Page 48 of Malliko
CHAPTER 15
Meeting Lucas
Clara
The massage that I received from Malliko left me aroused and wanting more. The touch of his strong hands on my body and his masculine scent had gone straight to my sex-deprived brain. When he held me down and ground against me, I had wanted nothing more than for him to push inside me.
But of course, he hadn’t.
After he left, I had curled up in my bed and looked at pictures of all the men who had liked my profile. None of them came close to Malliko and so chatting with Malliko-junior suddenly didn’t seem like such a big deal.
Clara:I spoke to my boyfriend.
Looking at the word boyfriend, I erased it before sending the message and replaced it with partner. Placing the word boy in the same phrase as Malliko felt like an insult. He was too masculine to be called anything with boy. Trying one more time, I wrote:
Clara:I spoke to my partner and he’s on board. When do you want to meet up?
Lucas:How about tomorrow night? I live alone if you want to come here.
I looked at my screen and felt resistance in my body. Of all the standard safety tips we gave to our clients when they signed up to use our dating platform, this was number one. Don’t meetwith a stranger in a private place. Always meet in public the first time. I felt grateful that Malliko had already offered that we could be at his place and that he would be there as a tall, strong bodyguard.
Lucas:Or we could meet at your place if you want to.
With the phone in my hands, I looked out the window. Every day at work, I saw chat correspondence like the one I was participating in right now. But this wasn’t work. This involved me and talking about meeting up and having sex with a hot stranger was something other brave women did. When I first started at Go2Match, I had been judgmental toward online dating. Seeing correspondence that reduced sex to a physical interaction had bothered me. My religion taught me that sex was sacred and should be shared between two people who loved each other.
But as the years passed and I sat lonely in this apartment every night, I had begun to envy the men and women who didn’t hide or limit themselves.
One more time, I scrolled through the pictures of the young man I was chatting with, and I wondered for a moment if my heart could get confused if I slept with him. I didn’t think so. That led me to my next reflection; had I become callous and cynical from reading thousands of chats over the years? Had the attitude from our clients toward sex as something fun and physical distorted my values?
Lucas:You’re not getting cold feet, are you?
His message made me question myself;WasI getting cold feet?
Don’t overthink it, I told myself, but it was hard not to.
Taking a deep breath, I used the confidence boost that Malliko’s arousal had given me earlier when he massaged me.
Clara:Would you be open to doing a short video chat? It’s just a way for us to be sure that we’re talking to the person in the pictures and that we’re serious about meeting up tomorrow.
He gave me a thumbs-up and so sitting up in my bed, I went to the option on the dating app to do a video call.
There was immense relief in my stomach when he picked up and I recognized him from his pictures.
“Hey.”
The moment that I noticed him looking as nervous as me, I eased my shoulders a bit. Maybe Malliko was right that despite how strange it might seem to me, this young man really felt lucky to be with a woman my age.
“Hey, so you really want to do this?” I asked with a smile.
The guy had dimples that came out when he grinned. “I promise you’ll enjoy it if you give me a chance.”
It felt surreal to have him seem so eager to be with me when I never thought that someone as fit and gorgeous as him would be interested.
“There’s just something I need to tell you.”
“Yeah? I’m listening.”
“Well, it’s just that separating love and sex is new to me and I haven’t been with anyone but my… ehm… my partner.”
