Love Like Hallelujah (9 page)

Darius stopped, dick hard and pulsing. “Did you hear that, baby?”

Bo pushed back against Darius, eager for the coupling to begin. “What, I didn’t hear anything.”

“Sounded like a noise.” Darius leaned over and kissed Bo’s back, shoulders, neck, as he listened for additional sounds. Hearing none, he repositioned himself behind Bo. Time to finish what his beautiful lover had started.

Frieda sat back against the patio chair, staring out over the lights of Los Angeles and sipping sparkling water. Her appetite assuaged with king crab cakes and pasta, she calmly contemplated the scene she’d witnessed earlier.
It’s a damn shame
, she thought, shaking her head.
For something that fine to not want me
. She sat her plate on the table and walked over to the stone wall surrounding the terrace. Leaning over it, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath of the night air. Two hard, tight asses popped into her mind. Frieda shouldn’t have been surprised to catch them bumping booties. But she had been.

It was cool with her, though. She wasn’t one to get in other folks’ business. Her philosophy came from her beloved grandmother, who’d spouted it when Frieda had run in at the age of eight, with the gossip that the next-door neighbor was hugging someone else’s wife. “Here’s what you do,” her grandmother had said calmly, while ironing clothes. “You take six months and tend to your business, and six months to leave others alone. Any months left? That’s when you deal with other folks’ business.” Those words had stuck, and they played in her mind now as she thought of the two handsome brothers having sex upstairs. She thought of her friend, Joe. Maybe he was somewhere getting his groove on, too.

“Aha, I found you,” a silky voice spoke against Frieda’s ear.

She turned slightly and gazed into ambrosial green eyes, flecked with gold. “Was I lost?” She turned from the stunning city view and leaned against the stone wall to observe an equally stunning human one.

“Admit it, you tried to run away from me,” the handsome stranger teased. “You came down those stairs like you’d seen a ghost.”

Frieda had been too busy running to notice any onlookers witnessing her great escape. At any rate, what she’d seen had been all too real, live, and in living, buck-naked color. But she didn’t want to get into that. “What’s your name?”

The stranger smiled. “Gorgio.”

“Ooh, sexy name. You’re what, Italian?”

“On my mother’s side. My father’s Black.”

“Well,” Frieda said flirtatiously, revealing the hint of a smile, “remind me to thank your father
and
your mother the next time I see them.”

Gorgio laughed and leaned against the stone wall next to Frieda. The conversation flowed smoothly, effortlessly.
Well, well, well
, Frieda speculated.
Looks like I might get compromised tonight after all
.

Darius reached for a helping of Bo’s homemade vegetable-fried rice. He loved Bo’s cooking, and had only snacked all day, in between the two church services and a last minute band rehearsal of that night’s musical selections.

Bo placed a baked chicken breast on Darius’s plate and one on his own. “So, how was church?” he asked.

“Long,” Darius replied. “Wish you were there.”

“Baby, I told you, I’m just not feeling that. I’d take one look at you up there stroking those keys? The next thing I know, I’d be down on my knees.” Bo paused for effect. “And I’m not talking about praying.”

Darius was flattered. Bo did this for him. Made him feel good, appreciated, loved—something no woman had ever done—certainly not Gwen, his ex-wife. It’s not that he hadn’t tried, to love women, that is. Growing up in a small Arkansas town, he’d learned at an early age that being attracted to other boys was not the thing to do. Or it was not the thing to admit.

He remembered the first time it happened. He was about six years old, in gym class. He had a big crush on Bobby, a gangly, big-lipped seven-year-old, who was great at anything athletic. They were playing on the playground, wrestling. Bobby got him in a headlock. Darius wrestled back, enjoying the contact. And then for him, it turned into something else. He got the incredible urge to kiss Bobby. And he did. He went home with a loose tooth and black eye.

Then there were the fire and brimstone sermons he heard, both from the grandmother who raised him and the pastor of their Pentecostal church. Darius’s mother had abandoned him before his fourth birthday, and he’d never known his father. So, sitting with his grandmother in the first or second pew, he’d imagine the fiery hell that was every Sunday’s focus, feel the accusatory scriptures on unnatural desires, hurled out like daggers aimed at his young heart, and fear the Sodom and Gomorrah story that emphasized God’s anger and veiled His love. The preacher would mention the big ones: adultery, killing, stealing, and of course, homosexuality. But Darius noticed how other sins, such as judging, gossiping, lying, backbiting, were ignored. He remembered how he’d hear old man Johnson, his grandmother’s neighbor, come over after Darius had gone to bed. His grandmother would reach into the top cupboard, above the refrigerator, and pull out the scotch. They’d get to talking, then whispering, and then the next thing Darius heard were her bedsprings creaking. They didn’t know he knew. He was only seven, eight years old at the time. But Darius heard, and he knew.

When he was about ten years old a new boy, Frankie, moved to the neighborhood. Frankie was an outsider, a loner, from somewhere in the Midwest, Nebraska, if Darius remembered correctly. He was quiet, shy, and Darius could relate to him. Darius’s secret had made him an outsider, too, in the span of four years. So he befriended Frankie, invited him over to his house. They did the typical boy stuff: playing catch outside, ripping and running, digging for worms, and video games. Then one day, Darius invited Frankie to his room to look at his comic book collection. They were sitting on the bed, close together, looking at the pages. He doesn’t remember whose suggestion it was, but the comic books were soon covering exposed penises, penises that were each held by the other boy. It was Darius’s first erection, and the first time he’d met somebody like him. In a careless moment, one of them suggested pulling down their pants for better access. That’s how his grandmother found them when she came back from the store. Frankie scrambled out of the house, barely able to get his pants up, and Darius got a beating he would never forget. His grandmother had whipped and lectured him for half an hour, saying how she wasn’t going to raise no fags or sissies in her house. She tried to literally beat the hell out of him, calling down fire and brimstone. She told Darius she’d rather see him dead than turn into “one of them kind of men.” She’d warned him that if he ever did anything like that again, she’d put him out of her house.

Darius got scared straight, for a while. His grandmother made him go to church with her almost every day—said she was going to “cure” him. He’d always been musically gifted, and she made him start playing for the church. He enjoyed this, and tried to lose himself in the music. He repeated the rhetoric that he’d heard in church to himself: how he was bad, evil, a stench in God’s nostrils. His self-esteem plummeted, but his musical gift soared.

He promised himself he would not touch his penis again. He prayed, begged, pleaded with God to change him. He tried not to look at boys, tried not to have the feelings about them that would rise, unbidden. As he entered his teens and his friends started talking about girls, he’d join in, mimic what they were saying about what they liked, and why.

When he was fifteen, he lost his virginity. She was seventeen, and invited him to a house party. She led him to one of the bedrooms, pulled up her skirt. He tried to get an erection, tried to recapture the feelings he’d experienced when Frankie touched his penis. She laughed at him, told him he was scared. Then she’d unbuttoned her blouse, exposed her young, pert breasts. Darius had closed his eyes, thought of Frankie. As he did so, he became aroused. She jumped on it and within five minutes the deed was done. But at least he’d done it. He’d no longer have to lie about having been with a woman.

When he was sixteen, he fell in love. He and his grandmother had traveled to Dallas, to a convention of big-time preachers and gospel choirs from all over the country. It had been six years since the incident with Frankie, and while he was still attracted to men, he had never again acted it out physically. The first night in Dallas, he’d met an eighteen-year-old musician who could play the piano as if he’d invented it. Darius had watched, mesmerized, as this kid commanded the attention of the entire arena, had them eating out of his hand and shouting like crazy. After the service, he’d run up to the platform, in speechless awe. The boy, Robert, had tossed him a crooked smile, looked him up and down. “I can teach you how to play like that,” he said.

They went back to where Darius’s grandmother was sitting. She was thrilled to meet Robert, told him how “blessed of the Lord” he was, how he was a gift from heaven, a gift from God. When Darius asked if he could stay in Robert’s room and learn some new chords, his grandmother didn’t hesitate to say yes, smiling broadly as she waved them off. She was already envisioning Darius on the stage, doing what Robert had done. Like him, her grandson was going to be a star!

They went back to Robert’s room, stopped to get something to eat on the way, and discussed music over burgers and fries. Robert looked at him a couple times. Their eyes held a little too long for friendship, more like the length for lovers. Darius’s heart skipped a beat. When finished eating, they went over to the portable keyboard that was set up in a corner of the room. Robert suggested Darius sit down, show him what he could do. Darius started with a simple run up the keys, then started playing “Precious Lord.” Somewhere between “When my way grows drear” and “precious Lord lingers near” Robert reached over and rubbed Darius’s neck. Darius kept playing, thinking maybe it had been an accidental brush. Robert sat down then, placed his arm around Darius’s shoulder. Darius kept playing, the music speeding up with his heartbeat. Robert began rubbing Darius’s arm, up and down. He was looking at him again, with the long, lover stare. Darius stopped playing. He turned and looked at Robert, in his eyes, at his lips. They kissed. Tentatively at first and then with passion, tongues swirling, arms entwined. Darius experienced his first male lover. And he knew in that moment that his life would never be the same.

“Hey, lover boy, where’d you go?” Bo looked at Darius, a bit concerned. Darius hadn’t realized he’d eaten his entire plate of stir-fry without saying a word. “You were a million miles away.”

“I was thinking,” Darius said, getting up and taking his and Bo’s plates to the sink.

“About what?”

“About how unfair life is. How I want to be with you but everybody else wants me to be with Stacy.”

“Is that poodle still hounding you?”

“Please, she’s even enlisted Tanya to plead her case. Got my sis asking all kinds of questions about why I don’t take Stacy out, and when am I going to get remarried, and how nice she is, and how good a wife she’d make.”

Bo started rinsing dishes, placing them in the dishwasher. “I told you we should get out of this town, go to San Francisco, or Seattle. I’ve got great connections there. We could have a wonderful life.”

Darius leaned on the counter, watching Bo at the sink. “I’ve got to do something, because I sure don’t want to go through the motions of being married again.” He walked over and began to massage Bo’s shoulders. “Unless it’s to you.”

“Husband, come to me!” Millicent commanded.

Cy looked at her and was up in an instant. “Yes, darling, I’m coming. It is our time. I want you, and only you, to be my wife.”

Millicent waited as he crossed the room, her heart bursting with love. The congregation cheered as Cy reached her side, took her hand, and pulled her close. Derrick and Vivian stood in the pulpit, two proud parents cheering them on. This moment was everything she’d ever envisioned. She couldn’t be happier. She was marrying the man of her dreams.

And then they were dancing: down the aisles, out the door, across the parking lot, and through a meadow filled with flowers. The well-wishing cheers of the congregation, who’d followed them out to the parking lot, dimmed as they moved farther and farther away. Suddenly, they were alone, the sound of classical music surrounding them.

Cy pulled Millicent to his chest and kissed her passionately. “I can’t wait any longer,” he said, panting. “I want you, I want you now!”

“Yes, take me, take me!” Millicent replied. She began tearing off her Dolce and Gabbana suit, its worth nothing compared to the treasure in front of her. “I’m yours darling, I’m yours!”

The music got louder. Cy stepped back to drink in Millicent’s beauty. He reached for his tie and slowly loosened it. Then one by one, he unbuttoned his shirt and took it off. His chest was model perfect. A faint line of hair from his chest disappeared into his waistband. Millicent couldn’t wait to follow that trail.

Barely breathing, she watched as he took off his shirt and threw it in the grass. Next, he took off his shoes, unbuckled his belt, and removed his pants, throwing them into the growing pile of discarded garments.

The music got louder, still. Millicent’s heart beat wildly. She stared at the bulge pressing against the black silk Calvin Klein boxers. Her mouth watered. She looked up at Cy’s face. He was smiling at her, dazzling white teeth in a face that made her warm all over.

“Do you want me?” Cy asked, teasing.

“Yes, yes!” Millicent replied. To prove her point, she grabbed the boxers and yanked them down. Cy’s penis jumped out, large and lively, with a life of its own.

The music reached a crescendo. Millicent dropped to her knees, ready to show her appreciation. She opened her eyes to guide the massive head into her mouth. But something was wrong. The tip of Cy’s dick didn’t look right. It looked like it had a face. Yes, there was definitely a face on the head of his dick. Mesmerized, Millicent looked closer to make out the features, and stared into the eyes of…Hope Jones!

Millicent’s heart pounded as she sat straight up in bed. Her nightgown, drenched in sweat, was tangled around her long legs. The music from her dream still reached her ears. She looked around, confused, until it registered that the sound was her radio, the alarm having been set to
radio wake up
. Millicent shook her head, trying to clear it. The dream had seemed so real. Only it hadn’t been a dream, but a nightmare. She never should have eaten jalapeño peppers before going to bed.

Maybe if I could see him again, talk to him, apologize
. Maybe the abrupt way their friendship ended was why Cy continued to haunt Millicent, even in her dreams. But how could she get to him without Hope finding out? Millicent felt her dream might symbolize just how tightly Hope was guarding Cy’s penis!

“Forget him!” Millicent said, almost screamed, to the empty room. Her current train of thought was leading nowhere.
I’ve got to keep my mind occupied
. She peeled off her nightgown and stepped in the shower, letting the water, almost cold, bring her fully awake. Once out, she dried off and dressed quickly. Less than fifteen minutes after waking up, Millicent was in her car, headed to wherever.

Millicent stopped at the Starbucks just down the street from her home. She needed to be around people. As usual, this popular coffee haunt was crowded. For once, Millicent didn’t mind. After ordering a soy chai latte and blueberry muffin, she took the morning paper to an outside table. She bypassed news, sports, and want ads, and scanned the arts and sales sections. Nothing could transport Millicent to a better mood faster than a great museum or art exhibit. She noted an art show happening in San Diego, and finishing the last of her muffin, headed for Interstate 5.

Three hours later, Millicent got back in her car, pleased with her purchases of an abstract painting for her dining room, a small waterfall just right for her patio, and a figurine urn that would occupy an empty corner in her living room. The art show had been wonderful, featuring several local as well as national and international artists and sculptors. There had also been food stands, juice bars, and live music. The atmosphere had certainly helped to lighten her mood.

But she wasn’t ready to go home and face the ghosts she’d left there. Instead, Millicent decided to continue shopping. Next on her list was either an ottoman or side table for the overstuffed armchair she’d purchased to complement her sleek, suede couch. But where to look? Millicent wished she’d browsed the furniture ads before she’d left Starbucks.

Just as she was about to give up the search and enter the freeway on-ramp toward La Jolla, Millicent spotted a strip mall with the word “Furniture” on the tenant sign. Instead of the highway, she got into the left-hand lane and swung into the parking lot.

My,
she thought after having to park several businesses down from the furniture store,
this is a busy place.
It didn’t matter. The June sun was out, the temperature lovely, and Millicent had nothing but time.

As she neared the buildings, the faint sounds of beautiful music floated out with the gentle breeze.
Is that a harp?
Millicent walked toward the sound of the music and found herself in front of the double doors of the corner building. She looked up, but saw no sign. She heard the music though, and it was enchanting, indeed a harp. It had been a long time since she’d heard this instrument played live. Millicent opened the doors and went inside.

Upon entering the building, Millicent was greeted by two pleasantly smiling women. One, a cute brunette with caring brown eyes, dressed casually in jeans and a floral blouse, smiled broadly. “Good afternoon!”

“Good afternoon,” Millicent replied. “I heard the music and had to come in. It’s lovely.”

“Go right in,” the pretty blonde next to her encouraged. “Elena is quite an accomplished harpist. Her music will bless your soul.”

Millicent was sure of that; it was soothing her soul already. But had the woman said “bless”? Was this a religious concert? Millicent fought the fear that rose up quickly. What did it matter if it was? Didn’t she love the Lord? If this was a concert featuring Christian music, it was time for her to face whatever crazy fears she had about sitting among the saints. And what a great place to do it. The atmosphere was casual, the setting equally so, and there was beautiful music. What more could she ask for?

With a steely resolve, she reached for the doors and stepped inside. There was nothing religious-looking about the unadorned space. The gathering was small, only a couple of hundred or so. They were seated in a circular fashion, with the stage directly in front of her. There was no usher, so she quickly found a seat. As the harpist strummed fluidly over the strings, she closed her eyes and gave in to the peace the music evoked. When the song ended, Millicent opened her eyes and smiled. The unfamiliar melody had felt like worship. It had felt incredible; she was suffused with the presence of God in an instant, and the last traces of her dream about Cy were washed away.

The woman next to her smiled. “Wasn’t that beautiful?”

Millicent could only nod as tears formed in her eyes. She felt if she opened her mouth, an emotional dam would burst.

The woman seemed to understand and gently squeezed her arm. “That was ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone,’ one of my favorites. But, my dear sister, I think God had Elena play that just for you.” And then, as an afterthought, the woman added, “Welcome, welcome to Open Arms.”