Sparkle by Jerry Cole

Author:Jerry Cole
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2017-02-25T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Simon woke up with the feeling that something was wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but the room felt colder than it was supposed to. The world felt emptier than it should. He reached out blindly, looking for the warm body he knew should be in his bed and met the cold sheets instead.

“Sparkle?”

His voice bounced off the walls and dissipated in the silence of his apartment. He was alone. Truly alone for the first time in his life. The thought terrified him. He felt small and unarmed in a world that gobbled up small men like him.

“Breathe,” he said, turning on the television to drown out the silence. He could feel his chest tighten and his heart race as he fought off the anxiety of the day. Where the hell was Sparkle? Checking the time, it wasn’t that late in the morning. Sparkle couldn’t have been gone for too long. Why would he leave?

Simon rolled out of bed and went searching for underwear. He couldn’t sit in bed and wait. That was what losers did. He wasn’t a loser. He was a successful man, respected, desired, envied. Simon walked barefoot into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of milk. He downed it in three gulps and decided that the walls of his penthouse were too close together for his taste. He needed to get out.

Simon showered briskly, barely allowing the water to heat up before standing under the jets. He remembered a stack of invoices and tax forms on his desk at the bathhouse that needed his attention. They were his lifeline. His ticket away from the thing that scared him the most. Abandonment.

Pulling on the first sweater his hand landed on, Simon grabbed his keys and wallet and rode the elevator down to the lobby.

“Hey, you’re up early,” Sparkle’s cheerful voice broke through the red haze that consumed Simon’s brain.

“Hey…where did you go?”

“Home to pick up a few things. Are you okay?” Sparkle said, cupping Simon’s face and looking him in the eye.

“Yeah, I…” Simon eyed the large trunk Sparkle dragged behind him.

“Did you have a bad dream?”

“No, I had a great dream.” Simon’s voice wavered slightly as he spoke.

“Let's go have some breakfast,” Sparkle instructed, trying to sound cheerful. Simon’s slightly pale face and panicked expression didn’t begin to ease back into something normal until they were safely behind closed doors.

Sparkle threw open his trunk, pulling out pieces of art wrapped in blankets and clothing that Sparkle never wore in public.

“What’s all this?”

“This, my love, is my gift to you!” Sparkle handed him a bronze phallic wind chime with a smile. “It’s the god of sex and fertility. I don’t think you and I will ever be able to conceive a child, but you are welcome to keep trying.”

Simon swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to smile back.

“You can’t fool me, you know. You have one hell of a poker face, but you’re a crap actor. Sometimes when people die it’s easy to forget.

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