A MUSE

68

"Help for what? You must be in dire straits to call me, but let me guess, you need a parachute for Valery."

"Yes."

News traveled fast; the event was not even 24hours old that it reached Tricia in Europe.

"What can I do? People are saying he tried to kill himself. It isn't right. Valery wouldn't do that to me," Angelo said.

"You, you, you, always you, stop seeing your belly button as though it's the center of the universe, Angelo. Do you really believe you will be Valery's preoccupation in his hour of death? How pretentious you are?"

The woman on the phone could not believe the man's audacity, which made her loathe him even more.

"Tri-Tricia," Angelo stammered. He had no time to ponder Tricia's remark; he would let Valery wake up to a world where he was tagged a drug addict.

The world they lived in was cruel. Loved one day and shone the next with bells of shame, Angelo knew how it felt, and he didn't want his lover to go through it.

"Tricia, please, do this favor for Valery."

There was a long silence as an evil idea crept into Tricia's mind, "alright, I'm texting you a number. It's Lennox Wilcox's number. He's the one you should call; he holds all the fashion columns and editors."

Angelo rolled his eyes in dread. Everyone who was a somebody knew the man.

Left-hand man to the devil in Prada, everything Lennox said was translated into the divine when it came to fashion.

If Lennox said, a mink coat was overrated; the next day, trashcans filled with costly beasts. Lennox made the rain in haute couture.

Like Tricia, Lennox ran after Valery, who refuted his advances, for Lennox Wilcox was not what you call an appealing gay man. His breath was almost as famous as his columns, the brands which wore sublimed his body, which resembled the perfect doppelganger of the Michelin tires mascot.

In the gay realm, the almost 50-year-old everyone knew the editor for choosing, young and vulnerable man to whom he promised modeling careers or jobs for big fashion magazines only to wring their youthful juices and leaving them as nameless as they came.

An extravagant diva, Angelo despised the man who he estimated farted above his rank.

Lennox was the only editor to have written a reserved article about Valery's show. Resentful, now came the time where he could seek revenge for all the times Valery pushed him away.

On the phone, Lennox was solemn, giving Angelo a time slot and address.

Angelo, who had a tight schedule too, made time, and so it was in Lennox's apartment in the upper East side of Manhattan the men met.

•••

From the moment Angelo entered the apartment, he knew he made a mistake.

Lennox Wilcox's apartment was the twilight zone du mauvais goût.

How could one spend so much money and end up with an apartment looking like this, thought Angelo as he advanced in the mustard-colored hallway where priceless paintings mingled with BDSM objects.

The man's apartment looked like an 80's pimps home with its animal skin rug. All this was accentuated by the presence of a young man in latex boxers and leather collars who led Angelo to where Lennox waited for him.

As expected, it was in his bedroom Lennox received Angelo, who got an impression of déja Vu.

Was it an editor's thing to lure guests to their bedroom? Angelo thought as he recalled his argument with Tricia in Paris.