Looker Read online

  Also by Stanley Bennett Clay

  In Search of Pretty Young Black Men

  Diva

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2007 by Stanley Bennett Clay

  “To Have Loved,” composed by Stanley Bennett Clay; © 2007 by Clatonian Sound Music

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Atria Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Clay, Stanley.

  Looker: a novel / Stanley Bennett Clay.—1st Atria Books paperback ed.

  p. cm.

  1. African American men—Fiction. 2. Gay men—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3603.L39L66 2007

  813’.6—dc22 2007060652

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-4608-5

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-4608-1

  ISBN: 978-1-4165-4608-5

  ATRIA BOOKS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com

  For Reny

  God is love…and love is for everyone

  —BISHOP CARL BEAN

  Prologue

  He remembered the last time he saw Grammy alive. June 23, 1983. It was the day of his high school graduation. The moment the police found him on campus, he tore out of his cap and gown and rushed with them to the hospital.

  “You want me to come along with you?” Brando caught up with him, grabbing his arm.

  “Nah, man, stay. Graduate. I’ll handle it.”

  He found himself praying so hard that the tears streamed down his face. The screaming police siren thankfully drowned out what was the beginning of sobs. But he knew he would have to stop. He knew he couldn’t let Grammy see him like this, crying and dripping and blaming himself, knowing that she had been headed to Hamilton High School, to see her only grandchild graduate with honors, when the accident happened.

  In spite of the tubes in her arm and nostrils, she seemed ever so peaceful laid out in that hospital bed.

  The doctor desperately pleaded with his mother, Betty Stevens, Grammy’s daughter. Johnnie Mae Stevens had lost too much blood and desperately needed a transfusion, but Sister Betty would not budge. It was simply a matter of conscience, a test of unshakable faith.

  “It is against Jehovah’s will to take blood in our system,” she responded with evangelical pride.

  “Talk to your mother, son. You have to convince her,” the doctor had said. “It’s the only chance your grandmother has.”

  And so for the first time in three years he talked to his mother; pleaded with her, begged her, set aside what had divided and wounded them.

  In his mother’s eyes he would always be her forgotten sin, a saintly reminder of one evil night eighteen years earlier, when she writhed and sweated, fornicated with so many boys that she did not even know who the coculprit was who caused her to bring a bastard child into the world.

  Never again, I am Jesus’ now.

  She took the pain of the birth as penance for being vile and welcomed the punishment of labor like the lash.

  Never again, I am Jesus’ now.

  She forgot about Willie and Jerome and what’s-his-name with the really big one, and Sonny, who took her from behind.

  “Sin begets sin,” she preached to her bastard over and over and over again. She beat him with razor straps when she mistook wonder for wanton desires rising up in his little-boy eyes.

  She threw him out of her Jehovah-blessed house when, at fourteen, he sinned against nature and performed sinful, unnatural acts with another sinful, unnatural boy.

  “Sin begets sin,” she preached and she preached.

  Grammy tried hard not to spoil him, but it was simply beyond her control. Her only grandchild had been through enough. So it was not a spoiling, it was merely giving him what he had not gotten elsewhere. Grammy took him in, much to the chagrin of her sanctified daughter, his mother, and reared him into young manhood.

  And now Grammy was dying. So he broke down and spoke to his mother for the first time in three years, pleaded with her to let the doctor save Grammy. But it was as if he did not even exist, save for the sinful stench Sister Betty believed she smelled.

  He stayed long into the night at the hospital. When the doctor finally pronounced Grammy dead, his mother prayed silently and ignored his cursing and crying.

  That night, his best friend, Brando, came over to the house Omar had shared with his Grammy. Omar tried so hard to be strong, but Brando knew better. Omar cried in Brando’s arms until morning.

  That was more than twenty years ago. Omar still cries on occasion, when he thinks about June 23, 1983, when he thinks about Grammy. And Brando is still his best friend.

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Brando Heywood woke up at his usual Sunday-morning time, 6:30 AM. Enough time to climb out of bed, put on the coffee, grab the paper off the front porch, read and browse the book review, opinion, calendar, hot properties, sports, and travel sections. He had plenty of time to clean himself up and meet his parents for First Sunday’s second service. Later he would meet Omar, who Brando couldn’t drag inside a church if his life depended on it. But Brando understood.

  Brando Heywood was a nice guy with a good heart. He was a tight 170 pounds hung on a well-toned five-eleven frame. His handsome face sported a distant but cordial smile and dark cocoa doe eyes almost as dark as his smooth jet skin.

  He had been well liked all throughout adolescence and puberty, excelled as everyone had expected in middle and high school, graduated from Howard U and Stanford Law with obligatory honors, and was prosperous and well established as an entertainment lawyer. He had just turned forty and still looked like a student. He was modest and pleasant and never shouted in church.

  But romantically, he was alone. That feeling he had known with Collier was missing. He and Collier had been together five years before their commitment ceremony, and stayed together five years after. Brando considered the breakup amicable, the reasons arbitrary, and the blame shared graciously. They were the couple that everyone knew would last forever, yet no one was surprised when they broke up.

  They were a polite and gentlemanly pair. No infidelity and, near the end, little passion. They truly loved each other, but over the years they had become too comfortable with each other. The edge that might have ignited some fire had been smoothed over like stones eternally caressed and ultimately subdued by the waters of a gently babbling brook.

  The breakup simply happened. One night while they sat in front of the TV eating Pizza Hut pizza, they almost said it simultaneously: “Maybe we should break up.” The slipped utterance, echoed, stopped them both cold. They looked at each other, smiled at each other, then laughed. The relief followed by this statement was filled with the first real passion they had shared in a very long time, and they knew it. The sex they had that night was their best and their last.

  That was two years ago. Brando had been celibate ever since.

  He now stepped out of bed and stretched his smooth naked body toward the warm Santa Ana breeze that entered through the sliding glass door of his bedroom terrace. His morning hard-on, unconsciously, freely, aimed itself at the Hollywood sign in the facing hills across the desert-lush L.A. basin.

  The sun seemed brighter this Sunday morning than on any Sunday morning of his recent memory. It was winter in L.A. The warm Santa Anas blew th
e sky dirt-free and smogless. In spite of the smell of smoke in the air, the beauty of the sight was near religious, causing his penis to respectfully calm down to its flaccid eight inches.

  He slipped on soft cotton boxers and cashmere slippers, then stepped outside for the paper. His neighbor Selma Fant, the councilman’s wife, was defiantly sunning herself in the front yard next door. She peeked above her sunglasses and savored an eyeful of fine chocolate legs and well-defined torso. Then she smiled.

  “Fires in Malibu again.”

  “I heard.”

  He bent down for the paper and without much thought gave her the show she had come to expect almost every Sunday morning.

  Back inside Brando did his stretches in the bright wood-paneled den while Tim Russert and a team of political pundits assessed the state of the world on NBC. The sound of birds chirping and the scent of gardenias that grew wild along the slope that bordered his lap pool floated harmoniously through the opened windows of his dining room atrium, past the sunken living room, and delivered sweet scent and sound to the master of the house. On the floor he sat closed-eyed and yogalike while muted pundits debated on-screen.

  The stretches felt marvelous, the bath even better. He was happy with his life. No. Satisfied. Resigned. Perhaps too resigned. The thought made him pause, then the thought disappeared.

  He picked up his phone and dialed.

  “Hello?” Jeanette Bell answered on the second ring.

  Jeanette Bell was Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Clymenthia Teager’s manager and life partner. Her striking good looks, flawless dark olive complexion, and shapely physique kept platinum-selling rappers desperate to have her hoochie-mama in their videos. Modeling agencies offered her lucrative contracts and film people knocked at her door often. But Jeanette Bell would have none of that. That was not what she had gotten her master’s in business from Carnegie Mellon for. Her looks were often a distraction and a nuisance. So many men aggressively and dangerously hit on her that Clymenthia convinced her to carry both mace and a gun.

  Jeanette Bell was twenty-seven, ten years Clymenthia Teager’s junior. But she equaled the noted writer, if not in literary talent and life experience, in intellect and articulation. It was Jeanette Bell who had handpicked her good friend Brando Heywood to negotiate Clymenthia’s new deal with Simon & Schuster.

  Jeanette was also well aware of the importance of L.A. It would get Clymenthia in with the industry crowd while keeping the East Coast black literary intelligentsia, territorial and jealous, unsuspicious of her loyalty. Tonight’s signing at Eso Won Books would be a major affair.

  “Morning, sunshine,” Brando said with a smile in his voice.

  “Hey, Bran. How’s my boy?”

  “Up and at ’em. What are you ladies up to this morning?”

  “Getting ready for church.”

  “Me too. Unity Fellowship?”

  “Yep. You should join us.”

  “And miss First Sunday on the home front? Dad would kill me.”

  “Clymenthia’s in the shower. You need to talk to her?”

  “Nah, just checking up. All set for tonight?”

  “All set.”

  “You guys know how to get to Eso Won, right?”

  “Does a bear know how to get to honey?”

  “All right.” He laughed.

  “Brando?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks again.”

  “For what?”

  “The new book deal. Very nice, mister.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “Wait until you see what we’re getting for the film rights.”

  “Genius.”

  “Lucky in law, unlucky in love.” He laughed again.

  “You said it, not me,” she warned slyly.

  And he got it. “See you guys down there.”

  He hung up the phone, checked his watch, picked up his Bible, and then inspected himself in the hall mirror. Every hair was in place and the suit hung just right.

  Selma Fant, the councilman’s wife, was still sunning herself when he pulled his Mercedes out of the garage. The convertable top came down to her flirtatious smile and the want in her eyes. Councilman Felton G. Fant knew of his wife’s Stella-esque fantasies. He was amused by them, pretty much assured that she was of no sexual interest to their openly gay friend next door.

  “Well, don’t we look nice?” the fifty-nine-year-old matron fished. She eased herself up from the chaise with a Toni Braxton slow stir and sauntered over to the driver’s side of the idling convertible. She peeked seductively over her Donna Karans and displayed ample cleavage, courtesy of a skimpy two-piece swim ensemble and an expensive Sherman Oaks surgeon handy with a laser.

  “Nah, you’re the one.” He smiled.

  Without shame she stared down at the bulge between his legs.

  “Nice tie,” she addressed it.

  “Selma, Miss Selma, Miss Fant.” He laughed. “Today’s Sunday, remember? The Lord’s day?”

  “And I’m sure the Lord won’t mind a little love spreading.” She then chortled back in that way of hers that let Brando know she had already had her Sunday-morning cocktail.

  “I’m going to see Miss Zara this afternoon over at the Catch.”

  “You mean Earl-Anthony.”

  “Should I come back and get you?”

  “I don’t think so, hon. Just say I said…hello.”

  “I will,” he said softly. “I will.”

  And so as Brando drove down the hill, he thought what might have been for Selma Fant. Back in the day she had been one of the top realtors and interior designers in the city. She had even brokered his house. Back in the day she had been sober and happy. But years of guilt can be a debilitating thing, a cancer, curable only by self-forgiveness.

  Selma Fant had become a guilt-ridden drunk, and once again she would miss the chance to hear Miss Zara sing.

  Chapter Two

  I don’t get it,” Vanessa Ellerbee said, seemingly to the wall her husband, William, had slouched against. “Make me understand, William.” But he still said nothing. His freshened appearance and the whiff of Escape spoke volumes. He had sprayed on Cool Water when he left the house ten hours earlier. And he smelled of Irish Spring, not Ivory, which he showered with before he left home. Finally and slowly he lifted his face and stared at her with a look that said, “What’s to understand that you don’t understand already?”

  Knowing full well what he meant by the stare, Vanessa threw up her hands and shook her head full of church-ready curls. With weary disgust she sucked on her teeth and shifted her weight from one side to the other and sighed as she always sighed whenever he returned home wearing new soap and cologne.

  “I’m not letting you go,” she vowed like the fool she knew she had become.

  “I have no intention of leaving. The congregation wouldn’t understand.”

  “Go get dressed,” she then said.

  “Are we going to Lucy Florence afterwards?”

  “Do the twins serve pie?”

  And while William dressed in the suit Vanessa had laid out for him, she stormed out of the bedroom, down the staircase, and stared at herself in the foyer mirror. She was still beautiful and alluring, still intelligent and articulate. But was she still the unconventional freethinker who had not thought her marriage would be hindered by her husband’s bisexuality? He had been up-front with her right from the beginning. And she had gone along with it, encouraged it even. William was a great lover who was even better after being with a man. She loved watching her husband getting fucked and then getting hers afterward.

  But things had changed. She missed DuPré Dixon almost as much as her husband did.

  DuPré Dixon, who William had met in a chat room, was one of those slim, torpedo-dick dream pops who smiled like a happy drunk when he fucked, and fucked like good samba when he drank. Her husband loved being fucked by a drunken DuPré, and though she enjoyed the show as much as the sex she got later, she began to suspect that her husband liked getti
ng fucked by DuPré a little too much.

  But those suspicions she soon set aside. For no matter how good it was for her husband, it was simply the sex that made DuPré deliver. DuPré was not about to fall in love with William. He was in it just for the intrigue, for the hell of it, for the freaky thrill, for the pussy, no matter who was wearing it. DuPré loved his women like he loved his men like he loved his drink. And on more than a few occasions, Vanessa got in on the action as well. For DuPré, having this beautiful couple, these beautiful bookends, was almost as good as a fantasy threesome with Halle and Shamar.

  And DuPré was highly discreet and not curious. He came over only for sex, not conversation, not friendship, not romance. He never asked about hometowns, hobbies, or occupations, nor was any information volunteered.

  But DuPré was gone now, having driven home drunk once too often, having lost his head rear-ending an eighteen-wheeler while his convertible top was down, making a mess on the 405 freeway. Gone. The one man that could keep Vanessa’s man home, that would fuck him then hand him back over. Gone. And she was scared.

  After DuPré, William went out often and got with God-knows-who. As wild as their times with DuPré were, their sexual encounters never occurred outside the privacy of their Ladera Heights home. They had to be very careful, for they had reputation and standing to protect. Everyone knew Reverend and Mrs. Ellerbee as the perfect couple, a shining example of love and devotion for the community and the congregation that William shepherded.

  All throughout church service Vanessa listened from the front pew as her husband preached with a fervor so intense that she could not help but think of the man he had been with last night; how good it must have been to fire him up like this, to have him prancing in the pulpit as he’d never pranced before, laughing and humming and writhing like a holy roller.

  And while the church rocked to the thunder in his voice, she found herself rocking, too, shivering with fear and jealousy, moaning with an anguish those around her thought was spirit caught up by the good preacher’s wife.