A Circle of Soulmates

A Circle of Soulmates

A stranger sat at her table, claiming to be her soulmate.

18

A stranger sat at her table, claiming to be her soulmate.

19

A stranger sat at her table, claiming to be her soulmate.

20

A stranger sat at her table, claiming to be her soulmate.

What a joke.

That was the same line that every guys before him had given her. As Claire had put it at the beginning of the evening, it was supposed to be the opening salvo that would ‘drop all defences’. She was the one running this travesty of a speed dating event and so far, it was going as well as Nadia had expected. She had said that it was going to be an exercise in futility but as soon as Claire had flashed her those big baby blues, all Nadia’s protests had died.

So, here she was, sitting at a coffee shop table, notebook on her right, pen held between two fingers and wishing, dearly, that she was anywhere else.

If she was being fair, the night wasn’t a total loss. Shallow as it may be to say, the men who had sat down in front of her hadn’t been awful to look at, rather, they were downright handsome. Ranging from a rugged biker-type with short cut black hair, an eyebrow piercing and a habit of fiddling with the silver ring on his middle finger to a blonde wearing paint stained overalls and a smattering of sun kissed freckles over his cheeks, they would have been perfect partners… for other women.

When she was in front of a keyboard, Nadia seemed to know exactly what words to say, how each scenario would play out, but at a speed dating event she had only agreed to after imbibing an unwise amount of gin and tonics, she was as comfortable as a rabbit in the middle of the savannah. Every time she thought she about making an effort, Claire would ding that bell, the thought would vanish and she would wish that she hadn’t drunk her coffee so quickly.

DING! DING! DING!

Oh thank God! It had only been a few hours but with how painful each encounter had seemed to be, it might have been a decade. More than once, Nadia had wondered if Claire had lost the stopwatch as each five minute meeting had seemed to drag on. There was a great clattering of wooden chairs on the polished floor and the smell of coffee was redolent in the air, voices steadily rising in volume after being lost in the hum of constant conversation and one or two poor souls, probably unused to speak for so long, were covering their mouths to try and conceal throaty coughs. Sadly for Nadia, her night wasn’t quite over. Being good friends with the owner, Claire had gotten the space at the ‘Daily Grind’ for a pittance as well as, somehow, managing to get each attendee one free drink at the beginning of the night, though it still had to be coffee or tea, as the brand demanded.

As the first ‘volunteer’ to give this ridiculous experiment a try, Nadia had been shanghaied into helping with the preparations at the start of the evening and, picking up dirty cups and saucers with dried coffee rings clinging to the porcelain, the clean up. Only when she deposited her first load into the sink, did she realise that Claire wasn’t helping.

In fact, she wasn’t even in the space that had been specifically left clear for them to use for this event!

She was standing away in the back of the main room, a hand resting under her chin to support her head with her elbow cradled in her other hand, as she stared intently at a stranger Nadia was almost positive had passed by her table. But that didn’t matter in the face of a bigger question. Why were they still here?

Wasn’t everyone supposed to have gone by now? Looking around, the shop, having been heaving with people scant minutes ago, was all but deserted apart from Claire, the stranger and, Nadia herself. What was so important that it would pull Claire away from clearing up HER event. Didn’t she know that Nadia had a deadline to focus on? Glancing down at her watch, Nadia bit the inside of her lip when she realised just how late it had gotten without her noticing.

She had been so hard at work, helping Claire set up all of this, she hadn’t time to pay her latest project any attention! ‘Damn it! Now I’ll have to work twice as hard tomorrow to catch up! Damn you Claire! Damn you and this whole ridiculous idea!’ She thought, gritting her teeth together. ‘Well… fine! If Claire isn’t going to help, I don’t see why I should have to either.’ Dusting off her hands, Nadia leaned against the glass that acted as a barrier between the baristas and the customers in the day, sending her sharpest glare to where

Claire was standing. Whoever was talking to her, Nadia had neglected to write down any names in the notebook she had been provided, they seemed to have quite the way with words, considering they had Claire’s, flighty and fancy free Claire, rapt attention.

Nadia focused her eye on the stranger. The longer she looked, the more she realised that there was something familiar about him. Not just the faint memory of him sitting down at her table but the way that he held himself, the little twitch in his hands as if he was resisting the urge to close it around something. The lights in the back, unaided by the street lights flooding in through the bay window that sat by the entrance, had almost completely shrouded the man in darkness but Nadia swore she could make out an ironed blue shirt, tie and the lines of a suit jacket that had been carelessly thrown over the back of a chair. Why did that sound so familiar?

Now that she thought about it, all of this was familiar. As memorable as the freckle she had on the back of her hand, the one that lay so close to the scar her ill-advised attempt at trying to cut a roast chicken had earned her. Wasn’t this…

Perhaps out of a need to prove herself wrong, Nadia pulled her tablet out of her back and scrolled through her files until she found her latest Work in Progress. There… right at the beginning of chapter 7, this very scene was playing out. In truth, it was one of the few scenes to give her genuine grief over trying to puzzle out. She didn’t usually have such a large cast to work with but she had thought, in the beginning, that it might be good to challenge herself. The main character, Arianne, had been dragged to a speed dating event by her best friend Chloe, a rather thinly veiled Claire-insert, and Nadia had gone on for perhaps a little too long about how god-awful it all was until… until He had sat down opposite her.

Marcus Stine, a higher up at the company her workplace was attempting to merge with, had been trying to catch her eye in every meeting, unaware that she had been given strict instructions to ignore him unless she was translating. Being the only hearing person in a deaf household, Arianne had been brought to each meeting as an interpreter for them but also, according to her employer, as a spy. They all thought that she, like a lot of her colleagues, was deaf. So the other company’s members would take that as license to say whatever they damn well pleased whilst in her presence.

It still needed a lot of work and Nadia was immensely glad that she had time to finish it but the whole thing seemed to reek of desperate attempts to pander to an under-accessed market, rather than a writer’s genuine effort to create better representation. Her editor had told her such and it left a weight, like a lead ball, in Nadia’s stomach.

But, back to the matter at hand. Seemingly now becoming aware of Nadia’s watching, Claire turned and guided the stranger over to where she was leaning, her face alight with such glee, Nadia had to hold back a grin of her own to match it. She didn’t understand why, Claire had this innate ability to make everyone do as she asked, whether by pleading or, on rare occasions, more underhanded methods. Sweet as she look on the surface, Nadia’s best friend could be pure, perfect poison if she wished. Good thing she was too flighty to ever think about trying for world domination or the globe would never know what hit it.

“Nadia, you won’t believe it! You’ll never guess who I’ve found.” Claire’s excited chirp sounded as she skipped to a stop.

“Jimmy Hoffa.” Was Nadia’s dry reply.

“Who? No.” Claire looking confused was sometimes too amusing to pass up but she shook it off too quickly for Nadia to get real satisfaction from it. “C’mon, you’re going to love this.” Without further preamble, she opened her arms wide and presented the tall fellow who had followed at a distance behind her. “TA-DA!” She declared, with all the enthusiasm of a ringleader setting off a hail of fireworks.

Okay… What was the big deal?

Looking at him in the better lighting, Nadia had to concede that the man was good looking. Better than that, he was downright handsome. A strong jaw with well defined features, a confident air about him with one hand carelessly half in and half out of his suit trouser pocket and a sharp look in his eye, all thoughts of Marcus and Arianne vanished from Nadia’s mind. The longer she looked, the more she had to think about. This guy wasn’t the usual quiet mouse in glasses and hunched in the corner with a book that Claire would usually pick out, the furthest thing from it in actuality, but Nadia supposed the two would make a good looking couple. He had already charmed her fairly effortlessly, as it seemed so… what was Claire doing? Why had she brought him over here instead of getting his number and helping Nadia finish the clean up.

“Do you know who this is!” Claire practically squealed, almost bouncing up and down in her ballet flats.

“Can’t… can’t say I do.” Was Nadia’s dull, confused reply. All she could really think to do was hold out a

hand in the hopes that he would shake it and introduce himself.

A hand, much than her own and lacking Claire’s painted nails, came up to touch hers and lifted it to his full lips, pressing the faintest of fairy kisses to the back. Nadia would never admit it but the gesture set her heart on a thrumming pace, as if a bird had been locked behind her ribcage and was desperately trying to get out. Could anyone blame her though, what women (and a fair number of men) wouldn’t fall for that?

“Marcus Stine, at your service.”

Cue the record scratch.

“What?” The word left Nadia’s mouth before she could stop it and Claire let out a peal of laughter.

“I knew you’d say that! Isn’t it wonderful? He’s just like the guy in your new book!” Nadia didn’t need Claire to point that out. But ‘just like’ was a complete understatement. Fictional Marcus and this guy were one to one copies. She was almost positive that if she peaked below that perfectly ironed collar, she would find an ink drop shaped birth mark. Almost all of her male protagonists had such a mark somewhere on their bodies.

Darien had a birthmark like that.

“Think you can stick around? I promise, I’ll do all the cleaning, you don’t need to worry about that. These guys were so insistent that you stick around just so you could meet them. I don’t know what you did but I couldn’t have made this event a bigger success if I tried!” There was no reasoning with Claire now, nor did Nadia attempt to do so. She was convinced that this debacle, there was no other word for it, had been a rousing success.

“Before you do anything,” Nadia put her hands up to stop Claire before she could vanish. Taking the chance now her friend was stopped in her tracks, she closed a hand around Claire’s upper arm and pulled her a little distance away so they wouldn’t be overheard.“You said ‘Guys’, plural. Is there more than one waiting for me back there? If so, I’m calling bull and leaving.” This time, she meant it. She wouldn’t be falling for those big eyes, not this time damn it!

--

“Damn it…”

Nadia slumped in her seat, hands pressed against her knees and staring down what felt like a school of piranha in human form. On the other side of the café, Claire was clattering around, cleaning up.

How was it that this was even worse than the speed dating? Was it because she was looking at all of the guys she had basically ignored instead of one at a time? No, she knew what was making this all seem so very horrible.

Each of these guys were perfect carbon copies of her characters. Only the male characters, she noticed. None of her female protagonists had made an appearance… why?

Better question, how in the hell that was writer’s block were all 20 of these guys here? Five of them had arranged themselves on the couch, some gathered to sit on the arms, the rest were standing or leaning over the back of the couch, all according to the natures that she had written for them. What was going on?

Why were they here? How did they get here? Had… It was a mad thought but something had just occurred to her. Insane thoughts were like close friends to her during her process but she had never thought to apply them to reality.

Had she, somehow, unknowingly and unwittingly, acquired such devoted male fans that they would shape their entirely identities around the characters they had chosen to be their favourites?

That was just too strange.

“Can… Can someone explain? You all seem to know what you’re doing here but I… I’m the only one who has been left in the dark.” Not to mention she was severely outnumbered and that thought made her stomach clench unpleasantly. 1 woman… 20 guys. For some, it was a fantasy. For her, it was a nightmare.

“We, meaning all of us, owe our existence to you.” That voice sent cool tingles over her arms, raising goosebumps to the surface. Damn it… that would be Jason. She had envisioned him as having a voice thick from lack of use, preferring actions to long winded talks. She had referred to it in text as ‘smoked glass’ and even now, she swore he carried the scent of wood smoke about him like a cologne.

“Uh… I think you might be confused. I’ve never had a child and I’m far too young to have this many sons at your ages…” She tried to deflect, gathering her wits about her. There were so many things wrong with what he had just said.

“No…” Jason chuckled, dark and thick like molasses that definitely did NOT send tingles through her brain.

“That’s not what Marcus meant.”

“Then feel free to elaborate sometime before the next ice age.” Nadia retorted. She hadn’t intended to answer at all but there was something in Jason’s tone that forced the words from her.

Jason and Marcus exchanged a look that was loaded with unknown meaning. Were they telepathic? No, she’d never written protagonists with superpowers…

Wait!

Why was she even buying into this hogwash! This wasn’t real, none of this could be real, it was just too damn absurd! Hoping to remove herself from this frankly insane situation, Nadia clapped her hands smartly against her cheeks, hoping that the sting would wake her up and she would find herself in her bed, before any of this could have a chance to happen and it would all turn out to be a bizarre dream or some fluke of clairvoyance.

But when she opened her eyes, she was crestfallen to see that not only had they not disappeared into the aether of her dreams, Claire had found the light switch and the group had been thrown into sharper relief than before. Each of them cut an impressive figure, standing tall, all looking… to her.

Marcus didn’t seem the least bit perturbed, his attention brought back to her at the sound of her hands clapping against her face. That seemed to signal to him to hurry with his explanation. “What I meant was that one day, this morning in fact, we found ourselves not only existing but alive in this world… your world. You see… we didn’t know what had brought us here, but that we owed our existence to you. You brought us into this world, through some strange method we don’t know of. So we came to find you and when we discovered that you would be taking part in this event, we knew we had to sign up. All we’ve wanted to do since we arrived here was meet you.”

If he had thought that would answer any of her questions, he was dead wrong.

“Now I know that you are insane. There’s no way. I don’t know what you’re thinking but you can’t be my characters. You’re just really good mimics! This is all a prank, a scam, a… something! I don’t have that kind of power, I’m not even THAT good a writer, I-!” She was cut off by a third figure appearing next to her chair. With those home grown good looks and earnest blue eyes, it could only be Eric. No… Not him.

Trying to tell him anything bad was like trying to tell a Labrador that he’d had enough treats! You just couldn’t do it!

“Excuse’m ma’am… wha’ these boys are tellin’ ya is the god’s honest truth. Yer all we been able ta think about.”

Damn him! Why had she written him to have such a kind voice! In his chambray blue work shirt and the deep southern twang in his voice, something in Nadia’s brain was pleading for her to believe them.”

But she just couldn’t! Until she caught sight of it.

Peeking out from just behind his hairline, barely hidden by his deep brown hair was, unmistakably, an ink drop shaped birth mark.

Oh…

Oh!

Oh no…

“OKAY! Let’s say I believe any of this malarkey, which I don’t! Why would you be after me? I just… wrote you. I wrote you for OTHER women, better women then me. I wrote you your soulmates. You should be with them, not me. It was never meant to be with me.” Her eyes landed on the figure sitting at the far right.

“Jason! You’re supposed to be with Sabrina, she repaired your jacket after that accident.” To the left, where a man sporting a pence net and slicked back hair stood, “Alastor! Melanie helped you find out who was stealing your stories.” She rose from her seat, needing to move, to do something other than just sit there! “I don’t know what kind of delusion you are all operating under but you should get studied for mass hysteria. Whoever does it, would probably earn themselves a Nobel. But this is… this is madness.” She kept shaking her head, trying to wake herself up from this insanity like Alice trying to escape Wonderland.

Hands, warm and butter soft but large enough to cover hers entirely, broke her out of her tirade. Nadia lifted her eyes to meet a honey brown gaze that made her readers swoon and her mouth click shut.

It had to be Jeremy. He had been her first, her favourite, the one who had earned her a career. When she had published his story, the first in what would turn into a series of romances that soaked panties with each new release, something had told her that this one would be special. When she had been writing about how he charmed (begged) Diane into posing as his model, how the two had gotten close, how she had fallen first but he had fallen harder, resting his head in her lap, the two fully clothed but completely exposing themselves to each other.

Nadia wasn’t ashamed to say that she had bent over her keyboard and cried when it was finished. So much of herself had gone into that first novel and the readers had eaten it up. Painters had exploded onto the scene once over-populated with hockey players and dragons and vampires. All over her social media, women were showing off art pieces that their partners had made of them or were complaining that they never showed such devotion that they would commit the same hours that Jeremy had to Diane. If Nadia had permitted herself, she would have laughed herself stupid, legs flailing like a lovesick teenager who had just gotten a ‘wat up’ text from the guy she had a crush on.

Why… Why did he have to turn that charm onto HER? She wasn’t Diane. She was just…

“Nadia… You may not be those women, but you gave us those lives.” His voice was a soothing balm on her frayed nerves.

Jason stepped up next to him, resting a hand, silver ring glinting in the faint light, on her shoulder.

“There’s no denying what he’s sayin’. She fixed my jacket but you’re the one who gave me the memories of my mama making it. That means a whole lot more ta me.”

Eric stepped forward and Nadia swore that she’d seen fit to have him wear a hat, he’d have swept it off his head and would have been holding it like so many ‘good ol’ boys’ did in the presence of a ‘lady’.

“Ya gave my family a farm and a business.”

“My love of painting…” Jason finished.

Like a starting gun, each of them, all twenty, stepped forward and with each confession, Nadia felt her resistance melt like ice under the Saharan summer sun.

Okay… maybe this was really happening. She had heard about so many writers praised for making their characters ‘come to life’. That was their job after all, to create stories that people wanted to live in.

Maybe… maybe she was just a little too good at her job.