Was I dreaming? Could this be? Had I died and gone to heaven? Or was it true that dreams are real?
Then suddenly my eyes flew open, eyes glistened with tears of love and joy. And what I saw I could hardly believe. Suddenly I was dizzily, happily lost between the fact before me and the fantasy I had conjured out of desperate hope.
But it was real. It was REAL. HE WAS REAL!
“Oh baby, I thought that I was losing you,” I cried more tears of glee, knowing he was really in my arms, in my grasp, in my life.
“We no need talk with words, my darling,” he whispered, grinding himself on top of me, kissing me everywhere, accepting my kisses all over his body. “We only need talk with love.”
* * * * *
That night, as he lay asleep in my arms, I lay wide-eyed and awake in the dark. These past few days had been a revelation to me, a wake-up call, a caution.
Many of my past romantic experiences had shaped me into an emotional fatalist. My sky was always falling even as clouds constantly opened up above me, revealing a heaven full of glowing glittering stars. But this close call, this…this…almost losing the best thing that ever happened to me was the alarm ringing loud and clear.
And so when Étie came back to me earlier that afternoon, and he and I made love, and continued to make love until our sweaty love-drenched bodies glowed under the farewell smile of the pink-orange setting sun, we barely spoke a word.
I drew a warm bubble bath and we lounged in the sudsy tub with scented candles surrounding us. I lay against his chest. His arms were wrapped around me. His soft lips were at my neck. We lay there for a long time, allowing the silence to continue the healing.
“I did think about leaving you,” he finally whispered softly into my ear. “I was very hurt that you would think I cheat on you.”
“I’m so sorry, baby.”
“I could never cheat on you, no more than I could leave you.”
“I know that now, my sweet,” I said, turning around in his arms, to face him, to look him in his beautiful eyes. My arms were around him now. My legs wrapped around his waist. “Why I even doubted before, I never should have.”
“I will now tell you why Hardy Ferrell was there in my dressing room.”
“You already told me,” I said, putting a finger to his lips. “He was there to welcome you to the show.”
“But there is more,” he said, kissing my finger.
“I don’t need to know any more. That’s all I need to know.” I swooned as my finger found the warmth of his mouth. My dick began to swell against his stomach. I could feel him stiffening beneath me, the scented water gently swooshed as we rocked in each other’s arms.
“I am yours and yours alone,” he said to me, hugging me tightly, playing with my dick stiffening between us.
“And I’m always yours, you know that?” I said between our kisses.
“Yes, I do,” he answered with a breathless swoon.
“Whatever is mine is yours, my sweet.”
“I know that, Papi, I know that.”
“What do you want from me, my darling?” I begged the question, rocking in his lap full of dick.
“I want some of that good black ass.”
And so, as I felt him enter me, I felt something beyond the thrill of being made love to. I felt a rebirth, a re-education.
Étie was oh so right when he said “without trust, there is no love”. If I learned nothing else from him, I learned that. And who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? The truth of the matter is, an old dog better learn some new tricks if he wants to keep getting that bone.
Epilogue
I truly and sincerely was not interested in what went on between Étie and Hardy Ferrell in Étie’s dressing room. But my sister Frankie, being the doll in constant possession of too much information, insisted on telling me anyway. It was information she came across after participating in a three-way with Hardy and some waiter they picked up at The Ivy.
The story goes something like this—while checking agent Pam Stiles’ website, Hardy had seen the posting of Étie’s picture in the new client roster. As one of the leads on Precinct Ten, Hardy pulled a few strings and had Étie hired for the bit part of the Latino pool boy. Expecting carnal payment for the good deed, Hardy knocked on Étie’s dressing room door, where Étie was preparing to shower off body makeup used in his first scene. His character, dressed only in a pair of cut-offs, was covered in glistening sweat makeup.
Hardy invited himself into Étie’s dressing room against Étie’s objection. He called it welcoming Étie to the show. He then explained the payment he expected, and proceeded to undress. Shocked, Étie insisted Hardy leave. But Hardy, now naked, said he was not leaving without getting what he came for. That’s when Étie told him about me.
“So you and your wife’s brother are fucking?”
“Yes,” Etie reiterated.
“So one more in the pool shouldn’t matter,” Hardy then said, approaching Étie with his dick hardening.
“You are going to leave right now,” Étie insisted firmly.
“Says who?” Hardy snickered, reaching his hand toward Étie’s face, a hand Étie quickly slapped away.
“Says the Screen Actors Guild.”
“Excuse me?”
“The unions’ sexual harassment clause. I read completely. This could cause you lots of difficulty, Mr. Hardy Ferrell.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I?” Hardy looked into Étie’s eyes and saw that he would. The thought of losing his twenty-thousand-dollar-a-week gig made his dick go soft. “Listen, man, this was all a big mistake, okay?”
“Now, I go take my shower and ready myself to meet my man for lunch. When I come out of bathroom, you be dressed and be gone, do you understand?”
“Yes…yes,” Hardy stumbled. “I understand.”
Étie locked himself inside the bathroom and got in the shower while Hardy fumbled back into his clothes. He was just about to leave when Frankie knocked on the door, and the rest of the story you already know.
By the way, Étie decided against pursuing an acting and modeling career. He decided being the next new Hollywood flame was not his thing.
He did continue to work in show business though. Thanks to Frankie, he met Barbara Harris, the industry’s number one voice casting agent. She loved Étie’s deep, rich baritone, his accent and of course his natural command of the Spanish language. Before he knew it, he was regularly dubbing English language films into Spanish and adding Spanish voices and accents to hundreds of films, commercials and television shows. He’s very happy behind the scenes.
Oh! Let me catch you up on our friend Sylvester Winfrey. Now I must confess I was a little nervous about what Sylvester would do once he returned to the states. Nonetheless, as part of being the new me, I decided not to worry about it too much and leave the destiny of that situation in the hands of a higher power. Well, it turns out that a lesser power sealed Sylvester’s fate.
On his way back to the states, he was randomly stopped by Santo Domingo’s SDQ airport security and eventually given a full body search. They found twenty grams of cocaine crammed up his rectum. I suppose after all those years of drugging guys and fucking them unbeknownst, somebody finally figured out what Sylvester was doing with his ass. He was immediately jailed. Not even a desperate appeal to the American Consulate could save his coke-totin’ ass. According to Will Champion, he was convicted in a Dominican court and was sentenced to ten-to-twenty in a Dominican prison.
Now back to Étie and me. We’re married now. Eighteen months after Étie’s divorce from Frankie, the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, and we are one of eighteen thousand same-sex couples married in California back in 2008 before Proposition Eight ended it for anyone else in that November election. Well at least we got a black president that year, and the marriage rights of us eighteen thousand couples are state protected, if not federally recognized.
But I’ve come to
look at the bright side of everything these days. The full legalization of gay marriage is inevitable. It’s as inevitable as the emancipation proclamation, the abolishment of prohibition and the decriminalization of interracial marriage. Okay, okay, okay. I’ll try to refrain from too much hyperbole.
I do understand that marriage is not for everyone. It took my sister Frankie five of them, including the one to Étie, to make her finally come to that conclusion.
By the way, Miss Francesca is a regular down at the old House of John these days. She claims she’s down there so much because the Caribbean is cleaner, calmer and warmer than the cold Pacific that services Southern California. But she knows that I know that she knows it’s the clean, calm, warm local men that keep her logging up all those frequent flyer miles.
But as I continue to shower all my love and blessings on my sis, and my continued joy for her continued happiness, I realize that marriage for Étie and me is the perfect fit. Being married to Étie makes me fully understand the glow my parents shared, their shared commitments, dedication and love.
My mother is seventy-nine now, and twenty years after my father’s transition, she still glides upon the glorious fumes of her husband’s love. If I love Étienne and he me, even half as much as my parents loved each other, we will have loved completely. And so, I am happy to say that Étie and I are completely in love.
“My God, you look fabulous,” Will said to me when he saw me in person for the first time since that first trip to House of John almost twelve years ago. “What are you taking?”
“My time,” I answered with a mellowness I had long since adopted.
“Good for you. I hear you and your young man you met during that trip down to the DR are still together.”
“Yes we are,” I answered proudly. “In fact, we’re married.”
“Wow! Good for you, Jesse.”
And yes it was and is good for me.
I wish I had the capacity to describe all the love that I feel for my husband. In that, I am inadequate. So I take comfort in the fact that I’m feeling something totally indescribable. My love for him is bigger than me. I’m baffled, beleaguered and blessed by all his tender and tough magnificence. I’m happily resigned to bathe in his—our—love unconditionally.
He is my flame.
The End
About Stanley Bennett Clay
Stanley Bennett Clay is an award-winning novelist, playwright, actor and filmmaker. He received three NAACP Theatre Awards and three Drama-logue Awards for writing, directing and co-producing the stage play “Ritual.” He made his film writing and directing debut with the feature film adaptation, starring Clarence Williams III and Denise Nicholas. The film received the Jury Award at the Pan African Film Festival.
He is the author of three previously published novels, a novella, and, as the former Editor-In-Chief of Black Beat magazine, hundreds of feature stories, book and film reviews, and celebrity interviews.
Stanley welcomes comments from readers. You can find his website and email addresses on his author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Stanley Bennett Clay
Aching For It
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
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Hollywood Flames
ISBN 9781419944161
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Hollywood Flames Copyright © 2013 Stanley Bennett Clay
Edited by Victoria Reese
Cover design by Fiona Jayde
Cover photography by Everett Collection, sam100/shutterstock.com
Electronic book publication October 2013
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