A Little Romance

         Gabriel Hamilton slammed the study door shut behind him. Humiliation and bitter disappointment rose in his throat like black, bitter bile. Once again his brother’s well meaning intentions had gone awry. Forcing all thoughts from earlier from his mind, Gabriel searched his study’s booked lined walls for the one rare tome that might offer aid. Quickly locating the old red, leather bound spell book, Gabriel pulled the volume and laid it on the oak desk with an audible thump. Almost frantically, Gabriel whizzed thru the book’s pages until he located the one spell he desired.
         It was a spell, if properly cast, would allow the summoner to meet their true love. Gabriel sighed heavily. Should he use it? Even properly cast some thought it could be disastrous if they met the right person at the wrong time and ruin their chance at true love. Others thought it was fate in many of its many forms. Was he truly in the right state of mind to make such a decision? Despite everything that happened earlier, Gabriel felt he was ready. He had a vast fortune and a luxurious home from being one of the strongest sorcerers in the land. Still, he had no one to share it with. At the end of the day, he still felt empty despite all his achievements. He was alone. Still, was the spell the right answer? While debating this in his mind, the voice of Gabriel’s brother from the staircase snapped Gabriel out of his thoughts.
         “I’m sure my brother would love to see you again Miss Parker,” Alfred Hamilton’s voice soothed. Gabriel couldn’t make out her words but judging by her tone, she was adamantly trying to get out of any such second meeting.  In that moment, Gabriel made his decision. Alfred opened the study door to see Gabriel’s eyes lock with his from within a brilliant white ball of light just before Gabriel vanished before his eyes.



         With a sigh of relief, Leela Carter slammed shut the front door behind her.  Leela counted her lucky stars that her disastrous blind date was over. “What was I thinking?” she asked herself, agreeing to blind date set up by her sister of all things. Sure, her blind date had put the moves on her and also every woman who had the misfortune to cross his view.  The guy hit on anything in a skirt. Leela’s sister Naomi viewed herself as an expert on men and wanted to give Leela the “benefit” of her vast knowledge. Naomi went thru men like tissues.  They never stayed around long.  Leela knew that this last blind date would end up like all the others Naomi sat her up on, badly.
         After getting sick and tired of seeing her date hitting on the other women in the restaurant including the waitress, Leela ordered the most expensive item off the menu and excused herself to the ladies room and instead slipped out of the restaurant. Her date would be furious after all she had stuck him with the bill for her expensive order.  Served the jerk right, Leela thought. If she was lucky maybe the guy would complain about it to Naomi and it would cure her of trying to set up any more blind dates. Leela could only hope so.
         Leela relaxed in her office chair and turned on her computer to check on her special order from Most Doll. The computer flicked on into electronic life.  Leela had been overjoyed when the Most Doll company announced that it would be releasing the Mini-Vogue line of dolls. The regular Vogue doll line was made to resemble human models with delicate and detailed features, all painstaking hand-painted, and with great posability others dolls didn’t possess but their 20-22 inch size made them seem a bit too cumbersome to Leela. That is until the release of the MiniVouge line. The dolls were only 5-6 inches tall and had all details and possibility of their larger counterparts. Never had a company offered a doll this small and so completely detailed before and custom ordered to boot. Her order was proceeding as scheduled.
         Leela smiled at the screen showing her custom order-an adult male doll. Male dolls were always so hard to find especially adult ones. Next was the body type she had selected: slightly muscled. The slightly muscled look reminded her of a martial artist physique, compact muscles without looking underdeveloped and without the big, bulging steroid over muscled look either. Next she had chosen the head. After viewing several heads she found the one. One set with high cheek bones, the eyes had a slightly Asian tilt to them. They were slightly large with high arched brows. If these features had been on a real man they would appear strong yet thoughtful Leela pondered…but they were just on a doll. Out of all the skin colors available, Leela had chosen a fair one to match the hair she had selected- a wig of long, flowing, golden, blonde hair. “To bad finding Mr. Right and having him arrive on my doorstep isn’t this easy,” Leela pondered before shutting her computer off and headed for bed.