, the emptiness echoing in the silence of my glass while I pass the time. When I glance at my phone, I notice only five minutes remain until eight.