The Accidental Virgin (7 page)

VB (which, under different circumstances, would be her cute nickname for him) kept his eyes upward, watching the floor numbers blink and flicker as the car banged along. Typical of rapists and thugs, thought Stacy, that he was pretending to ignore her. Raja had said something like that in his lesson. They try to lull you into a false sense of safety, only to catch you unawares.

Stacy was all too aware of him. Especially the way he shifted from one leg to the other (quite fetching legs for a criminal, long and lean under faded jeans).

The number four blinked. Her floor, at last. When the doors opened, she walked out. Vampire exited the elevator behind her. Watching him over her shoulder, Stacy increased her clip and sprinted for her apartment, fumbling for her keys in her oversize tote.

The man kept coming closer and closer. Holy shit, she thought desperately. He might be a real live masher! She stopped groping inside her bag for the keys, squared off her feet, gripped her right wrist with her left hand to increase torque, and readied herself to deliver a pop.

Seeing her posture, Vampire stopped suddenly. She
was
an intimidating presence, she thought smugly. He looked at her for only a half second — with puzzlement, it seemed — and then he took a ring of keys out of his pants pocket. Smooth as chocolate, he opened the door to 4C, glanced again at Stacy in her action stance, and disappeared inside the apartment — presumably his own.

She always wondered who lived in that unit. He never showed his face during daylight hours.

Stacy’s heart slowed to jack-rabbit speed. She finally managed to get inside her apartment. The sun was up. It was almost 6
A.M.
She lay down on her bed, more wide awake than ever. Her cheeks were flushed, her breath short and her legs were shaking. Fear wasn’t sex, but it was an incredible simulation.

Wednesday morning

O
n no sleep, heels were out of the question. Stacy chose flip-flops, rubber spanking the soles of her feet with each step. She wouldn’t stop at the greasy deli that Wednesday morning. She was in no mood for winks, smooch sounds, or cocked unibrows. She didn’t want breakfast of any kind (having consumed a cheeseburger only hours before), nor did she long for the smallest sliver of conversation with strangers or familiars alike. Stacy wanted one thing and one thing only (okay, two things, counting a steady flow — ideally an intravenous drip — of coffee): to lock herself in her office and lay her head on the plush wrist pad she used to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome. As she walked, she pictured that narrow industrial gray pillow the perfect width to support one tired cheek. She’d take a nap. A demi-nap. No one would notice. And even if they did, she thought, who cared? She’d lost countless hours of sleep to work. Just this once, she’d lose a couple of hours of work to sleep.

Sadly (achingly), when Stacy arrived at her small office at thongs.com, someone was already there, frantically typing on her computer, showing a complete disregard for her privacy and the sanctity of her workstation. The culprit was Janice, her boss, the woman who, theoretically, owned the office and the computer. Owned Stacy. And she had the right to do anything she wanted.

“Reading my e-mails?” she asked.

Janice, not looking away from the screen, said, “My iMac is cranky today. I need yours for just a few more minutes.”

Stacy sat down on the hard, armless metal chair across from her desk. She had to remove a huge pile of folders and samples first, and the exertion of lifting and dropping the dross exhausted her. Just as she was seated, leaning her head back against the smoked glass wall and closing her eyes, Janice said, “Stacy, what do you think of this one? Pull up that chair and help me.”

Stacy assumed she was being asked to vet some bustier design or status report. But as she dragged her chair closer to the computer screen, Stacy beheld the head and torso of a man, fiftyish, tan and toothy. Kind eyes, but a weird, leering smile.

“As a model? Are we doing men’s lingerie now, too?” Stacy was in a fog. She was confused. For starters, using this ancient man to sell boxers or briefs would repel the customers.

Janice said, “Male lingerie. For gay men, of course. It’s not a bad idea. I might have to talk to Fiona about that.” Stacy groaned. Fiona would of course say yes, assigning the bulk (or should she say
bulge
?) of the work to Stacy.

“His screen name is PoloMan,” Janice announced. “Sounds upscale, right? Income is one hundred fifty thousand plus. A lawyer. Spiritual but not religious. He’s fifty-five, lives on the Upper West Side, divorced, grown children, just like me. We’d have so much to talk about. And he’s cute, right?”

Nodding with enough enthusiasm to pass, Stacy peered at the URL bar and saw that Janice was shopping. For men. On match.com, her usual trolling ground for Saturday-night dates. Janice clicked on PoloMan’s
CONTACT
button to compose an e-mail reply to his ad.

Janice explained, “I usually just say, ‘Loved your profile. We have so much in common! Call me’ and then leave my number. But this is such a quality guy, I might have to get racy.”

Stacy watched in horror as Janice typed the following message to King Leer: “I must meet you. You are all my fantasies rolled into one perfect man. I am a gorgeous, petite blonde. I run a lingerie company and wear our product every day (and night). Call me and we’ll make a date. I am dying to hear from you.”

Using the job as a pick-up line hadn’t occurred to Stacy. She’d have to keep that ploy in mind. Once Janice hit the
SEND
button, the screen returned to a page with the faces and vital statistics of 25 other men. Janice scrolled down the list and, not finding any of the photos to her liking, clicked to the next page of 25 profiles. And the next. And the next.

Stacy asked, “Who are all these men?”

“After you fill out a profile of yourself and the kind of man you’re looking for, the match.com software program supplies you with a list of men who meet your criteria. I requested white men, age forty-five to sixty, making at least a hundred thousand, who live within five miles of my zip code.”

“And how many men match your criteria?”

“Let’s see, it changes every day,” she said. Janice clicked on the
MY MATCHES
button. In a blink, the screen returned to the first set of profiles and pictures. At the top of the list, Janice read the total number.

“Hmm, yesterday it was more. Today, one hundred fifty-four.”

“One hundred and fifty-four?” repeated Stacy. The number seemed huge. “One hundred and fifty-four rich white guys in your age group within five miles of your zip code are looking for dates?”

Janice said, “You should try it, Stacy. There is some rejection and upset, though. I’ve sent out about twenty e-mails this week, and have only heard back from five men. And none of them are free this weekend. I’m running out of time. If I can’t set something up very soon, I’ll break my streak.”

Stacy put her hand on Janice’s birdlike shoulder. She desperately wanted to tell her to forget about the streak. The streak was making her miserable. The streak was what kept Janice from taking her time, meeting men the organic way, letting something flow naturally out of mutual attraction and shared interest. The streak was what made Janice desperate and cloying, it had turned off countless men.

Reading Stacy’s thoughts, Janice said, “I know the streak seems ridiculous and counterproductive, but we all have what we have. Or don’t have, in your case.”

“At last count, you’re as dateless as I am, Janice,” said Stacy. She didn’t care if she’d make a political blunder. She was that tired. And grumpy. Stacy’s avoidance might be a way to protect oneself; Janice’s frenetic dating was another.

“I’m in a pissy mood,” Stacy said. “That’s my half-assed apology.”

“And this is my half-assed acceptance,” said Janice, patting Stacy on her cheek. Janice logged off match.com, stood and reminded Stacy of about five million tasks that needed to be completed in the next 15 minutes, but no pressure, since she knew how sensitive and overloaded Stacy had been lately.

Alone again, Stacy took her rightful place at the seat of command. The computer screen was still connected to the Internet via a super-speed DSL line; Stacy’s screen remained on match.com’s homepage. She had to admit, she was curious. In Janice’s target group, there were 154 available, eager men. Assuming, as Stacy did, that the dating pool shrinks as one ages, and that fewer older people were Internet friendly, she had to wonder how many people in their 30s used match.com. Dating sites were a natural cross-promotion for thongs.com. Hundreds, if not thousands, of women searching for love and passion needed sexy lingerie. It was too easy: Subscribe to match.com, and get a discount on a matching bra-and-panty set.

Out of professional obligation (if she were to take the idea to Fiona, she had to do the proper research first), Stacy decided to create a profile for herself. And, okay, on a personal level, if she took the risk and put herself out there (albeit anonymously), she couldn’t possibly be accused of hiding from life. Plus, she was curious to see just how many men met her criteria.

Although Stacy was an experienced web marketer, she was clueless about advertising for herself. Luckily, the first steps to creating a profile were simple. Just fill in the blanks. She could handle that much. Starting with:

Only about ten words in the text were true. This mattered not. Stacy decided to bait and switch: Get them in the door, bullshit her way out of lying later. After reading and editing her profile several times, Stacy realized that she’d perfectly and truthfully described someone she actually knew. Her boss, Fiona Chardonnay, was a marathon-running, gala-attending, flute-playing, sexually ravenous,
Beowulf
-reading size four with a TriBeca loft. Could this mean that Fiona was the woman Stacy wanted to be? Or that Stacy assumed Fiona was every man’s sexual fantasy (Fiona did see a lot of action, after all)?

Avoiding that headache of contemplation, Stacy forged ahead and wrote the profile of her ideal date:

She read it over, wavering a bit on casting so wide a net. Surely, she should discourage the geezers…No, she’d take all comers on the first pass.

The last step was to click appropriate buttons for her ideal match (age, location, status, income, etc.). Stacy rushed through this process in seconds. She was able to achieve such speed by clicking “any” in every box. Once she’d finished, Stacy submitted her profile and matching criteria. She would be able to log in and see her eligible matches in an hour or two. Responses to her ad would be sent to match.com and forwarded to her AOL address to guarantee anonymity. She could reply to those e-mails for free, or for the small fee of $25 for a month, she could cruise the male profiles herself (as Janice did), and send solicitations to the men of her liking.

Sitting back in her chair, Stacy exhaled down to the last molecule of oxygen in her lungs and prayed that she hadn’t made a terrible error in judgment. She could see how easily one could be drawn in by the simplicity and convenience of Internet dating. It was so much less stressful than approaching someone face-to-face (back to that “taking a risk” business). In cyberspace, rejections were theoretical. One couldn’t possibly take them personally. But here on land, daters were at sea. Any rebuff could sink a ship. Stacy knew the pain. She’d been on a regular diet of dismissal for days.

A knock on her door frame. Taylor Perry inserted her tousle-haired blonde head into Stacy’s office.

“Lunch?” asked Taylor.

“Today?”

“Are you swamped?”

Quicksanded. “Not at all. Noonish?”

“Oneish?”

“Perfect,” said Stacy.

Now this. She placed a call to Charlie to ask him about the de-revirginating validity of a lesbian fling. Then she got to work, and kept at it for several long hours.