Queen Takes King

by Gigi Levangie Grazer

  Robert, meanwhile, was negotiating with his shirt buttons. Cynthia sat her naked bottom on his cool sheets and beckoned him over. She unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off, then took his face in her hands and kissed him.

  She moved quickly to unbuckle his belt. He gently pushed her back onto the bed and kissed the insides of her thighs before he sank his tongue between her legs and found her clitoris, balled up like a tiny fist.

  Orgasm #1. Cynthia the Lamborghini came almost immediately. Can a woman be a premature ejaculator? Vivi claimed that oral sex was the only “real” sex, that a woman couldn’t have an orgasm from straight intercourse. Cynthia would talk about oral sex only if they used a code word. Thus oral sex had become, appropriately, “French pastry.”

  Cynthia had several more French pastries—the last one in the morning before she ran off to 740 Park to pick up her ballet tights.

  She would no longer argue over French pastry with Vivienne.

  Cynthia doubted she would be calling Robert again. The night had been perfect, her entrée back into the unknown world. He had opened a door, with her frank encouragement, and she’d walked through, at one point on all fours. Robert was a booty call, not a budding relationship.

  She bade Margot goodbye. She couldn’t wait to tell Dr. Gold.

  THE DRIVER stopped the car in front of Goldie’s building and Cynthia dipped her legs into the cold air.

  His office door was locked. There was a handwritten note on the door.

  Dr. Gold’s Patients:

  Please call Miriam Ludwig. 917-555-0232. Sorry for the Inconvenience.

  Inconvenience had been capitalized. As if knowing that not seeing Dr. Gold for their scheduled appointment would be not only inconvenient but tragic. Cynthia sighed. Goldie probably needed a few extra days to recover from his procedure. She’d head back to 740 instead.

  And stop at Paillard for some French pastry on the way.

  ADRIAN struck his fist against the air as though shattering the cold, as he began his inaugural run around the Central Park reservoir. I’ve aced the final, he thought, the rest of the semester will fly by!

  Sure, he’d had a few reservations. Cynthia was almost twenty years older than he was. What would a forty-five-year-old woman feel like? What would she taste like? What would she remember, not remember, never have had?

  Adrian needn’t have worried. What was that David Lee Roth Eddie Van Halen Old School Rock Your Socks Anthem? “Hot for Teacher”? How about “Stacy’s Mom”? Oh man, Mrs. Robinson me up and down.

  Adrian had awakened after Cynthia left and thought, Oh, shit. He was not in fighting shape, given last night’s sextravaganza. He couldn’t rely on youth. He’d have to rely on vitamin supplements and weight training if last night’s fuckarama was any indication of his future sex life.

  How could Jackson Lame Ass Power let her go? Adrian thought as he jogged, one, two, one, two. Cynthia was a beast. A beautiful, elegant…beast. But what about Vivienne, he thought, as his footfall slowed. What about that kiss?

  Well, last night’s gymnastics weren’t about love. Adrian couldn’t fall in love with Cynthia. She was too mature for him. Cynthia topped him on every level: money, social standing, life experience. There was nothing he could succeed at with her, nothing he could teach her. And he wanted children. He definitely wanted kids.

  Did he have to say goodbye to Vivienne? Their sweet hello had a stranglehold on his imagination. Dustin Hoffman screwed the mom, and he still got the girl. What happened after he and Katharine Ross got off the bus?

  Adrian slowed. His legs suddenly felt like paint cans filled with cement. His lungs were seared.

  He turned on his heel and headed home.

  TWO NIGHTS. Jacks had called Lara over a dozen times. He’d called and he’d e-mailed and he’d even IM’d her. He’d gone by her apartment. The doorman said she’d be gone for a while, he didn’t know how long. Lara was gone.

  Jacks ached for her; his various body parts ached for her—his hard-on was waking him up in the morning, for crying out loud. He felt like he missed Lara more than he’d miss a limb.

  Jacks Power couldn’t get out of bed. He knew Lara wasn’t coming back. The realization had come to him at 3:00 A.M., in one of those fucked-up Salvador Dalí dreams that make no sense when you’re inside its walls, but suddenly hold every truth of every moment of your life when illuminated in the white morning.

  That dream was the fucking Gettysburg Address of Jacks’s life.

  You are not going to be loved again in this lifetime. You do not deserve love.

  (Intercom beeping. His butler: “Mr. Power, Petre is waiting for you in the gym.”)

  Wasn’t self-pity, Jacks told himself, his eyes dodging blades of sunshine from his prone position. He wondered whether Cynthia was still sleeping in the master, whether she’d even made it home from Adrian’s apartment. From his apartment. Then he thought about the conquests he’d made there.

  (Intercom beeping: “Mr. Power, are you there? You’ve missed several phone calls—”)

  Lara was gone. There was nothing to strive for anymore. Jacks didn’t have to try. He didn’t have to seek. He could just be. He was almost relieved.

  Jacks knew a billionaire, a Manhattan Gargoyle. Traveled with a medical doctor. They’d all cheat death, all of them. Who among them had died? Death was a rarity in this group, as though they’d rewritten their DNA. Were they gods, these Gargoyles?

  (Intercom beeping: “Mr. Power, Petre has to leave for his next client. Mr. Power?” Mumbling in the background. Hurried, muffled.)

  Each Gargoyle had a phobia. Some were afraid of flying, some of heights, some of elevators, most were germaphobes and hypochondriacs. They were superstitious. They took special precautions. Don’t step on a crack. Don’t fly into this airport. Sleep with the lights on. Don’t look down. No elevators! Take the stairs to the twentieth floor. Don’t shake hands. Don’t venture into a movie theater. Don’t kiss your child when he’s got the sniffles.

  Their fears mirrored the size of their holdings. And suddenly, this morning, Jackson knew the truth: they were afraid because none of them were lovable. Could they even say their own mothers should love them?

  So the Gargoyle who traveled with his doctor. He was short. Looked like a thumb. Married four times. Last wife lasted almost six years, he divorced her, catching her by surprise. He was engaged again within five months. Not unusual for this crowd. Jacks spent time with him between marriage and engagement. It was like watching a short, bald panther, pacing in a cage made of red leather booths with muted light. His eyes scattered wildly, throwing sparks over the new downtown watering hole they called their own. What girl could he find now? Who hadn’t he found? Who? Fix me up, he implored Jacks. You’ve got women on the side, blondes, redheads, fix me up, he said. I’m a single man, isn’t that great, fix me up with someone. I’m single. Living the dream, buddy, living the dream!

  (Knock at the door: “Mr. Power, we’ve talked among ourselves, Mr. Power, perhaps you should open the door—”)

  We are not lovable. So why do we try? What do we have to prove? What is the goddamned point?

  (“We are opening this door, Mr. Power! I’m putting the key in the lock!”)

  Then he thought of the one person who could help him, whose ancestors could raise the dead—

  If he wasn’t mistaken, Jacks thought, today was Sunday.

  Gordo and a maid stood in the doorway of the sitting room in the guest wing, from where they could see a human blur hurtling toward the bathroom.

  “Get me my secretary!” the blur shouted before slamming the door. “Get me Caprice!”

  “WE ARE not goink to Bronx,” Harry said.

  Certain people you don’t argue with: mothers-in-law, parking attendants, toddlers, Gargoyles, Harry.

  “I have to go to church,” Jacks said, “and we’re late, come on.” He was slouching like an angry child in the depths of the limo. Harry was staring at him, his layered face purple, his shave
job ill-advised. Sunday mornings he usually had off.

  “I not come here to go to Bronx!”

  “If you don’t start this car right now, you’re fired—”

  “Goot. I get day off.” Harry opened the door.

  “Wait—wait—shit, shit, I’ll drive, fuck, I’ll drive!”

  Jacks got out, slammed the door, and started tugging on Harry’s ridiculous coat, trying to pull him out of the car. Harry’s pajamas peeked out.

  “I’m no let you drive this car! You crazy!”

  “Then you drive, you dumb Russki!” Jacks yelled.

  Harry looked at him. Jacks felt five hundred years of bloody history bearing down on him. Then Harry’s expression changed—his features fell into a relaxed position, and he started laughing—until tears formed in his big smoky eyes and grazed his grizzled cheeks.

  “Get in back!” he said to Jacks, pushing the words out over guffaws. Jacks did as he was told.

  “Ruuuu-ski!” Harry crowed as he threw the car into drive and peeled out.

  HARRY lit a cigarette with one hand as he maneuvered the limo, drawing circles with the steering wheel with the butt of his other hand, into a red zone on the curb outside the church.

  He got out and leaned his body against the car, welcoming the stares of passersby. Yes, that’s right, that’s right. It’s nice car, this car, he’s rich man, but you have to go through me, the Russian, the Ruuusski (HA!) to get to him or car. And this Russian, he is aching for a fight, give him reason to go to jail. He needs a vacation from his family, from his wife, she is driving him mad, up the wall, her nephew, he’s got baby on the way. No job. Wants to go on welfare. Bought car on credit. What credit? HA! His wife, she bought him car. Red sports car. Me? What do I got after years of this work. I got shit car. Anyway. Come through me to get to this beauty. You come through me, you over there. I see you looking.

  Harry chewed on his cigarette. The next hour would be fun. The stares would play out like a tennis match: stare in your court, no, back to you—now take that stare, kid—I worked for years on that stare. That stare stood time in Siberian prison. It is professional. Many people said to me, Harry, you should act on one of those shows. You know. Big tough guy shows.

  Why? The stare.

  A black lady stepped out of the crowd. She was beautiful and not deserving of this circus. Caprice.

  She nodded hello to Harry. A lady, this Caprice. Husband gone. Where was the crazy insane lunatic husband who leaves this lady?

  Harry opened the door for Jacks, who popped a mint in his mouth. His nervousness sent signals all over his body—forehead sweat, slight tremor in the hands, and behind the sunglasses, eyes blinking like a hummingbird’s wings.

  The church rose like a hooded angel with stained-glass eyes over the depressed area it served. Jacks wondered if it would it be less beautiful if it weren’t escorted by liquor stores and graffiti-covered bus stops, concrete slabs peppered with holes, brick apartments with iron bars on the windows.

  “I’ll be damned,” Jacks said, looking up at the church.

  “That’s not for us to decide, Mr. Power,” Caprice said. “Come on, then. The service is about to begin.”

  THE PLACE was standing room only. Caprice pushed her way through the crowd, muscling over to two young men with shiny, shaved heads like ebony icons, thick backs like the Jets’ defensive line, and moved them out of their seats.

  Jacks amazed himself with his newfound capacity to change. Here he was, in church. With lots and lots of black people. And he was smiling. Who said he wasn’t flexible?

  “Take those things off, Mr. Power,” Caprice said. “You don’t need no sunglasses. The Good Lord gonna find you anyway. No sense hiding in his own very house.”

  “Right,” he said. Jacks handed them to her. He hated carrying anything; he didn’t like being weighed down. And he didn’t like to mar the line of his suit.

  Caprice understood his quirks; he was worse than some, better than many. Caprice was much more intimidated by the old lion than by this cub. Mr. Artemus Power, now he was the one to look out for. She’d made sure never to be alone with him in a room. Something in his eyes—or the lack of something in his eyes—made her believe he’d died a long time ago. And the dead don’t care who they take down.

  A Haitian lady, a neighbor, had slipped a little juju into her hand one morning for protection. Caprice kept it in the drawer at her desk, reaching in and silently fingering it when Artemus Power walked by. She never looked that man in the eye, not if she could help it. She had two boys to feed, to clothe, to educate, to protect. Her baby birds weren’t set to be pushed from the nest just yet. When that day happened, she would find herself back on the island. The house she was building, next to her mother’s, it would be finished in a year or so. She’d rent it for ten more. And then, she’d live out her days there, days of color—deep, iridescent greens and blues, powerful reds and yellows, black skin and white teeth and pink lips, days of scent—ripe mangoes, the sea, the memory of her grandmother’s roast goat. She would care for her mother until she died, then she would care for herself. Her children, New Yorkers, them, they wouldn’t have to take care of their mother; she wouldn’t be a burden to any but herself.

  The Reverend Dr. Franklin Nash entered the room, his satin robe sending streaks of purple to warm Caprice’s homesick heart. He was followed by members of the choir, mostly ladies, a few men, engulfed in red, red robes. Majesty was theirs.

  Caprice knew that while God was everywhere, He penned in a special appointment in His daybook at the All-Saints Baptist Church every Sunday at 10:05 A.M.

  The choir began to sing the spiritual “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.” Pride and love and solidarity and strength in note after note, layer upon layer, lashed the church, the believers, the disciples, wounding and healing at once. The song rained soul from the rafters.

  Jacks’s head started moving to the music as though the notes had reached out and were pushing him to and fro. His eyes were closed. But did they see? Caprice wondered. Perhaps a change was coming. Anyone can change, her mother had told her. But only when their back is to the wall. Was Jacks’s back to the wall? Caprice had her doubts; Caprice always had her doubts—they fed and comforted her, like family members you were glad to see and then wondered why.

  The Reverend Dr. Franklin Nash raised his mighty arms, purple-and-white wings shimmering, then suddenly brought them down. The voices quieted to a hum, like bees in an enormous, splendorous hive.

  Caprice felt a thrill run through her bones. She laid a hand upon her chest. The heart her ex accused her of not having echoed, a staccato beat. The good pastor, a slight man famous beyond these walls, began filling the great church with speech.

  Jacks was taken aback by the Reverend Dr.’s booming voice; it belonged to a middle linebacker with a dash of Barry White thrown in. Jacks jumped in his seat as the audience hollered, sang out, and generally parroted the reverend’s speech. Jacks saw women in tears, men wiping their eyes, children holding their hands in the air to better touch the words.

  Jacks wondered why he didn’t feel much of anything, except thirst and hunger. White people are just different; maybe we’ve proven that we’re heartless. Could he leave? Could he just tell Caprice thank you, I’ll see you tomorrow, we have an early meeting, remember?

  Jacks rose two inches; Caprice turned toward him, and just as his voice was finding daylight—

  “You there!” another voice called.

  The booming voice had him by the throat.

  “Did you not find what you were looking for here, my son?”

  Jacks’s eyes turned toward the billowing robes as he was pushed back down by that voice. The Reverend Dr. Franklin Nash looked like Shaquille O’Neal when looking down on you.

  “I think I have a story to tell this man,” the reverend said, looking around the church.

  “Lay it on, doctor!” a woman screamed.

  “Don’t hold back, now!”

  Did the vo
ices seem eager?…bloodthirsty?

  “You have lost your way, son!” the reverend bellowed. “You have lost your way, and you were hoping to find yourself in our little church, is that it, young man?”

  Young man? Jacks opened his mouth to speak, then shut it.

  “Give it to me!” a man yelled. “I need a piece of that!”

  “I hear ya!”

  “That’s how I roll! I roll with Jesus!”

  “This little sheep, people,” the reverend said, “this little sheep has lost his way!”

  “Sheep!”

  “Baa. Yes, sir!”

  “We gonna help him find his way home,” the reverend said.

  “But we all black sheep here!”

  Laughter.

  “But it ain’t gonna be Park Avenue, and it ain’t Fifth Avenue and it ain’t Bergdorf’s, people! That is not home!”

  “Amen, brother!”

  “Is home on a private jet?”

  “No, SIR!”

  “Is home on an island with bikini-clad harlots?”

  “Uh-UH!”

  “I roll with JESUS!”

  “Is home committing adultery?”

  “Is home drinking alcohol?”

  “Is home eating fried food, destroying our bodies?”

  “No!”

  “Good Lord!”

  “Is home living in sin?”

  “Lord help us all!”

  “Is home letting another man raise your children?”

  “Lord help the sinner!”

  “Is home living rich, eating cha-teau-bri-and and sipping champagne while your brothers and sisters starve?”

  “No, doctor sir!”

  “Where is home, brothers and sisters?”

  “Tell us, Brother Franklin!”

  “We LISTENIN’!”