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

was out, I wasn’t sexually
active yet and Sylvester was in no way, shape or form going to be my first
encounter.
    Nevertheless, we hung out until it was time for him to
return to Shreveport. I introduced him to the local watering holes of LA’s
black gay male community of the day—The Catch One, The Study and The
Horizon—affectionately known as the Whore Zone. He was impressed and wanted to
show his gratitude for the tour and our friendship, and wanted to cap our
farewell with a bottle of Cristal back at his room at the Bonaventure Hotel.
    It sounded cool enough to me, although the thought of such a
pricey champagne expenditure was a little rich for my student-stipend
existence.
    The last thing I remembered was the popping of the champagne
cork.
    It would be a long time before I realized that night marked
the popping of more than a champagne cork.
    The next morning I woke up in Sylvester’s bed with a
pounding headache, cum stains crusted on my chest, a sore asshole and not a
clue as to what had happened, although one would have to be totally clueless
not to decipher the tea leaves strewn so blatantly about the room.
    I don’t remember being drunk, but if I was, how could I
remember what a drunken stupor would not allow me to remember? But I know me. I
had never been a big drinker. I always did things in moderation—well, most
things. I did go rather buck wild the first time I went down to the DR, before
meeting Étie, before falling in love with him, which returned me to my
sensibility and my sanity. And I’ve never been big on drugs.
    Now don’t get me wrong. Over the years, I have certainly
smoked more grass than Bill Clinton claimed he did and tooted about the same
amount of coke Obama copped to. But drugs really weren’t my thing.
    So what happened? How did I lose a chunk of time and my
virginity to someone I had absolutely no sexual attraction to? Was I a closeted
ho or just an automatic one?
    I was too embarrassed to ask Sylvester what had happened
though that Cheshire smile of satisfaction he sported spoke volumes.
    Over the years, Sylvester and I kept in contact. We weren’t
great friends, but we were friendly enough. We often found ourselves running
into each other at various community political fundraisers, national pride
celebrations and events like the National Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership
Forum’s annual conferences.
    His dubious claims of being Oprah’s distant cousin didn’t
impress those in the community who were informed enough to know better, but it
did lure many a young unconnected boy-toy hunk or a
body-by-Fischer-brains-by-Mattel opportunist between his sheets, so I was told.
And it would be years before I realized he had other tools at his disposal.
Sylvester had been dealing drugs for years, as far back as his college days at
LSU, which explained why he was able to foot the bill for an expensive bottle
of Cristal in a suite at the Bonaventure Hotel where I lost my cherry to him.
    “Watch out for Sylvester,” Will Champion warned me when I
realized Sylvester and I would both be on Will’s cruise to the Falklands.
“He’ll drop a roofie on you in a minute.”
    “A roofie?” I asked incredulously.
    “The date-rape drug.”
    “Get the fuck outta here!”
    “Serious, Jesse. Just watch your back…literally.”
    Could that have been what had happened to me? Had Sylvester
Winfrey dropped a date-rape pill in my glass of Cristal? At first, it was
simply hard to believe that he was capable of such notorious malfeasance. But Will
had never been one for idle gossip and unfounded accusations. I wouldn’t even
know how to approach Sylvester with such an outrageous accusation.
    The thought of being date-raped is as unthinkable as it is
possible and suddenly, after all those years, I finally allowed myself to wrap
my mind around such a ridiculously insidious idea. I was not a ho! I had been
date-raped by Sylvester Winfrey. And if he was capable of that, he was capable
of