Legend of a Face God

Legend of a Face God 3

Chapter 3

“TELL HIM!” Valentine screams at me.

He’s desperate. He’s about to lose his fiance. The cards are all about to be laid on the table. He is panicking and he has every right to be. I have to admit, there is no hiding what happened last night. There is no hiding the fact that Valentine and I had sex.

“We fucked,” I admit.

My brother’s eyes are intense. Morocco was always someone you didn’t want to be on his bad side. He was an asshole. He could be the devil if he wanted to be. Right now, I look at him and I see the horns. Growing up I remember my Grandpa praying for him. He would want to pray the demons out of Morocco. He’d hold Morocco down to the bed. He’d almost drown Morocco in holy water. And the whole time Morocco would just sit there and smile.

I’d look from the bedroom doors and I’d swear up and down.

My brother was the devil himself.

“You did what little boy?” he asks me.

Morocco has knife in his hand. He clutches down on it. I’m so fucking scared at this moment. I look at his boyfriend Valentine. Valentine started off as trying to protect me but it seems like right now he’s just standing up to make sure that Morocco doesn’t lunge off the table and try to stab him.

“We—we—we—we…” My voice shivers. It sinks.

“SPEAK!”

Morocco’s voice is so demanding. He’s so forceful. He always has been. I can tell I’m not the only one in the room nervous about my brother’s reaction to things. They must have noticed it first hands. He goes from 0-100 very quickly. His anger issues are something that was very real.

“We fucked,” I admit.

I close my eyes. I’m ready for him to stab me. Hell, maybe even worse. Maybe he’d try to hack my head off. I saw the way he looked at Valentine. He was in love with him. I hadn’t seen anyone look at anyone else the way that my brother looked at Valentine.

Then all of a sudden a voice breaks the awkward silence that I am sure is coming before a storm.

“He’s right. We fucked.”

But it’s not Valentine who says it. I turn and notice that Laurence actually is talking. I open my eyes and look over at Laurence. Laurence is sweating bullets. What THE fuck is he talking about?

“What?” Valentine asks.

My brother is just as confused, “Come again…”

Laurence isn’t looking at my brother or me. He’s looking a little nervous. I’m confused sitting there looking at him. I don’t want to say anything because I’m just as lost as everyone else is. Why the fuck is Laurence getting involved in this at all?

“We had sex,” Laurence goes on, “We fucked. We hunched. We rocked the boat. We got it popping. We hooked up. We…”

“I get it,” Morocco responds shaking his head.

He just stops talking. This is the first time that I’ve seen Morocco not go off when something unexpected happens. Instead of going off Morocco just looks down at the table. He just begins to shake his head. I don’t know what emotion he’s showing me at this moment.

“Say something,” Laurence responds.

Valentine and I look at one another. If he isn’t confused as fuck then I definitely am. What the fuck just happened in this house and why is my brother not stabbing me? Why the fuck is Laurence taking the fall for having sex with me.

I didn’t have sex with Laurence.

I had sex with Valentine. I woke up in Valentine’s bed. I am beyond confused right now. I study Morocco’s face until I finally recognize what he is trying to portray. He’s disappointed. That’s what it is. Disappointment.

Morocco’s reaction is just as confusing as Laurence’s admittance, “You know what Laurence. I’m not even surprised. That’s what you do. You fuck people. How long have you known my brother? Less than 24 hours. And you can’t wait to hop on the next young dumb boy around.”

That was Morocco’s thing. He’s talking about me like I’m not even there. Young and dumb, that’s what he thought about me, his own brother.

“That’s not fair,” Laurence responds.

“I can’t deal with you right now Laurence,” Morocco states.

I’m shocked that Morocco actually looks a little bit upset as his friend as he gets up from the table. He walks towards his room.

“Baby—” Valentine tries to stop Morocco.

“Let me…” Laurence cuts Valentine off as they are walking to the rooms.

Laurence chases after my brother. It must be nice to be Morocco. It must be nice to always be the center of attention and have people chase him from room to room.

I’m standing there doing the dishes later that night. Morocco and Laurence are still making peace over Laurence telling Morocco that he and I had sex. I have no idea what’s going on but personally, I feel like I’ve dodged a bullet.

I don’t expect Valentine to come down and almost give me get a heart attack when he sneaks up behind me.

“Relax…it’s just me.”

Valentine doesn’t have a shirt on. His nipples are a pretty dark red color. He has such clear golden brown skin that is tan in color. It reflects the lights from the kitchen. He has on basketball shorts. He must have taken off his shirt in my brother’s room.

“Are they still talking?” I ask.

Valentine rolls his eyes, “Pretty much. You probably know your brother. It’s like hell making up with him after a fight.”

“He does hold grudges…” I respond.

Valentine looks at me for a minute. He’s staring at me. He’s staring at me hard. He’s so fucking sexy. He’s making sure not to stand up on me or anything like that but I’m staring at him from the corner of my eye. Even though I’m pretending to wash the dishes and be focused on that I can’t help but notice sexy ass Valentine standing there.

“So…” he says.

“So what?”

“Did you tell Laurence to do that?” he asks me.

I knew that’s what he came in the kitchen to talk about. He’s talking low. I look over at him. Even with him talking low, I don’t want to talk about this shit in this house. I just got away with murder and I planned on keeping it that way.

“I don’t know what Laurence is talking about,” I respond.

“Are you joking?” Valentine asks…

I lean up to Valentine, “I just had sex with my brother’s husband. Last night.”

“Fiance.”

“Whatever. I’m just saying no. I’m not joking sir…”

Valentine shakes his head in disbelief.

“Damn. Well maybe that’ll give us a night.”

“A night for what?”

“You know. To get our story straight,” Valentine, responds.

I look at this guy like he has two heads. What the fuck is he talking about getting our story straight? Has he completely lost his fucking mind?

“Did you just see what happened?” I asked, “We were about to tell Morocco and Laurence told him something else. That’s a sign from God. What story do I have to get straight?”

“The story about me and you making love…”

“We fucked.”

“No. I was making love,” Valentine shakes his head, “I thought you were my fiance. And I know you are pulling this whole —I don’t remember thing…”

“I’m not pulling that. I honestly don’t remember.”

Valentine gives me a look. I can tell by the look that he doesn’t believe me. I mean Valentine is probably the single sexiest man I’d ever laid eyes on. I wasn’t going to purposely fake remembering having sex with him. It was probably the best time I’ve ever had in my life and I don’t remember it.

Maybe it’s for the best.

“Whatever. You were making love to. Maybe that’s what you do to strangers…”

“Not exactly. I was a virgin…”

Valentine looks over at me, “Oh fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh fuck.”

He’s panicking. He’s walking around the room at that moment. He looks nervous as hell. I’m staring at him and not figuring it out. I mean trust I do enjoy watching him do it though. His shorts are looking sexy as fuck just barely coming off his body.

“What?” I ask him staring him up and down.

“Stop looking at me like that…” he responds.

I’m confused.

“Like…what?”

Valentine takes a deep breath, “Virgins always…fall in love with their firsts.”

“You think I’m going to fall in love with you?” I ask, “You are extremely blunt aren’t you?”

Valentine shrugs, “I just speak my mind. Which is why it’s killing me not to go upstairs and tell your brother what happened between us.”

“He is going to leave you if you tell him. You do realize that right.”

“I rather him leave me then live a lie,” Valentine responds, “I don’t lie. That’s just me. I NEVER lie. The Cavalli’s are blunt. That’s how my gay house is. If a member is getting fat, we say it. If they are getting ugly, we say it. It makes us better. In my house—you say what it is. Period.”

Jesus Christ.

“Morocco…will kill me. Not figuratively. Not…funny business. Morocco will KILL me if he finds out what we did,” I tell Valentine.

I don’t know why I’m crying at that moment. I’m scared. I’m worried. Everything just seems much worse.

“C’mere its ok…”

Valentine does something that surprises me. He grabs me. He pulls me over to him. He holds me there for a second. I almost forget that he’s my brother’s lover. In that moment as I am sitting in his arms, I feel so warm. It feels so…right. His body encircles me. His warm arms keep me safe. I allow him to do it. I allow him to warm me up and everything feels amazing until I realize just how turned on I am by him.

I pull back hard and fast.

“Sorry.”

He looks away. There is an awkwardness in the room.

I mean we did have sex. Things should be awkward between us. He was my goddam brother’s boyfriend and we fucked. We had sex. Things should have definitely not been cool with us.

“You’re really scared of him aren’t you?” Valentine asks.

I’m not embarrassed to admit it, “Fuck yes.”

Valentine shakes his head, “Fine. I won’t tell him. It’s not because I want to lie. It’s not to hide something from him. It was mistake. We will move on. We’ll pretend like nothing happened. We’ll just keep the peace. Simple as that. Agreed.”

Mistake? Not every day you are called a mistake.

I nod, “Agreed.”

=========================================================================

I wake up to a text that comes from a strange number that I don’t recognize.

It reads: HOUSE MEETING.

As I scroll down, I realize the name is spelled Nayomi. It’s clear I meant Naomi. It’s also clear that I must have been under the influence of something when I wrote it down. I didn’t know I got Naomi’s contact information. I look at the text message. My heart is pacing. I don’t know how to react to it.

I remember the thrill I got when I saw Naomi walk. It was right before I passed out. I remembered how powerful Naomi looked.

Naomi Balmain wasn’t scared of anyone. Naomi Balmain would have told her brother what she did. Hell she would have told her Brother that if he were not careful she would TAKE his man. Naomi Balmain would have no fucking regrets.

She was a bad bitch.

And me…

I was a mistake.

I text back to Naomi: WHERE?

My mouth gets dry as I go downstairs. It’s almost noon. I’m fully dressed. When I walk downstairs, I see Valentine with Morocco. Valentine has my brother cuddled up. My brother and I must have the same fucking taste because as soon as I see Valentine I’m hypnotized. Our eyes connect. It’s almost as though he feels me coming into the room. He doesn’t say anything. He just stares.

I stare back. I stop moving. I’m in a daze.

And for that moment. I swear on everything we are fucking.

“Baby what’s wrong?” Morocco asks his fiance.

He grabs his face and moves my brother’s face to his. Morocco kisses him on the lips at that moment getting his attention. I’m so fucking jealous. I hate to admit it. I would never admit out loud but what I wouldn’t give to be Morocco. What I wouldn’t give to walk in his shoes if just for a night. What I wouldn’t give to have Valentine’s lips on mine and Valentine holding me the way that he holds Morocco.

I remember the excitement of waking up to Valentine. I remember surveying his body. FUCK.

I shake at the thought of it.

I need to get him out of my mind. This shit is not healthy.

“I’m going out,” I announce walking down the stairs.

“Where you going?” Morocco asks me.

“Leave him be. He’s a grown man,” Valentine tells my brother.

Morocco gets into his usual combative stance, “He’s naive. I couldn’t leave him alone for one fucking night without him getting fucked by someone he barely knows.”

My eyes hit Valentine. Valentine stares back. If my brother only knew how true, those words really were. If he really knew how close to home his words hit.

Valentine quickly attempts to recover into the argument with my brother, “It’s good for him to be away from a couple. Laurence has locked himself in his room. You don’t want your brother being the third wheel do you?”

Morocco looks at Valentine. Then he looks at me. Then he nods slowly.

“Yeah. Maybe you’re right,” Morocco states, “Be back before dinner Israel.”

I nod and leave. As I leave, I can swear that Valentine’s eyes are catching mine again. Why does he keep staring at me? Why do I feel his eyes watching me leave?

Is it just my imagination?

“NIGGA, you lost or what,” a boy says.

I walk up to the house. It’s on the bad west side of Philadelphia. The neighborhood looks pretty beat down. I’m surprised when I pull up to the house honestly. I remember seeing how elegant Naomi looks. I wouldn’t think she would be caught dead in a place like this. I must be wrong though.

“I—I’m, uh…I’m…”

“Yo nigga speak the fuck up. YOU BETTA not be a fuckin bill collector yo. You look like a motherfucking bill collector.”

“Hex…step aside,” a man says.

The man is tall dark and handsome. He has a baldhead and one of the long Philadelphia beards that I’ve seen around. He looks tough and rough almost like he just came out of prison but I have to admit there is some sort of sex appeal about him.

“I’m looking for Naomi,” I tell the new man who is standing at the door.

The two men stare at me for a second. They are almost surveying me. They look me up and down.

“You definitely have the face,” the man states.

He puts his hand on my face. He physically manhandles me for a moment pushing my face to the right. He runs his hand down my cheek almost as though he was some sort of doctor. He lifts up my chin and looks underneath. I’m not sure what he’s looking for until he finds it. He stops at a small scratch that I had under my chin from birth.

“What?” I ask.

“No flaws except this scratch. Nothing some makeup can’t cover up,” he replies, “I’m Chaos. Chaos Balmain.”

I hold out my hand for him to shake it but he doesn’t seem to bother with it. He walks into the house leaving the door open. The other guy just stands there looking at me for a second. The other guy is a heavyset guy. I think they called him Hex or something. The heavyset guy steps aside after a minute and lets me walk through.

The house is a mess. I notice a bunch of guys who look like straight up drug dealers on one side of the room. They seem to be talking aggressively at one another. They are so aggressive that I think at any moment a fight would break out.

I ignore them though and look for Chaos. As I follow him, I notice more feminine boys in the kitchen area. The kitchen is real run down looking. It’s nothing nice. The feminine boys seem to be loud and rowdy in the kitchen. They are the true definition of hood rat ghetto. From colorful hair to loud ratchet music playing. Even the more feminine ones have a sort of edge to them.

“Ay Pretty boy…you coming or what…”

I look towards where Chaos is calling me. He looks over at me. I follow him up the stairs. He stands at a door and waits for a while.

“Naomi in here?”

“Fuck, you think I brought you up here for? My health?” he asks.

He opens the door and damn near pushes me through. I walk into the room a little scared. I didn’t expect this. I expected a mansion. I expected a classy estate in the highlands of Philadelphia. This just wasn’t it. This place was…this place was the rats.

That’s when I see her and honestly, she isn’t the classy woman that I knew before. Her hair is wrapped up. She’s still pretty. She still looks like a real woman. But she isn’t…the goddess that I had met at the first ball I ever went to.

“Naomi?” I ask.

She laughs a little bit.

“When the ball ends you take off your hair,” she talks looking in the mirror at her reflection and not even really acknowledging me, “You take off your lashes. You take off your Mac. You have the boys sell your stolen gown on the black market for half the price. You become just a fraction of yourself.”

I look at her reflection. That is when she stares at me.

“Oh,” I respond.

“Do I disappoint you?” she asks, “That I’m not that beauty you met 24/7.”

I shake my head, “It’s just…I don’t know. I was expecting something else.”

“You were expecting the grandness?” Naomi asks me, “The flash? Is that what you were expecting when you walked into this house?”

For a moment, I sit there and think about it.

“Yes.”

“It comes. And when it does. Oh brother. It comes. And you SERVE the kids. You serve them face…”

She touches her nose.

She touches her chin.

She rubs across her face.

She pretends to fling her hair away from her face.

“Is that how you serve them?” I ask.

I’m so interested.

“I’ll show you how to serve face. I’ll show you how to walk that category. Ignore all the others. Face is your category. You worry about the face kids. You walk into a room and stare a motherfucker right in their face and say, ‘My face is better than yours. My face is more BEAT. Hunny. I’m everything. You’re not.’”

“Damn…”

“Carta…Face…beauty…say it with me.”

“Carta…face…beauty.”

She smiles at that moment pulling me in, “Don’t whisper it. Announce it. No worries, it’ll come. I know trust me. One day you’ll wake up and all of a sudden, you aren’t Naomi any longer. You are the Legendary Naomi Balmain. Do you know what a legend is, hunny?”

“Yes.”

She rolls her eyes, “No you don’t. Not the way I’m saying it boy. A legend…to me…is someone who doesn’t walk balls. They have no need to walk balls. A legend STORMS a ball. Walks in and every bitch in that building knows who she is. You know a legend is not the bitch to be played with. A legend STORMS. You hear me? You know what storms means don’t you? A legend walks on the stage and a legend leaves that stage in fuckin ruins. I am talking hurricane season hunny. And this…this thing you’re looking at right now. This ain’t me. That is me. I am that legend.”

As though she is hypnotizing me, she pulls me back into this idea. Just with words. I remember how she walked up on the stage. They idolized her. I remember how they looked at her. I remember how they chanted. The stage rocked. The world rumbled when Naomi Balmain walked. She was more than a celebrity. She was some unstoppable force, and all she did was walk.

And at that moment, I’m just standing there looking at Naomi. I can picture it again even with her wearing a bonnet. I can picture it even with no makeup and wearing a torn down sundress that looked too dated.

I could see the grand vision.

“I want that,” I say.

They are the only words I can think of.

She smiles at me at that moment, “I know…”

“You do?”

“I saw it the moment you drank my drink not knowing what was in it. I saw it when you used that courage in my cup to walk up on stage. And no one knew your name. But EVERYONE wanted to. The mouths were dry hunny. Everyone wanted a little bit of that T. Cause no one could tell you anything. There are steps. First, you become a statement. Then you become a star. Then you become a legend. And no one could tell you anything. Bitch no one could tell you that you went’ already a legend.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Hell you overdosed on syrup, I don’t think you would,” she responds laughing, “But it’s in you. It’s in you down there somewhere. I’ll pull it up.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Become more than a fraction of yourself. Become HIM…”

She extends her hand to me inviting me to walk over to her. There is something exciting about what she is offering me. There is something dangerous about it. This is something that I can’t wait for. I am ready. I am excited. My heart is racing.

“Who?” I ask.

She looks at me in the mirror. I see the basic boy looking back at me. But then for some reason I look deeper and I see someone who is so much more. I see someone who would put Morocco to shame. I see someone who could walk into a room and own it.

Who? Who is he?

What’s this boy’s name?

Naomi smiles at me, “His name is Israel Balmain…”

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