Man of Fantasy

by Rochelle Alers

  “Six months later Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter and the country erupted in civil war. Once the war ended, many freed slaves migrated north, planning to settle in Canada or other northern states. Some of them drifted through Beaver Run, and when they saw people who looked like them working on farms or in factories, they stayed and put down roots.”

  “Do most Beaver Run African-Americans marry each other?”

  “A few do. The younger ones usually leave to go to college, and if they decide to return, it is with a husband or wife.”

  “Is it the bucolic little town you see on postcards?”

  Nayo smiled. “Yes. It has an elementary school, but the junior-and senior-high students occupy the same building. Cheerleading, baseball and football rank up there in importance with history, calculus and chemistry. Halloween is a favorite time for kids—they really let loose. Sweet-sixteen parties are the rage for girls, and getting a driver’s license is a priority for the boys, even though most of them learn how to drive as soon as their legs are long enough to reach the pedals on a tractor. Thanks to my parents’ restaurant, there are no fast-food joints.”

  “Is there a Wal-Mart?” Ivan teased.

  “Now you know there has to be a Wal-Mart. A new strip mall went up about five miles out of town, and some of the stores are giving Wal-Mart some serious competition.”

  “Are you saying if I go with you to visit your folks, I won’t be able to get a Big Mac?”

  “You can get one, but you’ll have to drive a few miles.”

  “What do you mean by a few?”

  “At least twenty miles.”

  “If there’s no traditional enclosed mall, what do young kids do for fun?”

  “When the strip mall went up, the family who owned the movie theater moved their base of operation and expanded to three screens, instead of the single screen, so a lot more teenagers are going to movies.”

  “Where do they hang out after they leave the theater?”

  Ivan remembered that when he and Kyle got together with Duncan, who’d take the subway from Brooklyn, they would meet in Times Square to see a film. They would then stop at a fast-food restaurant to eat; they made certain to leave the area after nightfall, because at that time Times Square was no place for anyone who wasn’t a consenting adult. It wasn’t as if he could call his parents to let them know the subway or bus was delayed and he’d be home later than expected, unlike nowadays when children were given cell phones as soon as they learned to recognize numbers.

  “They routinely come to the Running Beaver.”

  He stared, complete surprise freezing his features. “Your parents’ restaurant?”

  Nayo smiled at Ivan’s shocked expression. She’d discovered his face was very expressive. It could be sensually brooding one minute, then flashing with a smile the next. It was like watching a sunrise.

  “Unfortunately the teenagers are of the belief that having fun means either getting high or drunk. So many kids were coming to school under the influence that the town officials called an emergency town meeting to deal with the crisis. They petitioned the state for money to hire a drug-and-alcohol counselor for the high school, and parents voted to have a drug-education program become part of the school curriculum.

  “A couple of years back, my brother was elected sheriff, and the town trustees worked out a deal with my father to expand the Running Beaver. He put in a soundproof room for those between the ages of thirteen to eighteen. It’s equipped with flat-screen TVs showing PG-13-rated videos and movies. Dad also put in several pinball machines, and during certain hours rap and hip-hop shatter the eardrums. There’s a kids’ menu where the prices are considerably lower than the regular menu.”

  Ivan found himself enthralled by the soft sound of Nayo’s voice talking about where she’d grown up. “When a guy comes in with his wife and three children and orders dinner from the regular menu, would he have to pay full price for his kids?”

  “No. The children’s menu applies to all children up to eighteen. The little kids can’t eat or play in what they call the ‘party room’ until they’re thirteen. And there’s no need to card anyone because one thing you can’t hide in Beaver Run is your age.”

  Ivan angled his head. “How did you know I was going to ask you that?”

  “Because you’re not as miss-steery-ous as you think you are.”

  Pushing back his chair, he stood up. “Go to bed, baby.”

  “Why?”

  He began stacking dishes. “Because it’s after twelve and I don’t want my doll face to complain that I kept her from her beauty sleep.”

  Nayo rose to her feet, reaching for the espresso cups. “Let me help you clear the table.”

  His hands stilled and he gave her a chilling look. “I’ve got this, Nayo.”

  She detected an edge in Ivan’s voice similar to the one he’d used when he’d ordered Geoff to walk away. It wasn’t a warning but a threat. Nayo opened her mouth to come back at him, and then caught herself. If she said what was poised on the tip of her tongue, she knew whatever she and Ivan had shared up to that point would come to a complete and abrupt end. Bowing her head in supplication, she backed out of the kitchen to Ivan’s rich, booming laughter.

  Ivan was still chuckling when he rinsed and stacked dishes in the dishwasher. He finished cleaning the kitchen, but instead of going to bed, he went downstairs to his home office. To say that the night had been filled with surprises was an understatement.

  He’d shocked himself when he’d gotten an erection just by dancing with Nayo. That had never happened with other women. And he’d also shocked himself with his exhibition of jealousy when he saw Nayo with Geoff Magnus. Their dancing together, hugging, laughing and kissing had tested the limits of what he’d come to recognize as a very tenuous rein on his self-control. He’d always prided himself on having command of his emotions. Most times no one could tell what he was thinking or feeling.

  He’d gone at Kyle and Duncan like a charging bull when they’d mentioned not wanting to disturb him because they believed he was with a woman. Ivan lost count of the number of times the three of them went out together with whatever women they were dating at the time and wound up sleeping in his or Kyle’s Harlem brownstone or at Duncan’s Chelsea condo. It’d become one big slumber party with each couple sleeping in a separate bedroom.

  Fortunately most of the women they dated got along with one another. The instances of Who does she think she is and I can’t stand that heifer were kept to a minimum. A smile crinkled the skin around his eyes when Ivan recalled Nayo calling Michiko a heifer. She’d been jealous of Michiko and he’d been jealous of Geoffrey. However, there was one difference: he would never get involved with or sleep with the stunning-looking transvestite; but there was always the possibility that Nayo’s friendship with Geoff could change from platonic to intimate.

  Turning on his computer and waiting for it to boot up, Ivan recalled the day Duncan had come to him because he hadn’t wanted to lose Tamara Walcott; he’d wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He and Duncan weren’t Ivan and DG but rather Dr. Campbell and patient. The impromptu counseling session concluded with Duncan going after the woman he loved, and now they were planning a June wedding.

  A wry smile twisted his mouth. How had it happened? Both his friends were engaged to marry, and he—who’d dated more women than either Kyle or DG—had left a trail of them in his past.

  There was a time when the three of them got together during the week and always on Sundays during football and basketball season. They were friendly rivals when it came to baseball. He and Kyle liked the Yankees, while DG was a rabid Mets fan. The rivalry intensified during the 2000 Subway Series between the two New York teams. It ended with a Yankees victory, and he and Kyle tiptoed around Duncan for weeks. The standoff ended when Duncan gave him the Waterford commemorative home plate for Christmas.

  Ivan was realistic enough to know that once his friends married, their friendship would undergo
a significant change. They wouldn’t stop being friends, brothers. What bothered him was how long they’d have men’s night out before that, too, became part of their past? DG and Kyle had talked about fathering children…

  He redirected his focus to the computer and accessed his e-mail. There were eight new messages. He read them, answering half and saving four. Ivan knew exactly what he was doing when he shut down the computer. He was using avoidance. Nayo had gone to bed and he didn’t want to think of her not being in his bed. Turning off the light, he headed upstairs.

  “Man up, Campbell,” Ivan said, sotto voce. He had to face whatever awaited him when he walked into his bedroom. A week ago he didn’t know Nayo Goddard existed and it wouldn’t have mattered where she slept.

  His step was resolute when he approached his bedroom. Unconsciously he furrowed his brow. The door to the room was closed. Whenever he returned home to find the doors closed, he knew the cleaning staff had been there.

  Placing his hand on the door handle, he opened the door, encountering darkness. He’d left the bedside-table lamp on. The sound of his quickening heart rate echoed in his ears when he detected the subtle fragrance of Nayo’s perfume. She’d come to him of her own free will.

  Ivan undressed, leaving his clothes on the floor near the door. Walking on bare feet, he slowly approached the bed, bumping into and hitting his right knee on the corner of the bedside table. Smothering a groan and savage expletive, he lay sprawled on the bed, holding his knee.

  “What’s the matter, Ivan? And why are you cursing?”

  It was apparent he’d woken Nayo. “I hit my knee,” he said through clenched teeth. He felt the brush of her silken skin against his arm as she moved closer.

  “I’ll turn on the light and take a look at it.”

  “Don’t! I’ll be all right in a few minutes.”

  Nayo rose on her knees, pressing her chest to his back. “Do you want me to kiss it and make it all better?”

  The pain in Ivan’s knee was forgotten as the sensations in another part of his body reminded him why he’d been born male. This time when he groaned it was because of the pleasurable sensations in his groin.

  “Yes, baby. You can kiss it.”

  Wrapping her arms around Ivan’s neck, Nayo trailed tiny kisses over the breadth of his shoulders, alternating the soft kisses with a gentle licking. “You smell good and you taste good.”

  Not being able to see heightened all of Ivan’s senses, and he chided himself for selecting a window treatment that shut out all light. Reaching up, he caught her hands as her mouth mapped a trail down his spine.

  “Easy, sweetheart.”

  His breathing deepened as he felt a rush of blood harden his penis, and for the second time that night he feared losing complete control. He wanted to take Nayo fast, hard and without prolonged foreplay.

  Ivan inhaled sharply when Nayo’s fingertips grazed his groin in her attempt to find his knee. Like a sinewy reptile she curled around his body to lie between his outstretched legs.

  “Which knee, darling?” Her voice floated in the dimness like a disembodied spirit.

  “The right one.”

  Lowering her head, Nayo pressed a kiss to Ivan’s knee. “You must have hit it pretty hard, because now there’s a lump.”

  “Do you think I’ll need round-the-clock nursing?”

  Her head came up. “Do you want me to put a bandage on it?”

  “Only if you promise to draw a pretty picture on the bandage.”

  “I have Band-Aids with cartoon characters on them.”

  Ivan chuckled softly. “I suppose you’re still a kid at heart.”

  “It has nothing to do with being a kid,” she argued quietly. “I happen to like pretty pictures.”

  Sliding up the length of his body, Nayo still lay between Ivan’s outstretched legs. She could feel her blood warming from the heat of his body. He hadn’t touched her intimately, yet she could feel the controlled, unleashed desire of Ivan’s erection against her belly. The tremors came as softly as the silent paws of her neighbor’s cat, tiny shivers that raised goose bumps on her flesh.

  Ivan’s arms tightened around Nayo’s body when he felt her trembling. She’d buried her face between his neck and shoulder, her curly hair tickling his nose. “What’s the matter, baby?”

  Nayo squeezed her eyes shut. “Nothing.”

  “If it’s nothing, then why are you trembling?”

  There was only the sound of their breathing, Nayo taking two breaths to his one as Ivan tried to analyze the slip of a woman in his bed. He didn’t know it was possible, yet he felt her vulnerability.

  Had he moved too quickly?

  Had he pressured Nayo to sleep with him when she actually wasn’t ready?

  There were women who’d shared his bed within days of meeting and there were those he saw for weeks and some months that he never slept with. He’d met Nayo Goddard for the first time exactly one week ago, and he’d known then there was something special about her, other than her incredible talent.

  Had he gone out with prettier women?

  Yes.

  More intelligent?

  He doubted it.

  More artistic?

  Definitely not.

  But none had challenged him the way Nayo did. It was as if she didn’t care if he agreed or disagreed with her. She’d met him on equal footing.

  The staff at the D.C. research center had called him dictatorial. He’d hired his staff from a pool of social workers, psychologists and urban economists. They weren’t just good in their field, they were the best.

  Ivan had directed the program until 2002 when the center lost its contract because funds were redirected to the Defense Department to treat soldiers who’d come back from Iraq and Afghanistan exhibiting myriad mental-health problems.

  “Are you a virgin, Nayo?”

  “No,” came her muffled reply.

  “If you’re not, then are you afraid of me?”

  “No.”

  Nayo managed to free herself from his arms and lie next to him. She’d made a mistake to agree to sleep at his house. Everything she’d shared with the man in whose bed she lay had merged into one like a tightly wound spring ready to snap at any moment. She’d never permitted herself to get caught up in emotions so foreign they frightened her. She knew Ivan wanted answers, answers she wasn’t certain were real or imagined.

  “I am not a virgin, nor am I afraid of you, Ivan. The one I’m afraid of is myself. I meet you for the first time last Friday, and this Friday I’m in bed with you. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  “Do you think that makes you a bad person?”

  “It has nothing to do with feeling good or bad,” she countered. “I’ve created a persona for myself that I’m just like all the other sophisticated artists who come and go, taking lovers whenever and wherever they choose while answering to no man or woman. I’ve lived the lie for so long that I was beginning to believe it myself. You’re the first male other than my father, brother and nephew who has been in my apartment.”

  Ivan hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until he felt the band of constriction across his chest. “Where do you go if you sleep with other men?”

  “There have only been two others and I slept with them a long time ago. The first one was a boy I—”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Ivan said, interrupting her.

  “But I need to tell you, Ivan.”

  “Okay, darling. I won’t interrupt you again.”

  “The first boy I slept with was one I met in high school. He asked me to marry him and I accepted. He was against me leaving Beaver Run to go to college in New York City, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. I never dated or looked at another man all the while I was engaged to Jerrell. The proverbial crap hit the fan after I graduated and returned to Beaver Run to tell him that I was seriously thinking about becoming a professional photographer. What I didn’t know was that he was counting on
my taking over my parents’ business.”

  “Why would he think that when you’d gone to college to become a photographer?”

  Nayo smiled in the darkness. “I’m certain you’re familiar the term denial.”

  Ivan laughed. “Very familiar. And as we say downstate, da Nile is not a river in Brooklyn.” He sobered. “Why was the restaurant so important to him?”

  “Jerrell’s father had lost a lot of money because of bad investments and he was forced to declare bankruptcy. My fiancé felt if he married me and I took ownership of the Running Beaver, then he and his father could use it as collateral to borrow enough money to start over.”

  “Were they in business for themselves?”

  Nayo nodded until she realized Ivan couldn’t see her. “Yes. They are cabinetmakers. The armoire in my apartment is one of their designs.”

  “Even if you hadn’t found out that he wanted to use you, do you actually believe you would’ve had a normal marriage with his living upstate and you down here?”

  “I didn’t think about that at the time because I was so in love with him. After Jerrell, I got involved with another man. What I discovered two months into the relationship was that he was married. He lived in New Jersey and worked in New York.”

  “How did you find out he was married?”

  “One day I was sitting in his car and I saw a man’s wedding band on the floor. Apparently it’d fallen out of his jacket pocket, and when I confronted him, he didn’t deny it. Then he started to give me a litany of reasons why he wasn’t sleeping with his wife. I stopped him after the second inane reason, told him to stop the car and I got out. I don’t do well with men I sleep with, Ivan.”

  Shifting on his side, he pulled her to his chest. “Sleep with or make love with?”

  “Make love with,” she corrected.