Swipe Right - The Chronicles of an Unpaid Prostitute

Chapter Nineteen

I sat at my desk the next day, tapping my pen against my keyboard. At least it was Friday. My eyes burned with exhaustion. Why did girls do this? Why did girls torture themselves for hours at a time when there was probably nothing to it? So what if Ben knew my screen name? He probably did research on me before hiring me like any respectable business man would do. I held a huge account, one with his name on it and he was doing his due diligence. That's all there was to it.

I'd thought about what he'd said last night, that I deserved a real date. At the same time, I looked at the text message that had just came through – a dick pic from Sexter followed by a winky face emoji. I started laughing, out loud. The kind of laughter that was unstoppable as tears fell down my cheeks. I dropped my head on my desk. Fuck you, life. Fuck you.

For the first time in a long time, I decided not to go out on a Friday night. Pulling on my comfiest pair of sweatpants, I threw my hair up and chose the sappiest chick flick I could find on TV. I needed something sweet; looking in the cupboards, we had no snacks. Of course. What we did have was ingredients. A result of those ingredients? A bowl of chocolate buttercream icing. I grabbed a spoon and the box of wine from the fridge and sat both on the coffee table. Let the fun begin.

Scrolling through Facebook during a commercial, I saw a post Aaron was tagged in. It was a post congratulating my ex-boyfriend on his expecting baby and engagement. I felt sick. I hadn't thought about Aaron in months. The idea of him was always lingering, the idea of getting my revenge even more so, but this, this was a slap back into reality. I felt tears burn the back of my eyes. He wasn't a one night stand for me, he was everything, someone I loved on some level, someone I moved away from my entire family for. He'd always made sure to use condoms and never wanted to talk about our future. The minute I brought up the idea of getting married it was shut down immediately. Now, he was getting married and having a baby with some bimbo he'd met two months ago. We were different people. Different than we were when he'd first asked me out, different than when I'd followed him to San Francisco and different than when he broke up with me over text message. Well, I was a different person, he was still an asshole.

Fuck this shit. I stared disgustingly at the bowl of icing in front of me. I chugged my glass of wine and grabbed my phone. Stage three – revenge. Again. It was a continuous loop now. I dropped my pants in the middle of my living room and did something I never thought I would do. I took a picture of my lady parts. Pulling up my messages, I sent the photos to Sexter. My lonely night turned into a night full of dirty photos and dirtier words. At the end of it, it didn't make me feel any better. I fell into bed ignoring the ache in my chest and welcoming the hangover that was to come.