Politics. Escorts. Blackmail.

by Pynk

  He stood next to the hotel room door, not quite facing it yet, just in case someone looked out of the peephole if he decided to run.

  He took a deep breath, twice, with long exhales, gathered his nerve, his guts, his gumption, and took the step to face the door, knocking once. And he waited. Blue jeans, green shirt, white Nikes, blue bandana.

  He heard, “Just a minute.” The deep voice of a man who had awaited another man’s arrival for sex.

  The door opened, and a figure stood before him with dark olive skin, very tall, in women’s black pants and a purple blouse with ruffles. Kemba looked down at the pumps he wore and then up to the face. They looked each other eye to eye.

  “Hello,” the transvestite said to Kemba. “Harlem?” Then he tilted his head. Their aquiline noses as well as their eyes matched.

  Kemba’s world stopped. He tried to swallow but his saliva got caught. He gulped to get it down, gave a deep, cutting stare. Neither said anything else. Kemba’s right hand tightened into a fist with the same pressure that his heart squeezed into a knot in his chest.

  He forced his stunned feet to snap out of it, then abruptly did an about-face. At first he walked fast and then he ran to the elevator, pressing the button over and over, and darting inside as soon as the doors parted, pressing the lobby button repeatedly and stepping back, collapsing against the wall of the elevator as it made its way down.

  He hurried out and ran through the hotel lobby to the front door, escaping from what his eyes had seen, into the light rain of New York’s evening hustle and bustle, one block, two, three, not a second of taking a moment to hail a cab, he just hurried. And then he stood on the corner, waiting for the traffic light to turn green, but wanting to cross anyway, as if maybe he’d get hit by a truck and the burning in his heart would cease with his death.

  His cell rang in his pocket, and without even looking to see who it was, he answered it with extreme panic in his voice: “That was my father.”

  Mayor Kalin Graves and his family paid their respects on the anniversary of a fallen soldier from Philadelphia. Graves has been a supporter of ending the war and has publicly made that known.

  Thirty-One

  Kemba

  Saturday—March 10, 2012

  The rain had stopped.

  It was midnight, and the floor-to-ceiling windows in Romeo’s dark hotel room exposed the glistening view of the New York skyline.

  From the balcony, where they sat sipping cognac, the clouds had cleared and the neighborhood view of the adjacent tall, diamond-lit buildings that reached into the almost black skies was breathtaking. Kemba’s eyes were red.

  He sipped faster than Romeo. Noting Romeo had a glass of Hennessey as well, he said, “I thought you didn’t drink.”

  “Tonight, I changed my mind. Sorry about what happened.”

  “No need.”

  “If I hadn’t talked you into it, it wouldn’t have happened.”

  “If I hadn’t agreed to go, it wouldn’t have happened.” Kemba took a gulp and popped his tongue as he swallowed.

  “But you did. It was meant to be, I guess.”

  Kemba looked at Romeo and asked, “Meant to be? Meant to be that I now know my father is some freak who dresses like a woman but fucks guys?”

  Romeo shrugged. “Hey. That’s not only the world of this business, that’s the world we live in. Half of us have freaky uncles who might be into pedophilia, and aunts who are swingers, or parents, siblings, children who have fetishes. It is what it is.” He sipped his cognac, too.

  “Maybe. But I sure as hell don’t wanna know about it.” He had his bare feet on the glass patio table. “Damn. And he looked at me like he didn’t even know who I was.”

  “Would he have known?”

  “Please. A man knows his son like a son knows his father. It’s been seventeen years, but I know that face. With his freaky Egyptian ass.”

  “And you’re 100 percent sure?”

  “Man, not even a question. His eyes and his nose were like mine. He was my height. He had dark straight hair like I remember. Plus, I knew he played some sport. Didn’t know it was soccer. But shit, looking at him was like looking at myself in twenty years. That was him.”

  “Well, if he knew you, he said nothing to me. I offered to rebook and send him someone else. He said he’d be out of the country and just said forget it. I refunded his money. No questions asked.”

  “What country?”

  “I don’t even know. Been coming back every now and then for about a year now.”

  Kemba said nothing. Instead he took another gulp of his drink and stared out at the city.

  Romeo looked at Kemba. “In deep thought?”

  “I am.”

  “About what? About your dad still?”

  “About men who sleep with men. Why?”

  Romeo held his glass with both hands. “It’s a preference. An attraction. Just like a man sees something about a woman that he’s attracted to, a man sees another man and he’s attracted. Ain’t got nothing to do with a tug of the ear, or a wink, or an earring in the left earlobe, or a handkerchief in his right pocket. There’s no signal about whether or not they’d be down, no meeting up in the restroom, no tests to see if they’re gay or straight. It just happens. It’s a stare that lingers for a few seconds. It’s a feeling below the waist. A man may think he doesn’t want a man based on what his brain is telling him, but his dick won’t lie.”

  Kemba pressed a disagreeing breath from his lips. “Please, a man can watch a porno movie where there’s a man masturbating and still get hard. That don’t mean nothing. It’s just the sex. We’re just wired that way.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. But when a man thinks about it and wonders, and the curiosity is there, and he acts on it, and he’s with women too, he’s bi and he just needs to face it. He may never go back.”

  Kemba turned his head to look at Romeo. “How do you know all this philosophy of the gay male?”

  “I’m bi. Been bi since high school. No big deal. I’m not afraid of the label. Hell, my friend from college is the biggest stud in Los Angeles, big pimpin’, got all the ladies, but hell, I sucked his dick a few times back then. What does that mean, really? That he’s a fake? That he’s a fag?”

  “That he’s in the damn closet. I’ll bet he won’t admit it to those women who think he’s a playboy. Shit, not me. I’m not down.”

  “How do you know? Kemba, you were just headed to a man’s room for oral sex for money.”

  “Yeah. Well. Hey. Like you said, that’s business.”

  Romeo pointed at him and smiled, “Okay, now you, you need to stop fighting it so tough. Makes you look way too suspect.”

  “Whatever.” He gulped again.

  Romeo sipped and said, “Maybe one day you’ll let me do it to you so you can get past all that macho ‘society will think I’m a punk’ crap.”

  “Hell no. We are two dudes. And while it’s true that I like getting my dick sucked, I’m sorry. I can’t see it.” Kemba looked back out beyond the balcony.

  “Okay. You stay out here.” Romeo put his glass down and stood. “I’ll be in my bedroom. I live like a king but bottom line is, I’m a pimp and I’m always working. I’m going to sleep before my phone rings with some bullshit.” He took a step and then looked back. “Now you? You might want to check out of that expensive hotel you’re in and come stay in the spare bedroom here. I’m not gonna let you stay for free like your sugar momma did. But it’ll be something reasonable. In the meantime, good night.” He stepped away in his gym shorts and muscle shirt, past the sliding glass doors, but kept talking. “You need to get your mind off of all this bullshit you got going on before you have a heart attack. You need to relax and let off some fucking steam. And if for tonight, you want to sleep in my room, I’ll have the covers pulled back for you.”

  Kemba shook his head and took the last gulp, thinking, Now that is some smooth-ass, brother-to-brother seduction shit there.

  Hours later, the ivory p
ocket doors to Romeo’s spacious bedroom were open. He slept quietly upon his belly, along the snow-white duvet, wearing only black briefs. His rear end was muscular and round. He had a wide tattoo of an eagle that spread across his defined back. On his right bicep he had the image of the New York City skyline with a crown over it. And on his right forearm, his name was written in bold script.

  The beige linen lamp beside the bed gave off sheer ribbons of light. Gray and white pillows surrounded Romeo’s face, though he didn’t rest his head upon them. One hand was along his side, the other reached up and onto the taupe leather headboard, his fingers spread apart as though he’d dozed off while stretching out.

  Though he claimed he didn’t want it to happen, there were two dicks in the room. Kemba, totally nude, stood tall with his large bare feet pressed on the charcoal paisley carpet, at Romeo’s side of the bed. The other side indeed had the covers pulled back, but Kemba didn’t go there. He flung his dreads toward his back and put his right hand on his hip, his left hand holding his fully hard penis, and he eyed down Romeo’s fit body, wondering why it did so much for him. He could have released himself right there.

  He began to stroke, when Romeo opened his eyes, and gave a welcoming smile as if he’d been awake the whole time. He inched himself along his stomach like a snake so that he was facing the side of the bed, right at the height of Kemba’s dick. He looked up, rubbed his mouth and his perfectly trimmed goatee, and said, “Damn, man. I should’ve asked to see this trophy before I sent you anywhere. Folks had better have some miles on them before they dare to venture with this.”

  “You think so?” Kemba looked dead serious. Or dead nervous.

  “Luckily, miles is exactly what I have.” Romeo still had a big smile, but quickly lost it as the skin of his face switched in design to make room for opening wide, accommodating Kemba’s gift. Kemba moved his hand and simply watched, as Romeo, the pimp, the stud, the man, the one running the streets of New York, the king, the panderer, clamped down on Kemba’s dick with his entire mouth, and bobbed his bald head.

  Kemba bit his lip and gave a deep sigh like he was holding his breath as though he should yank himself from Romeo’s mouth and beat the hell out of him, but the deep sigh overrode his notion. His turn-on feeling surprised him. Dare he go there, where his own father had gone before? Did he inherit this wonder? Would he have to get it over with in order to get used to what was requested in the world of escorts? A world of male-male he never heard of while in Kenya. If he could only deal with the wrongness, the guilt, the shame, the label, what it meant. The punkness of it all. For the moment, though, what it meant seemed to come second to what it felt like. And so, he let it be, and played along. His hips pumped all by themselves, betraying him.

  Romeo served him up like he was dying of thirst, at times reaching down to soothe his own excitement, and Kemba saw it, only a couple of inches shorter than his, but wide and ready. Romeo’s dick.

  He thought as to whether or not he should or could return the favor, but was interrupted by his own powerful blood-flow that traveled at breakneck speed from his scrotum to the entire length of his penis, up to his tip where it thought for a minute. His pumping ceased and he looked up to the ceiling, as if saying, No. But yes, it was true, his semen escaped, right into Romeo’s mouth.

  Romeo moaned, squeezing Kemba’s penis from the base to drain it all, licking the tip, saying, “Now, you’re ready.”

  And that was Kemba’s green light into gay-for-pay.

  He stayed right there in the bed with Romeo, now under the covers with him for the rest of the night. He barely slept from the combination of his confused mind racing, and the fact that Romeo kept getting calls all night long. Kemba’s phone was in the other room shut down. He’d turned it off in anger right after CBS News called, when he realized Beryl finally had had the nerve to call and leave a message, asking why he’d changed cell phone providers.

  By six in the morning, it was a new day. Romeo had on a condom, lying on Kemba, who was on his stomach, and showing him the transformation of exit to entrance. Kemba realized then that he wasn’t a bottom. But by the next day, he’d learned to live with being the top. Romeo accommodated it all.

  Kemba was now officially bisexual.

  Praying the gay away or not, the bottom line was that Kemba had slept with the enemy.

  And he found that he liked it. A lot.

  Presidential candidate Seth Taylor spoke to supporters regarding Darrell Ellington’s withdrawal from the presidential race, stating he believes Ellington supporters will offer him their votes come November.

  Thirty-Two

  Money

  Tuesday—March 13, 2012

  A few days later, Midori put up the one hundred fifty thousand dollars to get her sister out.

  The entire time Money was in jail, Jamie was available only to answer three of her calls. Midori hadn’t heard from him once about the bail. And Money was not happy about that one bit.

  Jamie did, however, pick up once she was released from jail that morning.

  They rode to her place in his black Lexus ES 350. Money was on edge. It showed on her makeupless face and in her disappointed voice. She looked thinner, tired, and troubled, and said, “Jamie. I want to know. I can see that I’m not going to be able to depend on you. Needless to say, this is important, and I need someone who’s got my back. If the whole world turns on me, you and my sister cannot.”

  He said with certainty, “I’ve got you. It’s just that this has been hard on me, too. I know you’re on the front line, and you’ve got a lot to lose. And I know if people get called in to testify, I’ll be on that list. It’s getting heated. You’ve gotta expect me to be a little nervous. I work for Lip Service, too, and I know some things. They know me. People know my face. They could be watching me for all we know. I did bring you to turn yourself in. Now don’t make it sound like I’m a total no-show. I mean, I didn’t get around to calling Midori more than once, but hey, I’m here now.”

  She sounded exhausted. “Excuse me, but right now this isn’t about you. And that’s no reason for you to not take my calls.”

  He continued explaining, “Every time I got a call from the jail, I kept getting the message that I’d need to wait until the prison released the caller’s authorization, or some shit.”

  “Jamie, I set up a prepaid account through the jail, so that call was paid for by me, handled before I placed it. Don’t give me that crock. All you had to do was pick up the damn phone. Shit, mighty funny how my calls to Midori went through just fine. You need to cut this mess out. I have no idea what you’re up to. But I’m telling you now, if you don’t show your true colors, you will be cut off. Your payroll is the only one still going through, but I will have it canceled in a heartbeat. Did you handle that situation with the fifty thousand? I’m sure you got that money.”

  “I did. It’s done. It was money well spent. I was able to help my sister out.”

  “Money well spent? It’s all gone?”

  “I told you that’s the exact amount I needed to get things straight for now. But hell, since then there’s some more mess happening. Everybody looks to me. Years ago, I could always help whenever someone needed something. But that’s not the case now.”

  She looked impatient. “Well, guess what? Tell their asses no. Shit. You kill me with your stories about helping people, yet you can’t help yourself. I’m fighting for my life right now. I’ve got to pay Midori back when I get home, and take care of my business. You need to take care of yours.”

  “I’m trying.” He drove faster, trying to merge into traffic.

  “No you’re not.” She cut her eyes sharp. “And what the hell is up with Leilani’s ass? She’s running her damn mouth about the business, acting like if she doesn’t say anything specifically, she’ll be a do-gooder by educating people on what the word escort means.” She folded her arms. “Money-hungry bitch. I can’t believe her. She really surprised me.” She looked out the window. “Clean and easy.
Try dirty and hard. She’ll get hers, though. Yes she will. And you haven’t heard from Kemba?”

  “No. I’d be surprised if he still has my number. He’s never called me once for a ride or anything else.”

  “No telling what his ass is doing. And I’m 100 percent sure Romeo is doing backflips right about now.”

  “I’m sure.”

  She rubbed her eyes. “Just so you know, I’m going to my mom and dad’s house in Atlanta for a while.”

  “Okay. Are you allowed to fly right now?”

  She explained, “No, I’m not supposed to leave but I have to go. I’m driving. I won’t be home. I’m just letting you know.”

  “Got it.”

  “Gotta clear my head. Gotta get away.”

  “I got you.”

  “No you don’t. I’ve got me.”

  The Pentagon is declaring war on prostitution with a campaign of awareness and punishment aimed at service members and their families, federal civilians and even government contractors. Mayor Kalin Graves encouraged the same declaration for the homeland.

  Thirty-Three

  Money

  Friday—March 16, 2012

  Money’s parents, Beverly and Arthur Watts, lived in a modest area just south of Atlanta in a suburb called Fairburn.

  They had a large ranch home that would’ve been twice the price or more in most other states, but because the prices of homes in Georgia were so cheap, they got it at a steal. It was a brick house, three bedrooms and three baths, which worked out because her mom and dad slept in separate bedrooms.

  Neither of them was old enough to receive Social Security just yet; neither worked outside of the home. Money’s mother, Beverly, was the only one with income.

  Money had been home for a few hours. Her platinum 7 series BMW was in the driveway. Her father stayed in the back bedroom with the door closed and hadn’t come out even once to say hello.