Page 5 of The Virgin Romance Novelist Chronicles
“Clever,” I said sarcastically, as I took the tablet from him and looked over my profile. “What now?”
“The system will match you with someone, and you can talk online. If you find some interest, you can go on dates. Pretty simple,” Henry explained.
“Do I search for guys?”
“They will come to you.” Henry laughed. “Just relax for now and let things happen.”
“This will be great.” Delaney clapped her hands together. “Make sure to keep a journal of everything you go through, including your feelings, because you’re going to want to refer back to your experiences. Oh, this is like an experiment,” Delaney said with a little too much excitement in her voice.
“Glad I can entertain you, but if you two don’t mind, I think I’m going to get back to my writing.”
Henry cringed and said, “Hold off on the briar patch for now.”
“Do we need to go over lady-scaping?” Delaney asked with a brow raised.
“No, I’ve got that handled. Since freshman year when you called me out in the gym.” Another disservice my mother did to me.
“Well, don’t be sporting a bush . . .”
“Delaney, please,” I pleaded while Henry laughed.
“Ah, Rosie, I love you,” he said, pulling me into his chest and kissing me on the head. “Those traditional parents of yours really did a number on you. Do they still sleep in separate beds?”
I nodded, as I thought about my parents who were stuck in the fifties. They had separate beds, believed in the man providing for the family and women tending to the home, as well as never speaking of intercourse, hence my disconnect with the whole concept. Although, my mom was very fond of matchmaking.
The only reason I had a fascination with the genre I read was because of my mom and her secret novels she kept under her bed. They used words like “sex” to describe a lady’s genitals and “sword” for a man’s penis. Those novels were my only windows to the crazy world of sex.Although, thanks to Delaney’s screams, and Henry’senthusiasticladies, I knew sex was not a quiet affair.
Feeling energized and apprehensive at the same time, I said good night to my roommates and headed for my room, hoping someone on the website would find me attractive, and maybe even take me out to dinner. Even though I was inexperienced with the opposite sex, I still craved a relationship, a man’s touch, a kiss. It was something I sorely missed in my life, and Delaney and Henry were right. Maybe once I experienced the real deal, I’d be able to put more emotion into my writing and actually make a name for myself . . . other than Cat Crap Extraordinaire.
Chapter Two
The Virgin Bullet
“Iswear to God, if you don’t stop licking yourself I’m going to take that sandpaper tongue of yours and snip it off with a pair of scissors. And you know what, I’ll enjoy doing it, too,” I shouted to Sir Licks-a-Lot, the orange tabby who insisted upon hanging out in my office around one every day for his bath regimen.
“What did I tell you about talking to the cats?” Jenny, my coworker, asked as she stood in my doorway. “It’s not healthy, Rosie.”
“Nothing about this office is healthy,” I said while conducting a nonsensical stare down with Sir Licks-a-Lot. “Stop staring at me with your tongue half out. It’s creepy.”
As if he owned my office and everything in it, he sat up straight while maintaining eye contact, puffed his chest out, and then yacked up a hair ball . . . right on my desk.
“Ick, gross,” I complained as I backed away from the orange puke ball.
With a smarmy look on his face, he lifted his paw, wiped his mouth, and then jumped off my desk, a prideful gait in his step.
“Did you see that?” I asked Jenny who was leaning against the wall laughing at me. “I think he gave me the middle finger while wiping his mouth.”
“Cat’s don’t have fingers,” Jenny corrected between giggles.
“Middle claw then. He gave me something, that’s for sure.”
“Are you going to clean that up?” Jenny asked while plopping into one of the cat-scratched chairs in front of my desk.
“Nope, planned on saving it for dinner,” I stated sarcastically.
“You’re disgusting.”
I grabbed a Wet-Nap from my desk—I kept a stockpile of them in there for this very reason—cleaned up the hairball, and threw it into my trash can, hating every aspect of my life in the process.
