Page 6 of Trick-or-Treated

“Alright,” I say, my cursor hovering over the payment button. “Let’s do this.”

For once, I want someone else to know exactly what to do with me.

CHAPTER TWO

MARGO

Three days after I filled out the insanely long questionnaire about my deepest, most lustful urges, my phone dings with a text message from an unknown number.

Trick or treat? Your wishes have been claimed. Fulfillment begins immediately. We hope you get a treat.

Season’s Greedings

I stare down at my phone. I’ve been accepted. I didn’t think anything would come of this for weeks. Maybe months.

I’m sure they get their fair share of customers, given the nature of what they’re offering.

And what are they offering, exactly?

S-e-x, that’s what Del said. But can they really? I had to submit a few pictures of myself, too. A selfie, an old vacation shot, one from opening day. I guess people pick who they like.

Who likes me?

Nerves rush through me and I find myself making my way to the Dive before it’s even five o’clock for a drink. Just one. To settle me.

“Hi, Ben,” I say as I walk past Ben Chambers, barfly of Garland Falls. I don’t like to call him the town drunk, but a lot of people do.

“Hey, Margo,” he says brightly. He hasn’t reached the melancholy phase, probably still on his first beer. He gets off work at the zipper factory at four, after all, and it’s only four-thirty.

Joss is cutting fruit behind the bar, tattooed forearms bare below the sleeves of her black shirt. She points the knife at me. “If you’re here to tell me you took Bryan back, I’m charging you double.”

“Hello to you, too.”

Ivy sits on a barstool in front of her, quietly rubbing an ink stain off her finger with a cocktail napkin. She lives in the same apartment complex as Joss and often drives her to work. Before I reach them, she moves her bag off the stool beside her and nudges it toward me with her foot.

I smile, sliding onto the barstool next to Ivy.

“Long time, no see,” I tease.