Buch lesen: «No Strings»

CHAPTER ONE

The day before

EMMA ALLAIRE STARED at the newly downloaded Nost app on her phone and sighed. “You’re sure I need to do this?” she asked her best friend, Sarah, once more as they sat together at their favorite brunch place in Lincoln Square, the mild, not quite fall air of mid-September gliding across the open patio as people meandered past them on the busy city sidewalk. Nost, short for No Strings, was the latest hookup app that all of her friends were talking about, a place to meet men for casual sex. The app’s ominous black logo appeared on her phone and she double-tapped it.

“Em, just give it a shot, okay?” said her gorgeous redheaded friend with the perfect alabaster skin, the curves that didn’t quit and the string of musician boyfriends who paraded in and out of her life. “You never know until you try.”

“But this is what’s wrong with us,” Emma cried, holding up her phone, to show Nost’s loading page. It read, “No names. No strings. 100% fun.” She pushed up her black-framed, librarian glasses and scowled at her phone. “How is anyone going to find true love like this?” She showed Sarah a picture of a shirtless man making a kissing face at a mirror. The app implored her to “swipe right for a good time” or “nope, swipe left.”

“Honey, you know this isn’t about true love. It’s about getting off.” Sarah’s eyes gleamed.

Emma shrieked a laugh. “What are you even talking about?”

Sarah waved her fork in the air. “Wait, you do get off, don’t you?”

Emma felt her face flush red. “Um... Yes. I do.”

Just, you know, with only two guys. Ever. In her whole dating history, but Sarah didn’t need to know that right now.

Sarah pushed up her sunglasses on her nose and leaned back, lifting her face to the fall sunshine coating the small patio of the restaurant. “Good. I thought for a second you were one of those poor souls who’d never had an orgasm.”

Emma glanced around the restaurant, suddenly worried someone might overhear. Sarah just shook her head at her friend. “Orgasm!” she cried, louder, and a father of two glanced over at their table and frowned.

“Hush!” Emma commanded. Not that it would do any good. Sarah spoke her mind. Their server appeared then, placing delicious-looking plates of food in front of them. Sarah dug in, while Emma focused on the app.

“This is what is wrong with us. Anonymous one-nighters? I mean, you are seriously going to have sex with a man and all you know is his handle is...” Emma peered at her screen. “Hot4U?”

Sarah laughed a little. “Who cares about love when he’s got abs like that?” she said, pointing to the man’s six-pack.

“And enough tattoo ink on him to write War and Peace,” Emma pointed out. “He’s got two arm sleeve tattoos.”

“You just have to fuck him, not marry him,” Sarah said, rolling her eyes, as she forked a mouthful of spinach quiche into her mouth. “And bad boys are very good in bed. Live a little, Em. Seriously. You know you settle too fast for just about any guy who buys you a drink. Then you end up in a two-year relationship with them while they bore your friends to death.”

Emma knew she was talking about Devin, her last boyfriend with the less-than-sparkling personality. He’d been the only other guy she’d seriously dated other than her high school boyfriend.

“Not all of my exes are that way.”

“You need to date around. Hell, sleep around. Not just commit to the very first guy who shows up. You know I’m right.” Sarah studied her friend.

Emma twirled a loose tendril of hair around her finger and sighed. She glanced down at her flowy, flowered peasant top and her modest jeans and tried to imagine herself meeting up with Mr. Tattoo and taking all her clothes off. She simply couldn’t.

“I need romance,” Emma declared. “There’s no romance in this. This is what men want. It’s not what women want.”

Sarah snorted. “How do you know if you’ve never tried it?”

“I know that this is just one more way men are manipulating us into thinking that what they want is somehow us being liberated,” said Emma, her women’s studies major coming out in blazing good form. “This is just Girls Gone Wild in sex app form.”

“Em, can you spare me the feminist rant until after I’ve finished my mimosa?” Sarah held up her champagne glass.

“No...this is what I do for a living.” She wrote freelance stories about women’s issues for a women’s online magazine, and she had a small but loyal following. “And because clearly you’re being manipulated by the patriarchy,” Emma declared and grinned. She knew what she sounded like: a militant femi-Nazi. But honestly, she felt like she was the only one who could see it—the fact that the wage gap was still a thing. And that the US was the only industrialized nation not to offer paid maternity leave, and...now there was Nost. Like Tinder, but in its most extreme form. The app men didn’t have to even try to get laid. She was all for the sexual revolution, but not when it meant that the advantage went entirely to men.

“This is just...this is just one more way men have tricked us into getting what they want. Sex and no commitment.”

“Fine, so delete it,” Sarah said, sighing, showing her exasperation, as she finished off the last of her meal. Emma, who had already devoured her blueberry waffle, wondered, not for the first time, how she and Sarah, so total opposites, ever got along. Their random pairing as college roommates had set off an unlikely friendship: Sarah, the impulsive redhead, who never flinched at a dare, and Emma, the bookworm, who one day hoped to run for elected office. If she were honest with herself, finding Mr. Right ranked somewhere between growing her blog readership base and putting money in her IRA. Dating just didn’t seem important at the moment—she was just twenty-eight. She had plenty of time. At least, that’s what she told herself. After her last disastrous relationship, where her boyfriend, Devin, chose a new job in Seattle over her, she just wasn’t too into the idea of putting herself out there again.

“Actually,” Sarah said, sipping her mimosa. “You don’t even need to delete it. Your profile will become invisible to the guys on your screen in forty-eight hours.”

“What? Why?”

Sarah put down her fork, and looked exasperated. She flipped her dark red hair off one shoulder.

“Because the whole point of it is not to have a relationship longer than that. Every two days, you get a whole new slew of potential guys and the old ones can’t find you. Every time, it’s new, and the best part is, there’s no awkward follow-up. You have sex and then—whoosh!—you disappear. It’s ghosting, but the app does it for you. Everybody knows the score. Nobody gets hurt.”

Emma put her head in her hands and groaned. “Are you kidding me?” She peeked at Sarah from her fingers. “The profiles become invisible?”

“That’s the point,” Sarah said. “Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. Emphasis on the bamming part.”

“Sarah! What about rapists? Serial killers?” Emma couldn’t believe her friend was even seriously suggesting anonymous sex. Wasn’t that beyond sketchy?

“The good ones already have a background check. See that little v next to ‘Hot4U’? He uploaded a background check. No felonies. Nost verified him. So, you don’t have to.”

Emma blew bangs out of her eyes. “What about...STDs?”

“See that little c next to him?”

Emma nodded.

“That means he’s been tested in the last month. He’s clear.”

“I guess they’ve thought of everything. You know, except real human intimacy.”

“Ha. Ha. Very funny. Don’t knock it till you try it.” Sarah pointed at Emma with her fork.

“Seriously, though, how can you do...this?”

“I’m busy. I work sixty hours a week because those commercial buildings aren’t going to sell themselves. And, yeah, it’s kind of hot.” She took a swig of her mimosa, finishing it, and glanced back at Emma. “And, a one-night stand? I mean, who hasn’t had one of those?”

Emma froze. She hadn’t, actually. She could never imagine herself getting naked in front of a stranger. She’d only ever had sex with her high school boyfriend, whom she’d dated three years before they’d even had sex, and then her post-college boyfriend, Devin, whom she dated three months before they’d done the deed. How could someone just... jump into bed with a man they’d only just met? By the time she’d had sex with someone she was already emotionally invested, even in love. She couldn’t imagine it any other way.

Sarah paused, glancing at her friend and read her expression. “Wait. You’ve...never?”

Emma felt on the spot, suddenly. Did that make her a prude? From the expression on Sarah’s face, the answer was yes. “No. Never.”

“Not even...college? I mean, everyone has one then.” Sarah leaned forward, her shock evident.

“Not me.” Emma took another sip of her mimosa.

“Well, then. You have to do this. You can’t turn thirty without having done this.” Sarah leaned forward. “Look, why don’t we make a deal? You try it for forty-eight hours. Go on one drink date at least. You don’t have to sleep with anybody. But can’t you write about it? If it turns out to be so bad, rant about it online for your magazine.”

“I don’t rant,” Emma corrected. “I discuss issues.”

“Honey, you rant, but that’s okay. It’s one reason why I love you. You’ve got opinions and you’re not afraid to share them.” Sarah leaned forward and patted Emma’s hand. “What have you got to lose? You either get laid or you get the subject of your next article. Win-win.”

Sarah had a point there. And it had been a long time since Devin moved to Seattle.

“So what do I do?” Emma asked, holding up her phone.

“First, you get a better picture than that,” Sarah declared, looking at Emma’s profile and wrinkling her nose in disapproval. She swiped Emma’s phone out of her hand and took her Elvis Costello glasses off in one quick swipe.

“I need those to see!”

“Not now you don’t.” Sarah clicked a few impromptu shots of Emma at the table.

“No! Don’t... I...” Emma laughed a little, as Sarah clicked a few more before stopping.

Sarah swiped through them. “Yes, that one.” She showed her friend the shot: Emma looking away, mid-laugh, blonde hair loose and cascading down one bare shoulder, her peasant top slipping ever so slightly downward revealing the curve of cleavage. “My shirt is practically falling off!” Emma protested.

“That’s the point. News flash: Guys like boobs.” Sarah rolled her eyes as she tapped on Emma’s phone.

Emma sighed. “Sarah...this is just playing into all the stereotypes...”

“Don’t go lecturing me on how you hate being a sex object. This is the picture you use. You look like you’re fun...and you don’t have a stick up your butt.”

“I don’t!” Emma cried, reaching for the phone. Sarah batted her hand away, typing up her profile. “And what are you doing?”

“Making sure you go through with this.” Sarah tapped her screen a few more times, concentrating hard.

“You think all problems can be solved by getting laid.”

“Can’t they, though?” Sarah grinned, her green eyes sparkling with mischief.

Emma giggled and tried to take back her phone. Sarah ducked deftly. Emma gave up and reached for her coffee mug. “Sarah, come on.”

“Fine.” Sarah glanced at her friend, the dare unmistakable in her gaze. “It’s not live until you hit that button.”

Emma glanced at the screen and nearly choked, almost sloshing her coffee. “You called me ‘Kitten’?” Inwardly, Emma groaned.

“The sex part is implied,” Sarah said, signaling the waiter to refill her mimosa. Emma had a feeling she’d need another one, too. “Just hit the ‘get laid’ button, and you’re good to go.” Sarah grinned.

“A ‘get laid’ button? Seriously?” Emma hesitated. Was she really going to do it? This was so unlike her and yet... It’s just research. How bad could it be?

“You don’t like it, you can delete the app whenever you want,” Sarah said. She studied her friend. “You’re not scared are you?”

“Are you seriously peer pressuring me into this?”

“Whatever works.” Sarah shrugged.

“Fine.” Emma tapped the button, sending her profile live out into the universe, telling random strangers in the Chicagoland area she was willing and available. She wasn’t sure quite how she felt about that.

“That’s my girl,” Sarah said, patting her hand. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”

“Now what?” Emma glanced at her phone, as if it would suddenly hold all the answers.

“Now you wait.” Sarah took a big swig of her mimosa. “Don’t worry. You probably won’t even hear from anybody for hours—until tonight.”

Emma glanced at her empty plate when her phone dinged. The Nost app lit up her screen with an incoming message.

“Did I say hours?” Sarah put down her champagne glass. “With your hot self, looks like you just had to wait a minute.”

Emma’s phone dinged once more. And then, a third time.

What have I gotten myself into?

Sarah grabbed her phone. She began scrolling through options. “Nope. No. Oh, God...no.” Sarah held up the phone and showed Emma a picture of a man trying to shove a foot-long hot dog in his mouth in one go. Emma wrinkled her nose. Who would want to have sex with...that?

“I feel like I’ve just wandered into an ugly bar, and I’m going to spend the next twenty-four hours being harassed.”

“Maybe.” Sarah flicked through a few more pictures. “Oh my. Here’s the man for you.” She showed Emma another one, this one of a man in a full Spider-Man suit, his face covered.

Emma barked a laugh. “No, it’s not. Look at his... You know.” She pointed to the picture’s groin where his very little bit was fully outlined for nearly all to see.

“Ew!” Sarah cried and dissolved into giggles. “No baby carrots for you!”

Sarah flicked through a few more. “Oh, this guy is nice. Mr. X? Sounds...intriguing.”

“Mr. X? Uh, no.” Emma shook her head.

Sarah kept flipping. Then, she stopped on one. “Ooh...he’s cute.” Sarah showed the screen to Emma and showed a blond, blue-eyed thirty-something in a suit.

“I guess so.” Emma shrugged.

“Guess so? He’s one hundred percent Christian Grey. And even his name is cute... Happy Fun Time! I am setting this up.”

“Sarah!” Emma tried to grab her phone. “Don’t!”

“You’re on for tomorrow night, at the bar in the Ritz-Carlton downtown.”

Emma blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I knew you wouldn’t.”