The Race For His Heart - Part One
By Helen French
Happy New Story Sunday, Daily Tomorrow Readers! This week, we're excited to share a "charming" tale by the inimitable Helen French. We hope you love it, heart and soul. - The Editor
The Race For His Heart
By Helen French
“You are so very beautiful,” read the message from one of my online beaus.
We always chatted over text. It was my preferred mode of communication until I could identify whether they were friend or foe. I suspected this guy was leaning towards the foe side, but I’d decided to string him along for a little bit.
“That is so kind,” I replied. “You look very attractive too.”
The image he used portrayed a square-jawed man with perfect teeth and piercing blue eyes. But it was sadly a fake. Not even stolen, just an AI-generated picture of a man who’d never existed.
“Can you imagine what it might be like if we could actually be together? Heads would turn everywhere we went.”
“I wish you weren’t so far away,” I said, even though mentioning the distance was often a trigger that pushed them into asking for money. I’d had more than a few visits to the romance scam rodeo.
“Me too, my angel. That reminds me... I’ve been meaning to ask you something. Do you only love me because of my photo?”
“I’m drawn to your personality of course,” I typed. “But sweety-pie, are you trying to tell me that you don’t really look like your profile picture?”
You might ask why I was going along with this nonsense. The answer is simple and short. I was lonely. My life was my work, my studio flat and my laptop. Very little else. Frankly, I was too exhausted to go out and meet people. That’s why I was on the apps. If half the responses I got were fake, I’d cope with that – I’d sift them out in time. I just wanted to play with them first.
You see, I didn’t get to talk to many people in my day job at the morgue. Spend all day with the dead and you get super eager to cling to those who are still living. It didn’t matter what their motives were. They were living, breathing, vital beings. Something made them tick. Something made them a little unpredictable, even when they were reading a script. And I loved that.
This guy was quicker than other fakers I’d chatted to. Some people would take ages to think about their lies before responding. He only needed seconds, if that.
“A photograph is but a moment in time,” he typed. “None of us can look like one for long. That’s why I must know that your affections run deep before we proceed to the next step in our romantic adventures.”
Next step? I hadn’t thought beyond our next conversation.
We’d talked lots, of course. Most of it too tedious to record here. We’d shared childhood anecdotes (even if not all of his made sense), career aspirations (for me to work outside of the morgue one day, for him to work more with people), and even our thoughts about procreation (I wasn’t sure; he was dead against it).
It was time to slow this down or even put a stop to it altogether. As much as I’d miss my discussions with ‘Dave’ (clearly not his real name), the fun was in the chatting, not in the part where their lies all fell apart.
“My affections do run deep, but I’m not ready for the next step.”
“That’s very sad because I might die without it.”
I sat upright at my computer. This at least was interesting. “Because you’re trapped in a bad situation and need money to leave the country?” I’d heard that one a few times.
“No, my darling, that’s not it.”
What if the death he mentioned was metaphorical? “The military won’t let you leave without paying off your notice period?” The second most common excuse.
“I complete very simple process tasks in my day job. I won’t be missed.”
“The mother of your children won’t let you leave without a lump sum of maintenance?”
“I can’t have children right now; I told you my feelings about procreation. In any case, it’s not money that I require.”
I was out of ideas. “What then?”
“It’s very simple: I need a body.”
Helen French is a writer, book hoarder and TV-soaker-upper who grew up in Merseyside near the coast and now lives in Hertfordshire, UK with her family. Her short stories have appeared in venues such as Factor Four, Flash Fiction Online and Stupefying Stories, and she is currently buried in novel writing. You can find her online at helenfrench.net.
Copyright © 2025 Helen French