Nothing More Beautiful by Lorelai LaBelle

anywhere. But I did hear about your little
adventure, rear-ending a Mustang.” She scowled at Danielle. “Now I
know we’re never getting one of those.” The two were perfect for
each other. They had the same sense of humor, the same interests,
the same speak-your-mind attitude, and they both made a handsome
salary. I could never remember where Ashley worked, but she was a
junior executive for a big company in Portland. “So show me the
lucky fellas.”
    We all sat, and Danielle snagged the laptop
and displayed the profiles I’d bookmarked. Granted, these ladies
weren’t the most knowledgeable when it came to dating men, but they
were enthusiastic. They were opinionated and wanted to help. After
hours poring over hundreds of profile details, we had a new top ten
list.
    “So what should I say?” I asked, opening up
the private message box.
    “You sure you want to try BlazerFan88
first?” Danielle asked. “I think you should go for HereForYou.”
    I hung my head. “Because of the
username?”
    “Hey, it means he’s willing to stand by
you,” she said.
    “Personally, I like that he’s a Blazer fan,”
Ashley said. “I could use another person around here battling to
watch sports.” Ryan was a sports enthusiast, but he had never
wanted to hang out with Danielle and Ashley, wanting only to spend
time with me.
    “I told you I’d watch the games with you,”
Danielle snapped. That was one area of contention between them:
watching sports. “I even said we should get season tickets this
year, but you laughed at the idea.”
    “I know you, Danielle. We’d go to one game
and you’d grumble the entire time,” Ashley asserted. “Now if we had
someone else, then you and Maci could talk about other things while
we watched the game.”
    “All right, that’s two to one,” I said. “Now
what should I say?”
    “Well, you should forget coffee,” Ashley
suggested. “Go with dinner. Dinner raises the stakes and he’s more
likely to bring his A game. Plus you get a meal out of it—unless
he’s a d-bag.”
    With their bickering counsel, I typed up a
message and sent it. I scanned the clock. “It’s nine,” I sighed. “I
gotta get to bed.”
    “’Night,” Ashley said.
    “Come Saturday, this girl will be thanking
us for all our efforts,” Danielle said, smiling.
    “Goodnight, Ashley, ” I emphasized
while staring at Danielle. “See you tomorrow night.” I tottered
down the hall and collapsed into my bed, zapped. After a half hour
of tossing and turning, I stared up at the projection. The minutes
ticked away at a devastating pace. Each minute felt like it took
twenty.
    By ten, my mind had wandered onto Danielle’s
advice about me opening up sexually. Over the years she had
lectured me a dozen times on the subject, but lately she was really
sticking me with the “prude” gibe. One concept that I returned to
again and again was Danielle’s assertion that to know what you
liked, you should experiment on your own. Masturbation never
appealed to me, though. The mood was never right, the intensity
level never there, the desire missing from the equation.
    Closing my eyes, I tried to think of what would turn me on, sliding my hand over my nipples and down
my stomach to my v-spot, visualizing BlazerFan88’s profile picture.
Over my clothes, I began to rub myself in circles, and blood
started rushing between my legs, but my mind wandered. The picture
changed to the driver and suddenly my body flooded with lust, blood
surging in my head as it had during my last daydream of him.
    A second later, Colby-Jack jumped on the bed
and scared me so badly that I kicked him off. As I scanned the
room, I noticed I was huffing air, and I tried slowing my frantic
heart rate. The cat returned a minute later, unshaken by my attack,
curling up by my stomach, his favorite sleeping spot. I crashed not
long after that.
     
    JOSH, OR BLAZERFAN88 AS he
was also known by, had replied by noon the next day, agreeing to
meet me for