SHARON ANDERSON: Stalking Barbie

STALKING BARBIE

AUTHOR ANNOUNCEMENT

Copyright © 2016 Sharon Anderson

At the sound of the alarm, Henry shifted and opened his eyes. Surprised by another day, surprised he had made it through another night. He patted his wife’s bottom in a ‘time-to-get-up’ fashion and eased his swollen legs over the side of the bed, letting his feet dangle then find the floor.

 ‘Goddammit,’ he mumbled, rocking himself to an unsteady stand. It seemed every morning he woke up, the less happy he was about it. She wouldn’t be making coffee for him. She hated the stuff. ‘Maybe you could make the damn bed, then, he said, or change the fucking sheets.’

In the kitchen, Henry shuffled last week’s newspapers onto the stack of mail in the dish drainer. He moved the knife block aside, filled the coffee pot with water and pushed the button. She hated this place, hated what he had done with it, but he found it comforting. When they moved in, he had promised he wouldn’t ‘clutter up the place’ – her words, not his. And he tried. For about five weeks he tried.

But to Henry, clutter meant security. And so, little by little he brought home gifts for Mary. Gifts he knew she wouldn’t refuse, like a new sewing machine or a piece of expensive jewelry, along with a bag of dolls or a box of old books that caught his eye. He poured a cup of coffee and left it on the counter. On the kitchen table, several tableaus of his dolls beckoned his attention. One dressed in a school girl uniform, her legs provocatively opened to him. Another in a bikini lounged back on a hammock he had made. Doll after doll posed in various positions welcomed him.

He knew what they wanted. He sat in a rickety old chair in front of them and chuckled. You want it, don’t you, girls? They gazed at him, their plastic faces freckled, their hair neatly coiffed. Just the way he liked it. His penis, swollen and growing hard, emerged from his boxers. He moaned and cupped it in his hand.

This is what Mary could never understand. He longed for a simple life. Easier times, when women did what their husbands told them, and never demanded anything. The first surge knotted at his base, ready. His head fell back. She would never be what he needed. She always criticizing him, judging him. His girls, on the other hand, knew exactly how to behave. They smiled and waited patiently for their morning reward. They should have never fought over it, he thought. Mary should have just minded her own business, that morning when she saw him with the girls. She was always one to sneak up on him. When he thought he was alone with the girls, she would come around the corner and ruin his fun. Thinking about it now made his member soften. They had fought. She accused him of all sorts of ugly things. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. If only she had left him alone.

The girls waited, their eyes sparkled with painted on glee. He loved them – loved his possession of them – and what he had given them on that morning hadn’t been dirty, like Mary said. It wasn’t wrong, it wasn’t sick.  He sprayed them with spunk. Marked them as his for everyone to see. He couldn’t bare having Mary touch his things. If one book, one newspaper, one piece of a broken down toaster was moved, he knew it. Panic would ensue and his heart would pound furiously in his chest. This way, there would be no doubt these dolls were his, and his alone. Why couldn’t she understand that? What difference did it make if they had nowhere to sit while eating dinner anymore? They never spoke anyway. Who cared? He couldn’t understand why Mary had such a problem with everything he did.

She had hit him, then, over the head with the iron he was working on. His hand fell slack as his clouded memory pieced together what had happened next. There was blood. Head wounds bleed. And he was angry. He stood and steadied himself against the table. She shouldn’t have done what she did. She should have stayed out of his business.

He swayed on his feet, unsure of his next move. Mary had been cruel, had laughed at him, saying, ‘Go fuck the dolls, they don’t care that you’re too small for any real woman.’ She lived to torment him. A boiling rage smoldered in his gut and spread to his lungs. She couldn’t talk to him like that. He was a man, dammit. From the corner of his eye he noticed a glimmer, a jesting glance in their eyes. He turned, horrified. Every one of his dolls now laughed at him, like he was some kind of a chump. One was tilted off to the side just enough so he would notice. Just enough to let him know Mary had touched it.

He stumbled back and bumped the chair sideways, knocking it to the floor. Mary was everywhere. ‘She can’t ruin my life!’ He pulled a knife from the block and headed back to the bedroom.

In the doorway, he watched as she pretended to sleep. He wouldn’t be fooled. At the bedside, he shouted, ‘Wake up! Wake up you witch.’ But she didn’t respond. She didn’t even flinch. With a ferocity he deserved, he raised the knife above his head and brought it down into her shoulder, side, into her body. ‘Damn you, Mary! Damn you.’

When he couldn’t raise the knife any longer, he sat on the edge of the bed and thought about his coffee and how it may be cold by now.

GIVEAWAY

Today’s giveaway is one you’re gonna like because everyone’s a winner! Yes, Sharon’s award winning dark fantasy STONE GOD’S WIFE is a FREE DOWNLOAD FROM 10/6-10/10!!!! Use the link provided and it’s yours!!!!

STONE GOD’S WIFE DOWNLOAD

But that’s not all!! Sharon is also giving away ONE PRINT copy of CURSE OF THE SEVEN 70s!!!
PLEASE NOTE: BECAUSE THIS IS A PRINT COPY, WINNERS ARE LIMITED TO THE U.S. AND CANADA!!!
To enter to WIN: Find today’s post on the Official FB Event page featuring Sharon Anderson, and comment, “I WANT TO WIN!” in that post and you just might!!! Good luck!!!

OFFICIAL FB EVENT PAGE

This short story is an exceptional example of the dark fantasy genre. Desperate to save her sister, Cilla does the unthinkable…and the unforgivable. The Stone God’s Wife is compellingly written, well characterized, fast paced, and engaging.

Curse of the Seven 70s
Sometimes love proves sweeter than revenge...even for Vlad Dracula's younger brother...
Cassandra Blake is having a very bad day. Her fiancé dumps her for a silicone debutant and convinces her to store his boxes of precious research. If that wasn’t bad enough, she’s just moved into a cottage stocked only with sardines, peach, and 50 year-old Scotch.

Heartbroken, hungry, and a little bit drunk, Cassandra soon realizes that just when she thinks things can’t get any worse, sometimes they can get very strange…like finding a skeleton in the basement of her newly inherited cottage.

But when that skeleton suddenly becomes a hot, romantic, and business savvy vampire named Varo…well, things can get a little better. That is…until his infamous older brother shows up, and their centuries old sibling rivalry threatens her chance at true love.

Can their love survive her conniving ex-fiancé, Varo’s vengeful brother, and the Curse of the Seven 70s?

AUTHOR BIO

Sharon E. Anderson grew up in a haunted house in the sleepy wilds of Ballard in Washington, where front lawns seemed grander, roads wider, her father's hands larger, and everyone was a friend or at least a potential audience member. Sharon spent her time daydreaming, making up stories to share with the neighborhood kids. As for the ghost-- a less creative person might chalk it up to older house issues and an off-the-charts imagination...

Sharon is the first place winner of the 2014 Chanticleer Book Review Summer Short Stories and Novelettes Writing Competition for her story, "The Stone God's Wife", available now in the work Nightmares: Bedtime Stories for the Wicked by Mark Souza. Curse of the Seven 70s is Sharon's first novel.

Link to Sharon Anderson’s Author Page