Behind Closed Doors

Chapter Twenty-eight

Henry must have really talked to Anthony St. Claire for the big man called Phoenix and fixed a lunch date with him at Ikoyi. And then the two of them went about talking about what new dig he may possibly have for the actor. The man agreed to star Phoenix in a new production, but the payment fell below what the actor was used to. When Phoenix complained, the man reminded him that he was taking him on as a risk.

Phoenix had no choice but to agree, thinking in his mind that Anthony St. Claire was a mean bastard who used whatever leverage he had to fuck with people. When he was done with the man, Phoenix drove straight to the offices of the Vanguard for a press conference he had scheduled with them, and then he told his story over coffee and cakes, calling Hassan a liar and a cheap rumor-mongrel whose stock-in-trade was character assassination. He then emphatically denied that he was a homo－ which was really the truth even though he had slept with men in the past and was still doing Henry because the guy had the keys to make him or break his salary in the industry.

Having gotten that out of his mind, he went back to the White Phoenix, took out his laptop and then he typed out a few other emails to some gossip online rags who had been after him for a long time to give them a comment about the rumors that was flying out of Ali Hassan. When he hit the Enter key and the email flew off into cyberspace to the over fifty email addresses he’d sent it to, he picked up his phone and speed-dialed Ali Hassan.

‘Well well, if it isn’t the delectable Phoenix,’ Ali Hassan said on the third ring. ‘You disappoint me, my love; I was expecting your call sooner than this. Where have you been?’

‘I’ve been out of town for long,’ Phoenix said wearily. ‘I just got back and so I had to go and talk about what you’d said about me.’

‘Why on earth would you do that?’

‘It is because you are a liar. You had lied about me to the press, and they had lied about me to their readers. I may yet sue all of you.’

‘It was a very bad idea for you to think you can cast me out of your life and cast me out like scum,’ Ali Hassan snapped, and he sounded really pissed off. ‘I don’t have a guy to warm my bed at night, and you of all people should know how hard it is to find willing partners in this town.’

‘I can hook you up with a number of the guys that come to White Phoenix and I know that many of them are waiting to get laid. They’re waiting for big cocks, for tops like you to come and get them and fuck them. All you have to do is to come there, make your choice, and whoever you want will be yours for the taking.’]

‘No.’

‘What exactly do you want from me?’ Phoenix exploded, his fist banging down on the tabletop with great force.

‘I want you, my dear. You’re the third person I had the pleasure of sleeping with, but you’re the very best I ever had, and I ever want. Come to me, or there are always pictures to send to the newspapers and the online bloggers. Those pictures tell the story of your life at the Drummer Club. Come to me, or you will regret it.’ And the man hung up.

Phoenix held the silent phone to his ears, and there were tears in his eyes, misting his vision so that everything appeared blurry, and he was also shaking, as much with trepidation as with anger at the way the man was now blackmailing him. How could Ali plot to destroy him and everything he’d worked so hard with his pure display of malice? He had worked so hard; he had sweated like a pig in the heat, turning up the full talent he had by practicing roles before the mirror for no less than four hours every day, perfecting moves and looks, studying the old Hollywood players that were the very best stars from as far back as the forties and the fifties, knowing what had made them the symbols of power that they were. Now, this Hausa animal wanted to have him wash all that down the drain just because his uncircumcised penis was in need of his ass.