Page 3 of Scales and Seduction (Monster Match #1)
I can hardly wait once I get inside my apartment to look at the app. My phone looks good as new, almost as if I’d just bought it. There’s not even a single scratch on it, and I swear even my old ratty phone case seems more pristine than it was earlier today.
As I push the door open, I’m greeted by the mess of my life. I’ve tossed jackets over the back of my teal couch, piled dishes from the last few days in the kitchen sink, and scattered my shoes by the entryway, where I toss them off my feet at the end of each day. The apartment smells like last night’s Chinese food and the coffee I brewed this morning. It’s chaotic, but it’s home.
Noodles greets me as I kick off my dirty white sneakers to the side of my entryway. My cat lets out a little mrrp as I lean down to stroke his back with my nails. “Who’s a good boy? How was your day?” I ask him in a babyish tone.
In his usual greeting, he rubs affectionately against my leg, leaving cat hair sticking to my black slacks.
He’s my old family cat, his tawny fur is shaggy and dull, and he always coughs up hairballs into my clean laundry. Still, I love him all the same. My grouchy old man hardly lets anyone else pet him but me. So, we have to be besties because nobody else can get near him. He’d have likely died by now under my mom’s care.
“Buddy, you wanna see what Mommy got?” I know he doesn’t care because he’d much prefer to lie on top of me or the pile of dirty laundry on my bedroom floor. I turn the cramped corner to face my living room and plop over the arm of my bright teal couch.
Once I secure a pillow under my head, I hold my phone in my hands, determined to unravel the mystery of Burney’s app. Noodles passes by the couch, looks at me, and walks off toward what has to be my laundry pile.
Traitor.
Shockingly, there’s something new there on the home screen underneath my Snapple music icon. It’s a flame with horns and a weird eye in its center. My heart pounds with anticipation as my fingers hover over the screen. I press the icon to open it. As soon as I make contact with it, a surge of energy ripples through my hand, up my arm, and straight into my chest.
“What the fuck was that?” My pulse quickens, and part of my inner voice is telling me to put the phone down. If I do, I’ll be safe. But if I stop now, I’ll owe four hundred dollars. So, self-preservation over money—yeah, money wins.
I look at my phone as a disclaimer in bright white lettering against a pastel pink background says: “Discover your perfect match: Where fangs meet hearts.”
I wrinkle my nose up. That’s entirely too weird. Is it like some sort of roleplay thing?
Rolling my eyes, I click the next arrow as a longer paragraph appears. I should probably read it to know what I’m getting myself into.
“Welcome to Monster Match. This app is designed to connect you with your perfect mate. By selecting ‘agree,’ you consent to being matched with your fated mate, and that this match is final and binding. While Monster Match guarantees a soul-level connection, it is not responsible for the circumstances of your match, including any unforeseen adjustments needed.”
“A soul mate app? That’s so weird.” It’s like any terms of service—you know, long, boring, and full of stuff that makes you second-guess everything. But in the end, nothing ever happens. It’s just a dumb app.
Who the fuck cares? “Blah, blah, blah,” I mutter, scrolling past the rest of the print. At the bottom, a bright button glows: I agree.
Once I’m in the app itself, I create my profile. It’s standard really: a quirky intro, photos of me that Quinn took at my birthday party in a stupid party hat with cake on my cheek, a photo of me and Noodles, a group shot and one of me outside my mom’s place in Colorado next to her rose bushes with a book in my hand.
I half-ass it. I don’t put many details about myself, and I certainly don’t say what I’m looking for. If it’s a roleplay sex thing, then the less information, the better. I don’t want a repeat of last summer where a guy I’d met named Blaze (which, really, what a fake-ass name) decided it would be a good idea to tell me he was into BDSM, and if I was too, then he’d make sure I never used my safe word. Major red flag there. No good Dom wants you to never use your safe word. They want you safe, sane and everything consensual. So, I ended up asking the bartender for an angel shot and dipped the fuck out fast.
Now it’s time to see what this app is made of.
I go to the seeking page, and the first thing I see is a shirtless hairy… cow? I bolt upright and hold my phone closer to my face like I can’t see what’s there. It’s a cowman with a long hoop ring in his flat cow nose, and he’s wearing tan trousers taking a selfie.
“Nah… that can’t be right.” I don’t even read his profile as I swipe left.
The next one is no better. It’s a man with long purple hair and blue fins coming out of his ears in a pool of water. He has a flip-flopping fishtail. This time, I read the profile, hoping I can glean what the hell I’ve stumbled upon. He likes swimming, is a vegan, enjoys screamo music and has a catfish named Tuna.
I can’t stop myself as a snort forms into a barking laugh. It’s incredible how lifelike these weird supernatural beings look. “What is this, Burney? Why do they look like this?” It has to be AI because the realism is insane.
Finally, lying back down, I try to regain what little bit of my sanity is left. Burney just wants me to use his fake app with fake people so he can make the real thing. So, clearly, it’s just for fun.
The veganism thing isn’t a deal-breaker for me, but how do you have sex with a fish man? I don’t know why that matters to me, but I might as well enjoy this while I can.
I swipe right.
I swipe left and right for a few minutes. I should probably take a break, but just when I’ve decided to peel my ass off the couch and take a shower, the next monster man’s picture is there for me. I’ve continued to read each and every profile, and now I’ve got names for the matches waiting in my inbox.
Gideon is a magnificent king cobra with bright teal, green and yellow scales. He’s humanoid, but there isn’t a trace of human flesh. Every inch of him from head to toe is covered in sleek iridescent scales. His eyes are a breathtaking shade of gold, and instead of a shirtless photo like so many of these beasts have, he’s wearing a black Fabio-style blouse that shows just a tiny section of his chest. That’s a lot classier than the rest, at least.
His other pictures are so serious that I wonder if the man ever laughs. There’s one of him in an enormous library with stained-glass windows and one in a large garden with his long serpent body coiled up under a tree, and he’s playing chess with a green man whose back is to the camera.
“Okay, Gideon, you’re a serious dude. Would it kill you to smile?” I scroll his profile and realize he hasn’t put anything in it but the really cheesy line, “I’m here to find someone who is willing to pretend we met in a romantic setting instead of a dating app.” He tried so hard.
I swipe right anyway, not that I have swiped left on many. It’s not real anyway, so what does it matter?
Immediately, there’s a match. A black claw swipes over the screen with the words in neon-pink lettering. The weird twinkle chime happens again, and once it does, a hot, electric feeling comes over me. The lights swirl and spot my vision. My body gets sweaty, and heat pools between my legs. The electric feeling laps at my skin, and a deep warmth fills me up from the inside. My pussy throbs, and desire coils in my belly. My head tilts back, my mouth parts, and I moan.
The room spins violently, with bright swirling colors and flashing lights dancing on the edge of my vision until it suddenly subsides with a little tinkling chime from my phone.
What the fuck?
My vision rights itself, and the warm feeling immediately ends, like it never happened. A sheen of sweat covers my body, matting my hair to my cheeks. The minute it ends, I glance back at my screen, struck by the sheer bizarre nature of this entire thing. None of my other matches made the freaky lights happen or the warm pussy feeling.
“Meet your mate, Ruby Taylor. His hunt is just beginning,” an ominous voice says over the phone’s speaker.
My living room slowly starts to dim as my eyelids grow heavy with drowsiness. A faint voice—low, almost like a distant echo—cuts through the fog in my head. “Sleep now, little Ruby...” The words are both soothing and unnerving.
My heart pounds in protest, but my body betrays me. The last thing I see is Noodles leaping up onto my chest before the darkness claims me.