They met on a dating site.. ‘met’, you don’t meet, that’s the problem isn’t it? They chatted they’d seen one another’s profile pictures. Eventually they met for coffee.

Coffee, for a further assessment, a second interview, all in the cold light of day without wine or lager or half a bottle of vodka…

She peered at him appraisingly through dark glasses, He saw two black mirrors in which he watched himself trying to be witty, charming, sexy, appealing. She watched him back, still, as he writhed enticingly before her. With feline poise she licked a tiny fleck of chocolate powder from her lips.

************************

The message later that day.

‘I don’t think there’s a spark but you’re a lovely guy, really good luck, I hope you find someone’ she texted, without, he felt, a great deal of conviction. Then,

‘I had a good time with you though’

Ah the friend zone. They met again a couple of weeks later, maybe if he… perhaps with the heat of the moment off, he might improve his performance, do better, change her mind. He was clear, he wanted her, wanted the gym honed body artfully displayed on her tinder page, her leg high on the kitchen unit stretching, in the long shot through the mediterranean apartment, her dancing at a club sweating and excited yet still keeping something back, some mystery, catching the eye of the camera, one brow raised. That headline “seeking good connections” He persuaded her, she was “really busy” but found the time for him “where does it all go? lol”

They were good friends. It turned out, now ‘the question’ was off the table there was a chemistry, she threw her head back and laughed at his stories. They had fun. She’d stipulated ‘deal breaker, must be able to make me laugh’ A box to tick, a bar to vault, which he had vaulted, like some sort of circus animal. Maybe there might yet be ‘a spark’

They still chatted regularly on the app.

‘It’s a shame we weren’t compatible, you’re fun and I really get on with you. I’m still looking for the right guy. God, Tinder, yeah?’

‘What is your right guy?

He replied, miserable now and now, with a kind of twisted self-harming fascination. An urge to walk down the shadowy tunnel of disappointment in which he found himself peering further into the gloom for that elusive spark

‘Well tall, strong, able to take charge of me, take me in hand. That was more what I was looking for when I clicked on your BDSM profile. That’s my type, a big dominant guy, old school. Six foot two, tail commanding.

‘Ah ok.’

‘But you seemed interesting.’

Just not big and dominant enough. He got that.

They met for coffee again.

“what do you think of him?”

She leaned in, waving a profile at him. He leaned towards her, inhaled her perfume and the slight smell of her skin and body underneath that. He revelled in it, became slightly hard.

“That is a very big fish he’s holding, well done him for catching that, and there he is cuddling a dog, so he has a gentle side and loves animals, ooh and his ‘abs are very defined, you could see those abs from space. Very clear. I guess fishing or dog walking are gonna be a thing.’

“Don’t be sarcy, you little bitch, do you think he and I would look good together”

“No, I’m gonna say no.”

“Yeah you’re probably right.. swipe left. How about him, he gave me a super like….”

“No he looks like a psycho, you’ll find he’s got a tattoo celebrating Hitlers birthday on his arse, at a point when it’s too late to back out.”

She took to sending me profiles and I replied witty, catty, it was an eye opener, is this what women wanted? The fish the dogs, the abs, the paddle boarding. Everyone seemed to be in to paddle boarding, he’d seen a lot of it on his tinder. Maybe it gave you good abs. Was paddle boarding some new non gendered foreplay he had totally missed. He didn’t know.

Eventually, ground down by his miserable and unrequited lust for her he took to making more honest assessments.

She went on a few dates with them and reported back. Each time he would wait for her messages dreading the news that the date had gone well.

‘Awful, he talked over me constantly, tried to order for me, just no’

So not that commanding then.

Another date. some rugged looking man with pictures of him playing a guitar. Artistic, sensitive, but manly.

‘He tried to lean in and kiss me and smacked my sunglasses into my nose, I’m gonna say that was a moment lost, then i realised he wasn’t really tall so much as looming.’

‘Its a thin line.’

‘Yeah, isn’t it? And he worked in an abattoir, turns out.. How about this guy.’

‘That is a very nice motorbike.’

‘Isn’t it? But never mind that do you think we’d work?’

Make ‘good memories’ together, a handsome couple…

‘Yeah.’ he replied listlessly. They actually would.

God, he hated this, but somehow he was still here doing it, wanting her more and more as she slipped through his fingers, ‘good memories’ no longer a possibility, just him on his own fantasising about her, the way she laughed, her lips, eyes that way she wrinkled up her nose when she was saying something cutting, rude. and funny. That slight goofiness that she tried to hide, but kept slipping out.

‘Ok I’ll give “Dan” a go….

Ooh, he replied quick, that’s a date.’

Dan with his big motor bike, Dan in black leather, the tail pipe cooling with little ting noises, stepping off his bike with a creak, replying to her search for ‘good connections’ He imagined what a ‘good connection’ with her was like, muscular walls of her cunt wrapped around Dans big cock, her little whimpering noises of pleasure as he filled her. He His own erection stood erect, but not proud.

************

Message.

“Hey do you want to meet?’

It’s a Sunday, but I’ll skip church just this once. Roaster at 11?’

‘Come to mine.’

That was new. Was something changing. He had abandoned hope for this, yet at the same time to be invited into some further intimacy or trust was… it was hopeless, but with the heavy inevitability of disappointment on a spring morning he went anyway. Her flat was on a leafy street

“Hey, come in, coffee?’

The flat was modest scruffy, somehow he’d expected that apartment where the photo had been taken with her leg on the units. She was looking a little scruffy too. Her hair was a mess, and she wasn’t wearing make up. She looked as though she’d just got out of bed. Somehow this made her all the more unassumingly beautiful. She passed him a coffee and their fingers touched briefly.

“Dan’s just left, you were right, good shout.”

She smiled at him wickedly, then wistful for a second, a ‘good memory’. He felt sick with envy. His gut twisting with thwarted lust, again, a regular occurrence with her he thought ruefully. She was close now and he could smell her, her perfume faint, she smelt savoury and animal, of sweat and lust, her face slightly sticky and salty with it. She looked at him askance.

‘I should have had a Shower. God, I need some sleep. He was great, I think we could really work, ‘haven’t had a night like that for a while and I am sore.’ And she giggled. ‘Busy girl.’ She moved away from him, she was walking differently he could see that now, with a width to her gait and a rolling confidence. She looked over her shoulder at him.

“I kept you something though”

She picked up one of the kitchen chairs and placed it emphatically in the middle of the floor. Then skipped up to him, and stroked his face and looked at him both shy and flirtatious, skipped back and span round and faced him. Then in a movement of almost shocking intimacy she lifted her dress up for him.

Her cunt was bare, hairless, she sat on the chair and spread her legs wide. He could see a flash of white oozing out between her lips.

‘I know you didn’t get to come for the meal, but I brought you the doggy bag, Now I’d like you to lick and suck every drop of him out of me. And you so want to do that, don’t you? I’m right aren’t I you slut? You do.

‘Yes.’ he exhaled the admission.

He felt himself weakening his face numb where she’d stroked it his knees folding as he was drawn across the room towards her.

‘You really are a little bitch aren’t you.’ she said soft, lustful, croaking, stroking his head, while he was down.. down ‘there’; liquid musky ‘there’. sucking tingly, savoury gouts of Dan from her creamy, swollen cunt. All resistance and objections falling away in the face of animal arousal. His face was pressed into her, pleasing her with his tongue flicking over her clitoris, his fingers now entering her to find her g-spot as she sighed and spread her legs more widely. His eyes were closed,and it was completely dark, dark and wet, but did he imagine it, or what was… that? He rather thought it might be… although perhaps not the kind he’d once hoped for, or was he being honest with himself, oh god.. maybe this wasn’t the time for introspection.

But, yes that did indeed look like a spark.