Gloria (short story)

 

Gloria

“Gloria.”

The voice was distant and feminine, urgent and sudden.  There was something familiar about the phone call, but she really didn’t remember.  She dropped the handset and hung up.  This was the fourth time they’d called this week and she really didn’t know how they’d got her number.

She chuckled to herself.

It had to be just a prank.  Had to be.  She certainly wasn’t imagining the strange calls and it wasn’t as if she was headed for a breakdown.

Gloria adjusted her sweatbands, grabbed her personal cassette player and headed out from her apartment.  She was always on a run these days.  And so was he.

She reached the park, eyes peeled for the man she always saw there, the somebody she was running after.  She’d talked to him only once, met him on the main line, but now she felt like she was stalking him.  Which she was.  In a way.  She didn’t know why she liked him so much; it must’ve been something he’d said.

And there he was, just on the other side of the pond.  The perfect man.  He’d stopped to take a drink from a diet cola, and she felt her innocence slipping away just seeing him quench his thirst, staring at him in his skimpy running shorts and vest.  He was already drenched in sweat, still handsome.  She had to get him somehow.

She caught herself, gawping.  It was lucky it was so early and there weren’t many people about.  Embarrassing.

She lifted her headphones and pressed play.

“Gloria.”

It was the prank caller, the same woman, the same urgency, the same passion.

Again.

She threw her headphones away, but the wire caught, and the flimsy things dangled from her waist instead.  What?  What the…?  It couldn’t be.  Was that just voices in her head, calling her name?  Or had it come from the cassette player?  She checked the tape.  Looked normal enough.

Gingerly she placed the headphones back on her head, took and breath and hit the button.

Just music, upbeat pop.

No strange voices.

Gloria breathed a sigh of relief and took off.

She collided with someone and found herself falling to the floor.  Her cassette player bounced to the floor and dragged her headphones from her head.  The music abruptly cut off.

She blinked, shaken and dazed from the rebound.  The person, the man who’d she run into, it had been him.  He extended a hand and smiled.

“I think you’ve got to slow down,” he said with a voice that was chocolatey and smooth.

Gloria nodded, forgetting how to speak, and took his hand.  She was already starting to blow it; it was the only chance she was going to have to make a good impression, and if she were lucky, she’d have a lover for the afternoon.
                “You okay?”

She nodded again, nerves getting the better her; she had to be careful not to show it.  She suddenly realised was still holding his hand.  She shook herself free.

“Look after yourself,” he said and continued on his way.  She took the chance to stare at the rounded orbs filling out his exercise gear.

She sighed.  He’d been so close.  And she’d touched him.  And she’d blown it.  She thought it’s be so easy; she was an attractive woman after all.  She thought it’s be just a case of him seeing her again and… and he’d just fall in love with her.  But no.  Her mother’s words rang in her head:
                “If everybody wants you, why isn’t anybody calling?”
                She wasn’t wrong.

She shook herself out of her fugue and retrieved her personal cassette player; it was broken.  Just like her love life.

Maybe she just needed to marry for the money rather than hold out for true love.
                “Gloria.”

A whisper behind her, but there was no-one there.  A shiver ran up her spine and she quickly headed home.
                As she approached the door to her apartment, she heard a sound from within.

Ring, ring.  Ring, ring.

It was them.
She slid the key into the lock and opened the door.

Ring, ring.  Ring, ring.
They were calling again.
She didn’t have to answer; she could just leave them hanging on the line.

Ring, ring.  Ring, ring.
And then she remembered who it could be, who was on the other end of the phone.
They had to have her number, know the alias she’d been living under.
Ring, ring.  Ring, ring.

“Gloria.  Gloria.  Gloria.  Gloria… Gloria.  Gloria.  Gloria.  Gloria…”

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