Living Deceptions

------- May I say I have no idea of how old Clarice is. I just made a complete guess. If someone could give me an age or a rough idea of age, I'd be well impressed. Oh, and how old is Hannibal in the story?? PLEASE TELL ME, I MUST KNOW!!!!! Ok, on with the story!-----------

Chapter 2

Clarice sat there for awhile, looking at the blank television. She thought about what Ardelia had said. What was she doing with her life? She didn't do anything, she stayed inside, all the time. Never talked to someone, never answered the phone. When the phone did ring, she'd leave it to finish ringing, before *69ing them, and I she didn't recognise the number, she wouldn't ring back. Even if she did know the number, she rarely rung back anyway. She eyed the piece of paper, intrigue getting the better of her. She slowly began to allow her hand to creep forward towards the paper, gently fingering the corners. She lifted the paper, and opened it gently to see an address written on it.



www.americasinglesonline.com

She laughed to herself, and threw the paper aside. Concentrating on her thirst, she got up to make herself a drink. Her mind kept wandering out of curiosity back the internet address as she walked past her computer. 15 minutes past, and she couldn't resist, she turned her computer on and loaded up Internet Explorer. Sat at her computer, she looked unsurely at the screen, then at the paper. Finally, she typed in the address bar the same words printed on the paper and hit the ENTER key. The page loaded up almost immediately, red and pink in colour with love hearts and cupids dancing in front of her eyes. "Jesus" she whispered to herself, and searched the screen, reading the text telling her what to do. Finding the 'FIND MY PERFECT DATE NOW!' link, she clicked it, and once again the page loaded instantly. She was asked to fill in a profile, describe herself, physically and personality wise, tell about her hobbies, likes and dislikes and such things that Clarice considered as nonsense. She filled it in, keeping the answers to a minimum. When it asked her name, she filled in her real name, something that any regular user of the site never did. Then, she stopped, and considered what her nickname should be. She read the advice given 'Something that will appeal to the right person in the right way.'

Jesus, not much help was it?

Thinking of all the possibilities, she considered something sexy like 'Little Miss Naughty', but dismissed it, 'Sexy FBI cop', but she wasn't a cop anymore. After about 5 minutes of thinking of imaginative and somewhat dirty nicknames she decided finally on just 'Clarice'. Plain, boring Clarice.

"Well, if people aren't attracted to my name, then they can sod off." She thought to herself. She clicked the link, and the page redirected to the 'SINGLES' chat room. The page took slightly longer to load this time. Finally, the APPLET INITIALIZED and the chat room loaded up. People typed quickly, line after line of flirty text appeared on the screen, Clarice was amazed by the speed o it, she couldn't keep up with it. Finally, she typed simply into the text box

'Hello.' And hoped for a reply. No-one on the main screen replied to her, and she felt slightly put out. Suddenly, a wave of pop up screens………popped up with people trying to talk to her, 'hey, u wanna chat?' and 'Hi sexy, u horny?' Repulsed by such vulgar talk without even knowing the person, she clicked of those who asked if she was horny, or what she was wearing, or if she had panties on. She finally decided to talk to a guy, well, she assumed a guy, called 'Matty'.

'Hi, asl?' He wrote. What the hell was asl? She pondered this question for a short time, trying to think of what it could mean. Not used to the chat room jargon, she replied simply

'What does ASL mean please?' He quickly replied.

'Age, Sex, Location.' Ah ha. So it wasn't Agent, Special or Lieutenant as she thought.

'27, female, WV. Asl to you?' A/N-she's never been to a chat room before, therefore doesn't know the 'jargon'!-----

'25/m/ny. How r u 2nite?' She looked at this text and thought "What?" Completely confused, it took her a certain number of minutes to figure out what it meant. She was slightly put off by him been younger than she was, but age mustn't be discriminated against.

'I am ok thank you, and how are you?' she asked.

'Im gr8, all da beter 4 talkin 2 u hun!' Now she really was put off, and even more confused, it wasn't normal for people to talk so casually to people they didn't even know!

'I have to go, my tea's ready.'

'cya xxx' was all he replied. Well, at least she had tried. She was about to close the page when another pop up appeared and read

'Good evening Clarice.'