Serenading Stanley (30 page)

Arthur’s crotch area was still covered by the ridiculous thong he had worn earlier, and thank God it was. But the rest of Arthur, at least from his neck to his feet, was as pink and raw as a slab of uncooked halibut. Stanley was reminded of those old pictures you used to see of buffalo carcasses left to rot on the Great Plains after buffalo hunters blew their brains out and peeled them naked for their skins. Stanley could almost hear Arthur’s nerve endings, newly exposed and pulsating, wailing in protest at their sudden exposure to the fucking elements.

Arthur stood with his legs apart, arms akimbo, mouth agape, like a man who has fallen asleep in the sun and damn near roasted himself alive. There wasn’t one single hair on his body. Legs, arms, chest. He looked like one of those blow-up sex dolls someone had packed with too much air.

Even without his pelt of body hair, Arthur wasn’t exactly svelte.

Despite his misery, Arthur appeared to be all business.

“How’d the decorating go?”

Roger shuffled his feet around. He looked embarrassed. Stanley wondered if he was having second thoughts about the flying Jabbering Jesuses. “Well, we did the best we could with the stuff you gave us.” He reached out and plucked a straggling strip of fabric that still dangled from Arthur’s elbow.

Arthur smiled a thank you as a tear leaked from his eye. “Ouch,” he said. “I’m a little tender.”

“You look parboiled,” Stanley said, and Arthur swung his entire body toward him, like a scarecrow twisting in the wind on its stake.

“Thank you,” Arthur said. “I really needed to hear that.”

He pivoted back to Roger. This time he looked more like a revolving turnstile. Only chunkier. “Can I come inside?”

Always polite, Stanley and Roger stepped aside and motioned the man in. As Roger closed the door behind them, he was surprised to hear Stanley say, “Slip that robe off, Arthur. I think I can make you feel a little better.”

Arthur did as he was told while Stanley hustled off to the bathroom, returning a moment later with a bottle of aloe vera lotion. “This should help,” he said, and began carefully applying it to Arthur’s skin.

Arthur closed his eyes and smiled as Stanley smoothed the cooling lotion over Arthur’s peeled forearm. “Oh, that’s nice,” Arthur sighed.

Roger plucked the bottle from Stanley’s hand, squirted a big glob in his palm, and went to work on Arthur’s back while Stanley ministered to his torso, easing the lotion over the parched acreage of Arthur’s poor peeled belly. It felt so wonderful, Arthur didn’t even make any sexual innuendos when Stanley dropped to his knees and began smoothing it over the front of Arthur’s plucked thighs while Roger did the same on the other side.

Looking up, Stanley saw Arthur had more tears running down his pudgy cheeks. Startled, he stopped what he was doing.

“I’m sorry. Am I hurting you?”

Arthur looked down at him and sniffed. “No. You’re sweet. Both of you. That’s actually why I’m here.”

Roger leaned around and looked up at Arthur’s face. “You’re here because we’re sweet?”

Arthur reached for his robe and pulled it on. “Yes.” He reached out and patted each of their cheeks. “Thank you, boys. You’re good friends.”

Stanley felt a little guilty. He didn’t think of himself as Arthur’s friend at all. He wasn’t sure how Roger felt about it.

Arthur plucked a large envelope out of the bathrobe pocket. Manila. Fat.

“This is my will,” Arthur said. “I need you boys’ signatures as witnesses. You mind?”

“No,” Roger said. “Of course not. But why now. What’s the rush?”

“No rush,” Arthur said, “but I just got it back from the lawyer yesterday. Unsigned, it’s worthless, so he tells me. He told me not to wait to get it witnessed. So here I am, not waiting. No one else I know is stable enough to witness a parking ticket, let alone a will. That’s why I’d like you boys to do the honors.”

Stanley grinned. “So do Roger and I get the whole shebang?”

Arthur gave him a weak smile. “Funny.”

He pulled a pen from his other pocket. “Page six,” he said. “Sign on the dotted line.”

They moved everything to the kitchen table since Stanley’s desk was covered with his computer and a ton of schoolbooks.

While Arthur leafed through the pages, still looking a little shell-shocked after all his body hair had been ripped out by the roots, Roger eyed him suspiciously.

“You old softy. You did it, didn’t you,” Roger said.

Arthur stopped what he was doing and batted innocent eyes. Stanley thought his face looked peeled as well, since for once in his life the man wasn’t wearing any makeup.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Arthur deadpanned.

“Neither do I,” Stanley said, looking confused.

Roger slipped an arm around Stanley’s waist and whispered in his ear. “I’ll explain it to you later.”

Arthur wagged a finger in Roger’s face. He would have appeared mortally outraged if there hadn’t been the faintest hint of a smile tickling his chubby lips. “You’ll do no such thing, young man. It’s a secret. I never should have told you either.”

Stanley still didn’t know what the two were talking about, but he figured he’d worm it out of Roger later. Hopefully while Roger was fucking his brains out. Hard to keep a secret at times like that.

As it turned out, though, by the time the will was signed and Arthur had gone and Roger truly
was
fucking Stanley’s brains out, the entire matter skipped Stanley’s mind completely.

T
HE
caterers came at noon the next day. Arthur had spared no expense. Dolly upon dolly rolled through the front doors, each and every one stacked with goodies. Meats, veggies, snack trays. A dozen delicious aromas wafted up the staircase in the heat and meandered happily down the halls, seeking out every crevice, every nose. The Belladonna Arms hadn’t smelled this good in years.

Shortly after the food caterers came, the liquor caterers showed up. A bar was erected along one basement wall behind a long table stocked with bottles and glasses and silver kegs of draft beer. Two brawny, tanned bartenders wearing nothing but shirt cuffs, bow ties, and G-strings stood ready to dispense booze and jiggle their body parts until the party was deemed officially over. And since Arthur held the purse strings, the party would not be officially over until Arthur said it was over. While waiting for the first guests to arrive, the bartenders passed the time jiggling body parts for each other and anyone who happened to peek in the door.

There was a sense of excitement in the air that permeated the Belladonna Arms, from the basement to the tip of the nose on the gargoyle that squatted on the southeast corner of the roof.

As party time approached, the food smells mixed with the reek of sweet cologne and body spray. Each tenant was apparently determined to smell better than every other tenant, which was rather surprising, since some of the tenants were not exactly known for their impeccable hygiene.

Stanley and Roger, after breakfasting on scrambled eggs and each other, dressed for the party in casual, but nice, outfits. Dress slacks, dress shirts, and even ties, which neither of them had worn for a while. In fact, Stanley had to borrow a tie from Roger, since he hadn’t owned one since the eighth grade. Then they both had to toddle down to Sylvia’s apartment on four for a crash course in how to knot the damn things.

They found Sylvia a nervous wreck, knowing she was the guest of honor to her very own surprise party. They also thought she seemed a bit subdued. Had something happened between her and Pete? Stanley hoped not. Pete would be crushed. But Sylvia perked up right away when she saw Roger and Stanley looking so happy together. She giggled and joked and flirted all the while she tied their neckties around their throats in perfect Windsor knots, then planted a virginal kiss on each of their strong, masculine chins before shooing them out the door so she could dress.

The band arrived at one o’clock. They were the motliest collection of humans Stanley had ever seen in his life, but their credentials were sound. They prided themselves on playing music for any occasion, from a bark mitzvah for the family dog, to a golden wedding anniversary for the old folks. An apartment building full of drunken homosexuals shouldn’t pose a problem at all.

At two o’clock, Stanley and Roger stood at Stanley’s living room window, arms about each other’s waists. They were watching the hawks in the eucalyptus tree. There seemed to be considerable excitement going on out there among the branches. The female sat in the nest, fluffing her feathers and preening, while the male hopped about from limb to limb, squawking and keening and making a general nuisance of himself. The female appeared to be haughtily ignoring him, as females of every species so often do when their mates are acting like dickheads.

When the female hawk spread her broad wings in disgust and soared off toward the city skyline in a flurry of feathers and dust, the male took off right behind her. And only then did Stanley and Roger see the reason for all the excitement.

There were three speckled eggs in the nest.

Stanley’s hawks were having babies.

The miracle of those three plump eggs wasn’t lost on Roger, nor was the beauty of Stanley’s reaction to seeing them there. He was thrilled. And when Stanley was thrilled, Roger was thrilled.

He pressed his lips to Stanley’s ear and pulled him close. “I love you,” he whispered.

Stanley turned his smile away from the window and buried it in Roger’s shirtfront. “I love you too,” he whispered back, speaking directly to Roger’s heart. “I never thought I could feel this way about anyone. You’ve made me a complete person. You’ve made me whole.”

Roger pushed Stanley’s reddish-blond hair off his forehead and away from his face so he could gaze into those pale-blue eyes he loved so much. As always, the kindness he found in those bottomless eyes set Roger’s heart to hammering. He was so proud to call Stanley his own, he could barely refrain from screaming it out the window at the poor defenseless eggs.

“We complete each other,” Roger said. “We make each other whole. You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever known.”

And to show how Stanley had changed during these past weeks of loving Roger Jane, and being loved
by
him, he simply blushed at the words and didn’t argue. For Stanley believed it now. He believed that in Roger’s eyes, little Stanley Sternbaum really was beautiful. He believed when Roger looked at him, he saw someone special. And when Roger said he loved him, there was not a shred of doubt in Stanley’s mind that the man spoke the absolute truth. Roger did love him. Stanley believed it completely. And it humbled him.

He still might be stunned by his good fortune at times, but as for the truth of the matter? Yes. Stanley trusted it implicitly. Roger loved him. Roger loved him more than anything.

Stanley might still catch his inferiority complex flaring up out in the real world, but here with Roger, with the two of them alone, it was a forgotten fault. It no longer applied. How could anyone in their right mind feel inferior with someone like Roger Jane hanging on their arm, professing their undying devotion? It was an impossibility. An absolute impossibility.

“You ready to party?” Stanley asked, straightening Roger’s tie where his face had messed it up.

“No. I hate parties.”

Stanley laughed. “Well, we can’t get out of this one. Let’s go.”

Roger dragged his fingertip over Stanley’s lips. “Kiss me first with that sexy mouth.”

“Gladly.”

As their lips came together, Stanley thought,
It’s funny. But every time we kiss it’s like the very first time. It still takes my breath away. Is that what love means? Is it really that simple?

Smiling and licking Stanley’s taste from his lips, Roger tucked his hand in Stanley’s back pocket. He gave Stanley’s ass a gentle squeeze, and leaning in again to whisper in Stanley’s ear, he breathed, “Later this ass is mine.”

Stanley gave a tiny shudder of desire, remembering and reliving every moment of having Roger inside him.
Deep
inside him.

“Yes, please,” Stanley whispered back, blushing with hunger for the man. “Oh, yes.”

T
HE
band cranked up just as Stanley and Roger approached the bottom landing. The music was so loud, it actually stopped them in their tracks. Drums, electric guitar, keyboard, bass, vocals. And about two zillion gigawatts of amp power. Stanley could feel the vibration of it in the handrail he was clutching. But at least the music was on key, the voices nice. And oddly, the selection was one of Stanley’s favorites. An old Creedence Clearwater tune. He didn’t know anybody still remembered those.

The door to the party room was propped open and the place was already packed. It sounded like someone had stuffed it with about a million geese—laughing, chattering, honking back and forth. The partygoers were so loud, they almost succeeded in drowning out the band. Looking through the doorway, Stanley had no idea who all the people were, but the vast majority of them certainly weren’t tenants. Arthur must have posted the party on every social media site he could find.