Read Out Late with Friends and Regrets for Free Online Page B

whole world of   women looking for each other. She read them all during the evening, and picked out five that described an enviable combination of attractive
    traits, and who claimed to be between thirty and forty. Unfortunately, their locations were far-flung, the nearest two being London and a village north of Birmingham. Rosemary was right; it might be an idea to start with the local paper. Today the fell-running dog-lover was still there, joined by an F of unspecified age, who enjoyed equally unspecified “good times”. Not a plethora of choice; the ‘Women Seeking Women’ section was always the smallest in the Soulmates page, Rosemary had said. No matter, Fiona would compose her own advertisement, and surely she could attract the attention of a few of the interesting lesbians who must throng the streets of a university city like Harford.
    She tried out a few ideas, jotting key words and phrases, throughout the next day. It was surprisingly challenging, requiring a skill quite different from the composition of snappy taglines for her personalised T-shirts, at which she considered herself something of an expert. For a start, the art of double-entendre would be superfluous here; this effort needed to be sincere but eyecatching, with careful wording which would target exactly the sort of women who would be on her wavelength. If only she knew what that was.
    Wednesday was closing day, so after a leisurely breakfast of scrambled eggs and coffee she sat to the task. Inspiration was no pushover, however, and she could feel sympathy for the authors who complained of blank page syndrome. But she persisted, finding that the ads grew by turns more pretentious or silly. At least they gave her a few laughs as she re-read them. She stretched, leaned back in her chair, and closed her eyes. A quiet, reflective track played on the radio. Velvet Underground? Nothing like the visceral dissonance of some of their more startling work. But one line settled in her head, and then it was easy. She tinkered a little, moused a border round the eighteen words, and saved it as ‘Soulmates 1’.
    The next morning, the ad looked a lot less impressive than the ingeniously succinct masterpiece she had gone to bed imagining it to be.   Did it make her look needy?   Was it wise to reveal her inexperience?   Did all absence of age or other descriptive details imply authorship by a grizzled female Quasimodo?   She sighed.   Well, if nothing came of it, she could always try again. She added the necessary details required by the paper, and sent it.
    On Friday she picked up the early edition, and fumbled for the half-page of cries from the heart.   She could not see it at first; but, yes, there it was, looking somehow very shocking and naked in formal print:
     
    Not just curious – convinced.
    Gay virgin but adult and motivated.
    No baggage. Help me find where I belong.
     
    Then the reference number.   God, nobody was going to answer that.   With unbearable restraint, she left it twenty-four hours before ringing the linkline to see if anyone had recorded a message.   Nothing over the week-end. Nothing on Moday either, the second of her three insertions.
    On Tuesday there were two.   The first was a barely coherent ramble, from a young woman who sounded stoned and started crying; the villain of her sobbing rant was a perfidious girlfriend, presumably now an ex.   This was sobering.   There would obviously be a bit of careful screening to do; even a person who sounded normal over the phone could have a sinister agenda or a personality disorder, with potential for terrible repercussions.   No wonder the ‘Soulmates’ column was headed with a list of precautions to take when arranging meetings.
    The second message was from a woman with a wheezy, well-kippered voice.   She wasn’t into commitment, but would willingly show the advertiser how to do it, and gave assurances of the advertiser’s complete satisfaction, if she wanted to give it a