Simply Sex. Dawn Atkins
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Could we just do the video?”
“The face-to-face provides subtle details, Cole, so that my intuition kicks in. I find that’s how I make the best matches.”
“I never argue with success.” She claimed over a thousand clients and something like an eighty-percent match-up rate, convincing him to choose her service over several others. If more personal information brought the right woman into his life, he’d read his childhood diary to her. If he had one.
“So, tell me about your most recent relationship.”
“It’s been a while,” he said, feeling himself go red.
“Was it serious?”
“No. Casual.” Sheila had been irritated that they spent most of their brief hours together in bed. She liked the bed part, but wanted more time. Which he didn’t have. “Because of my schedule.” He’d hated disappointing her. And Cathy before her, who’d pick a fight if he didn’t call her every day. In the end, he’d given up dating altogether. He couldn’t stand the pressure.
“Have you ever been serious with a woman?”
“Not until now. In college everyone was casual. And I worked a lot. To help my parents and pay my way through law school.”
“Tell me about your parents’ relationship.”
“They’ve always been very close.”
“And is that what you want? What your parents have?”
“Absolutely. They’re devoted to each other. To their careers, too. They’re both high school teachers.”
“But you went into law?”
“Yes. I enjoy the law. The puzzles, the complexity.” He’d chosen challenging work. His parents had pounded into him the need to use his intellect in whatever career he chose. “I enjoy helping clients. Meeting their needs.”
“You work very hard.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, I do.” Be the best, never quit. His life blood.
“Tell me more about why that is.”
He fiddled with the crease of his slacks, feeling sweat trickle inside his shirt. He wasn’t much into self-analysis. But he babbled on about the prestige of his job, the satisfaction of hard work well done.
“And the money?” she prodded.
“Money matters, sure.” He’d worked all his life—through high school, college and night law school. Those low-skill jobs had showed him how easy it was to lose economic ground and end up living hand-to-mouth like many of his co-workers were forced to. He had a way out and he vowed to make the most of it. He appreciated his good fortune more than his trust-funded colleagues, who’d gone straight from college to law school and never felt the pinch of poverty.
Even his parents, with master’s degrees and thirty years of teaching experience, struggled to make ends meet. He never wanted that. In fact, he intended to make their lives easier as soon as he was in a stronger position at the firm.
Janie listened closely, writing an occasional note, honing in on him with her gaze, working him over with her intuition. God, he wanted this finished. He ran his finger under his collar.
“What about outside interests? What are your passions?”
Hell. He couldn’t say work again. “I used to play baseball for a parks and rec league. I rode with a bicycle club. Also, photography. I won some prizes.”
“But that’s not recent?”
“I’m on a partner track.”
“Sure,” she said, but she pursed her lips in mild disapproval.
“I went skiing two weeks ago,” he blurted, though it was for the firm and he’d mostly schmoozed with clients or worked in his room. He’d only managed one ski run.
“What leisure activities will you share with the woman in your life?”
“I thought we’d eat out, go to movies, plays, all that.” That sounded lame. “Maybe hike?”
“Relationships take time, Cole,” she said gently. “If you’re not in a good place with your career…”
“I’m prepared to budget the time.” Benjamin, Langford and Tuttleman could spare a few of the sixty hours a week he gave them so that he could advance the greater good—their mutual future.
“Dates are not billable hours.”
“I realize that.” Not billable, but an investment in his career, all the same. A settled life with an appropriate wife would edge him into the partner slot over his competitors—two notorious womanizers. Which was why he was subjecting himself to a critique from this steel-eyed fairy.
That and the empty echo in his life.
“And I’m shifting my priorities. In fact, I’ll be taking care of my neighbor’s dog for a few weeks. I see it as practice in accommodating another being into my life.”
“That’s something,” she said. He felt her rooting for him, like a dear friend or a sister, and that touched him.
“I’ll make it work, Jane. I promise.”
“Tell me what you hope for in a relationship.”
“A partner. Someone to share my life.” He pictured Sunday mornings in bed reading interesting tidbits to each other from the New York Times before he headed to the office to put in a few hours.
She’d be okay with him leaving, of course, since she’d have her own plans. He’d bring home takeout or she’d cook. He would cook, too, when time allowed. The best marriages were egalitarian.
Janie asked more questions. Did he want children—he did. What were his goals beyond making partner—to grow with the firm, to make his mark, perhaps open his own firm, make a good life for his family. Finally she closed the folder and regarded him critically.
Now what? He felt like he’d been through therapy.
“Did you bring something to change into for your Close-Up?”
He looked down at his gray suit, red tie and starched white shirt. “Why?”
“You’re a tad formal. We want to emphasize the whole you.”
He just looked at her.
“Yes, I know. That is the whole you.” She sighed. “At least take off your jacket and tie and roll up your sleeves.” She gentled the command with a weary smile.
He stood and shrugged out of his jacket, then dug at the knot of his tie. “How long will this take?”
“Not long, but, as I said earlier—”
“I know, I know. I’ll make the time.”
“Let’s go, then.” She led the way and he followed, rolling his sleeves as he went, to a small room with a video camera on a tripod pointed at a stool.
She motioned for him to sit, then drew down a photographic backdrop of a forest, the trees grainy and blurred from too much enlargement. He sat, managing a smile, despite how goofy he knew he looked in his dress clothes—like an SUV ad of Mr. Corporate escaping civilization into the woods.
She looked at him through the viewfinder. “Lean a little forward, Cole…that’s it. Give me a relaxed smile…more…too much…okay, that’ll do.”
He adjusted himself on her command, tension mounting.
“Now, imagine the camera is the love of your life.”
Great. He tried to feel warmly toward the device, but he was too literal-minded and it was cold glass surrounded by black metal.
“You have five minutes before fate separates you,” she continued cheerily.