Spell of a Time by Jenna Rivers

of the app to start reading it, but I snatched it away from her so I could take a look for myself, curiosity winning over my trepidation. “‘Welcome to Soul Mate—the place to meet a match so perfect you’d sell your soul.’” I swallowed hard and swiped through the pictures of example profiles. “These photos can’t be real. I mean, each person looks like a god or goddess.” Clara took out her own phone and logged into her account with the service. “That’s nothing. Check out these guys.” She showed me more and more pictures of guys who looked too good to be true. Long hair, short hair, bearded, clean-shaven. All of them with naked torsos and ridiculously chiseled abs for days. Next to their godlike looks, I had no right to put myself on that app, but maybe I could register if only to have some interesting pictures to stare at. “The thing about Soul Mate is that it’s really not for dating.” Clara took back her phone. “Then why are you suggesting I try it?” I read through the reviews of the app, trying to figure things out. “Oh, I get it,” Valerie exclaimed. “I’ll bet even though it’s advertised as a dating app, it’s really used more for hookups. Now I get what you meant about deep end.” It took me a second to catch up to the rest of them and realize what they meant. I stopped gawking at the hot men the second it dawned on me. “Oh, you mean everyone who’s on here just wants…you know.” “Sex. S-E-X. I know you said it’s been a long time since you had any, but surely you can say the word