Chapter Seven

What a way to start the day. I filled my giant thermal water bottle and carried it with me into my studio. It was really only the second bedroom in my apartment, but beggars can’t be choosers, and I was trying to save up enough to buy a house with a studio in the backyard. It would take years, but I’d get there. For now, having this extra space with excellent morning light was better than many artists had.

Since most of what I did was graphic arts, often in the advertising field, the light I so valued was blocked by curtains a good deal of the time, but when I could steal a few hours, I painted my heart out and loved it. This morning was a closed-curtain time, not only because my time belonged to a client but because the hangover hung on. If past experience offered any indication, it would not be gone before tomorrow. So, I sat at my desk and buckled down. The sooner I finished, the sooner I could go back to bed. Even the large canvas currently across the room from me would not likely be enough to make me want to stay upright.

I knew better, and it would not happen again. I was more a drink before dinner when in a restaurant or perhaps a glass of wine in the afternoon with friends than a hard partier, and I did not consider my preference to be a character flaw.

I left my phone in the kitchen, but it wasn’t as if I lived in a grand palace where I wouldn’t hear it if it rang, and when the notifications started again, I did not try to stop myself from going to see what they were. Besides, a third coffee, iced this time, might help push the headache back. Sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar, I swiped the screen and brought up the app.

I had yet another slew of semi-obscene notifications, and this time, I was fully awake and in possession of my faculties, hangover be damned. So, before going in to the reply to my message, I dashed off a note to the administrator explaining what was happening. Perhaps they didn’t care about how their members behaved, but perhaps they did, and I might be saving someone else some trouble. I filled a mug with the last of the coffee from the French press, added some cream, and set it in the microwave to heat before turning back to my phone. There was another reply, this one from admin.

We have reviewed the messages you asked about, and those who sent them have been warned. Another such action will have them removed from the app. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope it will not color your response to any actual matches you have received.

Actual matches? Did whoever this was know about the one I received? Somehow I’d assumed it was all automated, a computer putting people together, but perhaps not? I considered asking, but the other reply, the one from the possibly real gargoyles waited for me, and so I decided to let curiosity stay in the background—or at least curiosity about how the system worked. My nosiness about the nature of monsters who signed up on a dating app? Well, that was endless.

With my fresh cup of coffee in hand, I carried my phone back into the studio and sat down at my desk. Their reply was charming, and I decided that if they truly were gargoyles, their hearts were not made of stone no matter about the rest of them.

My friends seemed to have all chosen cookie-cutter men, all so similar, sometimes I thought only hair and eye color differentiated them. Successful, working in various kinds of offices, they were stylish, fit from working out at the gym, several inches taller than their beloveds, and owned many pairs of shoes as expensive as the handbags Cindy had given out. Or at least I assumed so since I wasn’t shopping for those things. But, in short, they were very boring men, which was why I rarely allowed myself to be fixed up on a date with friends of their friends. No. I wasn’t sure what type of man I wanted, but not that kind. I had once admitted to the girls that I thought it was sexy when a man worked with his hands. Self-made men with their own business, whose muscles came from honest labor or even genetics but not hours spent lifting weights at the gym or running on treadmills.

I considered that a waste of effort when physical labor could be put to something useful like gardening or, I don’t know, animal husbandry. Maybe I was a snob. But I found most of my friends’ guys blah. My mind turned to the gargoyles. What did they do for a living? The only kind I’d ever heard of were the stone ones guarding buildings. Did that mean gargoyles were like security guards?

Well, it was something that needed to be done. Honest work. I scanned their profiles but they seemed to lack job descriptions, so if I wanted to know, I’d have to ask.

Glancing at the time, I noted there was still an hour or two before I could reasonably take more painkillers for the headache that made my temples throb, so I tried to turn my attention back to my assignment, but my mind kept trying to come up with a good response to the gargoyles’ reply. My friends would know how to flirt and be charming, but they would not be talking to two monsters because they preferred guys in auto leasing or maybe insurance. No, I was on my own here, and since I knew very little about these two except that they seemed to want one woman to share, and, I’d noticed, they wanted her to be human. For some reason. I pulled my courage together and typed, Thank you for your reply! I know virtually nothing about your people, but I’d like to learn more about you. Would you mind if we planned a video chat?

We’d set a time, maybe tomorrow when I looked less like pond shit. It would be fun. Certainly an adventure to meet these guys and safe from a distance. I hit send.