Phantom Lover

by A. J. Llewellyn

  To me, it was a bad sign of another island tradition passing. Johnny didn’t see it that way, but I couldn’t help feeling Kimo would understand.

  The rest of the meal was fantastic and I wished I could have rewarded Johnny with a damned good fucking, but he seemed happy just to have me near. We slept butt to butt. It was sweet and it was calming. In the morning when he dropped me at the airport and I prepared to fly to Honolulu, he said, “Be gentle with him, the big dope.”

  I laughed, because I felt there was no way Kimo would be back. It was a delicious dream. Too delicious. It was like looking at a huge cream cake and not daring to imagine eating it because just visualizing it would pack on pounds. Just dreaming of being touched by Kimo again would bury me.

  By the time I got to Honolulu, my heart and my stone buddy were fully engaged in the act of hope. I realized how much I’d missed just being on the same island with Kimo. Even if he was a big dope.

  * * * *

  I saw him on stage that night and knowing his body as well as I did, I was stricken to see that he’d lost even more weight. How much I wasn’t sure, but he didn’t seem well. Something was off. Something was very wrong and I wondered if he was sick.

  Of course, I couldn’t vent my concerns. After our group prayer, I fell into step with Roland as Ginger and Kimo, closely trailed by Eddie, headed for the front of house and their eager pack of adoring fans.

  “How did Kimo seem to you tonight?” Roland asked me over supper, as he simultaneously fielded a cell phone call from his boyfriend and kept up a rapid text messaging session with somebody else. It was getting to be distracting just being around Roland. Between our dance numbers, he had that Blackberry in his hand, tip-tapping away at it. Even having a cup of coffee with him, when he remembered to show up, was like having tea with the Mad Hatter. “Clean cup, clean cup!”

  “He seemed fine. Why?’

  Tip-tap, tip-tap. Roland hesitated. “He’s not himself. He doesn’t glow the way he did when he was… you know… um… did you two break up or something?”

  I have never been good at hiding my feelings. I was as easy to read as a child’s first picture book.

  “Yeah. I knew you were balling each other. I caught the vibe. Well, actually, I got the feeling when I shared the room with him and he asked about you and Johnny and if I thought you two were serious. What kind of straight man wants to know that shit? Damn!”

  “What?” I asked. “Who the hell are you texting anyway?”

  “Nobody important. Anyway, I had no idea he was gay. When and why did it finish?”

  “He dumped me before we got back home.”

  “That’s too bad.” Roland shook his head. “Even though Mim’s screwing around with Jessie?”

  “You know about that?”

  “Everybody knows about that. Mind if we split? I gotta meet up with somebody. I’ll walk with you part way home.”

  “Sure.”

  We were halfway down the block when a black car pulled beside us. The driver’s window came down.

  “Hey, handsome.”

  Roland stared. “Hey.” He looked rattled. “What are you doing here?”

  “This your boyfriend?”

  “No.” Roland insisted. “He’s just a friend.”

  “Get in.” The man’s tone was menacing. “I’ll give you both a ride.”

  “No thanks.” Roland was scared now. “We’ve got some place to be.” He yanked me down an alleyway shouting, “Run!”

  The black car followed us as Roland and I hurtled dumpsters, bins and even a pair of kissing transvestites, like extras on a Jackie Chan movie.

  I could feel the car’s engine close. This guy was trying to run us down.

  At the end of the alley, we threw ourselves over a fence. “What the fuck is going on?” I asked as I could hear the car idle on the other side of it. The driver seemed to give up and, with a squeal of brakes, reversed out of there.

  “A fling. A stupid, bad mistake fling.”

  “But your lover…the baby.”

  “Doesn’t mean I don’t love David. It was a momentary lapse. Don’t tell me you never cheated on a man. God, knowing you, probably you haven’t.”

  “I’m going home.” I was furious.

  “Don’t judge me,” Roland snapped.

  “I’m not judging you. I’m tired. We almost got run down by some freak in a black car. What if I’d been David? What if you’d been walking with the baby in a pram? What if the freak had a gun?”

  Roland didn’t say anything. He was shaking and I knew he was involved in something more than a one-night stand.

  “Are you in trouble?” I asked him.

  “I’m going home. See you tomorrow.” He ran off like a frightened mongoose and I took my time getting back to my apartment, in case the black car was following me.

  When I walked in, my house phone, the one only three people have like my tutu, Johnny and Nicky, was ringing.

  I was too upset to answer it. I took a long shower and when I came out, the phone was ringing again. Somebody kept letting it ring out, then just re-dialed.

  “Hello.” I picked up my lava stone to test its warmth.

  “Lopaka.”

  The stone in my left hand felt like a lit match. I fully stopped breathing. A pain started in my left arm, shooting through my entire body.

  “Kimo.” I couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten my number. Was he going to fire me?

  “Can I see you?” His voice was so quiet. “I really, really need to talk to you.”

  “Right now?” I asked. I thought my pounding heart would split my chest open. I put down the rock, but the pain did not subside.

  “Please.”

  The pain in my arm moved to my heart. I thought I was having a heart attack.

  “Please.” His voice was a ghostly hammer in my soul.

  “Okay. Where do you want to meet?”

  “Wherever you say. I’m in Waikiki, about two blocks from your apartment.”

  My God. He knew where I lived.

  I decided quickly. “Meet me at Duke’s Canoe Club, in The Outrigger, in twenty minutes.”

  “It’ll be crowded.”

  When I didn’t respond, he didn’t hesitate further. “I’ll be there.”

  I hung up, wondering what I’d just done. I realized there was safety in numbers and I needed to be in a public place with this man. I didn’t trust myself alone in my apartment. Whatever he had to say, I’d hear him out. Be afraid, grandma had said. Be afraid and still do it.

  Chapter Ten

  I was dressed in my finest pants and a silk shirt, threading my way through the throng of revelers at Duke’s at the Outrigger. Kimo was already waiting for me. He, too, was looking elegant in pants and a shirt, the tattoos on his face, neck and his big, muscular arms attracting attention from men and women alike.

  “Thank you for coming.” He touched my arm. The effect was like being jolted by a live electrical outlet. “We have a table near the beach. It might be quieter there.”

  The waitress looked harried and led us to the table, slapping menus down on the wooden tables. “Can I get you a drink?”

  I noticed the covert way Kimo slipped some folded notes into her hand and suddenly, her attitude was a lot more sociable.

  “What would you like?” Kimo asked me and the pain in my left side kept flaring up. I’d left the stone at home and I was still on fire.

  Kimo’s eyes shifted to me and I saw the deep anguish in them. Our legs were close and I could feel the heat radiating from him.

  “You want a Mai Tai?”

  I nodded because words were failing me.

  “Two Mai Tais, please.” His gaze never left my face. His full attention was on me. I kept pretending to study the menu. My whole left side was on fire. I really was having a heart attack.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “No,” I gasped. “I’m not.”

  He touched me then and the fire flew up into my throat.
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br />   “Oh, God.” Kimo’s hand flew off me. We looked at each other. “You feel it, too? That freakin’ burning?”

  “You mean I’m not having a heart attack?” I gasped.

  “No.”

  “Then what the fuck is it?”

  “It’s separation anxiety. Baby, we need to leave.” He tossed some money on the table. He pulled me with him, back through the bar and out onto Kalakaua Avenue.

  “Which way?” he asked as we stood out front, gulping at the night air.

  “I can’t think.” I was panicking. I had never felt this way ever. I had no idea where I was.

  “Baby, left or right?” His fingers on the back of my neck stroked at the hot river of sweat flowing onto my shirt collar. “Street number?”

  “One, two, zero, three, four.”

  Kimo kept a hold of me and asked a taxi driver for directions. In short order, we were working our way up the street toward my apartment. I covered his hand with both of mine and he jumped at this new lick of fire.

  “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault,” he muttered. “Just let me get us home.”

  And he did. At my building, he struggled with the keys with one hand because I wouldn’t let go of the other.

  “Don’t let go,” he said, when I relinquished my hold on him. “Just turn the handle for me.”

  We were soon inside my apartment and the clothes were flying off our scorching bodies. He ripped my trousers from my legs and, when he saw my raging cock, he dropped to his knees, tugging at my underpants. I watched him struggle with those, too. Suddenly he was sucking the tip into his mouth, over the top of my underpants.

  He didn’t let go. Kimo pushed me to the ground, working on my cock like it was a meal in a desert mirage. I watched, slack jawed as he took my whole cock in his mouth and I begged him for his cock.

  “Please, please fuck me, Kimo.” He looked up at me, his eyes like dry tinder in a wildfire.

  Kimo held my cock and sucked it all the way into his mouth. “I need this,” he said, taking his mouth from me. “It’s all I can think about. Please don’t make me stop.” He sucked me back in again and his mouth closed in ecstasy as he sucked on me the way he liked me to suck on him.

  It was some sight, the man I loved eating me for the first time ever. Kimo sucking any man off for the first time. My balls started to retract and I felt him moan around my cock as I started to come. He got excited when I started to boil over in his mouth. He looked beautiful with sweet cream bubbling out of his mouth, but he swallowed it all, sucking and licking at his own mouth and fingers.

  “I knew you’d taste this way.” His voice was tender as I reached up to kiss him. I unbuckled his pants and released his cock, which lunged at me. I licked at him, but Kimo wanted the main course. “I have to fuck you right now. I’m on fire, Bobby.”

  He got between my legs and he looked at me. We were both aflame, but his skin was so hot, he started to shake. I took hold of that boiling piston and pointed it where we both needed it, my rampant, hungry ass hole.

  “Take what’s yours, Kimo. Come on, baby. Fuck your man.” And with a cry, that hot cock entered me and, with difficulty, moved into me.

  “Jesus, baby, did you become a virgin again?” He worked his way into me. “You haven’t been with anybody else, since me…have you?”

  Kimo gave it all to me, every last thrust and push until I had him inside me completely and, as he fucked me, he babbled about needing me, loving me and how much he had missed me.

  Our bodies joined stickily as he kept up his aggressive pace. We took each other over the edge and remained in each other’s arms.

  “I feel better now.” I grinned and Kimo finally laughed.

  We lay on my bed, touching each other in awe. He was enthralled with my cock, like he’d discovered a new toy. He said it made him feel potent, to know he could bring me such pleasure. The first time we moved to suck each other off together, they must have heard our cries all the way in Australia.

  For a long time, we lay there, our cocks within reach of each other’s mouths.

  “You want to have a shower with me?” he asked. “I want to wash the last few days off me. I’ve been in purgatory.”

  We had a bath instead, a cool bubble bath, Kimo lying in the tub, his legs and arms around me. He splashed water over my neck and back, kissing anything of me that was close to his lips.

  I loved the feel of him, the manly scent of his skin. “How much weight have you lost?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t felt like eating.”

  We lapsed into a peaceful honeyed silence again.

  “I can’t give you up,” he said. “I just can’t.”

  “You don’t have to.” I reached up for a kiss.

  I felt his long wet hair on my arms, like gossamer threads. What would he tell his wife about where he’d been tonight and why he was wet?

  Not realizing I’d said the words aloud, I was rewarded with a rebuke. “Don’t talk about her. My heart is still on fucking fire.”

  “I know how to fix that.”

  “Yeah? How?”

  “I’ll show you.” I dropped underwater to claim the cock I loved more than anything else in the world.

  His hands moved to my head and shoulders, his feet bracing themselves on the slick tub tiles as I sucked on his beautiful manhood underwater and let his beautiful balls hit me in the chin as I took every last inch of him in my grateful, suck-happy mouth.

  Kimo was on fire in a different way, a better way as his cock worked toward giving me what I wanted.

  “Oh, Lopaka,” he screamed. “Oh, baby, I love you!”

  * * * *

  I wanted to see Kimo eat something other than me and he lay on the bed, watching me prepare a tray of pupus for us, the way Johnny always did for me in Lahaina.

  He looked like an animated little kid as I fed him Kimchi—Korean cabbage—with chopsticks, then fed him poi from my fingers.

  “That’s Tutu’s poi.” His smile was sad. “I can tell. You know I stayed with her those last two nights?”

  “No, she didn’t tell me.”

  “You two are not gossips are you?”

  I shook my head. “I hate gossip. So does my tutu.”

  He sipped at the iced green tea I poured him, then he was hungry for me again.

  I slept in Kimo’s arms, my cock back in his fist until about four a.m.

  “Baby, I have to go,” he whispered.

  “No, don’t leave me.”

  “I’ll never leave you.” His voice was fierce. “I’ll never leave you again.” He stroked and licked my face.

  “I know you have to go home.”

  He held me in his strong arms. “No, this is home. With you. I just have to go back to my house. But I’ll see you tonight. All my nights will be with you.”

  “What will you tell her?”

  “I don’t know yet.” He touched my face and I felt his mouth at my eyes and, despite his words, he stayed a little longer. This time, when he made love to me, it was free and soft. There was no torment there. The heat remaining between us was what was always there. Pure love and lust.

  The man I loved lifted his head at last. “I have to go. There’s so much I want to say but it has to wait.”

  He put his hand on my belly, which was like stoking a smoldering furnace. “I will never betray you knowingly again. Please forgive me.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive.”

  “Oh, there is. You’re just saying that because you’re happy.”

  “You made me happy.”

  And with those words, he was gone.

  * * * *

  I floated on a dreamy sex cloud all day, not sure what to expect that night at the theater. Kimo seemed to be waiting for me and kissed me hard.

  “I’m taking you somewhere special for supper after the show, so stick around after final curtain. I have to sign some autographs, then we can go.”

  There were a dozen red roses waiting for me in my
dressing room that night with a mushy card from him saying he loved me. I was looking forward to the evening. All of it.

  He was as good as his word and I hovered after the show, feeling Ginger’s curious stare since she knew I had no interest in snatching any of her limelight.

  Her eyes practically fell out of her head when she saw Kimo take my hand and lead me out of the venue. His car was across the street and he let me into the passenger side. It was a beautiful car, a BMW of some kind. He slipped behind the wheel and said, “Wait until you see this place.”

  “Where are we going?”

  His eyes were alight. “I’m about to do something with you I never did with another person. You may find this hard to believe, but I’m not especially romantic.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It is true. You brought it out of me. Now I want to do like a million romantic things with you. You’re all I think about. Everything I read about, hear about, everything I see, touch…taste, I want to do with you. I’ve even made lists. Look.”

  He opened the dashboard and out tumbled a pile of papers. Clips from newspapers, cocktail napkins, lists on bits of paper, lists on long sheets. I could hardly get my eyes fixed on a single line before he snatched them out of my hand and stuffed them back into the glove compartment.

  “See, I am a man with a plan.”

  “Lots of them, apparently.” I sat back and enjoyed Kimo taking control, loving every single second of his hand in mine as he drove his car over to the north shore.

  “Can you give me a clue?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  I settled back down again and luxuriated in the feel of his skin, our thumbs stroking one another. He pushed the car on toward Turtle Bay and as we plunged along the untamed Kamehameha Highway, right at the edge of the sea, we rounded the curve of Waimea Bay. It looked like it was just us and the moonlight out here in the place of no streetlights, no noise and no traffic.

  And a van on a hill.

  “Thank you for waiting for us,” Kimo said, as we pulled up beside it.

  “No problem.” The man waiting for us in the driver’s seat smiled. The van had a sign on the sigh saying Romantic Interludes. I was transfixed by the view of the ocean below us, the sea and all her enchantments extending further than my eye could see.