Read Online Aching For It by Stanley Bennett Clay - Free Book Online

tiptoed out to
the balcony so as not to disturb Étie still asleep in our bed.
    “Junie?”
    “Yeah, it’s me.”
    “What time is it?”
    “Seven,” I said without checking my wristwatch. A
copper-toned housekeeping lady, smart and alert in her crisp morning uniform on
the walkway below, her arms filled with fresh towels and linen, smiled up at me
with a quizzical blush. That’s when I realized I was standing out there in
God’s great sunshine wearing only my Calvins. I returned her smile meekly then
scooted back in, hushing myself in my near clumsy stumble at the sudden sight
of my baby’s sweet slumber.
    “Junie, I told you…” She yawned.
    “I know, I know,” I whispered. “It’s early, I’m sorry, but I
really need to talk to you.”
    “Not now, Junie. I have company.”
    “It sounds like your company is asleep.”
    “Okay, look,” she surrendered. “I’m getting up. I’ll give you
a few minutes and then I’m going back to bed.”
    “Thank you. Now can you do me a favor?”
    “What?”
    “Stay away from Sylvester Winfrey.”
    “Oh come on, Junie. Are you back on that again?”
    “Frankie, you don’t know this fool. He could blow the whole
marriage thing for us.”
    “How? What do you think he’s going to do? Run down to the
embassy and turn us in?”
    “I wouldn’t put it past him.”
    “But why would he do a thing like that?”
    “Because he’s Sylvester Winfrey!”
    “Yeah, but I thought you guys were friends?”
    “Acquaintances, Frankie. We’re just acquaintances.”
    “Did you and Sylvester have a thing?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Did you and Sylvester have a thing? The way you’re
tripping, it sounds like you and he had a thing.”
    “Sylvester and I did not have a thing.”
    “Then why are you tripping?”
    How could I explain it to her? Sylvester Winfrey was the
last person on Earth who needed to know even the slightest details of our
immigration plans for Étie. And no! Sylvester Winfrey and Jesse Lee Templeton
III definitely did not have a thing! But that she, my sister, had married my
boyfriend in order to get him to America was way too much information to share
with anyone , let alone someone of Sylvester Winfrey’s vicious nature.
    It was bad enough that Frankie had befriended Sylvester,
though I’m sure once Sylvester realized she was my sister, he oiled her for
everything she was worth, fishing for the slightest tidbit, a morsel here, a
breadcrumb there, that would give him an upper hand over the one who got away.
Well, sort of got away.
    “Sorry, Junie. But Edgar just woke up and he’s got the most
exclamatory morning hard-on.”
    “Frankie!” But she had already hung up.
    I don’t know what repulsed me more, the idea of my sexually
gluttonous sibling getting her sugar walls glistened by my lover’s ex-boyfriend
or the idea of her, caught up in a mixture of gratitude, lip-loosening Cuba
Libres and the liberating island heat, sharing more than she needed.
    Okay, okay. Full disclosure. Sylvester and I do have a bit
of history. I met Sylvester when I ran track for USC and he was on the
LSU-Shreveport team. We met during a national meet that pitted our respective
teams against each other. The fact that we were the fastest on our teams
created a special rivalry, admiration and kinship.
    As the star of the host team, I gave Sylvester the grand
tour of my beloved Los Angeles once I had kicked his ass on the track. He
seemed a gracious enough loser and, just as graciously, accepted my
hospitality—Disneyland, a Lakers game, Universal Studios.
    I wasn’t surprised when, after a fierce workout at Bally’s
in Hollywood, he asked me, “So where does ‘family’ hang out?” After all, I saw
how he was checking out the shower room trade and how he was checking me out as
I dutifully lotioned my naked body. The perusal was not mutual. I liked
Sylvester well enough, but not well enough to, well, explore any possibilities
beyond a polite friendship. Besides, although I