Under the Want Ads - Love Under Lockdown

Chapter 1 – Brody

I looked over the company-wide email that had gone out early this morning with my permission. Although I had reviewed and approved it before it had been sent, I wished I had made it feel more personal.

Now that it had actually arrived in my inbox, and everyone else’s as well, it seemed so sterile and distant, but I supposed that was how these professional office emails had to be, especially when we were trying our best not to scare people during unprecedented, unpredictable times such as these.

Due to concerns about the Coronavirus, we have decided that we will need to work remotely for a while. We are not sure when things will get back to normal, but we are convinced that this is the best course of action for the time being.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out via phone or email. All offices will be closed until further notice.

The world had changed, and we were feeling the effects of it. I was at my office I kept for my app design company, listening to a conference call that was being held for the whole company.

The other line blinked on my phone, so I switched over to that one.

“Yes?” I answered.

“It’s Sylvia,” came my assistant’s voice over the intercom. “I have some bad news for you.”

The day had hardly begun, and it already was chock-full of bad news.

How could it get any worse?

“What’s the news?” I asked, concerned.

Sylvia had been with us for a long time and I knew she wouldn’t leave us hanging if it wasn’t for a good reason.

“My mother is sick,” she said. “We aren’t sure if she has the Coronavirus or not, but I really need to be there for her.”

She started bawling uncontrollably. I wanted to console her, but I didn’t know what to say.

None of the normal words seemed to fit. Phrases like “Everything will be okay” or “Things will get better soon” felt like empty platitudes. All small comfort attempts were lost on me right now because I was just as uncertain as everyone else.

All I knew for sure was that I was struggling personally and professionally because of everything that was going on. I was literally at my wit’s end about what I was going to do.

Normally, my refuge would be Club Skin, a BDSM club where I would spend time with a pet. She would do everything that I commanded, eager to please me. I would play the game with her until I got bored and then find another pet to pass the time.

It was my routine. I had grown rather fond of it.

It suited me better than a traditional relationship, mostly because I didn’t believe in those.

I’ll never forget the day that changed my view of love and relationships forever.

My mother had picked me up early from school, telling me that we were going on an adventure. She had a suitcase in the backseat and said that we were going to take a bus to our new lives.

I didn’t understand what she was talking about. I liked my life with our family, her and my father, all living together as one family. So, I told her so.

She told me that that didn’t matter and that I would learn to love our new life better. I cried, begging and pleading for her not to make me leave. After what felt like an eternity, she finally agreed to take me home.

My father was there which wasn’t normal for him. He said that he hadn’t been feeling well and that he had taken the afternoon off. That was also very rare— I couldn’t remember a time when he had called out sick to work.

My mother told him that it was time to drop the charade, and that I was old enough to know what was going on. My father begged her to reconsider and wait a while. But she told him right then and there that she was leaving him for someone else and that there was nothing that he could do about it.

Then she turned to me, asking me if I wanted to stay or go. I looked over at my dad, who looked overwrought with pain, and knew that I couldn’t leave him. I didn’t want to. I told her so. She walked out the door and didn’t look back.

Ever since then, I became convinced that all relationships were doomed to failure because everyone cheats. I later found out that the whole time that my parents were together, my father had a girlfriend on the side. That made me more sympathetic to my mother’s point of view, but it was too long after the fact for it to matter at the time.

My mother was upset that I had chosen my dad, and she was lonely. After my mother moved out of the apartment she had rented, she moved back in with us.