Page 85 of The Fed Sex Man

Jo

I eagerly answered my phone,excited to see that he’d taken time to return my call. “Good morning, this is Jo Watson.”

“You left a message for me to return your call,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“As I said in the message, my name’s Jo Watson. I have a small bookstore in Texas that’s devoted to independently published romance novels. Every month, we hold a contest. We choose ten winners from a long list of entrants. Each winner is provided a paperback from the pre-selected author of the respective month. That author is what we call the ‘author of the month’. We spend the entire month decorating the store with the author’s photos, flyers depicting his or her books, posters of the newest release—”

“Stop!” he insisted.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t get wrapped up in the distribution of propaganda.”

“Propaganda?” I asked. “Maybe you misunderstood…”

The phone clicked.

“Hello? Hello?”

I lowered the phone and looked at the screen. Somehow, we’d become disconnected. I called the number again. After two rings, he answered.

“Hell-low,” he said, his tone making his level of frustration clear.

“Mister Hildreth, I’m sorry. I was in the middle of explaining our procedure for the monthly contest, and we were disconnected.”

“No, we weren’t.”

“Actually, we were.”

“Actually, we weren’t,” he said in a snide tone. “I hung up.”

“You hung up?”

“Sure did.”

I was appalled. Appalled, but not surprised. “May I ask why?”

“Because,” he said. “I was done talking to you. I don’t fuck with propaganda. Don’t believe in it. It’s not how I do things.”

“What portion of our earlier conversation led you to believe—”

“Posters, flyers, photos.” He sighed into the phone. “Propaganda, propaganda, propaganda. I write a book, I publish the book, and I write another book. I don’t do photos, flyers, or posters. Sorry.”

“We wouldn’t require anything from you. We’d do that for you, Mister Hildreth. It’s part of what we—”

“Stop!” he barked. “You won’t do it for me, because I don’t fuck with propaganda. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“I guess not.”

“Have a nice day, Miss Watson.”

I sighed. “You, too.”

I hung up the phone and slid it across my desk.

“SD Hildreth?” Jenny asked.

I nodded.