© 2018 KT McColl
The mood was good tonight at The Market. The crowd was obviously in sync, the music algorithms managing a nice call and response with our collective biometrics. On the dance floor, flashing bodies rose and fell as one, like technicolor waves under strobe lights. I was feeling a bit giddy, the lights and the beat and my soul all wound up in a dreamy feedback loop. I'd resisted jacking in to the club's system for the longest time, not wanting to be manipulated, but it really was better this way. Better than being a passenger on someone else's trip.
The guy returned to the table with our drinks. I tried to remember his name. John? Jude? It had been hard to hear over the music. I glanced at my phone again. Josh. Thank goodness we'd done a basic sync before he went to the bar.
I had his basic information and he had mine. Name, age, links to various public profiles. I knew that he had taken his time away to do a quick scan of me, just as I'd done with him.
He smiled as he slid a martini across to me. I removed the security foil. With the lights in the place, I couldn't be sure of the color of the drink, but it didn't matter.
Josh grinned, flashing me his dimples. Sweaty strands of hair hung in front of his gray eyes. We'd bumped into each other on the dance floor, literally, and something just clicked, like in the movies. A connection. An understanding. There was something of the rogue about him, but tonight, it seemed that he was to be my rogue.
Given the volume of the music, conversation was minimal, but it was enough to bolster the initial attraction.
It was getting late. Over the last half hour or so, the music had become somehow more sensuous. I hadn't noticed the shift. The beat slowed and lovely undulating strains of synth wove in and out of the percussion. I could detect a woman's gasps and moans just beneath the synth. Subtle, but unmistakable. Maybe it was just me. Maybe I was horny, feeding the music, or maybe the music was feeding me. Either way, it didn't matter. I was glad to be jacked in finally, reassured that others were feeling the same way I did. I wondered how many of us would be doing the same thing in an hour or two.
Josh seemed amused and possibly a little smitten as he watched me swaying to the beat, moving my shoulders, knowing in doing so that he was getting an eyeful of my chest. I wondered whether his mood was represented in the atmosphere too. I hoped so. I looked for his phone to see whether it was transmitting, but it was face-down on the table.
He smiled again. He really did have lovely dimples. For him at least, the denouement of the night was a foregone conclusion. Or maybe it was just hope. I wasn't as sure, but I was getting surer by the minute. A lot was up to Chaperon.
He held out his hand, and I took it. We were soon on the dance floor again, pasted against each other. I felt his hardness when I not so accidentally brushed against him, so I did it again, just to be sure. As we moved, I knew that my arousal was commensurate. I draped my arms lazily over his shoulders and leaned my head against his chest. He smelled nice. A hint of cologne beneath the scent of man. Better than the other way around.
His hands rested on the small of my back. I wished they would venture lower, but wishing didn't make it so. We didn't know each other's limits yet, so I appreciated his restraint. I took a chance and moved my hips to see whether his hands would succumb to gravity, but they didn't. If anything, Josh had good manners. There was an order to things these days.
The night was winding down when we returned to our seats. He ordered us another drink from a passing waitress. It was then that I noticed his phone on the table, face up this time. A beating red heart flashed on the screen. Like everyone these days, he had Chaperon. I'd resisted for the longest time until a hookup went bad. Since then, Chaperon had proved its worth, filtering out those whose fetishes outpaced mine, providing a level of security when I wanted to go for it.
Josh looked so puppy dog hopeful when he glanced between his phone and me that I had to laugh. If it was a look that he practiced in the mirror, he needn't have bothered. I was already convinced. I set my phone next to his and tapped the display. A heart appeared on my screen as well and we both swiped our respective displays, almost in unison. We both peered at the results.
"Phew," he said.
"87 percent compatibility," I read.
"Pretty good."
"Yeah."
We looked at each other. 87 percent was better than average for a hookup. I'd never done anything with anyone below 75 percent. It was remarkable how often even a small incompatibility could grow large when the clothes were off.
"I think we're safe. Shall we?" I asked.
He looked relieved. "I live a few blocks away. Is that okay for you?"
"Great," I said, remembering what a mess I'd left my bedroom in. "Your place it is."
We held hands on the way to his place. It was cute. Reassuring and familiar. Almost more intimate than what we would surely be doing soon. We chatted, and I learned that he was in tech, like just about everyone these days. He lived alone, was recently single for reasons he didn't divulge, had a goldfish. I also learned that he did parkour, which explained his fitness.
I liked him. To my friends, he would qualify as a trout, which was their way of saying a nice catch. I thought so too, which was why I was throwing caution to the wind and heading to his place instead of the more prudent kiss and hope for a call.
At any other time, the late night gloom and the empty streets would have made me nervous. Josh made me feel safe if I didn't think about how easily we could be outnumbered.
Once he closed the door behind us, I turned to him. "I don't normally do this kind of thing," I said. "Go to a strange guy's house, I mean."
"Neither do I. And I don't think I'm all that strange."
Dimples again. I could get used to looking at those. "Really?"
"Really." With that, he kissed me on the forehead, which struck me as odd and sweet at the same time. "Can I get you something?"
"Water, please."
He brought me a bottle and uncapped in front of me. He was considerate, if anything. Not that I was worried about getting roofied at this point; we both knew where this was going. Besides, Chaperon wouldn't have given him the seal of approval if he had a history of that kind of thing.
The segue from expectation to passion is often the most awkward part. I needn't have worried. He sat next to me and traced the line of my jaw with his fingertip, gazing at me intently. My face followed the direction of his touch and we were soon kissing, tentatively at first, and then as though our lives depended on it. Where had this hunger come from? Weird how it could go from tentative to blazing in seconds.
"Come," he said. He held out his hand. I took it and followed him to the bedroom.
It was real. It was going to happen. There was no discussion, no negotiation. I guess it wasn't necessary. I didn't feel nervous about it. Not really.
Before things got going, we both took a moment to position our phones. He set his on the bedside table, leaning it against a lamp. I wanted a wider field, so perched mine on a dresser opposite the bed. I checked the screen to make sure that most of the room was in view. I didn't want my phone barking at me if we got out of range. Then, I pressed the connect icon and ensured that the Chaperon uplink was working. I couldn't imagine what it would have been like not having these interactions recorded. If things went badly off the rails, Chaperon would hit its panic button. Even if it never came to that, it was prudent these days to have a record. From what I understood, when it came to he-said/she-said, the deeper voice tended to get the benefit of the doubt. Or better lawyers. It was safer this way, having the proof up in the cloud, ready to rain down like God's own wrath if ever it was needed.
"Are we good?" he asked.
I checked my phone one last time. "Yeah."
