Read Online Hidden Things by Doyce Testerman - Free Book Online

closed, his mouth partly open.
    Calliope narrowed her eyes at the fat man and looked away. “For the next few weeks I pretended to choke on bones every time we ate chicken.”
    â€œWhy?”
    Calliope’s face was a mask. “I wanted them to pay attention to me like that again.”
    Gluen’s eyes closed fully, and his mouth opened farther in something like a perverse rapture. “Thank you, my dear. Thank you very much.”
    The look on Gluen’s face made Calliope feel as though she had shared a much more familiar intimacy with him. Confusion and resentment flared in her chest, along with something close to self-disgust. She had no idea why she had told that story—she hadn’t thought about it or anything about her old life for years. Some compulsion had almost seemed to draw it out of her.
    â€œConsumption,” Gluen said, his breath a bare rasp of pleasure. “Not just of food, certainly, for you have built a culture of consumption, gluttony.” His eyes slowly focused and shifted to Calliope. “We all crave more than what we currently have, do we not, my dear? Force another bite down, angle for more time with a loved one, squeeze yourself into the spotlight just one more time: that is the nature of . . . things.” He blinked sleepily, in an almost postcoital languor. Again, his sharp pink tongue, far too dexterous for the rest of his body, flitted over his lips.
    Calliope shuddered, but concealed it within the folds of the oversized wool suit; she had no desire to let Gluen realize how deeply disturbing she found the turn in the conversation. “Really glad you’re getting your rocks off, but you told me I’d get information; the only thing I’ve found out so far is that you’re a creepy fuck.”
    Gluen blinked away the last of his glassy-eyed stare and turned away from Calliope. “She is a crude young woman,” he said to Vikous.
    Vikous chewed slowly on the end of his cigar, shaking flakes of ash onto the lush carpet. “Pay some attention to who you’re complaining to if you want any sympathy, fat man.”
    Gluen scowled for a moment, his face an obese parody of a cherub. “Indeed.” He turned and moved toward his desk. “Indeed.” With great care, he maneuvered himself into his chair.
    â€œTomorrow,” he said. He raised his arm and motioned to an attendant, flesh swaying on his arm like a damp towel. The man approached with a tray covered with appetizers and candy—both in a number of unlikely colors.
    â€œWhat?” Calliope looked at Gluen, then the slim attendant, then turned back to the fat man. “What the hell?”
    â€œYou already took payment, Gluen,” Vikous murmured, taking a half step forward. His hands were buried in his pockets, but the smoldering cigar jutted at an unfriendly angle.
    â€œTechnically, I took payment several weeks ago, my dear Vikous.” Gluen’s pig-eyes flickered to Calliope, the motion mirrored by the darting pink tip of his tongue. “This little exchange was a . . .” He paused, a smirk pushing at the mass of his cheeks like fingers in wet dough. “A trick or treat.”
    â€œWhat the fuck—” Calliope began, her face growing hot, flushed with anger and something very much like shame.
    â€œNo business transactions,” Gluen interrupted, “on this night.” He clicked his tongue, his voice full of regret and admonishment. “ You know that as well as anyone, Vikous; I’m surprised you bothered bringing the poor girl all this way. Wasted her time.”
    â€œWhy—”
    â€œTomorrow,” Gluen cut in again, his eyes back on Calliope, hard and black. “Night.”
    Silence dropped over the empty spaces of the room like loose stones.
    â€œC’mon, Calli.” Vikous turned to the door. “Fat man’s got candy to eat.” He stopped, angling his head back toward