Zoe May - Perfect Match

‘Because he has a maid.’

‘Right.’ Kate fixes me with an unimpressed look. ‘So, he has a cat and a maid?’

‘Yes!’

‘I’m beginning to see why you’re single.’ Kate shakes her head as she types it in. ‘Anything else?’

I think for a second. That must be about it. I’ve covered everything from looks to pets to voluntary work. What else is there?

‘I nearly forgot!’ I plonk my wine glass down on the table, feeling a head rush from the booze.

Kate looks up expectantly.

‘He’s got a massive cock!’ I add, grinning.

After all, I don’t want to end up with some super-rich, gorgeous, well-dressed animal lover who’s crap in the sack. Sex is important too.

Kate nearly spits out her wine. ‘Shut up, Sophia. I’m not writing that!’

‘Fine, I’ll write it then!’ I grab the laptop and start typing away.

‘I can’t believe you!’ Kate laughs.

On second thoughts, I delete ‘massive’ and add ‘7 inches’. No, ‘7.5 inches’. Slightly above average, but not so big that it would be painful.

‘“Cock must be 7.5 inches,”’ Kate reads out, giggling. ‘Oh my God!’

Oh, and girth. I don’t want some guy with a spaghetti dick. He’s got to have girth too. I make a circle with my thumb and forefinger, making it bigger and smaller until it’s just the right size.

‘What are you doing now?’ Kate sighs.

‘Do you have a ruler?’

‘What? Why?!’

‘Can you just get me a ruler?’

Kate groans as she goes to get one from her bedroom.

A minute later, she returns.

‘Cheers.’ I take it from her and rest it against the perfect girth circle I’ve created with my right hand.

‘Okay, “cock diameter must be 2.1 inches”,’ I type the words in as I speak. ‘Shit, how do you work out the circumference from that?’

‘I’m sure Mr Perfect is smart enough to figure it out,’ Kate tuts.

I gaze at my ad dreamily.

‘Do you think seven and a half inches is enough? Or should I make it eight?’

Kate grabs the ruler to compare.

‘I’d go with eight,’ she says.

‘Okay, eight it is.’ I edit the text. ‘Done!’

‘You do realise you’re going to get hundreds of dick pics now?’ Kate points out.

I shrug.

‘You’re crazy!’ Kate comments as she reaches for the laptop. ‘Right, photos…’

She opens up her Facebook account and starts scrolling through my pictures.

‘Let me get my laptop.’ I get up.

‘Not from the file!’ Kate yelps, grabbing my arm and pulling me back down.

‘This one’s nice,’ she says, hesitating on a terrible photo my mum took of me walking through Hyde Park on a Sunday afternoon with no make-up on.

‘Nice?! It’s rubbish. I’ve got loads better than that.’

‘It’s nice. You look natural, at ease, approachable.’

‘I look pale and drab. Anaemic. It doesn’t even have a filter.’

‘You look natural . Guys like natural.’

‘No, they don’t!’ I grab the laptop. ‘Guys like hot!’

‘Sophia!’ Kate yanks the laptop back off me. ‘You said it yourself! What you’ve been doing so far hasn’t been working. You need to try something different—’

‘I didn’t mean upload an ugly pic of myself!’

‘It’s not an ugly pic!’ Kate right clicks onto the photo and saves it to her desktop.

‘It is! No one’s going to reply to that! Please don’t use that, Kate!’

Ignoring me, Kate goes back onto Dream Dates and selects ‘Add photo’. I stand up, a little unsteadily, and drain the last of my wine.

‘Picture uploaded,’ she announces smugly. I roll my eyes. ‘Right. Well now I’m definitely not going to meet anyone.’

I place my empty glass in the sink. ‘I’m going to bed.’

Kate clicks a few more buttons on the screen. ‘Your profile is now live,’ she trills.

‘Great.’ I skulk off to my room.

Chapter Three

‘So….’ My colleague Sandra sidles up to my desk.

She’s wearing one of her ratty old cardigans, a dark blue number that’s unravelling slightly at the hem. It’s one she knitted herself and like all her handmade creations, she’s incredibly proud of it, even if it does look a little worse for wear to the rest of us.

‘How was your date last night then?’ she asks in her sing-song voice, which is just a little too squeaky and high-pitched for me to handle today.

Unlike Sandra, who no doubt went to bed at 10 p.m. last night (like she does every night, with a mug of Ovaltine), Kate and I were up until gone 2 a.m., knocking back wine and creating that stupid dating profile. My head is pounding and I’m sure I look awful. I spent half the tube journey cowering in my seat desperately trying to conceal my eye bags with lashings of concealer. The overall effect being that my caked on make-up probably only serves to highlight my tiredness, rather than hide it.

‘It was all right,’ I grumble, reaching for my mug of tea, but that’s not enough to satisfy Sandra. Sandra thrives on details.

‘What was he like?’ she pries, with a suggestive little eyebrow wiggle as she perches on the end of my desk.

She’s clearly not going away any time soon. While it’s evident to everyone who knows me that I have a depressingly terrible love life, to Sandra I’m some sort of whimsical Carrie Bradshaw figure. Sometimes I revel in the attention and quite enjoy having a good old gossip, poring over guys’ pictures and analysing their messages, but other times – like today – I just wish Sandra would get out a bit more and stop living through me. We’re both single, and even though she’s obsessed with my love life, she won’t contemplate going on a date herself.

‘Well?!’ Sandra pleads. ‘Come on, what was he like?’

‘Oh… tall, nice eyes,’ I tell her.

Her face lights up like a puppy being offered a treat.

‘But we didn’t really click.’

She deflates. ‘How come?’

‘He was into weird figurine battle games and had an encyclopedic knowledge of the layout of London’s tube stations,’ I explain, but Sandra looks nonplussed.

‘We just didn’t have a spark.’

‘But he sounds nice,’ Sandra protests.

I should have known Sandra would find him fascinating.

‘What about one more date? Just to give him a chance,’ Sandra suggests.

I shake my head. ‘Don’t think so. Fancy another cup of tea?’

I down the dregs left in my mug. Making tea is the only way I’m going to be able to get out of this conversation. Give her two more minutes and she’ll be asking to see Chris’s profile. Sandra always wants to see my dates’ profiles, even if I have no intention of ever seeing them again. I think it’s almost like porn to her.

‘Oh yes, a cup of tea would be lovely. The usual.’ Sandra smiles, handing me her mug – a customised one she ordered online featuring a picture of her hamster, Betsy.

‘Thanks.’ I take the mug and hurry out the office, down the corridor to the kitchen, where I savour the sweet relief of silence.

I fill the kettle and check my phone while it boils. Twelve new messages from Dream Dates and it’s only 9.45 a.m. Fuzzy fragments from last night filter back into my mind. The face of Robert Pattinson with the body of Daniel Craig. Must have a cat . I feel my cheeks redden suddenly. Oh my God. The penis specifications. Bugger! What if someone at work spots my profile and HR calls me in? What if this goes on my record? I’ll be known as the Girl Who Advertised for Sex Online or Penis Girl. I’ll never get a reference again. Oh no! I search around on the site, looking for the deactivation button, but like on all dating sites, it’s as hidden as humanly possible. Messages start pinging into my account. No doubt all the weirdo men trawling the site can see that I’m online.