Politics. Escorts. Blackmail. (18 page)

Saturday—March 10, 2012

M
ore than a month had gone by since Beryl had spilled the beans on Kemba’s profession. He made sure to watch the latest newscasts to stay informed on the case. He knew that Money was still in jail, so his stream of income was cut off. He received e-mails from media outlets that he ignored, and he had not yet heard back from investigators.

He was still renting a room at the Aloft hotel in Harlem. He kept a close eye on his bank account to make sure it wasn’t frozen. He didn’t want to withdraw his funds and possibly raise a red flag by removing any amount in cash over ten thousand dollars. He just hoped the charges against Lip Service would be dropped, or some deal would be struck, and it would all go away, and that all of the unfolding caused by Beryl would be zipped up.

When he’d come to New York from Kenya with Beryl, he came to a new world and hadn’t taken the time to build up a social circle. He hadn’t heard from his mother since she left him, and he hadn’t seen his father since he was twelve.

All he did now was work out at the gym. He kept an eye out for anyone who might try and get a picture of him, who might find out he was registered at the hotel or had the gym membership. For the most part he sat in his hotel room, worked out, ignored unknown calls, and just waited.

The one person he did talk to a lot was Romeo, who seemed to be living on cloud nine since the scandal broke. Romeo’s workload had increased significantly, even though it appeared the world of escorting was under a microscope. He told Kemba that people were more curious than ever about it. More people, more business, more money, and more of a desire to fill the need.

On a rainy afternoon, Kemba lay across the leather sofa in Romeo’s living room. Romeo said, “You’re sitting up there worried about Money Watts, who doesn’t give a damn about you.”

“I’m not worried about her at all. I’m worried about this coming down on me.” Kemba massaged his forehead with his left hand.

“She runs the risk of being convicted of pandering. She committed the act of arranging the appointments, she was the go-between—or procurer, as they say—of the sex. Not you. No money exchanged hands between you and the clients, right?”

“Right.”

Romeo sounded sure. “So lighten up. If anything, you’d be a material witness. Nothing more.”

“You can’t guarantee that.”

“Dude. Prostitution’s the act of providing sexual favors to another in return for payment. You didn’t get paid by the client for the act.”

“Yeah, but I got paid.”

“You got paid as an employee. Trust me, man, I’ve seen this before.”

Kemba turned to Romeo, who sat in the recliner. “You should be a damn attorney then. It’s not that easy.”

Romeo broke it down. “Most of the hookers you see are streetwalkers, getting handed cash. Like in some of my cases. You rarely see them spend more than a night in jail. The police aren’t looking for them unless they’re looking to see the trail that leads from them to the top person. The prostitution ring. Money and I, we’re the ones they want. The big fish. We take the risk and we get the money. In New York with budget cuts, they’re not doing all the stings they did or patrolling the streets like they used to. I know some folks who tell me things.” He stood and walked to the sliding glass door of the balcony, looking out. “Now enough with Ho-ing Law 101. What you need to do is get your big ass up and come to work.” He turned back to Kemba.

Kemba picked up the remote but didn’t turn on the TV. He tossed it up and caught it as he spoke. “Man, I don’t know. I think I should just stay low-key a while longer until they subpoena me.”

“They’re working on the senator, dude. He’s a really big fish. And I guarantee you, if he was a client of Lip Service he was a client of other escort companies, too. And besides, I heard about some pink book Money has. If there’s mention of sex acts and names in there, she’s done.”

Kemba set the remote back down. “Pink book?”

“Yeah. Never heard of it?” Romeo asked, sitting back down.

“No.” Kemba turned onto his back again. “Damn, man. Obviously, you’re cool with her being in jail. You’re happy Money’s going through this.”

Romeo gave a half laugh. “True. I don’t give a fuck about her. She took Midori from me. Or should I say, I handed her over for a whole lot less than she was worth. Then she talked shit and got her business going using one-quarter of the people I had working for me. But you know, I was trying to get Midori back, but I realize now, with all Money’s going through, Midori’s blood and that’s thicker than water, so she’ll be the devoted little sister for the time being. I’m not thinking about her. I want you. I want you to work for me. So get your ass up and make us some money. Tonight.”

Kemba eyed him down. “With who?”

“I have a woman staying at the Marriott downtown.”

Kemba adjusted the soft pillow under his head, giving a heavy sigh. “Marriott? I don’t know if I should go there. That’s where I met Ursula.”

“I heard. But hey, you don’t need to check in. She’s checked in so just go right up. Be there at nine. I’ve got the payment handled. You get half. And by the way, she’s in drag,” he said as if it was nothing.

Kemba raised his head and gave a crazy stare. “By the way what? In drag? She’s dressed as a man?” His three questions sounded like one.

“No. It’s a he. A TV. He’s a transvestite. He dresses as a woman.”

Kemba moved his legs from the sofa and sat up. “Again with this shit? Here you are trying to get me to work for you, and you have the nerve to assign me to a man!”

“You don’t have to do any penetration. You don’t have to do him. He’s dressed the way he’s dressed, just like a chick, but with a dick. He does you with his mouth. I’ve got a couple of guys who do him, but he wants someone new. He pays a lot. He’s an ex–soccer player. Freaky, I know, but you’ve seen freaky before in this business, I’m sure. You’re in the biz, you know the kink. So, you down with it or not?”

Kemba’s bare feet were against the expensive carpeting. His toes dug into the pile threads. He put his hand to his forehead again and asked, “How much?”

“You get fifteen hundred.”

“Damn.” His brain wheels were spinning. He was searching his thoughts to see if he had enough nerve.

Romeo said matter-of-factly, “Kemba, get with it. Women seek men more than ever now, but most men in this business go both ways. They just make sure to protect themselves. Whether it turns them on or not, it’s up to them. But, its money. It’s work. It’s reality.”

Kemba released the deep sound of exasperation mixed with acquiescence. “How will you let me know the room number after check-in?”

“I’ll text you. I do this all myself. No middle person. A middle man just makes for one more person to cave in when the heat gets hot. You just text me when you get there. Your name is still Harlem. Just text
Harlem
.”

“Got it,” he said, though his face looked unsure.

“Good.”

Dammit.

Three hours later, big-ass butterflies banged around in Kemba’s stomach. His penis was saying,
I don’t know about this.

He rode the elevator to the fifth floor and exited, noticing wall signs pointing the way to his destination. It was 8:59, and he wished the one minute he had left until he had to knock on the door would never pass. The thought of having sex with men, money or not, had him messed up.

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.”

Saturday—March 10, 2012

T
he 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 pocket 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.