Perfect Match Read online

  ‘What are you doing now?’ Kate sighs.

  ‘Do you have a ruler?’

  ‘What? Why?!’

  ‘Can you just get me a ruler?’

  Kate groans as she goes to get one from her bedroom.

  A minute later, she returns.

  ‘Cheers.’ I take it from her and resting it against the perfect girth circle I’ve created with my right hand.

  ‘Okay, cock diameter must be 2.1 inches,’ I type the words in as I speak. ‘Shit, how do you work out the circumference from that?’

  ‘I’m sure Mr Perfect is smart enough to figure it out,’ Kate tuts.

  I gaze at my ad dreamily.

  ‘Do you think 7.5 inches is enough? Or should I make it 8?’

  Kate grabs the ruler to compare.

  ‘I’d go with 8,’ she says.

  ‘Okay, 8 it is.’ I edit the text. ‘Done!’

  ‘You do realise you’re going to get hundreds of dick pics now?’ Kate points out.

  I shrug.

  ‘You’re crazy!’ Kate comments as she reaches for the laptop. ‘Right, photos…’

  She opens up her Facebook account and starts scrolling through my pictures.

  ‘Let me get my laptop.’ I get up.

  ‘Not from the file!’ Kate yelps, grabbing my arm and pulling me back down.

  ‘This one’s nice,’ she says, hesitating on a terrible photo my mum took of me walking through Hyde Park on a Sunday afternoon with no makeup on.

  ‘Nice?! It’s rubbish. I’ve got loads better than that.’

  ‘It’s nice. You look natural, at ease, approachable.’

  ‘I look pale and drab. Anaemic. It doesn’t even have a filter.’

  ‘You look natural. Guys like natural.’

  ‘No, they don’t!’ I grab the laptop. ‘Guys like hot!’

  ‘Sophia!’ Kate yanks the laptop back off me. ‘You said it yourself! What you’ve been doing so far hasn’t been working. You need to try something different—’

  ‘I didn’t mean upload an ugly pic of myself!’

  ‘It’s not an ugly pic!’ Kate right clicks onto the photo and saves it to her desktop.

  ‘It is! No one’s going to reply to that! Please don’t use that, Kate!’

  Ignoring me, Kate goes back onto Dream Dates and selects ‘Add photo.’ I stand up, a little unsteadily, and drain the last of my wine.

  ‘Picture uploaded,’ she announces smugly.

  I roll my eyes. ‘Right. Well now I’m definitely not going to meet anyone.’

  I place my empty glass in the sink. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  Kate clicks a few more buttons on the screen.

  ‘Your profile is now live,’ she trills.

  ‘Great.’ I skulk off to my room.

  Chapter Three

  ‘So….’ My colleague Sandra sidles up to my desk.

  She’s wearing one of her ratty old cardigans, a dark blue number that’s unravelling slightly at the hem. It’s one she knitted herself and like all her hand-made creations, she’s incredibly proud of it, even if it does look a little worse for wear to the rest of us.

  ‘How was your date last night then?’ she asks in her sing-song voice, which is just a little too squeaky and high-pitched for me to handle today.

  Unlike Sandra, who no doubt went to bed at 10pm last night (like she does every night, with a mug of Ovaltine), Kate and I were up until gone 2am, knocking back wine and creating that stupid dating profile. My head is pounding and I’m sure I look awful. I spent half the tube journey cowering in my seat desperately trying to conceal my eye bags with lashings of concealer. The overall effect being that my caked on make-up probably only serves to highlight my tiredness, rather than hide it.

  ‘It was alright,’ I grumble, reaching for my mug of tea, but that’s not enough to satisfy Sandra. Sandra thrives on details.

  ‘What was he like?’ she pries, with a suggestive little eyebrow wiggle as she perches on the end of my desk.

  She’s clearly not going away any time soon. While it’s evident to everyone who knows me that I have a depressingly terrible love life, to Sandra I’m some sort of whimsical Carrie Bradshaw figure. Sometimes I revel in the attention and quite enjoy having a good old gossip, poring over guys’ pictures and analysing their messages, but other times – like today – I just wish Sandra would get out a bit more and stop living through me. We’re both single, and even though she’s obsessed with my love life, she won’t contemplate going on a date herself.

  ‘Well?!’ Sandra pleads. ‘Come on, what was he like?’

  ‘Oh… tall, nice eyes,’ I tell her.

  Her face lights up like a puppy being offered a treat.

  ‘But we didn’t really click.’

  She deflates. ‘How come?’

  ‘He was into weird figurine battle games and had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the layout of London’s tube stations,’ I explain, but Sandra looks nonplussed.

  ‘We just didn’t have a spark.’

  ‘But he sounds nice,’ Sandra protests.

  I should have known Sandra would find him fascinating.

  ‘What about one more date? Just to give him a chance,’ Sandra suggests.

  I shake my head. ‘Don’t think so. Fancy another cup of tea?’

  I down the dregs left in my mug. Making tea is the only way I’m going to be able to get out of this conversation. Give her two more minutes and she’ll be asking to see Chris’ profile. Sandra always wants to see my dates’ profiles, even if I have no intention of ever seeing them again. I think it’s almost like porn to her.

  ‘Oh yes, a cup of tea would be lovely. The usual.’ Sandra smiles, handing me her mug - a customised one she ordered online featuring a picture of her hamster, Betsy.

  ‘Thanks,’ I take the mug and hurry out the office, down the corridor to the kitchen, where I savour the sweet relief of silence.

  I fill the kettle and check my phone while it boils. Twelve new messages from Dream Dates and it’s only 9.45am. Fuzzy fragments from last night filter back into my mind. The face of Robert Pattinson with the body of Daniel Craig. Must have a cat. I feel my cheeks redden suddenly. Oh my God. The penis specifications. Bugger! What if someone at work spots my profile and HR calls me in? What if this goes on my record? I’ll be known as the The Girl Who Advertised for Sex Online or Penis Girl. I’ll never get a reference again. Oh no! I search around on the site, looking for the deactivation button, but like on all dating sites, it’s as hidden as humanly possible. Messages start pinging into my account. No doubt all the weirdo men trawling the site can see that I’m online.

  Sunjil1964: Hello dear, I like your profile. Me? I look for wife. We meet? X

  Timster: Hi Sophia,

  I’m a little tired having just flown in from Singapore but I saw your profile and wanted to send you a message seeing as you like men who travel like myself. Not many women can handle my schedule, among other things ;)

  Tim xx

  PC34C: Hi Sophia, my name is Omar and I am creative I work in the video games industry as a software engineer I also like animals I used to have a cat but he died then I had another cat but he also died that was when I decided to stop adopting animals. I like to get to know you more

  Tattoos_and_bass: Roses are red, Violets are blue, Can I stick a finger up your bum hole?

  RichyRich: Hi Sophia, You would look great in my cage. Rich

  Bobhot4u: Hallo Sophia ;)

  My name’s Bob. I’m kind and I enjoy life to the fullest. I’m just looking for woman to make it more interesting and worth living.

  xox.Bob

  Markeyboi88: Hey babe, If I flip a coin, what are the chances I’ll get head?

  Ali_Jaff: I feel some kind of ticklish in my belly as I saw your pic and I can stop looking at it.. :)

  I was assuming what if I was lucky someday to meet you up I will be a happy like little Charlie in chocolate factory.. ;)

  But don’t know if I ever get a reply from you as I b
elieve it’s not mandatory that you reply me and fact is you can only see the moon but never touch moon and appreciate its sweetness but never get a reply let’s see what happen :)

  Jimbo_9: Hi Sophia, I don’t have the body of Daniel Craig, more like James Corden, but I do have an eight-inch cock. Take a look if you don’t believe me!

  Without thinking, I scroll down to reveal a close-up shot of an engorged veiny penis protruding from a generous mound of ginger pubes and automatically eject my phone from my hand. It crashes to the kitchen floor.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Sandra’s head pops around the door. ‘I heard a sort of yelping sound,’ she remarks.

  ‘Yes! Yes! I’m fine! Totally fine! Just dropped my phone.’ I dive down to the ground and grab it, thankful that it’s landed screen down. The last thing I need this morning is for my work mates to think I’m looking at porn in the staff kitchen. I stash it in my trouser pocket.

  ‘Are you sure you’re alright? You look a little…’

  ‘It’s nothing! Just making tea. It’s nothing!’ I shriek, opening the cutlery draw and rummaging around for a spoon.

  ‘Do you need a hand?’ Sandra asks.

  ‘No! Nope. I’m fine!’ I insist.

  ‘Okay, then,’ Sandra relents, giving me a weird look as she closes the door.

  I’m going to kill Kate. What kind of site is this? Dream Dates. More like Nightmare Nutjobs. I can’t wipe the image of that penis from my mind. It’s there as I stir the tea. As I pour in the milk. As I spoon in the sugar. It’s going to be forever burned on my retinas.

  I take the mugs of tea and head back into the office, handing Sandra her mug as I walk to my desk. She takes a sip and her eyes bulge.

  ‘Bit sugary, Sophia!’ She winces, as if she’s swallowing poison. ‘Surely this isn’t the usual one and a half teaspoons?’

  ‘Something like that.’ I shrug. I have a vague memory of brandishing a teaspoon around, sugar grains flying about, the image of an eight-inch penis attached to James Cordenesque thighs throbbing in my brain.

  ‘Sorry, Sandra.’

  ‘No problem.’ She takes another tentative sip before faking a smile.

  I sit down in front of my computer, wondering whether I can log onto Dream Dates without anyone noticing. I need to delete that profile. I’m about to type in the web address when I see Ted, my boss, walking over to my desk. As usual, he’s wearing a suit that’s three sizes too big. It would make him look like a child dressing up in his dad’s clothes if it wasn’t for the greying hair dusted with dandruff, which is a bit of a giveaway.

  ‘Need you to proofread this, Sophia,’ he says, plonking a document in front of me. I pick it up tentatively, appraising the title: A study of catheter-associated urinary tract infections. I arrange my features into an agreeable expression.

  ‘Of course, thanks Ted.’ I smile politely. ‘It looks great,’ I add for extra measure, although that might be taking it too far.

  Ted clutches the side of my desk and leans against it in a pained attempt at nonchalance.

  ‘Nice day, isn’t it?’ he observes, gazing out of the window. The September sky is shrouded in clouds, although the sun is peeking out between a few of them. It’s a fairly ordinary-looking day as far as I can tell, but Ted gazes towards the horizon, bewitched.

  ‘Yes, lovely!’ I enthuse.

  ‘Heading to an open-air cinema event later, hopefully it doesn’t rain!’ Ted says.

  ‘Hopefully!’

  Poor Ted. He tries so hard to be cool but it never quite works out for him. He subscribes to Time Out’s mailing list and he’s always banging on about this or that up-and-coming burger place or Shoreditch’s cat café, and he absolutely loves outdoor cinema nights in random run-down locations. But even though he may have done every gimmicky thing there is to do in London, he’ll still never be trendy. Ted’s another long-term singleton. I wonder what his username would be if he did online dating… Probably something really creepy like YourSpecialTeddy. Repressing a shudder, I push the thought out of my mind.

  ‘Anyway,’ Ted peels his clammy hand from my desk. ‘I need the paper to be done by the end of the day and it’s got to be spot-on. You know what the infections lot are like.’ He pulls a face.

  ‘Okay, sure. No problem!’ I add, a little too brightly as he wanders off.

  I read the first sentence: ‘Catheter associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) are one of the most commonly occurring healthcare associated infections, Urinary Catheters can frequntly become colonised with micro-bacteria; but most do not lead to infection.’ I rearrange the sentence, adding a full stop and a dash, removing unnecessary capitals and semicolons and correcting ‘frequntly’. It ends up vaguely readable, but still, one sentence in and I’ve already had to make five changes and this document is… I flick through it… 23 pages long! Great. Just great.

  I take a few sips of my tea and try to pull myself together. Things could be worse. They could be a lot worse. It’s not like I’m down the mines or anything. I could be down a dark, wet, horrible mine. All I have to do is sit here, in front of my computer and make some changes to a document. It’s fine. Except, I can’t help feeling like I’m wasted on this. I don’t want comma corrections on this document to be my legacy. An image pops into my mind of my funeral. Ted standing at the podium with a tear in his eye.

  ‘She worked tirelessly for the betterment of catheters,’ he’ll sob, wiping his eyes with a sodden hanky that, naturally, he’ll have been storing up one of his roomy sleeves. ‘None of us at Shadwell Medical Research Centre will ever forget her.’

  No! I shudder, trying to shake the image from my brain. I was put on this earth to be a writer, a real writer. But somehow, writing a novel is taking a lot longer than I thought it would and simply dreaming of the Booker doesn’t pay the rent (if it did, I’d be living in a Chelsea mansion right now). I let out a gusty sigh. I shouldn’t be so downbeat. Maybe my luck will change. Maybe I’ll win the lottery and then I’ll have all the time in the world to write. Yes, that would be perfect. But I’m not an idiot. I know I can’t go planning my life around winning the lottery! No, Deal or No Deal is far more likely. I reckon I’m quite in tune with the universe and most people win at least something on that show, don’t they? I open up a Google browser and type in ‘How to apply…’ I’m about to add ‘to take part in Deal or No Deal,’ when Sandra swoops by my desk to check out what I’m working on.

  She picks up the paper.

  ‘Oh, UTIs. Interesting.’ She nods approvingly.

  I laugh, assuming she’s being funny, but she hands the document back to me with a sad smile, as if I lucked out and she didn’t.

  I take the paper from her, abandon my Deal or No Deal plans for now and reluctantly get to work.

  By 6pm, I’ve picked up an inhuman amount of knowledge on catheters, drunk a gallon of tea and corrected so many diabolically written sentences that I’m beginning to seriously consider setting up an educational outreach campaign: Medics Need Literacy Too.

  ‘Here you go, Ted.’ I plonk a new, freshly printed version of the document down on his desk.

  He picks it up, scanning the front page with his well-trained, punctuation-hawk eyes.

  ‘Looks good, Sophia,’ he says, flicking through the pages.

  He starts stroking his chin as he appraises my work. He could really do with a beard for moments like this but I’m not in the mood for Ted’s ponderings. It’s the end of the day and I just want to go home, have some dinner and get a nice early night.

  ‘Great! Well, see you tomorrow!’ I say, edging my way to the door.

  ‘Wait, Sophia!’ Ted calls me back. ‘Seeing as you’ve done such a good job on this, I’ve actually got another paper you might like to do. It’s not quite as innovative as this one, but I think you’ll still find it interesting.’

  He rifles through his desk draw. ‘Here it is!’ He hands me a paper with a big smile.

  Stifling a sense of dread, I read the title: How to prevent
catheter-induced urinary tract infections using sterilization.

  I can feel Ted watching me, waiting for a reaction.

  ‘Thank you, Ted,’ I croak.

  ‘No problem,’ he replies, with a kind smile.

  I walk back to my desk, abandon the paper and bolt to the door.

  ‘Right, see you tomorrow!’ I call across the office, barely waiting for a response before the door swings shut behind me

  I head to the tube station and catch the DLR home, feeling glum. I remember when Ted started giving Sandra all the papers on fungal infections, I thought it was absolutely hilarious. But now, thanks to some horrible karmic twist of fate, I seem to have become the office’s resident catheter specialist. I don’t know which is worse - fungal infections or catheter-induced UTIs. Actually, come to think of it, I’ve probably drawn the short straw.

  ‘Hey,’ Kate mumbles, peering over the back of the sofa as I arrive home. She’s sitting with Max watching EastEnders.

  ‘Alright, Sophia?’ Max turns around and gives me a little salute.

  I hang my coat up by the door.

  ‘Hey guys.’ I walk over and sink into an armchair.

  ‘What’s up? You look a bit down,’ Kate says, looking over at me.

  I shrug. ‘It’s nothing.’

  I can tell from what she’s wearing that Kate probably hasn’t left the house today. She’s in her black and white striped Beetlejuice leggings, the ones she always dons for lounging around. Max is wearing his off-duty actor-wear - black jogging bottoms and a tight black t-shirt. Kate’s legs are stretched out over his lap. They’re always like this. If they’re not on stage, you can guarantee they’ll be watching DVDs or soaps, carrying out ‘research’ as they call it. But I guess they don’t have much energy for anything else, or at least Kate doesn’t anyway. It’s her first week off for nearly a year. She’s playing Desdemona at The Globe and finally decided to have a break, letting her understudy step in until Friday. Unlike Kate, who can’t get enough of playing Shakespearean heroines, Max doesn’t really go in for the classics. At the moment, he’s pretending to shoot up every weekend while playing Mark Renton in a pub theatre adaptation of Trainspotting. He fixes me with a concerned look.