Your Dimension Or Mine? (5 page)

“Hello?”

“Arwen Reynolds?” The voice on the line went in and out. Whoever it was must be in a bad cell area.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “Who is this?”

“Stop whatever it is you are doing! You just do—” The line went dead.

Groaning, she checked caller ID. Out of area. “Well that helps,” she groused.

The voice hadn’t sounded familiar at all. In fact, she could not tell if it was a male or a female voice with how bad the reception was.

“Well. It is a Friday night. The teenagers must be bored.” Placing her phone back down, she walked into her bedroom, at the moment forgetting all about the anklet.

As she stripped down, her sore muscles from all the running she had done that day returned. “I could use a bath.” Walking into the bathroom, she was thrilled to turn on the one thing that sold her on the apartment in the first place—the large Jacuzzi tub. Turning the water on as hot as it would go, she plugged up the tub and walked away. It would take almost a half hour to fill.

After all her clothes were in the laundry basket, she went back out to finish her hot chocolate. As she grabbed the cup, her eyes once again fell on the jewelry box. Gulping the rest of her drink, she picked up the box with one hand and went into the kitchen. Placing the box down long enough to wash the cup seemed the most monumental of tasks, and she was not sure why.

“Must be because I have never seen anything this beautiful before.”

Placing the cup on the drying rack, she took the box into her bedroom and went in to take her bath. Steam rose off the water and with a smile, she splashed a large amount of lavender oil into it before stepping in. A small hiss escaped her throat as she sank in, but she was not about to cool it down. “Feels wonderful,” she sighed.

After the water filled completely, she turned it off and leaned back against the side, partially drifting in and out of sleep with the warmth and the fragrant scent of lavender that permeated the whole room and probably her entire apartment. There were two things keeping her from completely falling asleep though. The first was that odd phone call, the second was the anklet, which she was determined to try on once her bath was complete.

The phone call she would forget in time, so she tried to put it out of her mind. Must have been a wrong number, except they asked for her by name. Then it was a crank call.

When she tried not to think about the call, the anklet would come to mind. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. All of the jewelry she owned was cheaply made, just costume jewelry that lasted a few months and then was thrown out or put aside for something new. But this piece…she could not imagine ever throwing it out. The makers of the anklet were listed on the note. She would have to look them up once she got out of the bath.

Usually one of her relaxation baths would take about an hour. This time she lasted twenty minutes, and that was only by sheer willpower. After getting out and drying off, she walked back into her bedroom where the beautiful box sat on top of her bed.

“There you are,” she whispered, pulling the anklet out. It shimmered, even in the soft light of her bedroom. “Wow.” Pulling her ankle up, she laid the anklet over it, excited about how nice it looked. She had always thought her ankles were shapeless, unattractive, but with this on, even they looked good. When she went to put it back inside the box, because after all it would be too scratchy to sleep in and she could wear it tomorrow, she found herself hooking the little clasp instead.

“Well, that is strange.” Before she had hooked it, there had been room enough for her to place two fingers between it and her skin. Now, it fit her ankle like a glove. “So pretty.” Standing up, she walked over to her full-length mirror and looked at it. “It looks like it is a part of my ankle.”

The metal indeed looked as though it was embedded in the skin. “How odd.” And yet, she could not find it within herself to remove it. “I will wear it until I go to bed and then remove it.”

Grabbing one of her many books off a shelf, she settled onto her bed for a good read.

Blinking her eyes open, she stared around in surprise. “Wow, I must have fallen asleep.” Stretching, she glanced over at her clock. “Four AM?” Well, she might as well get up. If she went back to bed now, she would be tired all day long.

The next few days were more than hectic. She worked from seven in the morning until after seven in the evening each day, trying to get caught up entering her serials information only to have the network go down every time she tried. The power definitely had it in for her. She would start typing, the computer screen would flash three times and then the network would go down. Frustrated, she spent much of her time checking messages on her phone and reading. Every evening she spent deleting stupidity emails. So far, she had not received any other ones from the Interdimensional Dating Service, but she was too busy to really think about it. So busy in fact, it never occurred to her that she hadn’t removed her anklet once.

Until Friday night.

“So,” Jane said brightly as she, Ari, and Cory sat down at their favorite Mexican restaurant to eat. “How is the online dating thing going?

Laughing, Cory turned to their waiter who appeared rather quickly. “Three jumbo margaritas. We’re gonna need ’em.”

While they waited for their drinks, Cory chatted about her newest client, and how he would not be pleased no matter how many times she changed his design. For someone who did not talk much as a rule, she never stopped except to take a breath. Once the drinks arrived, she sighed and leaned back. Glancing at Ari, she grinned. “All yours.”

“Thanks.” Ari shook her head in amusement. Leave it to Cory to find a way to stop the grilling until she could get some alcohol in her.

“So?” Jane encouraged, her eyes dancing.

“I got over a hundred emails on Sunday and ninety on Monday and since then ten to twenty per day.” That seemed like a tremendous amount to Ari, and she felt it should meet if not exceed her quota.

“Yes, but did you respond to any of them?” Her sister was so eager for her response she leaned across the table.

Groaning, Ari took a large gulp of her drink. “No, none of them were…um…” She couldn’t say “smart enough” because Jane would jump all over it. Before she could think of a thing to say, Jane jumped in anyway.

“Ari, it was just an opening email. Did you at least visit their profile?”

“No.”

Sighing in exasperation, Jane turned away for a couple minutes. The other two could hear her counting under her breath, something their mother used to do before she would explode.

“Gotten responses from all three?” Cory asked to try and push back the inevitable Jane eruption.

“No, actually. Plenty of responses from OKdate and Matchinone.com, but nothing from the dimensional one.”

Jane’s head swung around. “Did you fill out their questionnaires? They have all sorts of psychology tests that help to match you with the right one.”

Ari wasn’t about to admit she filled the profile out when drunk. She was sure that would elicit a bad response. Besides, the profile ended up looking amazing anyway. “Yeah, I filled out everything I could find. The profile looks great. They even made my picture look fantastic.”

When the waiter came to take their orders, Ari took a deep breath and tried to figure a way out of this conversation. It was not going well. As soon as the waiter left, Jane turned on her again.

“Well, you need to take the upper hand, Arwen. Go surf some profiles, contact these men. If the right ones aren’t contacting you, go find them.”

The feeling of being cornered overcame her and without realizing she was doing it, she reached down and stroked her anklet underneath her pants’ leg.

Oh, please something stop Jane
.

The lights flickered on and off three times, and then to Ari and Cory’s surprise, Jane changed the subject and did not bring it up the rest of dinner.

As she headed home, Ari groaned at how stiff she was. “I guess I was a bit stressed.” She had assumed at some point, Jane would bring up dating again, but she hadn’t, which was really strange and very un-Jane like. After parking her car, she got out and headed toward her front door, glad the weekend had arrived.

Chapter Four -
First Contact

After turning on her computer the moment she walked in the door, Ari set about fixing herself a drink. Of course she had three margaritas during dinner, so she really should not push it, but it was a Friday night, so what would it matter?

Heading back to her computer, she brought up her email account. “Seventy-five?” she snorted, placing her drink down. “Guys must use the weekends to…” It occurred to her they must be bored and home on a Friday night as well. “How sad. We are all in the same boat.”

She sipped her drink as the incoming mail separated itself into the folders, her eyes flashing to the IDS folder every few seconds. So far, no new emails. Shrugging, but not really understanding why she was not garnering the interest from there as she had from the other two sites, she started opening up emails. When she deleted all of them, she went to delete trash, surprised to find only seventy-two emails there. Looking back at her folders, her heart went bu-bump rather loudly. There were three emails in the IDS folder.

As she moved the mouse toward that folder, she was surprised to find her hand shaking. “Well, that is weird.” But then again, maybe not. She was more excited about emails from this particular dating service for some reason. It just seemed more like her. Closing her eyes for a moment, she took a deep breath. Then, after opening them, she clicked on the folder.

Her eyes flitted over the subject lines.

You have mail from CunninglyStupid

You have mail from AttractivelyAgile

You have mail from DerangedLegophile

Snickering at the user names, she opened the first one. She had to see what CunninglyStupid had to say.

Well, I must say, your profile was quite refreshing. So unlike what most females post online. We seem to have many of the same interests. I, also, enjoy reading, running, and trying out new food.

Do you enjoy Corofus?

She blinked. Corofus? What is Corofus? Before checking out his profile, she went on to the message by AttractivelyAgile.

BeautifullyCorruptible,

What a lovely username. One I would love to hear more about. I am a relatively attractive man in the prime of his life looking for a partner for laughter, fun, and travel as well as lots and lots of sex.

Interested? I am unfamiliar with your quadrant. Can you jump dimensions easily?

Snorting, she took a gulp of her drink. Well, you couldn’t say he wasn’t blunt about his interests. And another comment about her quadrant. What did people think about the southwest anyway? It wasn’t like she was in some unknown country. She glanced once again at the name he had called her. Why would he call her that? Her username was Arwen1984.

Sighing, she went on to the last one, DerangedLegophile. Did that mean he loved legos?

It is a pleasure to meet you, beautiful lady. Your profile is magnificent. Would you like to meet? I have a pass-through for the shift if you would like to do dinner.

Shaking her head, she went back to the first message. Three different messages, all of them somewhat confusing. Clicking on the link that would show her CunninglyStupid’s profile, she jumped when the screen flashed three times, went black, and then went to a blank webpage. Confused, she closed down her browser and went back and clicked the link again. It did the same thing, except this time instead of a blank webpage, it said “your information is currently downloading”.

Looking at the percentage downloading, she grimaced as it said ‘1% downloading’. “His profile must be more intense than mine.” Minimizing that window, she went back to her emails and clicked the links for the other two guys. With each one, her screen flashed several times and a blank screen came up that switched to a download screen a few seconds later.

“This is going to take forever,” she moaned. Turning off her monitor, she grabbed her drink and went to change her clothes.

Once changed into her pajamas along with booties to keep her feet warm, she went back into the living room. Turning on her monitor, she looked at the percentages. All three were about twenty-five percent. Shrugging, she left the monitor on and curled up in her favorite chair while turning on her television. Absentmindedly, she rubbed her fingers over her anklet, which calmed her almost immediately. To her surprise her computer chimed and when she looked over at it, a profile page was sitting on her screen.

“Oh!” Well that was faster than she expected. Jumping up, she put her drink down and plopped down at her desk. The profile was for CunninglyStupid. He looked tall, thin, and rugged, with dark curly hair, a heavy mustache, and what looked to be a hint of danger surrounding him.

“Like I can tell that from a photo,” she laughed softly. He was wearing pants and a sleeveless top, which showed off a rather large tattoo on his shoulder, but she had no idea what it was of. One thing that surprised her was how his profile was laid out so differently than her own. While hers had been separated into sections, his was one narrative of his life. Without thinking about it, she began to read.

Greetings from Gordron!

Here in the high dimension, we are suffering from a long drought…of females. For thousands of years, we have had to grieve through this humiliation, but all hope is not lost. You are reading my profile! This gives me hope, dear lady.

For a brief history of myself. I was engaged in both the Corolean War and the Inter-Dimensional Conflict. In the latter, I was in charge of the legion that took down the Brinian invasion. Nobody has ever bested me in a fight. I can and will protect you.

What would you achieve by becoming the mate of a Gordron warrior? Why, my lady, anything your heart desired. You would have the finest jewelry and lace at your fingertips, the best food and slaves for your comfort. You would want for nothing.

All that awaits, is for you to reach out to me. I await your note, my dear sweet lady. Contact me soon.