Love and ego episode 7

Love and ego episode 7
Claire sat as a maid brought a bowl of lukewarm water and a cloth. Rendell reluctantly went on a knee before her under grandma’s scrutinizing eyes. He then partially stretched an open palm and Claire placed her bruised leg in it. Rendell’s dipped some part of the cloth into the water and began to carefully dab at her wound and she flinched and make painful hissing sounds.
“This is very degrading, you know? I wouldn’t be doing this shit right now if my grandmother hadn’t made me do it.” He grumbled so that his grandmother didn’t hear him.
“You won’t be doing this right now if you didn’t put me through such embarrassment! I could have had a heart attack twelve times!” She pouted then angrily folded her arms under her chest.
“But here you are, alive.” He teased.
“And here you are, tending to my injuries.”
He lifted his eyes to look at her then shook his head. “You look terrible…” He said, referring to the several dried lines of mascara that had run down her face.
She ignored him but pushed her feet forward, leaving a dirty foot mark on his white shirt. “What the hell was that for?” He asked angrily.
“That’s for setting me up!” She retorted. “I wish I could kick you where it hurts most!” She fumed.
“Know what?” He angrily dropped the cloth and rose to his feet. “I’m done with this, you need to leave right now!”
“You are not even halfway there.” Grandma complained. “Be nice Vincent and finish up.”
“Grandma, I’m not doing this-”
“Fine!” She interrupted, rising to her feet too. “I’ll go. I don’t want to be around you anyway. I’ll resume work on Monday!”
Grandma sighed and said to Claire. “Your shoes are in pretty bad shape, I’ll ask Gregory to give you a ride home.” She took Claire’s hand in hers and patted the back of it with a loving smile. “I hope you’ll come around often to pay this old lonely woman a visit.”
“Grandma, you are not lonely.” Rendell said with a gro-n. “You have got me.”
“You?” Grandma snorted. “You are no fun! Always too serious.”
“Thank you for your care.” Claire smiled warmly. “But I really do have to be on my way now.”
★
Later that evening, Rendell was in the gym when Gregory hurried with him with an open laptop. “Vince! Vince?”
“What?” Rendell asked, getting off the barbell bench to look at him.
“You have been paired!” Gregory sounded excited.
“What are you talking about?” Rendell asked with a puzzled frown.
“The dating site paired you up with three women and now, it’s left to you to either go out on a date with all three or follow your instinct and choose just one of them.”
Rendell grunted as he began a pull up. “I told you that I am not interested in this stupid dating sites meetups and you still went ahead and registered me? You don’t even know my taste in women!”
“Judging from your last ex, I came up with a few characteristics… Here, see…” He turned the laptop towards Rendell who came down to take a look.
Rendell frowned. “Salmon? You nicknamed me Salmon?!” He asked in disbelief.
“Yes, it’s cool enough to hide your true identity. Look, there’s no denying that there are a lot of gold diggers on dating sites and most of them will come crowding your wall and that’s not what we want!” Gregory explained.
“And the best you could do was name me after a fish?!” Rendell was still pretty much concerned about the nickname than anything else. Luckily, real pictures weren’t allowed, only physical descriptions.
Gregory rolled his eyes and ignored him. “Now, can we get down to the main deal please?” He pointed now at the screen as he called out names while Vincent listened with folded arms. “There’s tasty_cheese24, she’s 29, a redhead she’s hot and ready to do anything fun. She’s very from Denver. Next, there’s Rapunzel001, a brunette and she likes men who knows just how to touch a woman in the right places, she’s in Ohio by the way and finally there’s blue_doll6, she’s blonde and just needs a companion.”
“This blue_doll sounds reasonable enough.” Rendell observed. “Where’s she from?”
“She’s right here in L.A.” Gregory answered.
“Not that I believe that any of this will work out, but I think chatting with some random stranger online whom I have absolutely no intention of ever meeting will be fun, so what do I do next?”
“All I need to click is the mingle button and then you can start getting to know each other.”
“Right…do it.”
Gregory obeyed then asked, “Can I have the privilege of sending the first chat and asking her for some nudes? You know, just to confirm that she’s got a hot body.”
Rendell gave him a look. “If you are going to f-ck this up for me, then you can have the account for yourself”
Gregory heaved a disappointed sigh. “Fine…” He said then added. “I’ll simply install the app on your phone so you can have easy access to your chats.” He said and walked away while Rendell continued with his exercise.
★
Later that night…
Claire sat before her laptop and realized that she had two matches but one of them had already asked to mingle, craning her neck towards the laptop, she read the name out. “Salmon? What guy nicknames himself Salmon?” She asked in amusement, baffled. Soon, she concluded that the person must really be an unserious person because guys never used such ridiculous names. She was about to click reject when she took a look at the other match and read out his profile. “Likes metal music, a die-hærd fan of goth, have numerous piercings and tattoos and like cotton candy…ewww…” Claire made a face of disgust as she shook her head in disapproval. “I guess Salmon it is then…or whatever… Seems like I’ll just while away time with you until I get paired up with someone who’s not nicknamed after a fish or some freak who likes metal music and crazy tattoos.” She clicked the accept button and thought of typing a chat to Salmon but then again, she changed her mind and decided that she should keep her dignity as a girl and it was only proper if the guy started the chat first.
When she was done, she closed her laptop, crawled into bed and fluffed her pillow, ready to sleep. She was about to switch off her bedside lamp when she noticed a picture. Taking it, she realized that it was a picture of her in her white dress when she was waiting on the curb for a cab earlier that day.
She turned the back and saw the words: “You looked really hot today and I’m tempted to come back for something like that night. We can end all this and all you have to do is say yes, that you want me back. If I can’t have you, no other man will, Claire and you know I mean it.”
Claire swallowed hærd. After raping her, her ex boyfriend was not only threatening her, now he was stalking her. Crumpling the picture in her fist, she decided that she had to get a restraining order against her ex before he did something stupid and unforgivable to her again. Finally switching off the bed lamp, she laid on her bed, stared up at the ceiling for a while before she drifted into sleep, looking forward to starting work on Monday but deep down, she was already plotting how to get back at Rendell for humiliating her.
To Be Continued….