Free Kill Cupid: Internet dating just got dangerous by J. Brandon Best Page B

tiny place you idiot. He’s my neighbour. We drink beers together, go fishing, get drunk and fall overboard. Every weekend we kiss each others fish. ‘Yes… program about fishing’ Bronte said in slow, broken English. God, his blind date was on the rocks, his wallet in the gutter and this guy wanted to talk about fishing?
    ‘Yes, yes!’ The driver laughed and made a face as if he was about to kiss a fish, ‘Rex Hunt, good fishing man.’
    ‘That was my mother and she is ill again with bad headache. I must go to home. I’m sorry.’ Zhana might get away with murder, but she wasn’t going to get out of leaving him alone again another night.
    ‘You can’t be serious. What do I do tonight?’ He asked, spinning.
    ‘I am sorry. I come to you tomorrow more early at, say 11 o’clock, okay?’
    ‘11 o’clock? That’s early? God, what do you have to do? You can’t be serious?’
    As the cab pulled up in front of his apartment she said firmly, ‘11 okay?’ She gave him a peck as he got out of the cab. She was serious.
                  Upstairs in his apartment, Bronte wanted to scream and blow a fuse. He had been beating himself up over the boot purchase. And he had no reasonable alternative up his sleeve that might salvage his evening. He felt so alone he wished he could be home in Australia. At least at his place he had ‘home alone’ down to a familiar, comfortable formula. Pay TV, animals, guitars and piano, internet and email… bloody email! That’s what put him that hole. He made himself a coffee and smoked and all the while the buyer’s remorse kept beating away. How could he be so susceptible to a haughty young con-girl? He had just spent $375 on a pair of Italian boots and he despised himself for doing it. He had never spent that on shoes for his step daughter or wife and certainly not for himself. Rita had simply ridden off into the sunset with those boots under her arm and not so much as a parting thank you. Some men were fools and right now, Bronte was one of them.
    Remembering that self pity is best sodden in alcohol he looked for a beer, but felt more depressed when he found there was only one in the fridge. And turning on the TV was no formula for a great evening indoors either. There were a mere five channels, and all blabbered away in Russian. Even the news was from another planet. He laughed contemplating the reader could have just announced World War Three - and he wouldn’t have a clue. He spent the next hour putting his own comical interpretation to the words from the television before deciding to freshen up and go out. The first and only beer merely whet his palate for a second and third.
     
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    Not far away, Rita rang the bell to the agency. After some seconds, the locks turned and Alessiya swung the door open. Before Rita could even get through it, her mentor was pointing and clutching at the shopping bag with the shoe box in it.
    ‘Oooh, you got the boots!’ Oly exclaimed. ‘Come in, come in, I want to hear about your day!’ Rita closed the door and stopped to slip out of her stiletto shoes, all the while grinning like a Cheshire cat. Before she could do anything, Alessiya had the boots out of the box and was admiring them while swaying, rocking and then hopping about the room as she struggled to pull one on. The boots were a pastel coloured leopard print on soft Italian suede. With a pointed toe, the entire platform curved elegantly to a finely tapered four inch stiletto heel of the same print. The boot itself rose just above the ankles and onto the shins.
    ‘Oly please!’ Rita objected as Alessiya fell against her, using her shoulder to stop herself falling.
    ‘Elegant with jeans or dress,’ Alessiya was sparkling.
    ‘You like them? They fit?’
    ‘Beautiful, absolutely beautiful, divine…’
    ‘Yes… they’re gorgeous….’ Rita replied faithfully though not without a