Serenading Stanley (27 page)

Stanley burrowed into Roger’s arms and closed his eyes. His heart was so filled with love he didn’t trust himself to speak. With his face at Roger’s neck, he breathed in the scent of his lover like an addict absorbs a drug. Roger was so exhausted and happy and sexually replete, his power of speech was a husk of what it usually was. But while his voice may not have been up to snuff, there was a smile in it nevertheless.

“Now I know what Little Mouse likes,” he whispered, warm lips nibbling at Stanley’s ear, his breath hot.

All Stanley could do was nod. He squeezed his eyes shut, reliving everything that had just happened. He remembered every sensation, every scent, every taste. The penetration. My God, Stanley would never forget it. To be pierced by the man you love for the very first time was beyond description. Stanley knew he would keep that moment in his heart forever.

And as their pulses slowed and their muscles relaxed, and the afterglow of sex began to warm and calm their minds, they held each other close. As close as they could.

Stanley trembled in a final burst of desire when he heard Roger mutter in his ear. “We belong together, baby. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

Stanley smiled, hearing the words. He smiled because they were the exact words
he
was thinking. Too touched to speak, he nodded his head under Roger’s chin and pulled the man a little bit closer, breathing in his scent, absorbing his heavenly heat, kissing the hollow of Roger’s throat just to assure himself Roger was really there.

When Roger responded by pressing a grateful smile to Stanley’s forehead, Stanley knew it would all work out. Whatever came their way, their love for each other would see them through.

He didn’t doubt it for a minute. This was exactly what being in love was all about.

And in the meantime, the sex was fucking spectacular!

L
IFE
for the tenants of the Belladonna Arms slowly went back to normal after Sylvia’s attempted suicide—or as normal as it was ever apt to get, considering the odd assortment of humanity who lived there.

ChiChi and Ramon entered into their new relationship with a surprising display of devotion and sweetness. Often they could be spotted entering or leaving the building hand in hand, heads together, laughing or chattering or whispering romantic nothings in each other’s ears. Stanley was still faintly astounded Ramon could overlook ChiChi’s all-too-recent past and entrust his heart so readily to a man who until last week had been selling his sexual services to the highest bidder. But perhaps Stanley was not as astounded as he would have been had his own life not taken such a jubilant turn for the better, thanks to his burgeoning relationship with Roger Jane.

And then there were Pete and Sylvia. More and more, after her return from the hospital, one might glimpse the two of them whispering in the hall, or heading out the front door to shop or eat or catch a movie. Roger and Stanley were thrilled, and more than a little amazed, to see Pete Ingersol blossom into a social being before their very eyes. And all it took was a little attention from the person he was crazy about. It was as if the man had been simply vamping to the dull, dreary music of a lonely life, plodding along in his misery year after year. Then Sylvia happened along and noticed him there, cowering in the shadows. Only then did Pete step out into the light, suck in a big, bracing gulp of fresh air, and begin to partake of what he had been afraid of for so long. Daring at last to risk his fragile heart on life. And more importantly, risk it on love.

At first Sylvia appeared a bit leery of Pete’s attentions, but as the days passed, her look softened. Occasionally, if one watched closely during those intermittent glimpses of Pete and Sylvia’s courtship, if that’s what it was, one might see the brush of a fingertip across the back of a hand. Or a smile that came from nowhere when one of the two thought the other wasn’t looking.

Stanley was pleased that Pete now spoke to him when they bumped into each other. Where Pete used to bustle off to his apartment to hide, he would now pass the time of day, share a joke, or offer a tip on tax matters. When he learned Stanley liked the Sunday
New York Times
crossword puzzle but didn’t wanted to spend three bucks to purchase the paper once a week, being a starving student and all, Pete trudged up three flights of stairs every Sunday morning and slipped the puzzle under Stanley’s door.

Stanley suspected Pete attributed Sylvia’s newfound interest in Pete to either Stanley or Roger. Or both. And Stanley was proud to think Pete might even be a little bit right in that assessment.

When they were spotted together, Pete could always be seen catering to Sylvia with a delicate, old-world formality—opening doors for her, taking her elbow on the stairs as if she were made of china and apt to break if handled indelicately.

But Stanley thought Pete was wrong about that. Sylvia might be delicate to look at, but Stanley could sense a tensile strength inside her that carried her forward, unbent and unafraid, to whatever new crisis loomed on her horizon. After that one misjudged moment of weakness that had landed her in the hospital and damn near ended her existence completely, she had seemed to reassess her life, looking at it now with the gratitude and respect it deserved. Just as we all should, but so rarely do, Stanley thought. Stanley also wondered if maybe she kept the memory of that horrible mistake locked away somewhere in the back of her mind and only drew it out when she needed an extra jolt of strength.

And she did need strength now and then. Her quest to become what she knew she had truly been born to be, a woman, was still an uphill battle.

For Pete’s part, he seemed willing to accept Sylvia in whichever persona she chose. Man or woman. It made little difference to Pete. He loved her regardless.

And in Stanley’s eyes, that was love indeed. Love in its absolutely purest form.

After Sylvia’s return home, there were other changes to be found in the lives of Stanley’s neighbors. Even redheaded Charlie on three found love in the guise of another kleptomaniac he met in therapy sessions at the University of San Diego’s psychiatric wing. His new suitor was a cute little pudgy guy with the open, innocent face of a child and a penchant for cowboy boots and hats and lifting anything he could get his hands on. Astoundingly enough, they seemed to get along just great, and they also appeared to be truly attached to each other. Unfortunately, no one but Roger and Stanley dared invite them into their apartments for a social visit for fear one or both of them would abscond with everything that wasn’t nailed down.

Roger knew better, of course. Although he did keep a wary eye on the cowpoke while he and Stanley shared a pizza with the two in Roger’s apartment after the four of them attended a Padre’s game at the stadium.

Arthur, now that Sylvia’s party was fast approaching, found himself in a constant state of panic. He appeared to have made peace with the fact Sylvia would never see him as anything but her cross-dressing landlord. So now he centered his attention on her party and his quest to help raise money for her all-important final surgery.

It didn’t take Arthur long to sucker Stanley and Roger into taking charge of the decorating, since he himself, Arthur said, had no sense of style whatsoever. And judging by the drag outfits he came up with, Stanley and Roger couldn’t very well disagree with him.

So they accepted the assignment with a minimum of fuss. But they weren’t doing it for Arthur. They were doing it for Sylvia. Sylvia and Pete.

Their first real examination of the party room came one day before the ball. Admittedly, they were cutting it close, but with everything that had happened—Sylvia’s stay in the hospital and their own love affair, which kept Stanley and Roger busy every minute, don’t think it didn’t—they were lucky to be getting started at all. Since they were running out of time, they coerced ChiChi into lending a hand.

Arthur gave the boys boxes and boxes of decorations and told them to do their best. The following day was Sunday, and the caterers would deliver the food by noon. The party was scheduled to get underway at two o’clock.

It was supposed to be a surprise party, but since Arthur never could keep a secret, Sylvia had known about it for months. When party day came, she promised Roger she’d act surprised for Arthur’s sake.

Stanley, Roger, and ChiChi were already drenched in sweat, and all they had accomplished was dragging all the boxes of decorations down five flights of stairs to the basement from a storage room on the fourth floor. The three of them stood in the doorway to the party room and faced the task with as much enthusiasm as they could muster. The room would not only have to be stripped of its current decorations, which seemed to have been for a Fourth of July celebration about a thousand years ago, but would also need a thorough cleaning before new decorations were strung up.

Stanley had the urge to strangle Arthur for waiting until the last minute to get this started. Roger, seeing the gloomy look on Stanley’s face, bumped him with a hip and grinned. “Come on, babe. It’s not as bad as all that.”

“No,” ChiChi said. “It’s worse. Maybe the simplest solution would be to turn out all the lights and throw some mattresses on the floor. We could celebrate Sylvia’s emergence into womanhood with a nice orgy. I still have some lovely sexual doodads that would be—”

“Where’s Ramon?” Roger asked, shutting him up. “I was kind of hoping he’d come along and help.”

ChiChi rolled his eyes skyward. “Ramon has his own horrible job to tackle. Trust me, Roger. If you knew what it was, you’d feel lucky all we have to do is decorate this shit hole.”

“Well, shit holes don’t decorate themselves,” Stanley said, rolling up imaginary sleeves. “Let’s get this over with. I’d like to get my new boyfriend sprawled out naked on the bed before dinner.”

“Ooh,” Roger cooed. “I like the sound of that.”

“Me too,” ChiChi sighed, looking Roger up and down. He had always had a special place in his libido for men who looked like Roger Jane.

Roger just shook his head and went to work. He was used to ChiChi’s stares.

They waded in like troopers, ripping strings of old, saggy red, white, and blue crepe paper off the ceiling; crunching up crumb-laden paper tablecloths off the dozen or so tables scattered around; and sneezing up a storm because everything was coated with dust and mouse turds and cockroach droppings. Yuk.

The party room was so hot, the three of them shed their shirts and threw them in a corner for fear they would die of a heatstroke if they didn’t. The little basement windows high on the walls were painted shut, so Stanley dragged himself all the way up to six and lugged his two electric fans back down to the party room to make the place more bearable.

With some air moving, they set to work sweeping and dusting and dragging the cobwebs out of the corners.

When they figured the joint was as clean as it was ever going to get, they stepped back and considered their options.

“Needs leather,” ChiChi said, head cocked to the side, fingertip to his chin. For some reason, which Stanley didn’t want to know, ChiChi was tweaking his own nipple as he said it.

“We don’t have leather,” Roger said, digging through one of the boxes. “What we have is some butt-ugly green crepe paper, a shitload of silver tinsel, about a hundred Christmasy tablecloths… ooh, and an un-put-together Christmas tree. No, wait. Sorry.
Two
Christmas trees.”

“And a disco ball,” Stanley added, eyeing the contraption that still hung in the middle of the room like the Death Star.

“There are boxes of tree ornaments here too.” Roger rattled on, digging through another box. “And ribbon and snowmen and a bag of baby Jesuses made from Chatty Cathy dolls and wearing cute little diapers and bonnets. What the hell did Arthur ever do with a dozen baby Jesuses?”

Stanley plucked one of the dolls out of the box and pulled the ring poking out of Jesus’s back.

“Mama,” Jesus said.

“That settles it,” ChiChi groaned. “Christmas it is. Let’s get started.”

Stanley and Roger looked at each other, thought about it for about three seconds, then shrugged.

“Christmas it is,” they said together.

An hour later the place was transformed. There was a fully decorated Christmas tree at each end of the room. Green crepe paper hung in garlands from one wall to the other, nicely draped, sprinkled with tinsel, and converging in the middle of the room around the Death Star. Tiny white Christmas lights sparkled on the trees and hung in clusters from the ceiling. The tables scattered around the perimeter of the room had folding chairs tucked under them and colorful tablecloths neatly spread with Christmas plates and plastic glasses and paper napkins, just waiting for people to plop their asses down and start eating. The center of each table was adorned with an arrangement of plastic poinsettias in a bunch of fatass vases made from old bleach bottles cut down and wrapped in foil. In every arrangement, a Jabbering Jesus doll (as ChiChi called them) poked his head out of the foliage as if to see what all the hubbub was about. Since Stanley had found a
second
box filled with baby Jesuses—these twelve stark naked and looking rather like participants of ChiChi’s orgy, lying there in the box with their bare arms and legs all wrapped around each other—it was Roger’s idea to string their little bodies from the ceiling around the Death Star, where they floated like cherubs, gently spinning and bobbing in the breeze from the fans.