The Bound Bride Read Free Page A

doing the right thing.
    With Iris’s help, she had navigated to the page that invited her to log in or register. It was easier with her laptop.
    First, she had to create a username.
    She started to key in her full name. Cassandra Dodd. When she clicked, she found that it was already taken. What were the odds? Another Cassandra was in equally dire straits.
    “Maybe add your birthdate?” Iris suggested.
    Cassandra obeyed. Also taken.
    “Seriously?” Cassandra said. She started to close the laptop.
    “Don’t be so quick to give up, Cass. We just need to be a little more… creative.”
    “Creative… how?”
    Iris pondered the issue and suddenly snapped her fingers.
    “Stripper name!”
    “Stripper—”
    “Quick! First pet!”
    Cassandra’s first pet and only pet had been a goldfish she’d won at a school fair. She called it Trixie. Her dad never missed a chance to catch a Honeymooners rerun.
    “Oooh,” Iris said. “I already like where this is going. Street where you were born?”
    “Carol Drive.”
    “Oh that is great! Do it!”
    Cassandra slowly keyed in Trixie Carol and waited for the site to search through its list of members. She and Iris held their collective breath. When they made it to the password screen, they cried out together and slapped hands.
    “Yes!” Cassandra said.
    “We’re in business now, baby!”
    She created a password and was taken to the profile page. At first it was a blank slate requiring her personal details. Age, location, interests. And there was a faceless head framed in light blue that awaited her image. She stared to push the computer from her lap.
    “What’s wrong?” Iris asked.
    “I… can’t do this, Iris. I mean… if my picture’s up there… then anyone can see it.”
    She thought of her father. She doubted that he would spend his free time searching for another wife. He was barely interested in the one he already had. Then again…
    “No, Iris. This isn’t—”
    Iris took hold of the computer with a roll of her eyes.
    “ This is a way out from under.”
    “I get that. But… but Iris…”
    “Spit it out, Cass.”
    Iris was nothing if not eager to get to Point A and hurry along to Point B.
    “If… if I actually do this. And then… say I get a shot at something… legitimate…”
    Iris clicked on About Us . A window popped up listing the legitimacy of the site. All members, contractors and customers, were carefully screened, underwent criminal background checks, drug screenings, STD tests. Even the smallest red flag meant that acceptance was denied. And even once an individual was on board, if health was compromised, charges filed, or if the rules of the site were violated in any way, it was kicked to the curb time.
    “See?” Iris said. “This is totally safe.”
    As usual, Iris was missing the point.
    “I get that. But what I’m saying is that… that if I do this and then get a… a professional break… then this is going to come back to haunt me. Big time.”
    Cassandra had images of landing a job at MoMA. She was reveling in a six figure salary and splurging on a new wardrobe before her first day. She saw herself smiling at new coworkers who would soon be friends. She saw them hold their phones and their tablets before her eyes. Her image under the name Trixie Carol . She saw all of them showing her the door before her foot was even in .
    “Cass, you can’t think about tomorrow. It might not even come.”
    “Wow, Iris. Thanks.”
    “I’m not… I’m just saying that you can’t worry about what hasn’t even happened yet. Maybe you are creating a past that’s gonna come back to haunt you. Or maybe you’ll actually meet someone who’s gonna give you that professional break .”
    Huh. Cassandra hadn’t thought of that . The men who used this site were likely not like her father. These had to be jet setters and corporate raiders too busy to date because they spent all their free hours dreaming up ways to make even more money. Where to