Serenading Stanley (17 page)

And the banging went on and on.

“What the fuck?” Roger barked, releasing Stanley, and before he headed for the door, he pointed a finger at Stanley’s nose like a pissed-off schoolteacher. “Don’t. You. Move.”

Just because he couldn’t bear not to, Stanley kissed Roger’s fingertip while he had a chance.

Then he watched as Roger stomped toward the front door, mumbling, “This had better be good.”

They heard a crash in the hall, which drove Stanley to his feet, and by the time Roger made it to the door, Stanley was right behind, holding his arm.

Roger flung wide the door and stopped cold. “Oh, shit,” he said.

Peering over Roger’s shoulder, Stanley saw Arthur, the landlord, sprawled out on the mat with his hairy, fat legs poking out from beneath the hem of a stunning burgundy cocktail dress. His feet were crammed into red satin pumps. The man was in full stage makeup with inch-long eyelashes coated with glitter. A string of fat red beads as big as chicken eggs was draped around his neck, and atop his head he wore a bright red wig with a rhinestone tiara clamped into the middle of it.

But the dress! Even Stanley had to admit the sequins were too much. Especially with a fucking tiara.

Roger dropped to his knees and pressed his ear to Arthur’s chest. He made a face because he couldn’t hear anything, so he stabbed a hand under the bodice of that stunning burgundy cocktail dress and fished around until he plucked two bags of frozen peas from Arthur’s de´colletage. They were Jolly Green Giant peas. Sixteen-ounce bags. Arthur must have been rounding off his already voluptuous figure with a little built-in air conditioning, since it was still a thousand degrees in that stairwell.

Roger stuck his ear to Arthur’s considerably flattened bosom and tried again. When he looked relieved, Stanley figured he must have heard a heartbeat.

Roger rocked back on his heels and glowered when Arthur opened his glittery eyes, flapped his false eyelashes, and cooed, “Aren’t you sweet.” Then his tone hardened. “God, I hate those fucking stairs.”

Suddenly Arthur seemed to remember why he was there, sprawled out on the mat like a dead buffalo in high drag.

“Someone’s killing ChiChi!” he grandly announced, wrists flapping, wig askew, and then he passed out again as if someone had pulled his plug.

Roger dropped Arthur’s head with a clunk and dashed for the stairs with Stanley hot on his heels.

Damn,
Stanley thought,
and just when things were going so well too.
He was properly appalled he could be so goddamn selfish at a time like this, but sometimes we’re selfish whether we want to be or not. For once, Stanley didn’t really blame himself for it. This time he figured he had good reason. He really wanted to be back on the couch with Roger Jane. But apparently that was a little too much to ask under the circumstances. Took selfish to a whole new level, it did.

Stanley glanced back in sympathy at Arthur one last time before hustling along in Roger’s wake. Poor Arthur. Those stairs were going to kill him yet. The stairs or the shoes.

Or that stupidass tiara clamped around his noggin.

Stanley was five or six steps behind Roger. Roger’s long legs were scaling the stairs a hell of a lot faster than Stanley’s could. This was all just fine with Stanley since he had a magnificent view of Roger’s ass while they were going up. He didn’t feel guilty about that, either, which goes to show where his priorities lay at the moment. Not on ChiChi’s safety certainly. God, he really was selfish!

As soon as Roger hit the sixth-floor landing, they both heard footsteps thundering in their direction. With Stanley still on the steps below, Roger had just enough time to motion for Stanley to lag back before a freight train came barreling down the hall and knocked Roger flat on his back.

“Oof!” Roger cried out, landing hard.

Stanley tried not to scream like a little girl as the freight train leaped down the stairs in front of him. A moment later
Stanley
was flat on his back. Being on the stairs at the time, Stanley didn’t land as solidly as Roger had. In fact, Stanley managed to slide all the way back to the landing below before he came to a stop. By the time he did, the freight train was gone.

But in that split second when the fucker was flying down the stairs in Stanley’s face, Stanley had the wherewithal to recognize the bastard. The freight train was the Neanderthal ChiChi had entertained that night a couple of weeks back when Stanley could hear them through his kitchen wall. The big bruiser. And apparently, the big
mean
bruiser. Stanley had also had enough time to see the asshole was trouserless and shirtless and wearing nothing but black socks. He was clutching his clothing in his arms and trying to pull on his shirt as he ran. His dick was flopping all over the place.

With the naked Neanderthal thundering on down the remaining flights of steps and banging his way out the front door far below, Stanley gave his head a shake and gathered himself up off the landing. He dusted himself off, checking for broken appendages. He thought maybe he would have a pretty good bruise on his ass, but that seemed to be all the damage done.

He groaned his way up to six just as Roger was picking himself up off the floor.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.”

Then they both looked in the direction of ChiChi’s apartment door.

“Oh, crap,” Roger said. “This isn’t going to be pretty.”

Approaching ChiChi’s door, they saw a hand come out and grip the sill. Then ChiChi poked his head through the door and saw Roger and Stanley headed his way. He was naked, but for the bandolier around his chest and a teeny pair of leather shorts.

Stanley didn’t even know they
made
leather shorts.

“Is he gone?” ChiChi asked. “Is fuckface gone?”

Roger nodded. “He’s gone.”

Stanley watched as Roger walked up to ChiChi and cupped his hand under ChiChi’s chin, turning his head first one way, then the other. It was then Stanley saw the blood. ChiChi had a split lip and his left eye was puffing up and turning black even while he and Roger stood there looking at it.

“You okay?” Roger asked. “Did he hit you anywhere else?”

ChiChi touched his own jaw tenderly. “No.” And with a strange little smile that made a rivulet of blood trail down his chin from his split lip, he added, “I guess he didn’t like the twizzler.”

“What the hell is a twizzler?” Roger asked.

“Dildo. Battery-operated. Looks like a corkscrew. Tickles.”

“Well, I guess it didn’t tickle
him.”

ChiChi had to agree. “Guess it didn’t.”

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Roger said, and steered ChiChi back into his apartment.

Stanley tagged along behind, wondering if he could do anything to help. As he was hovering around the apartment door, he heard the sudden sound of footsteps rushing up behind him. Stanley jumped, thinking the Neanderthal had returned. But it was Ramon, standing there in a bathrobe, his hair soaking wet. He looked horrified. His eyes were as big as silver dollars and he was trembling all over.

“Is ChiChi okay? Oh, God, I heard the noises and knew immediately what it was! Is he okay? Well, tell me, dammit! Where is he?”

Stanley tugged him into the apartment and pointed toward the bathroom where Roger had taken ChiChi. Ramon rushed on in, and not knowing what else to do, Stanley followed. They found ChiChi sitting on the commode with Roger on his knees in front of him dabbing at ChiChi’s face with a washcloth.

“
Baby.
” That was Ramon, and the way he said it made everyone turn and look at him.

While ChiChi’s lip slowly grew fatter and his eye slowly grew blacker, he centered his one good eye on Ramon, who was standing in the doorway with tears streaming down his face.

“Oh God,” ChiChi sighed. “Please don’t get all soggy about this. I’m fine. Just a couple of contusions and a concussion and quite possibly a broken neck. From now on that ape can twizzle his
own
ass and see how he likes it. He just had his last appointment with me.”

Ramon sniffed some snot back up his nose and stuck his fists on his hips. “Well, I should hope so! It’s about time you retired and let
everybody
twizzle their own asses!”

While dabbing at ChiChi’s lip, Roger noted, “Holy cow, you guys sound like you’re an item. Are you?”

ChiChi shot a shameful glance in Ramon’s direction. “Great. Now our secret’s out. I told you not to fall in love with a hooker.”

“Oh, shut up,” Ramon sniffed. “And you’re not a hooker. You’re a masseur working his way through masseuring school, or whatever the hell they call it. And even if you were a hooker, you aren’t anymore. As of tonight you’re retired. I insist. Any arguments?”

Shamefaced, ChiChi once again gave himself up to Roger’s attentions, hissing now and then when he thought Roger was being a little too rough. “No, baby. No arguments.”

“Well, good.” Ramon moved up behind Roger and tapped him on the shoulder. “Let me do that. I want to treat my man myself.”

Roger looked up at him and grinned. “Of course you do. Here.” And he handed over the washcloth.

Roger patted Ramon’s cheek. “ChiChi doesn’t deserve you.”

“Thanks,” ChiChi groused. Then he tried to smile. He gazed at Ramon as Ramon lowered himself to his knees in front of him. “Roger’s right, baby. I don’t deserve you.”

Ramon simply gave a disgusted cluck like someone who has just heard the obvious. “Hell, I know that.”

Roger rinsed his hands in the sink, dried them on the legs of his blue jeans, and steered Stanley out of the crowded bathroom. Already they could hear cooing sounds behind them.

“Let’s leave the lovebirds alone.”

Stanley nodded. “Glad he’s okay.”

“Yeah. And I’m glad he’s got Ramon to chew him a new asshole. Not literally, of course.”

Stanley grinned. “Gotcha.”

They looked back one last time and saw Ramon wrapped in ChiChi’s arms. They were both crying.

Roger took Stanley’s hand and led him back toward the stairs. “I’m glad they’ve got each other. See how love isn’t always a bad thing?”

And Stanley stepped into Roger’s arms, surprising even himself. “I never said it was.”

He had just enough time to enjoy the feel of Roger’s lips on the top of his head when they heard the clackety clack of high heels coming toward them down the hall.

They turned to see Arthur—still in high drag, but apparently the shine was off it a little bit. He was holding his wig and tiara in his hand and plucking his false eyelashes off as he limped along on those impossibly high heels.

“Is he okay?” Arthur asked, huffing and puffing.

Roger nodded. “Ramon’s taking care of him.”

“Oh, good,” Arthur said.

Roger gave Arthur a questioning look, which wasn’t really very questioning at all. “You knew about those two?”

Arthur nodded. “It’s been going on a while. Looks like their secret’s out now, though. Maybe even
they’ve
accepted it as fact. I hope so. I’m happy for them.”

“Me too,” Roger said.

“Me too,” Stanley echoed.

Arthur considered Roger and Stanley standing in front of him, still wrapped in each other’s arms. “It seems to be going around. Secrets, I mean.”

Stanley and Roger both blushed but said nothing.

Then Arthur stepped closer and said, “Roger, I’m worried about Sylvia. Keep an eye on her, will you?”

Roger seemed to understand Arthur’s concern. He simply said, “Yes.”

Arthur patted first Stanley’s cheek, then Roger’s with his big beefy hand, and bending to tug off his satin high heels, groaned his way toward the stairs.

Roger and Stanley watched him go.

Stanley suddenly realized they were standing right outside his own apartment door.

He made up his mind in a split second. He couldn’t handle anything else tonight. He really couldn’t. “Early class,” he said, forcing himself to say the words as he glanced at his watch. It was only a little after ten. Still, he dredged up as much false cheer as he could muster. Not because he wanted to, but because he felt he should. “Guess I’d better scoot on home since I’m already here anyway.”

Roger didn’t seem too happy about the announcement. He didn’t even try to look happy about it. Downcast, he said, “I guess you’d better, then. I have an early day too.”

“Seeya, then.”

“Seeya.”

And for a moment it was as if their time together had never been: Roger afraid to push, Stanley afraid to open up.

Then they both knew they could not let the evening end that way.

Again, Stanley stepped into Roger’s arms at the very same moment Roger reached out to scoop him into an embrace.

“A good-night kiss,” Stanley said. “I didn’t get dessert, so I want one.”

“So do I,” Roger said. “And if that’s what it takes, you’ll
never
get dessert.”

“Good.”

And smiling, they brought their lips together.

“Thank you,” Roger mumbled with his mouth over Stanley’s.

Still smiling, Stanley eased himself from Roger’s arms and opened his door with his key. His hands were shaking.

“Good night, Little Mouse.”

“Good night,” Stanley said, and softly, oh so softly, he eased the door closed between them. The last thing Stanley saw was a pair of fabulous green eyes hovering over a gentle smile, watching his every move.

Once inside, Stanley leaned his forehead against the door and squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to sear the memory of that heavenly face into his brain forever. As if it wasn’t seared there already.

Smiling, he realized he could still taste Roger’s kiss.