Episode One - The Vanishing Rebound

At precisely three o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon, when normal people were either at work or at least pretending to be, Cosmo Farfetch was sprawled across his velvet couch like a starlet abandoned mid–B-movie. A martini glass dangled from one hand, his sunglasses clung stubbornly to his face, and his robe had slipped just far enough to suggest scandal without delivering.

Cosmo looked every inch the tragic deity of queer melodrama: sculpted cheekbones, brooding eyes, and a wavy lock of curls arranged in that perfectly careless cascade that required three products and a small prayer. His chest rose and fell with the theatrical sighs of a man who believed heartbreak should be cinematic.

Cosmo, bless him, was once again recovering from heartbreak.

Felix Montague had fled the scene, leaving behind only a bar tab and a suspicious number of Enya CDs. The silly fool went looking for enlightenment after he found a dodgy pharmaceutical at a rave.

He was a bespectacled creature who, after consuming three gins and if you squinted, looked like the Matt Smith version of Doctor Who.

They had been together for three years. A long-term investment for Cosmo. He adored a man who was so hopelessly devoted to him. Felix had appealed to his vanity while he serenaded Cosmo with the Olivia Newton-John songbook.

He had even given up The Gin for this man and gone all clean and healthy. He was booked and busy having a thoroughly amazing time. Then, the ratings tanked. His soap opera jumped the shark.

Well, they did bring his character back from the dead far too many times. The last time was as a vampire. Demon possession was one thing, but going Twilight was too much for the froth and bubble of soapland.

Till We Meet Again, Today, Tomorrow and Always ended when everything that happened was just a fever dream. The curtain came down, and Cosmo was unemployed once more.

Cosmo started to drink again. Felix became bewitched by Taylor Swift, and the devotion to him began to wane. The roles dried up quicker than the Simpson Desert after the rainy season. Cosmo was no longer the cute twink. He was now ageing disgracefully.

Cosmo’s apartment, unlike his love life, was a decadent masterpiece: velvet sofas in jewel tones, Art Deco lamps humming smugly, mirrors angled to catch only his best self, and curtains pooling dramatically on the floor like fainting socialites. A bar cart held his collection of emotional support liquor.



And then there was the rather gaudy argyle monstrosity that was rescued from the home of frenemy, Tiffany, the one-woman demolition derby of his self-esteem. He had stolen the rug as a merciful act.

The rug was peppered with Ritz cracker crumbs, crushed pink tabs that once had a bunny on them, and a wet patch of a sticky substance that may or may not be jizz. Evidence of his rebound.

Cosmo had done what any self-respecting, emotionally unstable homosexual would do when they’ve been dumped. He was hoping that the rebound had cheekbones sharp enough to distract him from his own emotional deficiencies.

The Velvet Weasel — a bar famous for its dim lighting and even dimmer judgment — did not disappoint.

The rebound, Oliver Wendle, had that sitcom-scientist energy: tall, bespectacled, wrapped in a cardigan that looked like it apologised for him. An irresistible kind of nerd, the sort you’re drawn to like that of a faulty power socket — curious right up until the zap.

They flirted. They drank. Spoke Klingon. Well, Oliver did. Cosmo listened. The nerd’s lips were just too delicious. And eventually, Cosmo brought him home.

Cosmo looked at the rug, wondering where everything had gone so wrong. One might assume that a man at rock bottom couldn’t get any lower. Not Cosmo. He was on his knees in minutes, lapping up that sticky substance, hoping it was gin, like a reformed alcoholic on a cheat day, before sitting up, cheeks flushed, with all the dignity of a dethroned duchess. He was so wrong. His rebound had left something behind.

Then the rug moved.

Not metaphorically, not symbolically, but in reality.

He lifted a corner cautiously. It wriggled. Something underneath squeaked. Cosmo shrieked.

What emerged was a small, furry creature vibrating at a frequency usually reserved for religious awakenings. The rebound’s gerbil. Oliver’s emotional support companion, apparently.

Cosmo stared at it. The gerbil stared back.

“Oh,” Cosmo whispered. “So, that’s where you got to, Carrie Fisher.”

This, naturally, raised a question that could no longer be avoided: Where the hell was Oliver?

Oliver was gone. Poof! Vanished. And he’d left behind not only a heartbroken gerbil, but also a baffling sense of responsibility that Cosmo had not felt since trying to keep a basil plant alive.

So, naturally, Cosmo decided he must find him. Not out of love — don’t be absurd — but out of obligation, curiosity, and perhaps a dash of theatrically performed righteousness.

Cosmo searched for any other remnants of Oliver’s momentary habitation of his abode.

He tore through his room like a glitter-soaked hurricane, flinging cushions, shaking out jackets, and upending drawers in a frenzy to find anything—anything—that might lead him back to Oliver.

Sequins rained from his sleeves as he dropped to his knees and reached under the bed, fingers brushing against something soft and forgotten. He pulled it out and froze. A pair of underpants—bright, slightly crumpled, unmistakably Oliver’s.

Inside the waistband, neatly stitched in blue thread, was his name and an address, followed by a tiny, embroidered note: If found, please return.

Cosmo held them like a treasure map, heart thudding. At last, a clue to finding Oliver!

He put Carrie Fisher into a repurposed sequinned clutch bag (“temporary gerbil carrier — haute couture edition”). He had liberated the clutch from a discount-store drag queen who dared to sing Edith Piaf at a rave full of modernists.

He stuck the undies into a top pocket of his robe, put on his dark sunglasses and then sighed. His mother always said there would be days like this. He marched out into the world.

Cosmo had barely left the apartment when he heard a strange rustling from inside the sequinned handbag. He paused. Carrie Fisher peeked out — pupils dilated to the size of saucers.

“Oh god,” Cosmo muttered. “What did you find?”

He reached into the bag and retrieved a small zip-lock baggie filled with cannabis and angel dust crumbs. Damn you, Lucy Lockjaw! The gerbil had been emotionally eating.

Carrie Fisher twitched. Then vibrated. Then stood upright like a possessed meerkat and screamed.

Cosmo screamed back.

And then the gerbil bolted.

Carrie Fisher shot down the footpath like a tiny, furry torpedo.

Cosmo sprinted after him — robe flapping, slippers slapping, dignity evaporating — only to slam into a runaway baby pram. Except it wasn’t a baby. A pug in a bonnet stared at him accusingly.

Carrie Fisher tried to fight the pug.

Cosmo grabbed the gerbil before a tiny interspecies war could begin, and the pug’s owner threatened to call the RSPCA and Vogue.

Carrie Fisher escaped again.

Next, Carrie Fisher had climbed up a backpacker’s cargo pants, run across three torsos, stolen a granola bar, and sent one German tourist into existential crisis.

Cosmo snatched the gerbil mid-air like a disgraced cricket player, only for Carrie Fisher to wriggle free and leap into a street artist’s paint tray.

Now he was high and tie-dyed.

A flock of ibis (or, as Cosmo called them, “bin chickens with boundary issues”) took an immediate interest in the rainbow-coloured, high-as-a-kite gerbil.

Carrie Fisher saw them, shrieked with stoner paranoia, and sprinted down an alley.

Cosmo followed, throwing food bribes, “Carrie! Sweetheart! I have a Twinkie!”

A single ibis tried to steal the Twinkie. Cosmo fought it with a slipper. He won. Onlookers just shook their heads. So sad! Another fallen star gone off the rails!

Carrie Fisher, now ravenous, waddled back toward the Twinkie, ate half of it, burped loudly, and collapsed into docile, blissful unconsciousness.

Finally, Cosmo placed him gently back into the sequinned handbag where the gerbil snored like a tiny chainsaw.

When Cosmo arrived at Oliver’s building, clutching the man’s undies, looking haggard, with wild hair and a stained robe, he immediately noticed the door hanging slightly ajar.

“Oliver?” he called.

Silence.

He stepped inside. The place was ransacked. Papers everywhere. Radio equipment smashed. Furniture overturned. There was the smell of burnt ozone hanging in the air.

And then—

A voice behind him.

“Hands up.”

Cosmo dropped the undies and put his hands in the air.

He froze as a tall man in a black suit, sunglasses, and no discernible sense of humour stepped into the room.

“I am Agent Grady, Department of Communications Irregularities. You are trespassing at the residence of a person of interest involved in unauthorised interception of government frequencies.”

Cosmo blinked. All he’d wanted was a rebound. Apparently, Oliver was after a final hurrah before vanishing.

“I’m just here to return his emotional support gerbi—”

Carrie Fisher launched out of Cosmo’s bag like a furry projectile, latched onto Agent Grady’s face, and began attacking with the ferocity of a demonic multi-coloured marshmallow.

Agent Grady screamed.

Carrie Fisher screeched.

Cosmo grabbed the gerbil and fled.

He bolted out into the corridor, down the stairs, and onto the street. Panting, heart pounding, terror and sweat running equally down his face. Cosmo finally managed to catch his breath.

He looked down at the gerbil — high, exhausted, drooling very slightly. Like it or not, Cosmo now had a responsibility to Carrie Fisher. Even if he had never intended to get tangled in espionage, emotional support rodents, or bird-related trauma.

And so, our story begins with:

• a failed actor,

• an empty martini glass,

• an ex-boyfriend finding enlightenment,

• a rebound who vanished with the sunrise,

• and a sole parent to an emotional support animal.

It can only go downhill from here.

#CosmoFarfetch #ALifeLessFabulous #QueerComedy #SatiricalSoapOpera #GayCampFiction #QueerStories #FunReads #FictionOnTheNet #LGBT #Fiction #QuickReads

Daz James

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