This is still fairly rough and needs proofing and all the things that make a book easier to read. But you get the flavor and I hope you’ll relate to Madeline.
Chapter One
Madeline
I signed with the stylus where the woman told me to. I was doing a lot of that these days. The paper work that ended my seventeen year marriage, the release paperwork from the university where I hadn’t gotten tenure. The anger still burned in my chest over those. How the hell did I end up forty-five years old, no family, no job, no reputation, no money, and sitting in a matchmaker’s office I was pretty sure was a front for something? The advertising was too cute by half and they weren’t charging for their services. Who does that? Even billionaires wanted to make more money. But I was desperate.
“So seriously, you aren’t even going to run my credit card?” The young woman who worked there looked vaguely offended.
“No? Just like I told you the last time you asked me. Really, our men, pay for everything.”
“Because they want women who are willing to bow and scrape to them?”
“Again, also no. I mean they’re male so I don’t think they’d mind it, but they’re not expressly looking for that.”
“What’s the catch?”
“There’s no catch.”
“Look, there is always a catch.”
“Well, all that is left is you to scan your finger on the data pad. That is the final piece of our proprietary matching protocol, and then I can explain in more detail.”
“See, there is a catch! And after I do that you what, tell me, you have the perfect guy who is going to love and take care of me, never lie or cheat or steal from me, and all it will cost me is the rest of the money I have in the bank and maxing out my credit cards!”
“I’m so sorry life hasn’t been good to you.” We sat staring at each other. Her uncomfortable at my outburst, and me, hell, I had stopped caring what people thought of me a long time ago. Something about being invisible in my own life was both humiliating and oddly freeing.
“Gimme the damn data pad. At this point I’m too old to be trafficked.”
“We don’t…” She’d gone over this with me too, though there was some very careful language used that made my spidey senses tingle. She slid something that looked like an old iPod circa 2004 toward me. The kind with the scroll wheel. I’d gotten one to celebrate getting into the doctoral program of my choice. Come to think of it that was when my life started falling apart, I just didn’t know it yet. I pressed my finger to the screen and a bright light lit up behind it. The LED was so bright I could see capillaries in my finger, but it didn’t hurt at all. When it turned off she pulled it back and stuck it in something that looked like an Easy Bake Oven from when I was a kid. Only instead of some barely cooked tiny cake, a read out with data came out the other side.
“Wow.”
“Here it comes.”
“No seriously. I’ve never seen compatibility this high. Not even in the test matches. And I assumed those were rigged to to look perfect.”
“As my father would have said, pull the other one.”
“Madeline Grosvner, you have a compatibility score of 99.7 percent. Do you accept your match?”
“Yeah, sure. How much is this going to cost? Because if I had money I wouldn’t be here.”
“Oh my God. They don’t want your money!” I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms. Okay, trafficking it is.
“You mean it, you accept?”
“One second, if the guys are so great, how come you haven’t snatched one up?”
“First, I’m not eligible. At thirty-two, I’m too young. And second, I’m already married.” She flipped a picture I’d only ever seen the back of on her desk and a handsome guy in uniform stared back at me. Okay, if I were coming home to that every night maybe I wouldn’t be in this position.
“He’s cute. I hope he treats you well.”
“Like I’m his princess.” It took everything I had in me not to let Bitter Betty out and tell her that one minute you’re the princess and the next you’re cast as the evil queen. Disney still had that story in development. “So?”
“Yes, fine I accept my match.” She squealed like she was at an NSYNC concert, except she would have been like two then.
“Omigosh! I’ve been dying to tell someone and I have an iron-clad NDA but now you are part of the program so I have to tell you, right? Right!” Oh my God, who gave the chipmunk caffeine. “So, the guys are like crazy hot! All buff warrior types covered in muscles. I mean, they actually are warriors! Not like my Jeff, who sits in an office but goes to the gym. These guys like, live it. And they come off as a little aloof but, that just adds to the mystique, right? And their skin!
“Their skin?”
“So pretty.”
“Pretty, I mean it is just skin. What are they covered in tattoos?” Maybe she was sending me to some tribal culture halfway around the world. Maybe that could work, as long as they had internet and package delivery.
“Hmm, I can’t remember any tattoos.”
“I did notice that none of your literature showed any pictures of these saintly men who were willing to pay for all of these costs.”
“Oh. Okay, I have one picture on my phone but I’m not supposed to have it. You aren’t going to rat me out, are you?”
“Snitches get stitches.” The kid grinned at me. Okay, now that she dropped the professional bullshit, I kinda liked her better. I wasn’t going to offer her coffee any time soon though. She dug in her purse and pulled out a phone and thumbed through the photos.
“I had to get a picture or Jeff would not have believed me at all. But here, look.” She thrust the phone in my face and without my reading glasses I pulled my head back to see it clearly. I couldn’t even be sure what I was looking at. There was definitely something man shaped. Tall, like basketball player tall, bright white hair hung below the shoulders. Shoulders you could climb they were so broad and sculpted.
“What kind of suit is that? Is he some kind of diver, or something?” She giggled and I reassessed whether or not I still thought I liked her.
“No! That is what I mean. That is their skin! They walk around either shirtless or if it’s a formal occasion then they wear tight fitted tunics.”
“So it is a whole society that was raised in a cave? Why would they be that pale?”
“Oh, I mean they aren’t really pale, well they are, but their skin shifts color, like an opal.” I knew my mouth was hanging open but I couldn’t get my brain to tell it to close.
“You are telling me they’re what, aliens?”
“Yes, exactly! And you have a near perfect match to one.”
“How?”
“I didn’t get all of it, but something about a part of their planet became a comet and crashed into this planet, like a million years ago, and we all have bits of stardust in us, and the higher the percentage the greater the chance of finding a match. I mean everybody has a little, but you have a lot, and it matches you to the perfect guy for you.” Alright the caffeinated chipmunk was getting annoying.
“Look, I have a PhD. In developmental biology. I’m going to need to see more than a picture that was probably taken at Comic-Con.”
“I’m not lying! Look, if you meet him and don’t fall in love then you can come back.”
“And how much is that going to cost me?” The woman just groaned at me.
“Just trust me.” She must have hit a button under her desk because the chair I was in tipped back and a foot rest slid out like I was going to the dentist. Only bands wrapped around me holding me to the chair.
“What the hell!”
“You’re going to feel a little pinch.” An arm popped out of the side of the chair with what looked like an ear piercing gun they used at the mall back when those were a thing. It attached to my tragus and pierced it. Injecting something at the same time.
“What the hell!” I was sounding like a broken record! And then the little easy bake oven thing beamed a bright light at me and I was gone. The last thing I heard was the crazy chipmunk yelling that I was going to love it and clapping like she was winning a game show.