Butterflies in Heat (30 page)

The idea of Ralph ever loving anyone was more than Numie could imagine.

"I don't expect total devotion," Ralph said, continuing his monologue. "But I do want respect. The rough trade I've patronized treats me like filth." He stopped abruptly. "And I feel like filth when I've finished with them."

Numie sniffed the air. It suggested exotic flowers, the names of which he didn't know. He looked up at Ralph" "Just what are you leading up to?"

"The day on the island when I kissed you."

At this, Numie sat up. Having sex with men was one thing. Talking about it later was yet another.

"To you," Ralph said, "that was nothing. I know hustlers don't like to be kissed. But it was a big event in my life. I'd never kissed a man before—not even my father on the cheek."

Numie brushed his still wet hair out of his face. Could Leonora be overhearing this conversation? Worse, Anne?

"Now isn't that ridiculous?" Ralph asked. "I've sucked their cocks, but never kissed them on the mouth. Somehow sucking a cock always seemed more impersonal than a kiss on the mouth. I know
it
should be the other way around. But kiss you I did."

"

The soft dazzling strokes of sunset broke through the trees, making images on the sparkling water. From an overhanging branch, leaves fell into the pool. Birds darted about. The bugs and flies of a Tortuga night were about to begin their descent.

"You had sex with me twice," Numie said emphatically, "although you told me you never went in for repeats"

"That's right," Ralph answered. "I never told you this." He reached for Numie's hand which was reluctantly offered. "But the second time with you—at the hotel—was much better than the first."

"Thanks," Numie said, slowly retrieving his hand. "I try to please"

"This afternoon I was out cruising—and I spotted some pretty good-looking numbers."

Numie withdrew. Was Ralph going to compare him unfavorably with the other men on the beach, the way Numie had done himself?

"Then I started thinking," Ralph said. "I wanted a real man, one who knows how to make love. Not some weak little boy lying on his back waiting to be done so he can collect money. Suddenly, those boys on the beach were one big tum-off. You came to mind. What would a third time be like?" He leaned closer to Numie, looking in his eyes. "I don't know what's happening to me."

Was this a dream or a nightmare? Numie wondered. Was Ralph really serious? "I think you're getting a crush on me."

Ralph smiled. He wasn't insulted. "Can you handle that?"

The night was growing darker. Numie had a sudden urge to jump back into the pool. "That's a big question. I'm very mixed up right now." He turned to look at Ralph. "I don't know what to do"

"Let me decide for you," Ralph said, moving closer. "Tell Lola—right tonight—to fuck off. Then you move in the guest cottage here"

An ominous feeling of impending doom came over Numie. "I can't do
it
just like that. I've been waiting to meet the commodore."

"What do you think he's going to do for you?" Ralph asked"

"I've been carrying around this hope he'll like me and give me a real job. Maybe on one of his boats or something. He has a big yacht."

"Bullshit!"

Numie stood his ground. "Why'd you say that?"

"He'll just use you and toss you overboard."

"I know how to swim," Numie said defiantly. "Besides, I see he owns a lot of property in this town."

"So what?"

"Maybe he'd let me manage something," Numie said. Ralph was treading on one of his few hopes, and Numie was growing more defensive by the minute.
"I
can't get very far in this world on the seventy-five dollars Leonora is paying me."

"Move in here," Ralph said, waving his hand in a grand gesture, "and I'll double your salary."

This offer surprised Numie. "Now that's a pretty good deal."

"Only thing is, I've just canceled that invitation I made to you."

"What invitation?" Numie asked.

"That you can sock it to Anne."

Numie swallowed hard.

"Now that I'm staking my claim," Ralph said, "I don't want her filthy hands on you. Hear me?"

Resentment burned through Numie.
"I
hear you."

"I feel I can get very jealous, and it's a new emotion for me."

"I bet you'd be pretty good at it," Numie said with a slight touch of sarcasm in his voice. "I've got to be going."

"I want you back here tonight," Ralph commanded.

At first, Numie stood glaring at him. He didn't like to be ordered around like this. Everybody on this goddamn island seemed to be his boss. "See you later," he said in a vague, non-committal way.

Ralph grabbed Numie's arm. "You're forgetting something."

Numie started to pull away, but finally stood still.

"When you leave your
lover,"
Ralph said, "you kiss him good-bye."

Numie's lips brushed Ralph's. He closed his eyes, thinking of something else.

"

"Not like that," Ralph said, grabbing again. Ralph not only kissed hard this time, but bit Numie's lower lip.

In pain, Numie jumped back. "Why did you do that, man?" he asked, ready to strike Ralph at this point.

Through drunken eyes, Ralph looked up at him. "I just want you to remember who you belong to. The pain on your lip will remind you"

In the night air with a sore lip, Numie decided to walk back to Commodore Philip's. For a hustler whom Joan had said was washed up—just this morning at the whorehouse—he was getting more offers than he could handle. Not quite out of the game yet.

But unlike the offers in his past for one-night stands, these were entangling. Lola or Ralph, each offer was strangely disturbing. He foresaw little good coming from either.S

To begin with, he didn't like Ralph, and he positively hated Lola. Further, he'd always been a loner. He didn't know if he could take to the role of being someone's boy. Especially someone he didn't like to be with that much.

At first he was a little flattered by Ralph's offer, but then he started to resent it. His manhood up for sale to the highest bidder. Ralph just seemed to be buying him, taking him without his consent. Yet Numie had clearly placed himself in that position. S0 why resent the person who took the option? Rather, be grateful.

He was complaining too much. The guest cottage at Sacre-Coeur was one hell of a lot better than the filthy subterranean toilets of New York's subway system.

As he neared the bar, Lola's white Facel-Vega was gleaming under the streetlamp. But behind it was a 1938 Rolls-Royce.

He knew at once the mysterious Commodore Philip had returned from the mainland.

For the occasion, Lola was wearing a satin evening blazer covered with huge sequin dots the color of cherries. Behind the bar, she spotted Numie, then said, "Bout time you showed up.
He's
back!" A tall cooler in hand, she rushed to a table in the rear.

There sat Commodore Philip.

At the first sight of him, Numie's heart sank.

Dressed entirely in white, the commodore was a strange creature. A straw hat rested jauntily on his miniature head, held on by a long neck from which loose flesh dangled. The neck gave way to a large, beer-barrel trunk, carried on spidery legs. He took off his hat, laying it on the table, and brushed back his wildly flowing silvery hair. Then he returned it to his head. His heavy face was lined and colored a sickly gray.

Lola placed the drink in front of the commodore, patting him on his stooped shoulder. Her insides were churning with disgust. He'd returned too soon, planning to hom in on her scene now that she'd bagged an attractive blond stud. She turned to Numie. "Every time my commodore comes home, it's Sunday chicken time."

The commodore's beady eyes fastened on Numie. He gently spat a drop of blood into a large, white handkerchief, then sank back into his seat. The position was just right. His head was on an exact parallel to Numie's waist. "This the stud you been raving and shouting so much about—you'd think you were at a holy-roller meeting, the way this gal's been carrying on."

Lola frowned at this revelation. She didn't want Numie to know how special he was.

The tiny white lights in back sent narrow beams to the front of the room, creating a touch of intimacy and privacy in the bar tonight.

Numie couldn't have been more disappointed. "The commodore's a slob—can't take his eyes off my crotch," he thought to himself. "Numie Chase," he said out loud, stepping up to the table.

The commodore was breathing heavily, as he always did when he returned to Tortuga. To him, the whole island tasted
of forbidden fruit. His eyes traveled to Numie's face. "I know who you are, and you know who
 
I
 
am. So let's not take up a busy man's time with introductions that ain't necessary." He grandly waved his hand in the air. "Sit down, boy, 'cause
 
I
 
get dizzy looking up all the time."

"Thanks," Numie said, easing into a seat opposite this aging relic with his satanic goatee.

Blinking her false eyelashes, Lola nestled up to the commodore, possessively linking her arm in his.

Philip immediately imposed a barrier of studied indifference between them. "What you drink, boy?"

"Scotch," he replied. For some reason, Numie found he was clenching and unclenching his fingers into tight fists. There was an air of turbulent suspicion about the commodore. Just as Leonora seemed to have emerged from a 1930s time capsule, the commodore went back even beyond that. He was antebellum.

"Sunshine," the commodore yelled back to the kitchen. This shout brought on a coughing spasm that lasted a full minute. A t its termination, the commodore spat some more into his handkerchief, then reached for a pill in the upper breast pocket of his white linen suite. "Scotch, huh," he managed to say.

"I'll get it," Lola said, hoping to avoid another shout and another coughing spasm. The sight of blood made her positively ill. Pretty soon the commodore would be asking her to take that dirty handkerchief upstairs and fetch him a clean one.

He pushed her back in her seat. "You're the lady of the manor tonight, you pretty little pickaninny. You ain't waiting on nobody, 'cept the boss man here." The white light coming from the back was beaming right on Lola. Christ, she was getting old! But she was the best pimp in the world, and he didn't plan to let her go. He'd settled in with her, the only person he'd ever known who gave in to any demand—no matter how outrageous. "Sunshine," he yelled again. Then, in an aside to Numie, he added, "He's my cousin." This was said as if it were the world's largest secret.

When Numie took in the full presence of Sunshine, he understood at once why the commodore wanted to keep their relationship confidential.

From the kitchen had emerged a sunken-faced, ghostly young man, about twenty years old. He'd inherited the commodore's spindly and immature legs, carrying around a trunk two sizes too big.

With prolonged and increasing loathing, the commodore studied Sunshine, then said, "Brought him from New Orleans. Works for me up on the mainland, but I decided I needed him more now in Tortuga. Get this stud hustler here a Scotch"

Numie frowned at being openly talked about as a piece of flesh. He sucked in his breath, preparing for a long evening.

"Christ, Phil, got all I can do to cook that grub you asked for," Sunshine said, in a high-pitched, petulant voice. "Got no time to run drinks."

When the commodore spoke, he sounded exhausted, as if the patience of a long life was giving way. "Do what I say, boy, or else you'll feel my boot in that skinny ass of yours" After Sunshine left, he turned to Numie. "That boy's like the rest of our family—just got no ass on us at all. Two skinny cheeks and some bones. Not enough padding to sit down on"

At this, Lola perked up. She needed some outward display of the commodore's affection which she could show off in front of Numie. "But you like my curvy little mounds, don't you?" she asked.

The commodore cocked his head to one side. Her question brought back a distant memory of some stale horror he'd rather forget. Winking at Numie, he took off his straw hat and jauntily tipped it to Lola. "Your black ass is a creamy little doorway to paradise," he said, pinching her breast.

Lola squealed with delight, except he didn't have to say black, did he?

Sunshine plopped the drink down in front of Numie, then disappeared into the kitchen in back.

Philip's eyes blazed for half a second, then faded into a motley gray. "Now Scotch indicates one thing about the personality. Shows an awful lack of imagination" At this observation, he broke into giggles. His opinions always amused him. He never knew what he was going to say next.

The glass was poised at Numie's lips. He decided to ignore the insult. Insecure johns always felt it necessary to insult him. "What's that you're drinking?" Numie asked, hoping to turn the spotlight off himself.