Page 2 of The App Trap
“Erm… huh?” He fumbled, frantically circling his wireless mouse like a Karate Kid learning how to wax a fence. He squinted at the screen innocently and started clicking in random areas, no doubt hoping that I would just evaporate and leave him to it.
“It’s a girl, isn’t it? Are you… online-dating? Well, welcome to Loserville; Population: One.”
“Well, two actually, if you count him. I mean her. I mean… shit,” said Finn, punching his fist downwards like an apprehended Scooby Doo villain.
“You said ‘him’?”
“Yeah, but I meant ‘her’.”
“But yousaid‘him’.”
“Indeed. And then I rectified it immediately.”
After a brief stare-out, I sprang into action, ruthlessly maximising the incriminating app, ruffling all of the papers on his desk and making them float everywhere as if they’d just been in a 70s car chase. A multitude of chat windows peppered the screen, like bullets from a paintball gun. My mouth slowly dropped open as I surveyed what was in front of me.
“Knob_Lowe, Lewis_Vuitton. These are all men,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s kind of why Naomi and I… well, one of the reasons-”
“Oh no you don’t,” I interrupted.
“What?”
“I’m the only gay in Mimosa Street. You don’t get to come home and be… all gay as well.”
“I’m bisexual, actually.”
“Well, that’s gay enough. Does Mum know?”
Finn hoisted an eyebrow––a trick that I had always been wildly jealous of since we were knee-high to our mother’s knees.
“Well, welcome to the club, I guess?” I mumbled.
“Club? Do I get a ‘Bi-card’?” he quipped.
After unsuccessfully attempting to hoist my eyebrow by raising my head and subsequently banging itreallyhard on one of Finn’s shelves, I scanned the multiple chat windows, still trying to take in what a hussy my brother had just been revealed to be.
“I mean I’m sure you’ve got plenty of questions,” said Finn.
“Just a few,” I jumped in, scratching my nose with a speedy rhythm.
“Go on then, shoot.”
“Okay. First question,” I said, nodding to a window half-hidden behind Knob_Lowe’s chat box. “What’s BDSM chat?”
Finn jumped and recklessly turned off the computer, neglecting any sort of shutdown procedure. “Didn’t you say you were hungry?” he said. “Dinner’s on me.”
“Righto. Three courses. That should be plenty of time for you to tell me where on earth my straight, nerdy brother is really at. Deal?”
“Deal,” he said.
Chapter
Two
The next day, I took the tube into town and decided to do a bit of shopping. Watching my stud of a brother clean up, albeit ‘virtually’ had me thinking. My love (and lust) life for that matter had been an absolute wasteland for way too long. I was hardly getting any action anymore, now that I was bored of clubs and bars and noise and, well…people in general. So, what could the solution be? Technology of course.
I stopped dead at the window of a phone shop I’d heard of, clocking an offer for not only one of those pesky smartphones I’d avoided for so long, but with a three-month subscription to yet another streaming service and––a three-month subscription to ‘Kindred’.
