Chapter 2

Friday October 14

It feels weird to have so little hair! My hair was never really long before - usually neck or shoulder length - but it’s never been this short before! Gone are my brown waves; my hair is now black and pixie-cut.

I have freckles, too, and they’re actually really cute! Carol did them with henna. She says they’ll only last a few days, but that there are a million videos on YouTube to show me how to do them myself.

Saturday October 15

Martin’s jaw dropped when he saw my new look. “Good? Bad?” I asked after hugging him.

“You never cease to amaze me with the ways you can be beautiful,” he said, completely seriously.

“Aww!” I said and touched his shoulder. I didn’t want to hug him again for fear of leading him on. Things have been a little strained between us since we slept together a year ago.

Martin has grown his hair out since then. It suits him. His hair always somehow looked a bit shaggy, but the dress code at our high school, Saint Frances, required him to keep it short. Now that his hair is longer, it comes across as rebellious rather than slovenly.

“So what’s the deal?” He asked.

“I’m sort of doing a sting operation on a dating site,” I explained as I thumbed through my phone for pictures of Mandy. “I need some profile pictures that will appeal to the same guys as these,” I continued, showing him some.

Martin looked through the pictures. “I need the photos to be good, but not really professional looking - if that’s not an insult to you art,” I said with a smile.

“A fun challenge,” Martin said with a laugh.

“And we don’t want them to look like they were all taken at once, so we’ll have to do different clothes and different locations,” I finished.

So we spent the day taking pictures. The one I like best is me sitting on the steps outside city hall - not that you could tell whose steps they were. A breeze is blowing my skirt just a little, and I’ve got a contemplative, hopeful look - very Mandy. Then there’s a supposedly candid sitting-in-a-car pic, where the seatbelt accentuates my breasts. I like they lying-on-the-floor-watching-tv one, too. Martin set all these up. He’s awesome.

For many of the pictures I left my glasses off. Mandy doesn’t wear glasses, after all, and I know they’re a turn-off for some guys. But I insisted on wearing them for some: If I actually go on any dates I’ll need to wear them, and I don’t want anyone to feel deceived.

We had fun, and we got exactly the kinds of pictures I was hoping for, but there was an aura of weirdness between us the whole time. He never said it, but I swear I could feel the question on the tip of his tongue the whole time: “Can we have sex again?” We both ignored it, but we both knew it was there.

I called my dad to see if he was interested in dinner with me and Martin. I kinda wanted to cook for him. I haven’t seen Dad since January when he basically cut me off. Things are better between us now, and since I was in town it seemed like a good opportunity for a visit. He couldn’t make it, though: He had a date. I guess the divorce has been suspended but my parents are still separated and they have some sort of arrangement to see other people. Hmph.

So Martin and I ate Mongolian Barbecue and then I hit the road for the two hour drive home. Martin was done editing the photos by then - mostly subtle things like removing the image metadata.

Sunday October 16

Juliet and I spent this evening creating my new profile, and then getting drunk and reading about the guys that the site suggested for me.

It’s a little weird, lying in my profile. It’s important that I attract the same guys as Mandy, of course, but my favorite activity really isn’t staying at home reading romance novels. I don’t think I’ve read a single one, actually - unless Dr. Welsh’s domination porn counts.

I decided to go with the name “Allie”. Nobody I currently know ever calls me that, but it’s a fair abbreviation of Alexis, so it won’t cause too much trouble if my real and pretend worlds ever collide. Juliet pushed for “Alex”, but a girl with a guy’s name just seems too cliched to me.

Even if I’m not interested in dating them, some of these guys sound really interesting. And of course, some of them are really cute. Juliet wasn’t going to let me go to bed until I responded to one of them, so I exchanged a few messages with Javier. He’s a cop. We’re meeting tomorrow night.

Monday October 17

Several people at work commented about my new look, including the boss, Chris. They were surprised but I think it went over well.

I had dinner with Javier from the dating site. I like him although I’m not sure how much we’ll have in common in the long run. We kissed at the end of the meal, I guess just to show each other that we were interested. He’s into some kind of martial arts. He sent me a pic of him after the date, shirtless and in boxing shorts. That definitely makes me want to see him again.

Tuesday October 18

Another dinner with Javier, and then we went back to his place. Yeah, you know where this is heading.

He showed me around the house he and two other rookie cops are renting together. They were conspicuously absent.

His basement is a training room, with a wrestling mat, free weights, and one of those big sandbags for punching hanging from a hook. “Teach me how to throw a punch!” I challenged him once we were down there.

He told me that most of the power of a punch comes from the legs and hips. He put his hands on my hips to guide me, which was ... distracting. At other times he guided my shoulders or positioned my hands. His hands were so much bigger and stronger than mine! He was taking my request for a lesson totally seriously, but I confess that to me, it was foreplay. Still, I did learn a thing or two, so after a few minutes I was hitting the bag pretty hard.

“Okay, I think I get it,” I told him, “but what if I need to punch someone in my underwear? Does my technique change?” I unbuttoned my skirt and let it fall to the ground.