Lust & Loyalty

by Shelly Ellis

  As Andre talked on the phone about microdermabrasion, vitamin C masks, and oxygen blasts, Terrence glared at the pedestrians outside his window. Again, his thoughts floated back to C. J.

  He wondered how long it had taken her to restart things with Clancy. Had it only started recently, or had it been soon after she started going back to North Carolina? Had it been when Terrence started to sense that something had changed between them, or was it as far back as when he was still in the glow of their new relationship, when he still thought they were blissfully happy? Those questions haunted him, and he suspected he’d never get any answers.

  “Five o’clock? Oh, thank you, Stephan! You’re a life saver, honey!” Andre cried. “Yes, we’ll be there. Don’t worry . . . All right. See you then.” Andre blew a kiss into the phone and hung up. He pursed his lips and shook his head in exasperation, returning his attention to the busy street in front of him.

  “Thank goodness he could do it! It wasn’t easy. Stephan’s a hot commodity in these parts, honey, but he was willing to cut me a favor.”

  Terrence didn’t comment.

  “Look, Terrence, I’ll help you out this time, but you know better than anybody that you can’t come up here looking a mess! You have to bring your A-game. You may have been the belle of the ball in Chesterton, but remember there are plenty of pretty faces here on Fashion Avenue! If you want to go far, you have to take care of yourself . . . your looks, more importantly.”

  “I know,” he said, adjusting his seat belt. “I’ve just had a . . . a hard couple of days, that’s all. I’ve had a hard time sleeping.”

  And eating, he wanted to add but didn’t.

  Since his fight with C. J., he hadn’t had much of an appetite. Since catching her with Clancy later, his appetite had all but disappeared. At this rate, getting back to his old modeling weight wouldn’t be much of a challenge.

  “Well, we can’t have that,” Andre said with another slow shake of his head. “You’re no spring chicken anymore! No hard partying, no drugs, keep the drinking to a minimum, and eight hours of sleep a night! All right?”

  Terrence nodded, though he knew tonight would likely be another sleepless night for him.

  Less than a half hour later, Andre was dragging Terrence around the agency, introducing him to the other agents, showing him the wall of postcards displaying the models the agency represented. It was all a blur of bright lights and fake people. Terrence realized as he shook hand after hand, as he stripped down to his boxer briefs and some assistant took his measurements, as one person after another stared at him and examined him like he was a lab specimen, that despite what he had told Evan this morning, his heart wasn’t in this. Yet his heart had to be in it if he really was going to do this. He had to get himself under control and in the right frame of mind, or coming to New York would be a complete waste of his and Andre’s time.

  “Okay, let’s get a few Polaroids of you, shall we?” a waifish blonde with a pixie haircut said as she held up a camera.

  Terrence allowed her to drag him toward an adjacent wall and position him like a cut-out paper doll.

  “All right, lovely! Give us a few poses,” one of the fellow agents said. Andre had told Terrence her name, but he had forgotten it already.

  Terrence looked at the three pairs of eyes staring up at him. He shifted and made a half-hearted attempt at a few poses that drew frowns and furrowed eyebrows.

  “That’s the best you can give us, darling?” an agent with a British accent called out, puckering her lips and glaring at him over the top of her glasses. “How Andre described you, I was expecting the second coming of Tyson Beckford . . . and frankly, I’m not seeing it.”

  “He’s just warming up. Hush up, girl! Give him a chance,” Andre said, waving her off. “Come on, Terrence, show us what you got, honey!”

  Terrence tiredly closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them.

  “All right, let’s try this again,” the assistant said, gazing through her viewfinder, taking more pictures.

  But Terrence couldn’t focus. His mind kept drifting. He thought about C. J., about Clancy, about C. J. with Clancy. He thought about how he’d been shocked to discover he could finally fall in love with someone, only to have that love come back to bite him in the ass!

  He did a few more poses for them, but it wasn’t much better than what he had done before. He could tell from the look on Andre’s face that he was disappointed.

  “Well, let’s try your walk,” Andre said. “Maybe you’re just a little rusty in front of the camera.”

  “Are you sure he can walk, darling?” the British agent asked. A condescending sneer was now on her thin lips.

  Terrence wasn’t surprised that she had posed the question to Andre and not him. He was just an object now. He had ceased to exist as a person.

  “He’s done Paris and Milan,” Andre snapped. “I think he can do our showroom! Watch a runway god at work!”

  She snorted in response. “If you say so, darling.”

  A minute later, Terrence stood at the end of the long hallway, feeling exhausted and ridiculous. But he pushed back his shoulders and told himself to do this, to just get through this! Besides, if he was going to start modeling again, he would have to do this all the time.

  He started to walk down the hallway, fairly confident that he had his pace and his posture on lock. But he saw from the looks on their faces that something was wrong. They stared at him as if he had stumbled and fallen face first on the carpeted floor.

  “What was that?” the British agent shouted.

  Andre narrowed his eyes. “Something’s off, honey. Walk up and walk down again.”

  Terrence grimaced and did as Andre said, walking up and then down the hallway a second time, feeling the burn of the halogen lights overhead bearing down on him along with Andre and the British woman’s intense stares. The uneasy looks on their faces remained.

  “Are you . . . are you limping?” the British woman asked, then nodded in response to her own question. “He’s limping! Good Lord, Andre! Your client has a limp!”

  Shit, Terrence thought, realizing that his secret was out.

  “He . . . he just hurt himself at the gym or something!” Andre insisted with a wave of his hand, looking flustered and trying his best to hide it. “That’s all it is! He’ll be fine in a week. No problem.”

  Terrence felt sweat trickle down his back. He lowered his head, unable to meet their eyes anymore. He nervously licked his lips. “No, it’s . . . uh, it’s not from the gym,” he confessed. “It’s from the car accident I had in February. I damaged my leg. I’ve had the limp ever since.”

  Andre’s mouth fell open. The British woman’s eyebrows raised by about an inch.

  “It’s not a bad limp,” he quickly added. “Most people don’t . . . don’t notice . . . at first.”

  “Well, we noticed!” The British woman snorted again. “There goes your runway god, Andre . . . and more than half your potential bookings.”

  She then turned and walked away, laughing to herself.

  * * *

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were in an accident?” Andre barked at him as they drove to his facial appointment.

  “I tried to tell you, but you kept blowing me off. I told you I’d been through some stuff, that I had some surgeries,” Terrence argued. “You told me it didn’t matter!”

  “I thought you meant nose contouring . . . maybe liposuction! I didn’t know you meant rebuilding bones!” Andre exclaimed. “What the hell am I supposed to do with you now? Who the hell wants a model who can’t walk? And you can barely pose!” He sucked his teeth. “Might as well put you in Sears and JCPenney’s ads.”

  Terrence eyed Andre, feeling his fury rise, but he didn’t say anything in response to Andre’s putdown. Shame overrode his anger. He had worried that if he tried to model again, his accident would come back to haunt him . . . that some glaring imperfection would come to the forefront and everyone would know for s
ure that he wasn’t the model he once had been. Now Andre knew the truth and had reacted accordingly.

  When they arrived at the salon, Andre parked his Audi, threw open the driver’s side door, and walked toward the glass doors, all the while talking on his phone and barking something to Terrence over his shoulder. Instead of following him, Terrence walked right past him.

  Andre blinked in astonishment as he watched Terrence stride down the sidewalk.

  “Terrence!” Andre called after him. “Terrence, where do you think you’re going?”

  Terrence didn’t respond. He just kept walking, tugging up the collar of his jacket, feeling the cold blast of wind from the Hudson River snake its way between alleyways and skyscrapers before sweeping around his hunched shoulders.

  “Well, you can forget about me representing you!” Andre yelled. “And I’m taking your facial!”

  Terrence didn’t know where he was headed, he just needed to get away from here. His overnight bag was still at the agency, but he didn’t care, he wasn’t going back. He kept walking from block to block to block, following the length of Broadway until he reached Times Square, oblivious to the blazing signs advertising Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and Madame Tussaud’s. His cell phone rang and he ignored it. A few people tried to hand him flyers and tickets as he walked by, and he ignored them, too. He just wanted to get away, to forget what had happened today, about what had happened that week. He wanted to disappear.

  Finally, long after it had gotten dark and the bright lights of Manhattan had eclipsed whatever lights were in the sky, Terrence got tired of walking. He spotted an entrance to a hotel in Midtown and pushed through the revolving doors.

  “Welcome to the Horchow Hotel,” the front desk attendant said eagerly with a grin. “How can I help you?”

  Terrence ignored him and went straight to the bar several feet away. He walked down a short flight of stairs and saw that it was already filled with patrons. He peeled off his wool jacket and walked up to the bar.

  “Patrón,” he muttered in a barely audible voice, too weary to speak louder.

  The bartender nodded and turned away, wiping a set of shot glasses with a hand towel. “Right away,” he said.

  Terrence looked to his right to find a woman two stools away staring openly at him. She was petite with a heart-shaped, pretty face and long red hair done in a single braid that hung over her shoulder. She was wearing a short dress with spaghetti straps despite the cold temperature outside. The dress revealed her freckled shoulders.

  “Hey,” she piped with a ready smile.

  “Hey,” he answered tiredly just as the bartender handed him his shot.

  “Visiting New York?”

  He nodded.

  “Me too! I’m supposed to be meeting a friend here for a drink, but . . . it looks like she stood me up. Some friend, huh?” she said with a self-deprecating laugh.

  He didn’t respond.

  She twirled her straw in her glass, making the ice cubes clink. “Are you drinking alone, too?”

  He nodded again before taking a sip.

  “Mind if we . . . uh, drink together? I just hate drinking alone!”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her no. But the truth was he didn’t want to drink alone, either, with only his thoughts, doubts, and regrets to keep him company. He could use a little distraction, if only briefly.

  “No, I don’t mind,” he said, rising from his stool and taking the one directly beside her. “I’ll keep you company.”

  He learned that her name was Daphne McHale and she was from Utah. She was visiting New York for the first time to attend a teachers’ conference. They talked about all things inconsequential, trading jokes and flirting harmlessly. One hour faded into the next. The bar room filled with more people, and Terrence glanced down at his wristwatch and realized that it was past midnight.

  “Hell, it’s getting late. I should probably book a room,” he said with a chuckle.

  She lowered her straw from her mouth. “You don’t need to book a room, Terrence.”

  “I do if I don’t want to have to sleep in this damn lobby!” he exclaimed, pointing to one of the nearby banquettes. He then slapped a few twenties on the marble bar top to cover his tab.

  “I mean,” she said with a smirk, easing toward him, fingering the V-neck of his sweater, “you can stay with me . . . in my room, if you’d like.”

  He eyed her. “Are you asking me what I think you’re asking?”

  She laughed and gazed into his eyes. “Without saying it outright . . . yes. But if there’s any confusion about what I’m asking, I can just say it. Will you come to my room and spend the night with me?”

  He hesitated only briefly before he nodded. “Sure.”

  A few minutes later, they walked to the elevators. When they stepped inside the compartment and the doors closed, Daphne pounced on him like a ravenous dog that had just spotted a mutton chop. She wrapped her arms around his neck and plastered him with kisses as they ascended to the twenty-second floor where she was staying.

  “I’m going to show you the time of your life tonight, big boy,” she said as she rubbed his dick through his jeans. She lifted his sweater, raked her fingernails over his bare stomach, then kissed him again.

  He told himself not to think. He told himself, most of all, not to think about C. J. But he hadn’t kissed a woman besides C. J. in about six months, hadn’t sucked on another woman’s tongue or felt another woman’s breast in the palm of his hand. Instead of basking in the newness of Daphne’s body against his, he was bothered by how unfamiliar it felt. Daphne was shorter than C. J. and slim rather than curvy. Her breasts were perky but smaller. Her ass was firm, but not as round. She even tasted different. Every time he touched Daphne, he was reminded of another body he was no longer touching, and it infuriated him. He couldn’t even fuck another woman without being reminded of his ex! But he would be damned if the memory of C. J. held him back from this. He was going to get laid tonight, even if it killed him.

  Finally, the doors to the elevator opened. They tumbled out, and Daphne grabbed his hand and led him down a couple of hallways, giggling drunkenly, before they finally reached her door. She put her room key card into the lock, twisted the door handle, and shoved the door open.

  “Let’s have some fun,” she whispered, beckoning him with her finger.

  Terrence trailed in after her, letting the door slam shut behind them.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Terrence stepped off the hotel elevator on the eighteenth floor with his newly procured room key in hand. He had a pounding headache. His eyes felt like they were filled with sand. He sluggishly did the walk of shame to his hotel room after the brazen revenge fuck he hadn’t enjoyed half as much as Daphne had advertised.

  He had left Daphne slumbering alone and naked in her bed, deciding not to wake her to say good-bye. Instead, he dressed as best he could in the dark and walked out of her hotel room, quietly shutting the door behind him. Now, Terrence staggered into his own hotel room with a burning sensation in his chest that had nothing to do with the four shots of tequila he had downed at the hotel bar. He strolled across the carpet, tugging his sweater over his head as he did it. He stood in the center of the room, bare-chested, glaring out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the view of Midtown Manhattan and the New York City skyline that twinkled and glowed with an optimism that seemed to mock him.

  Today had been an absolute disaster—just as he had feared it would be. He had been a fool to think he could rewind the clock, that he could go back to being the self-assured man he had once been. And with just the silence of the hotel room surrounding him, the voices of doubt that he had refused to listen to all day, that had emerged soon after the car accident, were screaming loud and clear right now.

  You’re never going to go back to the way things were!

  You thought you were hot shit but you’re not!

  Why don’t you just take your sorry ass back to Chesterton and live off your
trust fund, pretty boy? That’s all you’re good for!

  He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, feeling himself sinking under some unseen current. He needed to talk to someone. He had to get someone to talk him down off this imaginary emotional ledge or he would send the chair at his hotel desk careening through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  Terrence reached for the hotel phone on the desk to call his brother. He glanced at the clock on the nearby night table. It was almost three o’clock in the morning. Evan would probably think something was wrong if he called him this late, but he had to talk to him. He had to get these voices to shut up.

  Terrence began to punch numbers into the dial pad. It wasn’t until he dialed the last number that he realized who he had been really calling in his hour of need—and it wasn’t Evan.

  Hang up, he told himself as he listened to the phone ring on the other end. Hang up before she picks up—or that motherfucka Clancy picks up.

  But he didn’t. He listened to the phone ring over and over again. He listened until she picked up on the fourth ring.

  “Hello,” C. J. answered groggily.

  At the sound of her voice, something inside Terrence broke. He sat down on the edge of the bed when he felt his knees buckle underneath him.

  Damn, he missed her!

  “Hello?” she said again, clearing her throat.

  He closed his eyes and bowed his head, imagining her on the other end of the line. Before he woke her up, she would’ve been sleeping on the left side of the bed. That was the side she usually slept on when he stayed over or when she came to his place. Her face and eyelids would be a bit puffy. She’d be wearing an oversize white T-shirt and nothing underneath.

  Terrence wanted to tell her everything that had happened today and how it had shaken him. He wanted her to reassure him and tell him it was a minor setback. So what if he couldn’t model again?

  “Come on, honey! It’s not like you really wanted to be a model again anyway,” she would say with a smile. “It’s no big deal.”

  He wanted to yell at her and bitch her out for betraying him, for hooking up with that pussy Shaun Clancy—for breaking his heart. He wanted to hear her explain herself and cry and beg him for forgiveness.