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  He knew that he had, more or less, pressured Omar into this “boyfriend” thing. That was the only way Shane was going to stick around, or at least that was his threat. Even though he knew that he was Omar’s special guy, he wanted to be Omar’s only guy, and often felt cheated and compromised.

  He had no one else to blame but himself, taking this shit, loving this motherfucker so.

  He wasn’t even sure what he wanted from Omar anymore. To love him back equally? All he knew was that he wanted more than what he was getting.

  If only he was Brando.

  Shane knew that as long as Brando was in the picture, he could be no more than a second thought.

  But then again, anybody who wanted to be with Omar, and there were many who did, could only be a second thought. Guys like Andrew the Silver Lake thug prince and Thomas the Compton track runner were pesky distractions.

  But Brando…

  Everybody knew but nobody said anything. It was an open secret. Brando and Omar were lovers, and didn’t even know it.

  “So since you’re not answering your cell I guess you’re busy, huh?” Shane said into his phone, as if the voicemail would answer him back. “Am I gonna see you today? Call me.”

  For just a second, Shane thought about driving over to Omar’s place. For just a second—and then he thought a second longer and changed his mind. That was just a bit too desperate. It was times like this when he could really use a drink. But he knew better. His life depended on it.

  And it was his life that suddenly flashed before him as he slammed on the brakes and swerved his car, barely missing the gray Nissan Altima running the light. Angrily he pounded the horn and cursed the vanishing vehicle in Spanglish.

  But Ramon Alexander, the Nissan’s driver, could give less than a damn. Ramon laughed when he looked over and saw Tyler, ashen-faced, in the passenger seat. “Man, what you sweatin’ for?”

  “You coulda fuckin’ killed us!” Tyler screamed.

  “Then let’s go celebrate with some pussy. My treat.”

  “What?”

  “Pussy, man, pussy! Hit the daily double, get yo’self some pussy and die!”

  Hollywood Park had been good to Ramon. The horses were running his way, which was more than what could be said for Tyler, who had lost his whole paycheck and was not in the mood.

  “You fuckin’ stupid, man, you know that?”

  “Hey, don’t be callin’ me stupid, man. I don’t wanna have to—”

  “What? Beat me down like you do your wife?” Tyler shot back. “I don’t think so.”

  “What goes on between me and my bitch ain’tcha fuckin’ business, you know?”

  “Got that right,” Tyler muttered, wondering why he even bothered to hang out with this moron. But he knew why. He owed him. He owed him his very life. He never would have made it out of Kuwait if it hadn’t been for Ramon.

  Ramon softened up a bit. “Hey, man, come on. We each other’s boy, right? We got each other’s back, don’t we?”

  “Say what?”

  “Don’t we?”

  “I guess,” said Tyler, resigned, thinking back to the last time he sweated like this.

  “You fuckin’ my husband?” Charlene Alexander had asked him point-blank, surprising and not surprising him at what sometimes comes out of the mouths of the most holy.

  “Say what?” he had answered her, just as he answered Ramon, but more truthfully. After all, wishing is not doing.

  Ramon pulled out his cell phone and made two calls. After the second call he snapped his phone shut victoriously.

  “It’s on,” he declared, extending his hand for the brotha man slap Tyler robotically gave him. “They gone meet us at the motel in ten minutes.”

  It was funny and sad, Tyler thought to himself. Women never turned Ramon Alexander down. No woman ever dared.

  Gelisa and Tammy were waiting, ready, and naked when Ramon and Tyler arrived.

  “I’mo take Tammy,” Ramon told Tyler as he unbuttoned his shirt with a nasty smile and eyes keen to Tammy’s thick auburn bush. Tammy smiled nasty back as she slowly strolled toward him. His shirt fell to the ground, and while she unbuttoned his belt buckle his fingers slipped deep into the warm dampness between her legs. He kicked off his pants, then she pulled him on top of her on one of the beds. He bit at her titties and rammed himself roughly inside her. She buckled and moaned with the pain he had every intention of giving.

  Tyler stood there transfixed. The sight of Ramon’s massive hairy-slit ass flexing and pounding that auburn bush had taken his breath away and hardened his dick toward near busting.

  “You like to watch, huh?”

  He jumped, startled by Gelisa’s hot breath in his ear.

  “Huh?”

  “You like to watch,” she whispered again, her hard-nippled breasts stabbing his back, her naked body engulfing him tightly from behind, her hands around his waist, discovering his rock-hard dick nearly tearing its way out of his pants. She found his zipper and gave his dick its freedom while he tried hard not to look at his homeboy’s behind.

  He turned and faced Gelisa. She looked him in the eye, seductively, challengingly, then whispered it again: “You like to watch. You do, don’t you?”

  “Fuck that shit,” he whispered back, and hoisted her naked body onto the dresser. He spread her legs and let her guide him deep inside her. Pressed against the dresser mirror, she closed her eyes and filled herself with everything he had. And so he started slow and steady. Then the reflection in the mirror caught his eye; that massive hairy-slit ass, flexing and pounding, flexing and pounding. And now he was flexing and pounding Gelisa, fucking her spread-eagled on the dresser like there was no tomorrow, fucking her so good she forgot she was doing it for money, fucking her as if he was fucking that hairy-slit ass in the mirror.

  Chapter Nine

  The “children” whistled and screamed and begged as she brought her third encore to a rousing gospel finale. They were standing on chairs and chanting her name and tossing flowers and tens and twenties at her feet. They were relentless in not letting her get away. But as she smiled that million-dollar smile and tossed kisses with a Queen Elizabeth wave, she moved gracefully sideways, head perfectly tilted, and grandly backed upstage left until the bright golden light made her silhouette appear as an angel in flames. Her light and her flame grew brighter and brighter until she became too hard to look at and her image exploded magnificently and all became black. When the house lights came up, Miss Zara was gone.

  Backstage, Miss Zara’s husband, Eli, helped her undress, counted her money, and told her how fabulous she was. Miss Zara gave her gentle giant a gentle kiss, just as he liked it. He had already laid out her receiving gown. As was the ritual, he would allow her time to ponder and soak in the love of her fans—and this night, the love of a friend she had not seen in ages.

  Brando.

  It was good seeing him in the house, good seeing him again. Seeing him made her think about home, and Mom and Dad…and Peter. Peter Caise. And why she left home to begin with. Eli understood, had always understood; and so after massaging her back with a soothing only he knew how to give, he left her to the bittersweet memories she dealt with as best she could. And that’s what he loved so much about her—she was the diva indeed, the diva of love and all its wonderful terrible ups and downs, a learned diva who had studied and learned her life lessons well.

  Out on the floor, exhausted and spent, the crowd “chile’d” one another and giddily struggled to find words to describe the magnificence of Miss Zara.

  Brando could not move from his stool. New tears glazed his eyes while old tears streamed down his cheeks. It was good to see Miss Zara again. She had even sung a song to him, and he was glad that they somehow had remained friends, even if distant, all these years.

  “I see she really got to you,” the woman said.

  “She always does,” he answered, smiling toward the empty stage without looking toward the voice, without wiping away the tears, caugh
t up in the sweet aftertaste of magic and memory. “She is truly all that.”

  “You know her personally?”

  “We go way back.”

  “You know, we see each other all the time—you and I—but we’ve never spoken.”

  And it was then that Brando turned toward the voice. It was her. He could not resist a subtle glance around the room for her companion.

  “Right,” he finally said with a new smile of cordial recognition. “Lucy Florence Coffeehouse,”

  “Exactly. Vanessa Ellerbee.”

  “Brando. Brando Heywood.”

  “May I buy you a drink, Brando?”

  “Thanks, but I’m driving. Folks have been buying me drinks all afternoon.”

  “So I noticed.”

  “Okay.”

  “We both did,” she then said knowingly. “He’s over there at the table by the wall. He’s not as comfortable in places like this. He’s very discreet, and shy.”

  “Is he, now?”

  “Yes, as well as being very…”

  “Very…,” Brando urged casually.

  “So listen.” Vanessa veered left. “Is that your lover?”

  “Who?” Brando questioned with slight surprise, mildly taken aback by the woman’s bold straightforwardness.

  “The guy you come to the coffeehouse with every Sunday. Your Sunday brunch mate.”

  “No, just a…very good friend.”

  “He looks like he wants to be more than just your very good friend.”

  Vanessa knew, when on the prowl, that every nuance must be noted, and even from across the room she could read the language of his companion’s heart and body—the stolen glances, the wanting smile, the hidden longing, the look Brando pulled from his desperate brunch mate whenever he got up to go to the men’s room, the sadly hopeful sigh he engendered.

  “Really?” was all Brando could say to a statement he knew held some truth.

  “Look, Im going to be honest with you,” she continued. “William—”

  “William?”

  “My…friend.” She pointed him out with her eyes. He sat barely discernible in the shadows in the corner. The thick, pitch-black sunglasses did more to attract attention than to hide him, Brando thought to himself. William nodded with a slow cool that Brando returned noncommittally.

  “He thinks you’re very attractive,” Vanessa continued, a sexy smile in her voice. “He’s been thinking that since the first time he set eyes on you at Lucy Florence. But he’s shy—”

  “Too shy—”

  “—to introduce himself. Ergo…”

  “Here you are.”

  “Yes. Here I am.”

  Brando’s keen legal mind began to microassess: this beautiful woman was in this gay club procuring for a man clearly handsome enough to do that for himself. It was a fascinating premise, though Brando’s interest was little piqued. In his mind he chose his words carefully. He covered with a smile while he sorted them out and constructed a diplomatic response.

  “Yo, man, wassup?” a familiar deep, rich baritone bellowed out from behind him. He turned toward Eli’s broad, smiling face and then found himself smothered in the larger man’s bear hug.

  “Eli.”

  “You know she waitin’ for you.”

  Brando had not been quite sure how to handle the situation with Vanessa and her friend over by the wall. Though William was handsome, maybe even a nice enough guy, at least from a distance, it was not Brando’s style to be approached in this way. He graciously introduced Vanessa to Eli, and then, equally gracious, begged off an introduction to William, at least for the time being.

  “Listen, Vanessa, I have to go. I’m sure I’ll see you at Lucy Florence soon.”

  “Next Sunday I’m sure,” she said, extending her hand. He kissed it, and then gestured cordially to William against the wall.

  And as Brando walked away, in familiar conversation with Eli, Vanessa kept her eyes on him and did not look away until after he had disappeared backstage. Then slowly she turned around and found William. She saw the hunger on his face, even beneath the sunglasses. She reassured him with her stare that promised she would deliver a formidable replacement for the much missed DuPré Dixon. Some for him. And maybe even some for her.

  Miss Zara was seated at her vanity, resplendent in her receiving gown, when through her mirror she eyed Brando standing in her dressing room doorway. Eli edged him on and, not coming in himself, pulled the door shut.

  Inside the dressing room was a silence, save for the distant beat of good house music. Miss Zara stood slowly, with a mock sultriness. She studied her beautiful mirror image from head to toe and approved. She then turned to her boyish old friend and smiled that smile that was for him alone.

  “Chile, when are you going to start shaving?” She grimaced approvingly.

  “Whatever happened to a diva saying hello first?” he countered, with a wide, beautiful smile.

  “Whatever happened to a Negro coming to a diva’s dressing room and telling her how fabulous she was?” she snapped back. “And where’s that trollop Omar?”

  “To question one: You were absolutely fabulous. To question two: Where else? Where the boys are. I’m supposed to give him a full review, in case you ask.”

  “Humph. Boy can’t keep those three inches in his pants to save his life. Come over here and kiss me,” she said, stretching her arms out wide, arms that he filled warmly. And they hugged and kissed like old friends and old lovers. Then she leaned back and, in a full and slow gander, undressed him with playful eyes. “Look at you,” the deep, sexy voice purred.

  “You’re the one…Your mother said to tell you hello.”

  “Did she?” Miss Zara responded with a sudden chill. “Is she still doing her Sunday-morning cocktails?”

  Chapter Ten

  Selma Fant sat in the dark of her private media room, her fine lace panties down around her ankles, draping her Ferragamos like the small gathered train of a bridal gown. With glazed-over, bloodshot, and unblinking eyes, eyes that bulged wildly and drunkenly stillborn under heavy black lashes, she stared at the hot black gay porn on the bright screen before her. She ate popcorn and drank vodka and watched with zombie intent while boys fucked and got fucked and busted nut after nut, one after another, some all together. Big blue-black stallions and hot bubble-butt sissies, and a doggie-style roughneck Puerto Rican thrashing some caramel cutie with ten inches of uncut banana, entertained the quiet and mesmerized drunk. A Mandingo salad toss and then a ride on some cream-colored pony—boy trade was getting it and giving it every which way, tight and loose.

  She continued to stare through those unblinking eyes, continued to eat popcorn, drink vodka, and gently probe her senior but still spit-moistable pussy.

  But after she brought herself to a myriad of huckbucking climaxes, she felt vile, vile as vile’s mother. Her drunkenness and her guilt were ill-mixed and she had sickened herself, was sick of herself, and hated herself all over again for the pain she had caused.

  She remembered how sweet he was, how young he was, how fresh he was, how bright he was. If she had only remembered discipline.

  But how could she have known? She was weakened by lust, wilted by proclivities she could not control. That is what she had told herself throughout the years, even if she had yet to convince herself. Time had not gauzed over the picture. The colors had not faded. The transgression still stood crystal clear, in spite of what she tried to tell herself.

  Time.

  Time does not make everyone forget. Time had not let Earl-Anthony forget, had not let his mother forget. A scalding is always remembered. So what happened more than twenty years ago felt as if it had happened just yesterday.

  In theory Selma Fant was the near perfect mother for a homosexual son. Some mothers just come fit to order, others have to be dragged to it like gluttons to tofu. But Selma Fant was near perfect. She was girlfriend and guardian, both shield and mantle. She was near perfect except for that one mighty thing. It did no
t matter that what happened occurred so long ago, when Earl-Anthony was still living at home, was still her perfect little man, years before he became the diva Miss Zara. The pain suffered by both mother and child was a deep, rugged canyon not easily traversed.

  Peter Caise.

  Peter.

  Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater. That’s what she called him once she discovered all he could do.

  More than twenty years ago. She had come home early, had shown all her listings and closed two escrows. She was feeling no pain when she came through the front door, went to the bar, and fixed a celebratory cocktail.

  She almost snapped on the music when she recognized the huffing and puffing of Earl-Anthony working out in his room upstairs. She decided to share her good news with him.

  She set down her drink and swept up the stairs like a schoolgirl home from a great night at the prom. She smiled to herself as she moved down the hallway; the midafternoon sun from their bay windows poured through Earl-Anthony’s wide open bedroom door. And the strains and the grunts and the huffs and the puffs from her hardworking baby working harder than usual made her smile with pride at his sense of dedication to physical fitness, so unlike his potbellied, near-wasted daddy.

  A pride-filled smile was still plastered on her face as she stood frozen one step inside his bedroom. Her eyes became bulges as she stared at the sight: the horror and the beauty, the anger and desire, the heart-beating pulse of the rhythm of the two bodies connected like yard dogs in heat. She was repelled and rekindled by how well her son was taking it and loving it, how well his friend was riding it and giving it. She was deeply moved and thoroughly disgusted. She shed a tear and almost let out with a “Bravo, you bitches!”