Chapter 10 Rae
RAE
// User: rae.everett@
for (profile in availableMen) {
…. if (profile.hands != "scarred") { swipeLeft(); }
…. if (profile.eyes != "gray") { swipeLeft(); }
…. if (profile.occupation != "billionaire_mob_boss") { swipeLeft(); }
…. if (profile.name = "Lukas Lazarev") { swipeRight(); }
}
Friday night finds me on my couch with a glass of Two Buck Chuck’s finest cabernet sauvignon in one hand and my phone in the other.
Jillian’s voice has been echoing in my head since our conversation on Wednesday. “Peek around. You don’t have to swipe on anyone. Just take a gander. Live a little.”
So here I am. Living a little. It’s not as glamorous as the movies make it out to be.
I open Hinge first. The interface is vaguely familiar from my last half-hearted attempt at finding love (or, if not love, then at least a half-decent hump). I update my photos, tweak my prompts, and start swiping.
Left. Left. Left. Left. Left.
A guy named Brooks who lists “crypto enthusiast” as his entire personality? That’s a left if I’ve ever seen one.
Dom, whose bio is just the word “entrepreneur” followed by fifteen rocket emojis? Hard left.
A shirtless mirror selfie from a man literally named Chad. I don’t even need to read the bio? Left so fast that I almost hurl my phone across the room in the process.
Ugh. If this is “living a little,” I think I’m ready for the sweet embrace of death.
But I promised Jill I’d give this a fair shake. So I take a fortifying sip of wine and keep going.
Next up is Rory, 28, software engineer. There’s nothing immediately off-putting about him, so that jumps him straight to the top of the dog pile.
His photos are fine. His prompts are fine.
Everything about him is just fine. Fine in the way that vanilla soft serve is “fine.” Fine like graham crackers or reruns of Friends are “fine.”
I swipe right anyway.
After Rory comes Malcolm. He’s 31, works in finance. He looks nice enough. Normal. I bet he owns multiple pairs of khakis and has strong opinions about craft beer.
I try to imagine going on a date with Mr. Malcolm. Sitting across from him at some trendy restaurant, making small talk about work and hobbies and weekend plans.
The image just won’t form.
Instead, my brain keeps serving up gray eyes and silver hair, scarred hands gripping a steering wheel. A voice like sin-soaked gravel asking questions I don’t know how to answer.
Malcolm goes left.
This is ridiculous. Both the activity itself and my objections to it. It’s beyond absurd that this is how dating works in the twenty-first century. What happened to grand, sweeping, Wuthering Heights romances, filled with forbidden touches and passionate side glances and ballroom dances?
Where’s the longing?
Where’s the lust?
Where are the pretty dresses?!
Instead, we get Temu bodycons that showcase every gram of cellulite you possess to the world and must be worn with boob tape that severs half your nipple when you peel it off at the end of the night. We get dating apps that are mostly just men holding up various fishes. We get Chad.
God, I am so not attracted to Chad.
But what’s waiting for me if I reject all the Chads of the world?
Loneliness, that’s what. Cobwebs in my coochie.
I’ll be eaten by the many cats I’ll no doubt soon begin to acquire, and nobody will care until the neighbors notice the smell of my decomposing body.
When that happens, I’ll get a two-sentence obituary, just like Lukas’s wife, but with none of the mysterious allure.
Rae Everett died morbidly after a really sad, depressing life. She was a virgin.
I drink half my glass and force myself to keep scrolling. I can’t go out like that. Back to the apps we go.
David, 27, teacher. He has kind eyes and a cute dog in his profile pic. That’s promising, right? Everyone likes dogs.
But David is five-foot-six according to his bio. Which is fine—height doesn’t matter that much. I’m not even five-four; he’d still be taller than me.
Except now, I’m thinking about what it felt like to stand next to Lukas on my stoop.
He seemed to fill every inch of available space just by existing.
I had to crane my neck to look up at him.
And something in that—even if it’s a dumb something, a blind, primitive instinct to be shielded by a big man against the many dangers of the world—makes me feel squiggly inside in a good way.
I swipe left on David, too.
This is stupid. I’m being stupid. I switch to Bumble. New app, new possibilities. Isn’t that what they say? Well, someone’s probably said that before.
But no. Ten minutes later, I’ve swiped left on everyone.
A personal trainer whose over-edited gym selfies make me tired just looking at them.
A lawyer who seems nice but also like he’d talk about himself for three hours straight.
A musician whose profile is nothing but photos of him holding a guitar in increasingly dramatic and decreasingly clothed poses.
A realtor. A doctor. Another lawyer. A third lawyer.
So many lawyers. Why does the world need this many lawyers?
None of them are wrong, exactly. They’re just not right.
I know what I’m actually looking for. I hate that I know.
I’m looking for someone who makes my pulse race when he walks into a room. Someone who consumes the space around him. Someone whose voice could pin me to a wall without him even touching me.
I’m looking for Lukas Lazarev.
And that’s a big, big problem.
Defeated, I toss my phone onto the cushion beside me and throw back the last of my wine.
This is pathetic. I am pathetic. I am a healthy, in-my-prime, reasonably symmetrical twenty-five-year-old woman in the most happening city on Planet Earth.
And yet I’m sitting all alone on a Friday night, rejecting perfectly good men simply because none of them are a sixty-year-old billionaire who could not care less if I lived or died and was eaten by cats.
I decide to go take a shower. I’m going to wash off this weird day, this weird week. A little self-care can fix a whole lot of badness.
At least, that’s what I decide consciously.
But my subconscious has other plans.
Instead of turning right into my bathroom, my feet carry me left, into my bedroom. Up to my nightstand. My hands, operating entirely of their own accord, open the top drawer. They pull out the purple silicone toy I bought three years ago and have used maybe four times since.
I shouldn’t do this.
I really, really shouldn’t do this.
But I’m already kicking off my sweatpants. Already climbing under the covers, closing my eyes.
The dream comes back like it never left.
Lukas’s office. The cold marble floor under my knees. His hand in my hair, forcing my head back. His thumb pressing against my lower lip.
“Open.”
I turn on the vibrator. The low hum fills the quiet room.
In my head, he’s standing over me. Miles and miles and endless miles of him. Navy suit, silver rings, those scarred hands that could break me without trying.
“Good girl.”
I press the toy against myself through my underwear. Just testing. Exploring.
The sensation shoots through me like electricity.
I’m wet. I’ve been wet since I started thinking about him. Or maybe since even earlier. Since the car ride, or since his hand clamped around my arm as I got out of the elevator. Since the moment he appeared in that unlit office like a devil summoned from the pits of hell.
I push my underwear aside and touch myself directly.
His thumb is in my mouth. I’m sucking on it like it’s the only thing keeping me alive. He makes that low rumble in his throat. Approving. Pleased.
“That’s it, Ms. Everett. Just like that.”
I increase the speed. The vibration buzzes against my clit and I bite down on my lip to keep from moaning.
His other hand moves to his belt. The leather whispers as he pulls it free. The buckle clinks.
I imagine what he’d look like. What he’d feel like. Huge and hard and demanding.
“You look so pretty on your knees for me, Ms. Everett,” he says in my head. “Right where you belong.”
I arch up into the toy. The pressure builds in my belly.
I picture his fingers replacing the vibrator. Thick and rough, knowing exactly what to do. Pushing inside me while his thumb works my clit. His breath hot against my ear.
“A good girl, yes, but also such a bad girl. Wanting what you can’t have… Craving the forbidden… That’s very bad indeed, Rae. So why does it make you so wet? Why do I bring you right to the edge of oblivion?”
I’m close. So close. My thighs are shaking.
“Cum for me,” dream-Lukas commands. “Now.”
I do.
The orgasm explodes. I clamp a hand over my mouth to muffle the sound. My whole body trembles as it rolls on and on.
When it finally fades, I’m left panting in the dark.
The vibrator hums uselessly against my thigh. I turn it off. It’s only then that the full weight of what I just did comes crashing down.
I am so screwed.
I lie there for a long while, staring at the ceiling. Then I peel myself out of bed and stumble to the bathroom.
I turn the heat up until it’s almost painful. If I can just hit the exact right temperature of “scalding,” I can burn away the shame. I can scrub the evidence off my skin and out of my brain.
That’s the plan, at least.
To no one’s surprise, it does not work.
No matter how hot it gets, the water does nothing. I scrub until my skin is pink, but the fire circulating low in my belly refuses to fade.
When I finally step out, I’m still thinking about him. I towel off mechanically. My reflection in the foggy mirror looks guilty, like someone who just did something she shouldn’t have.
Because I did.
I pull on an old t-shirt and climb back into bed. The sheets are rumpled, but they’re cool to the touch now. I shove the purple vibrator back in the drawer without looking at it, so it knows I’m not happy with what it just persuaded me to do.
My body is satisfied and relaxed, purring in a way it hasn’t in months.
But my brain won’t shut up.
What is wrong with you? it demands. He’s your boss. He’s old! He knows things about you that he shouldn’t know. He might be a criminal. He definitely has dirty secrets.
All true. Completely, undeniably true.
And none of it changes the fact that I want him.
I realize I left my phone out in the living room. I go fetch it, but when I wake up the screen, I see that I have six missed calls, all from Jillian. That’s unlike her. My stomach flips.
I call her back. She picks up on the first ring. “Finally!” she hisses. “I’ve been trying to reach you forever.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I was in the shower. What’s wrong?”
“So I looked him up.” She sounds choked and wary. “Your boss. Lukas Lazarev.”
I sink onto the edge of my bed. Water drips from my hair onto my shoulders. “And?”
“Rae…” She pauses. “His wife didn’t just die. She disappeared. They never found the body.”