Behind Closed Doors

Chapter Twenty-three

Phoenix was seated at a table in his plush restaurant with Lawrence, and they were eating heaped plates of pasta which had been flavored with hot spices. The air was heavy with the simmering heat of the afternoon which baked the streets as if on a mission of vengeance and retribution, and Lawrence was perspiring heavily, and from his mouth burst forth a lot of profanities against NEPA. They had the annoying habit of giving electricity only when it pleased them, and today, they had deemed it fit to keep the lights off, and the people of Lagos had to make do with their generators or else roast in the heat.
Phoenix kept himself totally engrossed in a spell-binding Anne Rice vampire novel, happily oblivious to the heat. He was used to Lawrence’s incessant babbling and unceasing flow of complaints; after all, he’d been living with the man for years, so he ignored him.

‘What is Ali Hassan doing here?’ Lawrence asked as he licked at a forkful of pasta with his right hand while his left travelled to his face with a handkerchief to dab at the perspiration on his brow. ‘And, from the look of the man, he looks furious. Did something happen between you and him?’

Phoenix looked up towards the swinging glass doors of the restaurant and saw Ali Hassan walking in with the assured grace of a dancer. His lean frame was outlined with muscles, and he seemed very alert, as though ready to strike. The man had come from a place where he’d struggled hard to survive, and even though he had managed to put polish on his manners, there was a coldness in his eyes which was frightening to behold. There was this look of sadness and anger in his features, and Phoenix thought that this was the kind of man that would weep even as he killed you.

Ali stopped before the table, his tall frame towering over them. ‘Hello, Lawrence,’ he said with a smile, but it was one that failed to touch the corners of his eyes. He then turned to Phoenix. ‘I’d like to talk to you, Phoenix.’

Slowly, as if he was royalty deigning to allow his stunning self to be bothered by mundane matters, Phoenix slowly looked up from his book, his eyes swiveling round in the direction of this man who had been his lover once upon a time and had exploited his body. He smiled. ‘Sit down, Ali, since you want to talk to me, and then we must eat as we talk.’

‘You know what I want to talk to you about, and you know it’s not something to be talked about right here now. We need some privacy together, so why don’t we go to that small hole you call your private office so we can talk about this.’

With a sigh, Phoenix stood up and followed the guy to his office where he closed the door behind him and sat down in the swivel chair there, crossed his legs, and then he looked up at the man to talk. He knew what this talk would be about without having to be told about it; he had sent a message to the man’s voicemail box some hours ago, and he’d been expecting something like this to happen.

‘I have been good to you, Phoenix,’ Ali Hassan said, his voice pitched low and dangerous. ‘I had always shown you the goodness of my heart and I wish to believe that you and I had the perfect romance. Now, because of your fame, you’re casting me away.’

‘I am not casting you out because of the fact that I have achieved fame and fortune and I think you know it. Right from the very beginning, our relationship had been one of mutual need: you wanted my body and I wanted your help. You got what you wanted and I got what I wanted; it was the perfect setup, one that worked wonderfully well between us.’

A look of sheer, unadulterated, albeit carefully controlled anger, swept over the features of the older man; he looked filled with rage. ‘You can’t toss me out of your life. I know that with you it was pure fun, but you were the only one I had then; the only one I have now. It meant a lot to me then; you gave me life; you gave me something to think about when I went to bed at night. And when I go on my travels, there are always pictures of you with me, and then there are the movies you had acted with such skill and grace－ it was as if you were often right there with me and that we were never miles apart.’