Looker

by Stanley Bennett Clay

  “We’re so happy that you called,” Vanessa said as she led William in.

  “Glad you could make it.” Brando spoke softly.

  “What a lovely home.” Vanessa oohed and aahed while William scanned Brando’s body with anxious eyes.

  “Thanks. Please, make yourselves comfortable. Would you like a drink?” Brando asked as he led them into the living room.

  “Maybe afterward,” William said, wasting no time.

  “So, how about the grand tour?” Vanessa intercepted.

  “Sure,” Brando responded. “Right this way. Let’s see. Why don’t we start with the kitchen?”

  “Why don’t we start with the bedroom?” William was dead serious.

  At a quarter to five Dee pulled into Selma’s driveway and parked. She rang the doorbell. There was no answer. She twisted the doorknob. She used her “Selma’s drunk” key. She walked in and called out, “Sel?” The echo was followed by silence.

  Her heels clicked against the marble foyer as she crossed toward the dim living room light.

  She looked in. All was still, museumlike, so still that she did not immediately notice Selma sitting in the Queen Anne, slouching but firmly holding the antique chair’s filigree arms.

  Dee jumped at the sight of her, was startled by her boo presence.

  “Girl, you about scared the living daylights out of me.” Dee chuckled breathlessly.

  But Selma said not a word, budged not an inch. The rolling bar cart was at arm’s length, yet Selma’s hand was empty. Dee scanned the tableau vivant.

  A cocktail glass lay on its side, at Selma’s feet, its contents spilled, her expensive Ferragamos soaked, ruined.

  “Selma,” Dee scolded as she bent down to pick up the glass. “You really need to slow your roll.” She fussed as she lifted herself up.

  At first she did not realize it, but when she found herself eye to eye with Selma Fant, she knew.

  “Selma!” she commanded. She stared deeply into the lifeless eyes, and then she panicked. She shook the limp body with a fury, suddenly, assertively, refusing to accept the inevitable.

  “Selma! Selma!” she cried, but Selma would not move on her own, ever again.

  And then Dee surrendered, grimly, conceding that she had no choice in the sad matter.

  She plopped down on the sofa across from her dead friend. A great sadness preceded reason. She would call the police, in time. She would call Brando, in time. But for now she needed to finish her crying, and pull it together, think it all out, for before she called anyone there was something else she needed to do. It was the least she could do for her friend.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  For Brando, it was the strangest sensation. He had not been kissed erotically in over two years, and he responded ever-so-slightly to the bitter taste of tobacco on William’s breath.

  Vanessa leaned forward from her vantage point, a chair in the corner of the room. She held her breath as she watched her husband slowly unbutton Brando’s shirt. William slowly peeled down the linen garment, revealing Brando’s lean and well-toned torso, modestly rippled.

  Brando tried to relax. His nipples stiffened. William took this as a sign. He kissed each one, tongue-circled them moistly, and shivered at the taste of them.

  Brando shivered, too, shivered at the memory of Collier, at the memory of Earl-Anthony, even Omar. He had not even noticed that William had shed his shirt as well and had unbuckled his belt. The sound of William unzipping his pants distracted Brando from his sad reverie, and he looked toward the sound just for a moment, only long enough to see William’s pants drop to the floor.

  William’s throbbing erection burst from the slit of his boxers, but Brando’s eyes were too blurred to see.

  Vanessa’s eyes had glazed, too. The vision before her was sad, sweet, and gleeful. Anticipating this innocent and blurryeyed beauty fucking her man filled her with a wanting she could barely contain.

  William slowly fell to his knees, as if to pray, drawing Vanessa to her feet. Silent hosannas rumbled through her breasts.

  William’s delicate hands found Brando’s belt buckle and Vanessa held her breath. As William began to undo the belt, he looked up at Brando, as if to ask permission. But Brando’s face, staring straight ahead now, was strangely distant, alluringly so, in need of seduction. William was ready to oblige.

  William released the belt, then touched himself in his squatted position. Jizzum juice dripped from his dick, streaking the floor. He brushed his face gently against Brando’s soft bulge. William’s eyes fluttered and his dick-happy asshole puckered with the need of a fill-up.

  He then licked at the hidden bulge that had not changed; played around its cloth covering with a tongue that spoke sign language and touch.

  His teeth took hold of the zipper and pulled it down slowly, so slowly his wife could not stand it. She crept up behind him nervously. She looked down on him and realized what she had. She then looked into Brando’s distant, unreadable, glistening eyes, and realized she had nothing to fear. When it was all over, her man would be safely returned to her and ready to service the part of her that he could.

  “You’re a fucking idiot,” she heard that son-of-a-

  bitch Omar say in her head. “And leave my man alone.”

  But who’s the fucking idiot now! And whose man is he now! Her man. Her man’s man. She knew from Brando’s blank stare that all she’d have to do is wait her turn.

  “No,” she then thought she heard.

  “No.” William thought he heard it, too, but knew he was mistaken. He was this close to heaven. This beautiful man’s beautiful dick and beautiful balls, a soft bulge hidden behind Calvin Klein briefs, was right in the palm of his hand, saying yes.

  “I can’t do this,” Brando continued in almost a whisper, brushing William’s caressing hand away. “I’m sorry.”

  William looked up with a shock. Vanessa was still frozen in her slow state of disbelief.

  “Sorry?” Vanessa finally managed to ask.

  “Oh no, motherfucker, you’re gonna do this.” William was suddenly standing in Brando’s face.

  And then it all came back to Brando. Nothing would be taken from him that he was not willing to give. He thought about Jeanette. He thought about Clymenthia. He thought about the pathetic thing he was about to do.

  He was eye-to-eye with William. “No,” he said again, simply, forthrightly.

  Vanessa saw something in Brando’s eyes that even William, eye-to-eye, could not see. She reached out to her naked husband, grabbed his arm, and pulled him toward her, out of fear of the unknown. William’s penis retreated as well, shriveled in disappointment. He jerked away from his wife and angrily climbed into his jizzum-stained boxers, almost stumbling in the process. He continued to dress in fuming silence.

  “Are you sure about this?” Vanessa asked calmly.

  “Yes,” Brando answered, buttoning his shirt. “I am. I’m sorry.”

  “We all are. Maybe some other time.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Brando led Vanessa and William to the front door and bade them good-bye. He watched through the window as they drove off. He had no regrets, except that maybe he could have loved Collier more, loved Collier deeper.

  The champagne magnum sat on the kitchen counter half full, Omar’s congratulatory gift.

  Omar.

  The sudden thought of his friend gave him a warmth he had not felt all day. And he knew that life would go on, would have to, and that perhaps the absence of true love, a void that both men shared, would be filled with the friendship that both of them shared, an enduring friendship. Brando tried to make himself believe what his heart knew was bogus.

  He started to take a drink, but realized he’d had enough.

  The doorbell rang. What part of “no” did they not understand? he thought to himself. He went to the door and opened it.

  “Brando,” Dee said grimly.

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Peter stood quiet
ly back in the shadows of the club and stared at her in awe. Miss Zara’s beauty in person had not been and could never be justly captured in photos. That she was so breathtaking was of no great surprise. She was born from a breathtaking young man. Even in jeans, heels, and a simple white blouse, she was stunning up there on that stage, and the voice still unforgettable. Peter hung on every word that she sang, while a trio of musicians played softly, worshipfully, behind her.

  To know what it’s like

  To hold Stardust in your hand

  To see in the night

  When the moonlight says you can

  The brush of a breeze out of nowhere

  Comes and goes

  The comforting waves never stay

  They come and go

  He did not know how, but was drawn slowly from the shadows by the melodious haunting, by her spell, by her song, and he knew why he once loved Earl-Anthony even when he did not fully love himself. He thought about how much he must have hurt him, hurt himself, was still hurt.

  Better to have loved and lost they say

  I cannot agree

  For to love is not to lose

  And when I’m old and gray

  My once-upon-a-times

  Will he filled with thoughts of you

  I am stronger now

  I no longer doubt

  What I’m made of

  For I know

  What it’s like

  To have loved

  “That was beautiful, baby,” said Eli, the man she had been singing to. He then stepped up on the stage and kissed her gently. It was a beautiful moment to witness, and Peter’s smile caught the single tear that fell.

  Eli then turned toward the sound engineer. They exchanged thumbs-ups. “Good job, fellas,” he said to the musicians. “I think we got it.”

  The lovers then exchanged more words, in whispers, and kissed again before parting—he to the sound engineer, awaiting further instructions, she down the stage, onto the dance floor, toward the baby grand piano, where she sat.

  Her long, delicate fingers gently picked out the melody of the song she had just sung. She savored its beauty, and closed her eyes and hummed along. When slowly she opened her eyes, she saw him, for the first time in almost twenty years.

  “Peter?” she said with surprised but friendly eyes.

  “Earl-Anthony,” he said without thinking. He was thrown by the beauty up close, as ravishing in its mystical and timeless female form as it was in its male youth.

  “Zara. Miss Zara,” she gently corrected.

  “Miss Zara,” he repeated obediently, ill prepared for the reverence that swelled deep inside. “It’s been a long time,” he finally continued in almost a stutter.

  “Yes it has, hasn’t it?”

  “You’re beautiful. Why am I not surprised?”

  “Thank you. So what brings you back to L.A.?”

  “I missed home,” he said, relaxing a bit, by her cordial liege. “Miss Zara?”

  “Yes, Peter?”

  Peter knew what he had to say and did not want to be distracted from his mission by small talk and shame.

  “About what happened…what your mother and I did. What I did—was terrible. I am so very sorry. Could you ever forgive me?”

  “Hon, I forgave you years ago.” And even as those true words left her lips, she, a split second after, wondered why she had forgiven him so easily and still had not been able to forgive her own mother. Why had she been holding on to this self-pity and martyrdom, punishing herself and her mother for what had happened so long ago? How could she free Peter of his burden and leave her mother and herself shackled, respectively, with blame and self-appointed sainthood?

  She clutched herself, seeing the clear and simple truth for the very first time, and the self-revelation startled her. She tossed her weave back and then tussled it forward, and she heaved with bulging, glistening eyes, like a church girl dumbstruck by spirit.

  She then looked up at Peter, as if seeing him for the first time. And all she could think to do was to kiss his big questioning lips. And so she rose from the piano and did. His eyes widened in shock and appreciation.

  “Thank you, Peter,” she then said to him, his face still a headlight-deer cuddly bear in the gentle embrace of her hands. She then called out to Eli, who appeared out of nowhere.

  “I gotta make a run, baby,” she said to him, giving him a reassuring kiss and hug. “I’ll be back in time for the show.”

  She dashed through the club as everything inside her cried, but she could not cry outwardly. Not right now. Not yet.

  She raced down Crenshaw Boulevard and thought about all of the years she existed as a motherless child. Her car automatically turned on Stocker Avenue and took her up the hill she had not climbed in years. On Don Pedro Drive she turned, a street she grew up on, first made love on, first had her heart broken on, and she saw the house, just as she remembered it, her home, a place that she missed as much as her parents.

  And there were the neighbors she had not seen in years, out on their lawns, their quizzical gazes and hands to their mouths aimed at the place she was heading.

  And then past the crowd she saw the ambulance, parked out in front of her family home.

  Brando and Dee, holding each other, watched grimly from the Fant driveway as Miss Zara pulled in. They looked up. Brando rushed to Zara getting out of her car while Dee looked on.

  “Zara.” He held her.

  “What’s going on, Brando?” she asked, new panic in her voice.

  “It’s your mother.”

  “What?”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “What?” she asked again, unable to believe what she had heard, not wanting to, not wanting to see the paramedics exit the house with a gurney between them, afraid to look under the sheet at the body, and then afraid not to.

  She broke free of Brando and halted the gurney. “Is this my mother? Is this my mother?” she heard herself screaming in a voice she had not heard in nearly twenty-odd years.

  The paramedics stepped aside respectfully. Miss Zara tore back the sheet and stared down and answered her question; stared down at the still face of her mother. She marveled at the sight, then lost control of her all.

  “I’m so sorry, Momma.” She sobbed like a child as she rested her head on her mother’s cold breasts. “I’m so sorry, Momma. I’m so sorry.” She then felt arms surround her, holding her, and believed that her impossible prayer had been answered, that she was in her mother’s sweet embrace once again.

  But the arms were not her mother’s arms.

  “Zara,” Brando said softly, gently pulling her away and holding her. She turned in his arms and looked into his eyes. She was lost to her surroundings.

  And then recognition returned, and realization. She was now truly and totally a motherless child. A new sudden burst of tears could not flood away that devastating truth. Brando’s sad and sympathetic eyes could not ease its pain. She collapsed in his arms and let the flood flow.

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Eli arrived twenty minutes after receiving the call from Brando.

  “Where is she?” he asked urgently when Brando answered the front door.

  “In the back,” Brando said solemnly. “This way.”

  Dee, brewing coffee in the kitchen, saw the sturdy man pass through the house behind Brando. She knew that Miss Zara would be in good hands.

  Dee thought about her ex, Kevin.

  Brando’s guest bedroom was darkened by the drawn curtains. The darkness allowed Miss Zara to mourn without holding back.

  But it was too little too late. She would never be able to say to her mother what should have been said a long time ago. She was weakened by her guilt and bad timing.

  “Baby?” came the soft baritone voice just outside the room. Slowly, the door opened. The sight of Eli, silhouetted by the hall light, caused the tears to gush. He went to her and held her.

  “I didn’t have a chance to say good-bye,” she cried. “
I didn’t have a chance to say I’m sorry.”

  He let her cry in his arms. Brando, standing in the hallway, quietly pulled the door shut.

  “Miss Zara, this is Omar. I just heard the news on the radio. I am so sorry for your loss. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  Omar hung up his cell and could only imagine what Miss Zara was going through. He then called Brando.

  “Hey, O,” Brando answered quietly, noting the caller ID.

  “Hey. I just heard about Selma Fant. It’s all over the news.”

  “Yeah, it’s terrible, man.”

  “I tried to reach Miss Zara.”

  “She’s here. She took it pretty hard. She’s in the back with Eli.”

  “Good. She’s lucky to have somebody like that.”

  “Yeah,” Brando said softly. He then looked up and saw Eli entering the room. “Hold up, Omar. How is she?” Brando then asked Eli.

  “As well as can be expected,” Eli answered. “I’m going to take her home. I need to call the club and cancel tonight’s show.”

  “No,” Miss Zara said from the doorway of the guestroom. I need to do the show tonight.”

  “Are you sure, baby?”

  “Yes.”

  “Zara, Omar’s on the phone,” Brando said. “You feel up to talking?”

  “Thanks, Brando. I’ll take it.” She took the phone from Brando. “Hi, Omar,” she said.

  “Oh, Miss Zara, I am so sorry.”

  “Thank you. You are coming to the show tonight?”

  “Do you think that’s such a good idea? I mean, considering what you’ve gone through?”

  “I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye to her. I’m going to say it tonight, the best way I know how.”

  “Then I’ll be there.”

  “You better.”

  Chapter Fifty-eight