Page 2 of Mr. Match

I grab both her hips by the belt loops and start swaying, like we’re gonna dance. “‘She cried more, more, more.’”

She places her palm on my chest, right in the middle of the Shrike Bikes logo of my long-sleeved white thermal, and pushes me away.

“‘With a rebel yell,’” I sing, taking a step back.

“Cut it out! I’m serious. We can’t have this shit on the main site. It will draw attention, Oliver.” And then she narrows her eyes at me, gives me the sneer right back, complete with lip lift. “We cannot afford more attention.”

I stop my silliness and get serious. “I know. I said I’d take care of it. I’ll do it today, OK?”

“Make sure you do.” She stares at me for another second, then turns on her heel and walks out. There’s no door to slam to punctuate her point because the whole top floor belongs to me, and my ‘door’ is the open stairwell that leads down to her office on the third floor. She’s never quite gotten over that little arrangement. But we flipped for it and I won. I got the top-floor office because the coin toss is sacred.

I turn back to the window and walk over to it, but the people who ground me to this world are all gone.

My mom has disappeared somewhere. Jasmine and all my tattooed uncles have gone back to work. Sparrow’s task outside is complete, and Ford, Belle, and my dad are out of my line of sight or back inside.

Ariel is downstairs.

So it’s just me.

Alone.

As usual.

I walk back over to my desk and slump into the old wooden chair. It came with the building. So did the desk. They both have to be a hundred years old. But they’re solid. This desk is made out of some oak tree that stood out on the prairie for two hundred years before it was turned into this once-fine piece of furniture. It’s probably got a helluva story to tell. The rickety chair with the spindle back that threatens to tip over every time I kick my boots up on the desk is just as old. They have no luster or shine to them. Just wisdom that comes from age.

I reach out and pick up the stamper, then turn the dials on the mechanism until it reads today’s date. It’s old-fashioned, like the desk, and the chair, and building. And me. But I like the satisfaction I get from pushing down on the handle over the offending member’s account printout. I like the way the stamp pad mechanically flips around and makes its mark.

It says D-E-L-E-T-E-D. With the date.

And then I stack all the papers in a box and Belle eventually comes and takes them away to be filed in the record-keeping room down in the basement.

I do it online too. I check all the appropriate boxes in their profiles and click the Ban User button. But it’s not nearly as satisfying as this stamper.

Ariel is right. I open the file and find hundreds of papers. You really have to keep on top of the perverts. They are probably the same hundred people, over and over again. Just using different IP addresses and emails. But you gotta keep on top of them or other members stumble onto the dick pics in their profiles—or the masturbation videos, or the strippers who use the site to advertise their ‘private chat rooms’—and complain.

They might just complain to us, but they might not. They might complain to the FCC, or the FBI, or some sexual predator organization. We’re not regulated by the FCC, the FBI or anyone else, but no one needs that shit coming back to haunt them.

Especially us.

Especially when there is so much more going on here than anyone knows.

So I dutifully and diligently start wading through the flagged users and one after another I go into their on-site profiles, check their pics, and videos, and autobiographies. And one by one I ban them, stamp them, and let their piece of paper float down into the box with Belle’s name on it.

This is my life on most days. Sitting up here in my office listening to the sound of business on the floors below as it drifts upwards through the stairwell. Occasionally I have an out-of-town meeting to get big clients. Believe it or not, there are a bunch of new tech start-ups that think online dating is a perk their employees need. We have seven of those accounts, including the new one I just procured a few weeks ago out of New York.

Whatever.

If getting laid on a regular basis is good for their business, it’s even better for mine.

And I don’t want to think about New York. That shit is stressing me out. So I just put my head down and get busy banning perverts.

I’m about halfway through the stack when I stop breathing. Stop hearing. Stop everything when I see the image on the page.

My heart beats fast—then faster—as I stare down at the profile on the page.

I pick it up and focus on the girl.

I can’t see her face in the offending image and isn’t that so typical. But I can see other things. I can see the only things that matter.