21st Century Matchmaker

“Worst. Date. Ever.” The voice sobbed at him through the phone.

Ethan sat naked on his bed in the dark room rub­bing one side of his head with one hand and hold­ing his old iPhone to the oth­er side of his head with the oth­er hand. *Stu­pid. Should not have answered the phone. Very stu­pid.*

“Trace, its two in the morn­ing, can’t this wait?” *More stu­pid, should not have asked a ques­tion.*

“No. It can’t wait.” At least her sob­bing was calm­ing down. “I’ll be there in ten min­utes.”

The call cut off before he could say any­thing. In the dim blue light from the phone screen he looked at the large body next to him in bed, his lover, his boyfriend, his part­ner. The words did­n’t cap­ture the full strength of his recent­ly grow­ing feel­ing. *Hus­band.* A smile flick­ered across his face uncon­scious­ly. So what if they weren’t actu­al­ly mar­ried.

Ethan reached out and pat­ted Arron’s hip. “Go back to sleep Big Bear.” Aaron’s grunt­ed under the cov­ers and pulled the sheet up over his head.

Ethan got up, stretched and padded to the bath­room, he peed as qui­et­ly as he could in the hand­basin while he checked face­book for updates on his phone.

There was an update from Trace 3 hours ago:

*OMG what a pig, and not the sexy kinky kind. Some­one get me out of here.*

Ethan need­ed some clothes. The idea of answer­ing the door stark naked was always fun, but if Trace was in a horny and reject­ed mood she might think it was an invi­ta­tion. He shud­dered.

He fum­bled around in the dark bed­room, grabbed some track-pants and a t‑shirt and pulled them on as he left the room, clos­ing the door behind him.

As he walked to the kitchen he sent Trace a text mes­sage:

*Don’t ring the door­bell.*

Yawn­ing he filled the elec­tric ket­tle, got cups and teabags ready.

The phone vibrat­ed in his pock­et.

*I’m here.*

Too late to get out of this now.

He walked to the front door and pushed the inter­com unlock but­ton.
— - -
Trace pushed the door opened with her shoul­der as the lock buzzed loud­ly. She walked up nar­row con­crete stair­case. Why did Ethan have to live in a build­ing that did­n’t have a lift?

When she got to the third floor Ethan was wait­ing for her, lean­ing against the door frame to his apart­ment, a hot mug of tea held out towards her as he sipped on his own bright pink mug. God she loved this man, why did he have to be so gay.

She reached out and took the offered mug and sipped at it with­out either of them say­ing a word. Ethan pulled the door to his apart­ment closed and nod­ded his head back towards the stair­case.

She nod­ded in agree­ment.

Ethan’s build­ing, as he actu­al­ly owned the whole build­ing, was a small mod­ern apart­ment build­ing in the trendy inter­ci­ty part of town. The roof offered a sur­pris­ing unhin­dered view of the city sky­line, so the ten­ants used it as a com­mu­nal area. Dur­ing the day you would usu­al­ly find one some­one work­ing on their tan or yoga or just hang­ing out their wash­ing.

In the cor­ner of the roof with the best view was a ran­dom col­lec­tion of sec­ond-hand chairs. Ethan and Trace sat down in silence and looked at the view of the city and the stars. The night air was warm, still and clear.

She sipped at her tea again and looked over at Ethan. “You got any­thing stronger than tea.”

Ethan shock his head. “Not for you, tea only.”

She grunt­ed, unhap­py with his answer.

“So where the fuck do I get a good guy from?”

Ethan shrugged. “Most the guys I know are gay.”

She grum­bled. “Well that does­n’t help.”

He shrugged and then pulled a note­book and pen out of his pock­et and opened the book to a blank page. “Per­haps if you told me what you were look­ing for.”

“A huge cock!” She blurt­ed out.

Ethan blushed and chuck­led at the same time at that. They were close, but usu­al­ly did­n’t talk about sex stuff. “I thought girls did­n’t go by size.” He wrote it down any­way.

*Want­ed: Huge cock.*

She smiled, “Well, if I’m being picky, why not.”

Ethan smiled. “Yeah, fair enough I guess. So what is this huge mem­ber attached to then huh?”

Trace closed her eyes and thought about it.

“Killer body, daz­zling smile, hon­est, car­ing, wicked sense of humour, mas­cu­line with out being ‘blokey’.”

He wrote all this down.

“Must be mature.” She went on.

Ethan shock his head. “No no no, don’t put that in, unless you want him to be over 80.”

“Well, then what?” She sipped her hot tea more.

He scratched the blunt end of the pen to his ear as and con­sid­ered. “How about ‘roman­tic grown-up with boy­ish charm.’ ”

She nod­ded. “And rich.”

He kept mak­ing notes.

“No smok­ers. No Asians.”

Ethan raised an eye­brow, “Racist!”

She grinned and shrugged. “No inmates. No small cocks.”

Ethan smiled. “Obsessed with size aren’t you?” He tore the page out of the note­book and passed it over to her. “Just sign your name to the bot­tom.”

She read over the note, crossed out the word ‘huge’ and wrote in ‘mas­sive’ and then signed it. “If only I had a fairy god moth­er or some­thing to send this to.”

“Just a fairy gay guy here tonight.” Ethan point­ed out. “In the movies they always tear up and burn the let­ter so the mag­ic can hap­pen or some­thing.”

Trace fold­ed the note over and tore it into pieces and then pulled out a cig­a­rette lighter and light it on fire and tossed it into the air. The pieces of the note float­ed up into the sky as they burnt away, the feel­ing of rejec­tion and lone­li­ness lift­ed, but only a lit­tle.
— - -
Ethan final­ly made it back to bed at half past three, after hav­ing dri­ven Trace home and seen that she had got­ten inside. He pulled the sheet over him­self, try­ing not to wake Aaron.

Aaron reached over and hugged him into a spoon­ing posi­tion and kissed the back of his neck.

“You are far too good to that girl.”

Ethan put a hand over the large hand on his chest. “She was very very kind to me once. When she did­n’t have to be and nobody else was.”

“You ever going to tell me that sto­ry?” Aaron mum­bled.

“Do I have to?”

Aaron hugged him a lit­tle tighter. “No. No you don’t. But you don’t have to keep it to your­self either.”

Ethan smiled deeply, feel­ing tru­ly hap­py. “Ask me in the morn­ing.”
— - -
Inter­view­ing for a new shop assis­tant was not going at all well. The hang­over she had from last night was not help­ing.

Trace could­n’t exact­ly remem­ber how she had end­ed up at home, but if it was any­thing like usu­al Ethan had prob­a­bly been all gal­lant and made sure she got home in one piece.

Only three peo­ple came in to apply, and they had all been guys. Not that guys could­n’t be florist… but these three guys were def­i­nite­ly not right for the job. She could­n’t even fig­ure out why any of them had applied.

The first one had been a huge hulk of a guy, eas­i­ly 6′8″, mus­cled but soft­ly spo­ken. He had walked into the small florist, care­ful to make he way though the shop with­out knock­ing any­thing over and wait­ed until she had fin­ished her phone call before intro­duc­ing him­self. He seemed unin­ter­est­ed in the flow­ers, but instead asked her about her­self, her past, her future, her dreams. They had talked for almost 45 min­utes and then he had writ­ten his num­ber down on a post-it note before mak­ing some excuse about hav­ing oth­er posi­tions to apply for and leav­ing.

The sec­ond had been clos­er to what she had expect­ed, short­er, 5′10″, slim, wear­ing funky alter­na­tive clothes and a messed up hair­style, his ears and eye­brows pierced, and prob­a­bly oth­er places too. He had looked around the shop and seemed gen­uine­ly sur­prised when she men­tioned the flow­ers. When he had said “All I know about flow­ers is that they aren’t very tasty.” She could­n’t help but look at his flat bel­ly and imag­ine the tight abs his t‑shirt was not doing a very good job of hid­ing. He had left a busi­ness card that list­ed his title as ‘Cir­cus Geek’.

The third guy had been slim and tall and wear­ing a per­fect­ly pressed pin-stripped suit and a bowler hat. He had spo­ken prop­er eng­lish and had assured her that he had all the qual­i­fi­ca­tions she had spec­i­fied and she was wel­come to inspect his equip­ment if she want­ed to con­firm his claims. His busi­ness card was a shin­ny waxy card with embossed let­ter­ing and only had his name and phone num­ber on it.

No one else had turned up for the job. It was now almost mid­day, she had served a few cus­tomers and made up a few online orders, but was get­ting behind again. She still need­ed a new assis­tant, but she could­n’t pos­si­bly hire any of them. She would just have to run the ad again.

Just as she was unwrap­ping her egg sal­ad sand­wich for lunch anoth­er man walked into the lit­tle florist shop. She looked him up and down and smiled. Final­ly some­one that might suit the job. He was short and slim, short­er and slim­mer than Trace was, which always both­ered her a lit­tle, guys should­n’t have a small­er dress size than her. Tight fit­ting design­er jeans and a white design­er t‑shirt. *Def­i­nite­ly gay.*

He walked over to a dis­play and picked up a bunch of 12 red ros­es, he set them down on the counter as he sat down on the stool and smiled a very large friend­ly smile and opened up a old look­ing filo­fax.

“So, how did the can­di­dates go?”

Trace frowned. “Aren’t you hear to apply?”

He shock his head and smiled more. “Oh no dear, I’m just hear to see that you find the right per­son.”

He held out his hand for her, she auto­mat­i­cal­ly reached over and shock it.

“Max Snogfest.” He stat­ed, as if that some­how explained every­thing. “You did put in an adver­tise­ment, did you not?”

From inside his organ­is­er he pulled out a fold­ed piece of paper. She leaned for­ward a lit­tle and looked at the paper, it was charred and sticky-taped togeth­er. *Oh my God*. That was Ethan’s hand­writ­ing, and her sig­na­ture.

“Where did you get that?” She grabbed at the paper and snatched it off him.

She looked up from the let­ter. “So… the guys this morn­ing were…” She look back at the charred let­ter.

Max nod­ded. “Yes, exact­ly, what did you think they were here for?”

She pushed the news­pa­per across the counter top to him. One ad was cir­cled in blue pen.

*Want­ed, shop assis­tant for busy inner-city florist. Must be good with cus­tomers and flow­ers.*

Max read the ad and nod­ded. “Oh well… that’s not real­ly my field, but I’m sure I can find some­one for that too.” He smiled. “The much more impor­tant ques­tion is, which of the gen­tle­men from this morn­ing are you going to send these ros­es too?”

Still look­ing at the let­ter and remem­ber­ing what had hap­pened the night before. “They can’t all be per­fect match­es.”

Max smiled more and reached across the counter and picked up one of the cards used for adding a mes­sage to the flow­ers.

“No, not per­fect match­es, but the three best I could find as such short notice.” He wrote some­thing on the card with a old style biro. “No one is pre­fect, and you have some very vague require­ments, and some very spe­cif­ic require­ments.”

“The cir­cus guy was cute… what’s his prob­lem.”

Max flicked to a page in his filo­fax. “Hmm, he has a few fetish­es, noth­ing too kinky.” He flicked to a dif­fer­ent page. “But they seem to be ones you will enjoy.”

Trace blinked. “You have a page about me in there.” She tried to look in, but he snapped the book shut.

“I have details about all of my clients.”

Max attached the card he had been writ­ing to the 12 ros­es and then hand­ed Trace the cash to pay for them.

“Joseph has a per­for­mance tonight.” He said and hand­ed her a tick­et to the show. “Go along, and then go back stage after. See what hap­pens.”

Then Max picked up the ros­es and left the lit­tle florist, leav­ing Trace con­fused with her egg-sal­ad sand­wich.
— - -
Trace had sat at the back of the small the­atre to try and blend in. It turned out that Joseph, the cir­cus guy, did sword swal­low­ing, jug­gling and oth­er side show tricks. He went by the stage name of ‘The Dia­mond Python’, and look­ing at the poster Trace could­n’t help but won­der what ‘python’ referred to.

In the show he had picked her out of the audi­ence and called her up on stage and then pro­ceed­ed to do a sur­pris­ing­ly good mind read­ing trick. When he had guessed her favourite num­ber was 6 and her favourite colour was sky blue she had been impressed. When he had announced that her favourite ani­mal was a palomi­no uni­corn she had been stunned.

After the show he had min­gled with the audi­ence in the foy­er, pos­ing for pho­tos and singing auto­graphs. She wait­ed by the bar and had anoth­er one of the awful house white wines. Even­tu­al­ly every­one else had left and he walked over to her.

“So, does this mean I got the job?” He asked with a cheeky grin.

She could­n’t help but smile back. There was some­thing charm­ing and dis­arm­ing about his style.

“Not yet. All you have at the moment is a tri­al peri­od.”

“Well then, I think din­ner and talk­ing and if that goes well, some hot sex.”

She fin­ished off her wine. “Does it have to be in that order?”

He smiled more. “Yeah, lets be old fash­ioned for a change.” He reached out and took her hand in his. “I need to get out of this cos­tume. You want to wait here? Or come back to my dress­ing room?”

“What hap­pened to being old fash­ioned?”

He shrugged. “Noth­ing in that says you can’t look.” And with that he lead her back to his dress­ing room.
— - -
The dress­ing room was much like the rest of the the­atre, old and dark and slight­ly odd. As soon as the door to the dress­ing room closed he start­ed to take off his clothes.

“You’re a bit of an exhi­bi­tion­ist aren’t you?”

He grinned. “Did the sword swal­low­ing on stage in front of 100 peo­ple not give that away?”

Trace looked around the lit­tle room and noticed 12 red ros­es on the dress­ing table. She walked over and looked at the card.

*Thought you were cute today, so here are some flow­ers. Would love to see more of you. Trace. PS: don’t eat the flow­ers.*

“Don’t eat the flow­ers?” She echoed.

“I did­n’t. I was a good boy.”

“Why would you eat the flow­ers?”

“Why would­n’t I? I’ll eat any­thing.” He replied as he got ful­ly naked.

She caught a glimpse of his naked butt in the mir­ror, but she turned around as he was pulling his jeans up.

“Oh, no fair, I did­n’t see.”

He turned to her with a cheeky smile and zipped up his jeans, draw­ing her eyes to his crotch. “Wine and dine me and I’ll let you look all you want.”

The bulge looked impres­sive­ly large as he made no effort to look away. Maybe Ethan was right, maybe she was obsessed.

She slow­ly looked up Joseph’s bare flat abs and over his defined but not built chest, up over his promi­nent adam’s apple and his square chin to his large lips, final­ly look­ing him in the eye.

“So what do you want for din­ner?” She final­ly asked.

He smiled again. It made her smile back.

“Like I said, I’ll eat any­thing.” He pulled a shirt on and then walked over to her and leaned for­ward and kissed her before she could stop him. “So the real ques­tion is, what do you want?”

“I had din­ner before the show. We could get piz­za and go back to my place.” She sug­gest­ed and then realised she had just invit­ed a strange man, a very strange but very inter­est­ing man, back to her flat.

“Piz­za­’s always good. Let go.” He picked up his jack­et and lead her out of the the­atre.
— - -
She lay in bed with the man of her dreams sleep­ing sound­ly beside her.

Five large piz­za box­ers were on the floor emp­ty, he had actu­al­ly eat­en every last slice, which was amaz­ing. More amaz­ing was that she found that a strange turn on. She filed that away as some­thing to maybe men­tion to her coun­sel­lor as she reached over and rest­ed her hand on his bel­ly.

In the dark room he reached over and picked up her phone and wrote out a text mes­sage to Ethan:

*I found him, the guy from the ad. I don’t know how you did it, but thanks.*

***END***

Sto­ry first writ­ten for Uni Class in Sep­tem­ber 2011