Aching For It

by Stanley Bennett Clay

“Thanks, Sis. I’ll rebook your ticket back home.”

  “Home?” she said, her now widened eyes sucking up what was left of her tears. “Honey, I want you to check me into House of John!”

  Chapter Ten

  Okay. I understand. You really can’t expect a tigress to completely change her stripes, but I had to think long and hard about delivering my baby sister to the gates of House of John. Not that the gay bordello didn’t know how to protect, satisfy and accommodate the few adventurous women who wandered its way, with its eclectic mix of gay, bisexual, experimenting, and straight gay-for-pay bugarrones. But the difficulty of setting my judgments aside exposed my own morally hypocritical infallibility.

  I tried my best to talk her out of it, but she was hell-bent on getting hers, leaving Étie and me to our romantic selves while fulfilling the societal-sanctioned desires of her nature in a country that was, for a price, ho groove friendly.

  Argue with her reasoning? Well it was good enough for you, Junie. What could I say?

  That night, Étie was adequately forgiving when Frankie profusely and sincerely apologized. But the idea, as he in no uncertain terms expressed to me earlier, of his sister-in-law/wife in name only booking board and boys at House of John made him queasy and uneasy, almost as gut-gurgling as her grabbing his privates the night before. But what we both had to realize, Étie and I, was that Frankie was indeed free, black and way over twenty-one, capable and rightfully deserving of making her own decisions with regards to her leisure entertainment, in spite of our misgivings. And given the delicacy of our truce, it was best to leave well enough alone.

  I had earlier contacted Cedric Whitehead, the proprietor of House of John, hoping that a last-minute reservation could not be accommodated. No such luck. Cedric was as congenial and accommodating as he was when I had availed myself of his services prior to meeting Étienne. It wasn’t often that he received requests for heterosexual liaisons. But the growing trend of African American women—zanettes, according to an Essence magazine article Frankie had devoured voraciously—wanting what their gay male counterparts had been getting for years, was a game changer. Many of the gay male DR bordellos, including House of John, realized the obvious. Women were as willing to pay for dick as gay men. Women were the new johns.

  The next day, Étie and I delivered Frankie, bags and sexual expectations packed, to the front door of House of John. Étie waited in the car while I escorted my sister in and introduced her to the smiling hotelier. They took an immediate liking to each other and Cedric promised me that he would take good care of her, as if she were his own sister, prompting further doubts in me about my big brother duties.

  Frankie hugged me gleefully, like a high school senior headed to her prom.

  “You have plenty of condoms?” I whispered in her ear.

  “Do I have stupid written across my forehead?” she answered, shooing me out the door.

  The ride back to the resort started out in a mournful silence both Étie and I were painfully aware of. Then suddenly there was music. Étie had turned on the radio and the sound of lilting merengue filled the car as soothingly as the warm coconut-scented breezes that flowed through the wide-open windows. He touched my knee then found my hand and held it. He glanced at me and smiled then turned his sight back to the road. I smiled too. I looked out the window and noticed just how bright the sun was against the clear blue sky, and how it too seemed to smile down on the dancing waves of the Caribbean that bordered the road we drove along.

  “How you say it, baby?” Étie asked, squeezing my hand gently. “Francesca is free, black and over twenty-one…and so are we.”

  Étie was so right. It was time for us to enjoy the precious few days we had together without the specter of my sister’s activities hanging over us.

  Once we reached our room at the resort, we got out of our clothes and put on our swimwear then headed toward the white sands and warm waters of the resort’s private beach. We placed two chaises together, slow-lathered each other’s legs, thighs, backs, stomachs, chests and necks with sun block and tanning oil then laid out on the chaises underneath the warm sun, allowing the song of slow waves kissing white sand to lullaby us into a soothing siesta filled with lovely, carefree dreams.

  When I finally woke, the crimson sun had nearly fully dowsed beneath the sea’s horizon, only a quarter slice visible, reflecting its iridescence against the dark but sparkling water. The beach was nearly empty save for slim and handsome bare-chested resort attendants in white khaki shorts, dragging scattered beach chairs and chaises to their overnight stations, stacking them as carefully as one would tuck in children. I looked down at Étie, soundly asleep and tucked fetus-like on the chaise next to mine.

  I touched him gently. The softness of his skin shivered me nicely. I kissed his shoulder then his cheek.

  “Baby?” I whispered in his ear.

  “Hmmm?” he purred with a slow yawn and a slower stretch.

  “Time for us to go. The beach is closing and we need to get ready for dinner.”

  “Okay, Papi,” he said, smiling and easing up to me, pecking me softly on my nose.

  We showered and dressed in matching white linen pants and shirts, Étie’s giddy idea, and I loved it. It made me feel like a kid again, enjoying the sweet pleasures of my first high school crush. We were dating, courting, romancing each other. Love was in the air and everyone around us seemed to know it.

  And then my cell rang.

  It was Frankie. I felt a tinge of guilt as I noted her name on the caller ID. After all, I could have at least checked up on my baby sister. But instead Étie and I had dozed on the beach and now sat across from each other, goo-goo eyed and giddy, small lit candles flickering between us, with nary a thought for her well-being.

  “Frankie?” I said into the phone with a fake singsongy glee in my voice.

  “Well halle-fucking-lujah!” she answered with a lilt of her own. “It sounds like somebody is having as much fun as me.”

  “Good for you,” I responded with a guilt-releasing sigh. “Is Cedric taking good care of you?”

  “Oh God, Junie,” she gushed. “He’s been absolutely wonderful to me. He reminds me so much of Daddy.”

  “Well, I’m not so sure Daddy would be amenable to pimping a stable of tricks off on his baby girl.”

  “Is that judgment I hear from the pot calling the kettle black?”

  “Sorry. Now you are all right, right?”

  “Baby, I am the essence of fabulosity! No pimples for me.”

  “Good.”

  “Better than good, Junie. Everybody has been so friendly. In fact, one of the gay guys here, an American from Shreveport, hooked me up with this fine-ass Rico Suave type.”

  “Who?”

  “This big-dick, hot-ass bugarrone who rode me into the sunset like I was Trigger on the giddy-up.”

  “No need to kiss and tell, Sis.”

  “No kiss and tell, Big Bro. I’m singing soprano in the choir at the pearly gates of love.”

  “Love?!”

  “Well, not exactly love, but the lust got pretty damn close to it. And besides, didn’t you come down here and fall in love?”

  “Yeah, but not with a bugarrone.”

  “God, Junie, you really are judgmental. Bugarrones can’t have love too?”

  “You’re right,” I demurred, anxious to get off the phone and back to my baby, who was patiently taking in the sound of waves and music.

  “I am definitely getting me some more of that,” she declared, pulling my focus.

  “Pace yourself, Sis, okay?”

  “Shit, I think he’s the one who needs the pacing. I think I kind of wore his little Dominican ass out this afternoon. But he’s coming back over tonight and I am hot and ready.”

  “Okay, if you need me for anything, you call me, you hear?”

  “Don’t worry, Junie. Edgar’s got everything I need.”

  “Who?” I asked with enough of a sudden panic in my voice to draw Étie’s at
tention.

  “Edgar,” she repeated. “My bugarrone.”

  “Describe him,” I demanded coolly.

  “Dick to his knees, thick as kielbasa and just as spicy…”

  “Describe him, Frankie, not it!”

  And as she began to, I was realizing my worst fears.

  My sister was fucking Étie’s ex-boyfriend!

  Suddenly a new panic set in.

  “Sis?” I began quietly, cautiously.

  “Yeah?” she responded, oblivious to my suspicions.

  “The American you met down there, the one from Shreveport, the one who introduced you to your bugarrone…”

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Edgar.”

  “No, Sis. Not the bugarrone. The dude from Shreveport.”

  “Oh! Sylvester,” she said, numbing me. “Sylvester Winfrey. And guess what, Junie. He’s Oprah’s cousin!”

  Étie could tell by the look on my face that something was not quite right and needless to say, his assumption couldn’t have been closer to the truth. I mean, this six degrees of separation scene was turning into a truth stranger than fiction. Now all I dreadfully waited for was the other shoe to drop.

  “Actually he says he knows you.”

  “Is everything all right, baby?” Étie finally asked, noticing the beads of sweat dotting my forehead.

  “You there, Junie?” Frankie was asking over the phone at the same time.

  “Hold on a second, Frankie,” I said into the receiver, pulling it away from my ear before she could respond then covering the mic with my hand. “Étie, baby, I need to finish this call with Frankie, okay? I’ll be right back.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “Yeah, yeah, she…she’s fine, but I need to talk to her,” I managed to say with an unconvincing smile as I stumbled up from the table and almost knocked over my drink. “I’ll be back in a jiff.”

  “How did my name come up?” I scold-whispered into the phone as I bumbled my way from the table toward the open-air exit that led to the dark beach.

  “Huh?”

  “How did my name come up, Frankie?”

  “Well, being the only lady on the premises, I did engender a bit of an admiring stir and everyone wanted to know how I knew about the place. So Cedric introduced me around and obviously he knew that you knew Sylvester, so he happened to mention to him that I was your sister, which lit Sylvester up like a Christmas tree.”

  “I’m sure it did.”

  “So when we started chatting and I let it be known what I was looking for, he told me he had just the right piece of Dominican trade for me. And Junie, I have to tell you, when he introduced me to Edgar, he introduced me to my sexual destiny! I mean, the things Edgar and I did together—”

  “I don’t need to hear it, Frankie. Back to Sylvester.”

  “Oh my God, Junie, Sylvester and I are thick as thieves. In fact, he’s sitting right here with me now. We’re having Cuba Libres. He’s keeping me company until Edgar gets back. Would you like to say hi?”

  Before I could protest, she’d handed her phone over to Sylvester.

  “Jesse,” Sylvester oiled on the other end of the line with lascivious delight.

  “Hey, dude. Whaddup?” I asked, disguising my disdain with a faux-thug cool.

  “Well now, isn’t this a small and interesting world?”

  “Yeah, it is, isn’t it?”

  “I mean, your sister, Jesse. She’s an absolute hoot. And what a looker. My God, if I were straight—”

  “Yo, man, this is my sister you’re talking about.”

  “It’s a little late for big-brother prudery, don’t you think?”

  “She’s still my sister, Sylvester.”

  “All I’m saying is that looks definitely run in the family,” he said, another tired hint of the running flirtation he’d plagued me with since first we met. “And she and Étie?” he continued. “Now that’s rich.”

  “Excuse me?” I said, losing a bit of my cool.

  “The marriage. You go, boy! Bring your man home by any means necessary!”

  Now I was pissed. Truly pissed, at him and at Francesca. I mean, as if the thought of her having sex with my partner’s ex-boyfriend wasn’t bad enough, the idea of her palling around and sharing our business with a tired piece of shit like Sylvester Winfrey was just too much for me to bear.

  “Listen, Sylvester, great talking to you. Could you put my sister back on the phone?”

  “Sure. Take care, mon cher.”

  “Junie?”

  “Francesca,” I whispered sternly, as if Sylvester could hear me, “why the hell would you tell Sylvester about the marriage?”

  “Why not?” she asked innocently.

  “Don’t let on!” I warned in a panic.

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t let on what we’re talking about.”

  “What are we talking about?”

  “You telling that son of a bitch about you and Étie being married!”

  “Oh Junie, don’t worry, he’s cool.”

  “No he’s not! And don’t let on! Look, let me talk to you later.”

  “Junie, I’m going to be busy later, remember? Edgar.”

  “Tomorrow then.”

  “Not too early, I think I’m going to be sleeping in late.”

  “And don’t say anything else to Sylvester.”

  “Well that’s crazy.”

  “About me and you and Étie. He doesn’t need any more details than he already has.”

  “God, Junie, you are so paranoid.”

  “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “I sure hope Étie gives you some tonight. You need some stress relief.”

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Francesca.”

  It was enough to ruin a perfectly good romantic candlelight dinner, but as angry as I was, I was not about to let that happen. I tried, best as I could, to pull myself together before I got back to Étie at the table. When I got there, I sat easily and answered his questioning face with a reassuring smile that revealed I was a better actor than I ever thought I had the ability or desire to be.

  Still, something inside me felt bad that this lie by omission was being perpetrated on one who I loved so dearly. I decided to wait until we got back to our room to tell him what was happening over at House of John.

  “It’s just one big ugly mess,” I said to him in the room after explaining the freaky coincidence of the Frankie-Edgar hook-up.

  “Why a mess?” he asked, sitting down next to me on the bed where I had plopped. “Francesca is grown woman. Edgar is grown man. What Francesca and Edgar do is no my business, is no your business, Papi. Yes, I understand, for you, your feelings about your sister, because she is your sister and you love her. But you knew she would be with men at House of John. You settled with that. As for Edgar? I have no feelings for him. That is why I have no feelings for what he do.”

  “But what about Sylvester?”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s not the kind of person you want in your business.”

  “He no be in our business.”

  “He knows about you and Francesca being married.”

  “He does?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.”

  “That kind of information could be very harmful to us in the hands of a vicious queen like Sylvester Winfrey.”

  “He be like that?”

  “He’s Mata Hari with a dick.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Trepidation and hope engulfed me like ill wind and sunshine. I was glad Étie was unbothered by the activities of his ex, allowing us as much undistracted bliss as possible under the circumstances. But Sylvester Winfrey was never far from my mind.

  I did call Frankie the next morning as promised, but early, in defiance of her request.

  “Hullo?” she answered groggily. I could hear the sound of a drunken baritone snoring by her side. Edgar, I assumed, while forcing myself to block
the picture forming in my head of Edgar and my sister having sex. I mean, I used to change her diapers, for Christ sakes!

  “Frankie,” I said stiffly but quietly as I tiptoed out to the balcony so as not to disturb Étie still asleep in our bed.

  “Junie?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Seven,” I said without checking my wristwatch. A copper-toned housekeeping lady, smart and alert in her crisp morning uniform on the walkway below, her arms filled with fresh towels and linen, smiled up at me with a quizzical blush. That’s when I realized I was standing out there in God’s great sunshine wearing only my Calvins. I returned her smile meekly then scooted back in, hushing myself in my near clumsy stumble at the sudden sight of my baby’s sweet slumber.

  “Junie, I told you…” She yawned.

  “I know, I know,” I whispered. “It’s early, I’m sorry, but I really need to talk to you.”

  “Not now, Junie. I have company.”

  “It sounds like your company is asleep.”

  “Okay, look,” she surrendered. “I’m getting up. I’ll give you a few minutes and then I’m going back to bed.”

  “Thank you. Now can you do me a favor?”

  “What?”

  “Stay away from Sylvester Winfrey.”

  “Oh come on, Junie. Are you back on that again?”

  “Frankie, you don’t know this fool. He could blow the whole marriage thing for us.”

  “How? What do you think he’s going to do? Run down to the embassy and turn us in?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “But why would he do a thing like that?”

  “Because he’s Sylvester Winfrey!”

  “Yeah, but I thought you guys were friends?”

  “Acquaintances, Frankie. We’re just acquaintances.”

  “Did you and Sylvester have a thing?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Did you and Sylvester have a thing? The way you’re tripping, it sounds like you and he had a thing.”

  “Sylvester and I did not have a thing.”

  “Then why are you tripping?”

  How could I explain it to her? Sylvester Winfrey was the last person on Earth who needed to know even the slightest details of our immigration plans for Étie. And no! Sylvester Winfrey and Jesse Lee Templeton III definitely did not have a thing! But that she, my sister, had married my boyfriend in order to get him to America was way too much information to share with anyone, let alone someone of Sylvester Winfrey’s vicious nature.