Legend of a Face God

Legend of a Face God 2

Chapter 2- Morocco

I used to wonder where my heaven was. I used to wonder those kinds of things growing up as a Christian. They had their ideas of what heaven was but I didn’t know what mine was. I wanted to know my heaven so bad. Where could it be? I was never too religious…even back then. My family found so much comfort and happiness in their religion.

Where was my heaven? That was the question.

I put the key in the door.

I walk into the apartment. I walk towards the bedroom, but the door is locked.

“Valentine, Baby, Why the hell are you keeping your bedroom door locked! Open up!” I scream at the top of my lungs.

There is silence at that moment.

He loves to make me wait. I’ve always been the impatient type. I’ve always been the one that found it so hard to wait. It wasn’t until I found that patience that I got what I needed. It wasn’t until I stopped looking for happiness that I truly experienced what it was.

“Um…baby…hold on one second…”

“Valentine what’s happening? Valentine,” I called out to him once more as I pressed for an answer.

A panic sets over me. It’s unlike Valentine to lock himself up in his bedroom. He was acting very strange at that moment. However, I do what I don’t like to do. I do what allowed me to win Valentine over in the first place. I remain patient.

I stand there until he finally opens the door.

“There you are,” I say.

My heaven stands right in front of me.

I’ve found heaven right here on earth. And its heaven looking right back at me, in the form of Valentine Booker. His eyes look back at me and every time he stares at me, I see that heaven. It almost brings tears to my eyes after all the shit I put up with back at home.

“I didn’t expect you over here,” he responds.

“Are you not happy to see me?” I ask.

“Baby of course I’m happy to see you.”

Valentine leans forward. He grabs me. He holds me. Yes. Here was the warmness of my heaven. He offers me a feeling of home that I can never explain. I lose myself in him. I touch onto the sides of his face. They are so soft. Yet somehow even with his soft face my hands roll down his chest. It’s hard. It’s completely hard. The strong chest my man was in arms reach.

Valentine is such a man. I find myself wanting to grab onto that manhood of his. I want to hold his dick in my hand. I want it inside of me.

He grabs my hand stopping me before I get too low, “Babe…stop.”

It’s unlike him.

“Are you ok Valentine?”

“Of course, I’m ok. Hey. You know I try not to get it in before a fight.”

“You got a fight coming up?”

He nods, “Yeah soon, hey give me a second. Let’s go take a walk. I wanted some fresh air…”

I nod and let him do his thing. He seems like he is in a rush to get out of the house for whatever reason but I don’t hold it against him. The guys who overreact to everything their men do are the guys who don’t keep them for a very long time. I wasn’t going to be that guy. Not even a little bit.

I wait for him to come back out of the room and he is fully dressed.

Valentine and I walk out of the apartment. It’s a cold day in Philly. I look at him as he walks. My heart is unbalanced some times. I can’t believe I’m here with the man of my dreams standing right next to me.

“Are you feeling ok?” I ask him.

Valentine is walking down the street. His nose is red. He smiles at me slightly uneasy but answers, “Yeah…just a weird morning. That’s all.”

“Who you telling?” I ask Valentine, “I was at the gym and some random fag comes up to me and tells me congratulations, as if I did something.”

Valentine laughs, “Maybe he’s talking about the engagement?”

I think about it.

“I didn’t tell anyone about that though really. Well no one but my roommate and my brother so far,” I explain.

Valentine stops walking. It’s almost as though something has made him really uncomfortable. I look over at him.

“Brother?”

It’s just at that moment I realize that I haven’t told Valentine about my brother coming into town. It’s not something that I really planned on not telling him.

“Yeah, my twin brother, remember I told you about that a while ago that I had a twin.”

Valentine sighs a little bit, “Don’t you think you should have fuckin’ reminded me about something like that Morocco?”

“Whoa, bro…, slow down. I was going to tell you.”

“Oh yeah, when?”

“What’s the problem?” I ask him.

“I just think it’s fuckin important you tell me shit like that man,” he responds.

Valentine is definitely acting weird as fuck. I can’t put my finger on it but he is aggressive. He’s a boxer. He’s always been aggressive. That’s what I liked about him. That’s why I fell in love with him. I’m not the most passive guy in the world and we butt heads because of it. He wants to be in control. I want to be in control.

“You’ll meet him tonight. He and I aren’t really that close Valentine. He’s not a good person. Looking at him, you think he is. You think he’s this innocent guy. But he’s just a devil who LOVES to play the victim all the time.”

I hate talking about my brother Israel. He’s always been a sneaky ass guy. He’s always had an agenda; he was always trying to be Mr. Perfect. The morally correct one that loved to put on the wounded bird face. Nothing got past Israel.

“You don’t seem like you get along with him,” Valentine says.

“It’s a long story…but no…We aren’t the best of friends.”

“So why is he here?” Valentine asks.

Valentine is blunt. He looks at me with those beautiful eyes of his. It’s clear that he’s probably looking out for me. Hell at this moment he seems to be more annoyed than I am that Israel is in town.

“I’m trying to fix it. It’s always me…attempting to stroke his ego so he isn’t that fucking annoying victim.”

“Well he seems like a dick. I don’t want to meet him.”

“Valen…”

“No. Send him away. As simple as that.”

Was it as simple as that?

“You don’t get to choose your family,” I explain to him, “And I’m not talking about that gay family house bullshit. I’m talking about the fact that you can’t choose your real family.”

Valentine was part of the gay ballroom scene. He was in a house called Cavalli. In the streets, Valentine Cavalli was the hottest thing on the scene. It had made him somewhat of a celebrity. I knew he was involved in this but I didn’t know it was such a big thing in his life. I didn’t get it. What was the obsession with gay people and these balls? All that time they could have used money to be doing something somewhat productive.

“You have to bring up the ballroom thing huh?” Valentine asks.

“I just don’t understand why you are in one. You’re a grown man. You’re masculine. You walk these balls stripping butt naked for these people for what—a trophy? An ego boost.”

Valentine rolls his eyes, “I’m not a stripper Morocco. I walk sex siren. The category is a category where you have to sell sex. It’s just art. I’m not even naked. If you’d ever come to a ball you’d know that. But instead you just want to control me…”

“Valentine.”

“No…You MET me doing this. STOP fucking judging me all the time. I don’t have a family like you,” he responds, “I don’t have a real brother to come see me. My family disowned me. I grew up in the streets. This gay family is the only family I have.”

“Valentine…”

“Don’t…”

Valentine walks away at that moment. I don’t get it. Something is definitely wrong. Valentine was on edge the entire morning. Something was definitely bothering him. I’d talked to him about the balls a million times and it never affected him like this.

He never stormed off on me before.

I head to work later that day. I can’t even focus. I’m a Make-Up artist. I started this shit from the very bottom. The shop is full of people and everyone’s talking. I hired only girls to work at my shop. I don’t have time for gay people and the drama that they put up with.

“You ok Rocco?” a voice says.

I turn to see Justine. Justine is a pretty girl that has been my ride or die since I opened the shop. She’s doing one girl’s face while I’m attempting to do another girl. I’m messing up. I have eyeliner all over her lower eye and it is clearly showing. Justine and the others girls in the shop are looking at me like I’m a little crazy. I can’t concentrate.

“Girl…man trouble,” I admit.

Justine knows everything about me. Justine isn’t exactly a girl in the most “normal” sense of the word. She is a drag queen. She’s passable. I have to admit. She looks like a 15 year old girl meanwhile she is really a 29 year old man. She stands with her hand on her hip as she looks over at me.

“Not with sexy ass Valentine,” she responds.

Dominique the gossip girl in the shop laughs a little bit, “I can take that problem off your hands if you’d like.”

I roll my eyes. They all know how sexy Valentine is. In my neighborhood, a light skin black guy with a pretty face that was masculine and had muscles was like cocaine. Everyone in the neighborhood wanted him. Guy…girl…drag queen. I had to watch my back everywhere I went.

“I think he’s having cold feet about the marriage,” I explain.

“That boy loves you,” Justine tells me.

She tells me that all the time. The thing is I don’t need Justine to tell me that. I DESERVE a man like Valentine. I worked hard for him. I fucking worked my ass to beat down the stereotypes and become a successful businessman, out and proud. I didn’t get into the drama.

“He’s just been acting weird all day that’s all. Like this morning he wouldn’t let me in his room.”

“Did you go in?” Dominique asked.

“No. It was almost like he was hiding something.”

Dominique and Justine look at one another. They exchange glances.

“Humph,” Justine says.

“Girl say what you got to say,” I tell her.

“Nothing. Nothing.”

Dominique isn’t as shy when it comes to offering her opinion, “She wants to say you should have gone in that room and seen if he had a nigga in there!”

I look at the bitch up and down.

“Bitch do you want to keep your job?” I ask her.

Dominique stops working and looks at me like a deer in headlights, “Of course. I didn’t’ mean nothin’ just…”

“Talk like my man like that and end up on the unemployment line,” I respond to her.

I’m not joking with her either. I watch her shut up at that moment. She doesn’t have another fucking thing to say.

“Rocco don’t play about his man,” Justine states.

“I deserve that man,” I respond to her, “You hear me. I EARNED that man. I’ll kill someone over that man. I don’t have time for no bullshit. He ain’t going anywhere. I promise you that much. You bitches getting me all worked up before lunch. Where the fuck is Laurence…”

I look down at my phone. My best friend is unusually late today.

“So let me get it right. You got a sexy man who you are dating and another sexy ass man that brings you lunch every day?” Justine asks, “I’m so jealous.”

“Laurence and I are just cool. He’s just my homie.”

“Your homie who wants to fuck the shit out of you,” Justine responds.

I blush red.

Laurence has always been there but it’s just friends. It’s not anything more than that. We were literally just friends, except that one time…

I shake the thought off. I’m an engaged man now, “Justine finish this face for me. I’m a little worried about him.”

I head to my phone and start making calls. He isn’t picking up. This just seems unlike him. I am at the door panicking at that moment.

I head out onto the sidewalk for some reason. The sidelights illuminate the street. That’s when I see it. That’s when I see some people involved in a fight down the street. I start walking over out of curiosity. I can hear from the cattiness almost immediately that it is a bunch of gay boys standing on the curb.

They are jumping someone. I walk a little closer.

OH FUCK!

“LAURENCE!”

I immediately got to the front of the curb and I’m standing there looking at him getting beat up. I run over there and lay myself over him. The boys hitting him stop hitting him for a minute and look down at me.

“Yo fall the fuck back” one of them says.

“Fuck that…you’ll have to kill me.”

Laurence was my best friend. He was like a brother to me that I had never known. There was no way in hell I was going to look at him like that. I think the boys are going to take me up on my offer. Hell, they even move close. One of them looks like they are going to hit me.

They stop short however.

I look back up at them still protecting Laurence. I’m not scared of them. We’d all be fighting if they tried to hit Laurence again. I’d lose but hell I’d lost worst fights when I first moved to Philly.

“Isn’t that the boy…that’s the boy Naomi has been looking for,” one of the boys says.

There are six of them. They are hood looking boys save one. If it wasn’t for the one tall looking feminine guy, I would think these were a bunch of hood boys around gay bashing. I mean Laurence does have on a see through shirt. He doesn’t go anywhere without trying to sell some type of sex or something.

“Yeah that’s him…,” another one says.

The boy who answers is handsome. I have to admit…even though he was just beating the fuck out of my friend Laurence. He has dark skin and a baldhead. He is tall and slim but his knuckles are a little bloody.

“Chaos, we can’t fuck with him,” one of the gay boys says, “Naomi will be pissed.”

“Bitch don’t you think I know that?” the dark skin boy barks at the other boy before turning to me,

“Is this your homie, kid?”

“This is my best fuckin’ friend. Who are you people?”

“You met us yesterday. Don’t you remember?” the dark skin boy says, “I’m Chaos Balmain. You met my gay mother Naomi. She wanted you to join the house. You never called.”

“You got me mixed up.”

“No it was you…”

Just then, it clicks to me.

Fuck.

Israel.

I shake the thought off, “Listen. I don’t want any trouble man. But I’m gonna protect my friend no matter what.”

The boy Chaos looks over at me. He signals to the other boys, “We’re done here. We’ll catch that little bitch Laurence on another day. Lucky Naomi wants that kid to join the house.”

I pull Laurence into the house. His eye is fuckin’ swollen. His lip is busted and he is bleeding. He keeps clutching down to his ribs at that moment. As soon as I walk him into the house, I notice that Israel is there. Israel does not notice that Laurence is fucked up, because he just keeps talking about what he has cooked.

“Hey…so I made all this food for dinner tonight,” Israel is saying, “Figured you’d be home tonight. Damn…, what happened to him!”

“Get me some ice,” I tell my brother.

My brother runs towards the fridge. Laurence looks like shit. I’ve never seen him look so fucked up in my life.

“Laurence what the fuck are you involved in now.”

“It’s the fuckin’ Balmains thugs. They are all fuckin thugs.”

I’d heard of them. The Balmains were known more in Philadelphia for being like a gang than a gay house. People were actually afraid of them. They always attacked people from what I knew. It wasn’t too long ago that one of them had actually attacked Justine over something really small. I just didn’t get it.

“Laurence I told you about that house shit man,” I respond, “That Ballroom scene is not the place that you need to be.”

“My house is classy. The Armanis are always classy. It’s those Insane Balmains that are the fucking problem. They are jealous.”

“Armani, Balmain, they are all the fucking same to me. You are being attacked over what, a trophy?”

“Chaos is just mad because I won sex siren last night.”

Laurence was so gone. It had been two years since he joined the House of Armani. It had become his life. That’s all he talked about. This shit was real to him. I didn’t fucking get it. He wouldn’t go out and improve himself because he was so interested in the ballroom scene. Stripping had become just a way for Laurence to improve his rep in the ballroom scene.

“So you got beat up because you look better in your underwear than another dude?” I ask, “See this is why I could never take you serious Laurence.”

“Isn’t your boyfriend in a house? Matter of fact I’m pretty sure he walks sex siren too…” he responds.

“Don’t remind me…”

“But you gave him a chance.”

“SHHHHhh…”

I hush Laurence just in time for my brother to come back. The last thing I want to do is make my brother think something was still happening between Laurence and I.

“Can I do something else?” Israel states.

“Go…make the table so we can eat or something,” I respond.

“Sure…”

Israel walks away. Not a minute passes before Laurence grabs me and pulls me close to him.

“So you’re going to ignore me?” Laurence asks, “You damn near laid your body on top of mine not too long ago to protect me and now you want to brush me under the rug again.”

I look at Laurence. The look in his eyes says it all. Laurence is undeniably sexy. His caramel complexion reflects the light like a golden sunset. A lot of people said he looked a lot like Michael B. Jordan and I do see it a little bit. The problem that Laurence had is he never knew how attractive he was. I just couldn’t take Laurence serious.

“We’re friends…” I tell Laurence.

Laurence sighs a little bit, “Oh yeah. I’m not light skin and sexy with green eyes. I can’t get the Valentine treatment I guess.”

“Don’t be like that Laurence.”

Laurence rolls his eyes, “Man what’s for fuckin dinner…”

==============

Laurence mean mugs me from the table. A part of me wondered why Laurence and me never got together. Maybe it was the fact that when we were trying to date back in the day he cheated on me almost immediately. I never trusted him again. It was the first time my heart was truly broken. I never really recovered from it. After that we just became friends. Laurence never got over it though. He never seemed to give up…even when Valentine came along.

“This food is amazing…why don’t you cook like this Morocco?” Laurence asks.

I know he’s doing it on purpose. He’s trying to get under my skin. I have to admit though that Israel can cook his ass off. He always had that ability.

“You think?” Israel asks, “I just think it’s alright. Nothing special…nothing special…”

I roll my eyes. That’s the thing that pisses me off about him. He knew the food was good. He knew it was amazing but Israel was the type to NEED attention. He wasn’t the type to demand attention though. He would passively beg for it. He was beyond annoying with shit like that.

Luckily, I’m interrupted by the doorbell.

I walk to the door at that moment and my heart drops when I open the door to Valentine standing there. Valentine smiles at me as he walks through the door.

Valentine stares back at me with flowers in his hand. His green eyes stare back at me. He flashes a smile that makes my heart stop.

“I’m sorry about the argument earlier,” he tells me, “I shouldn’t have walked off like that.”

I smile. I try not to overdo it. I want him to know I’m satisfied with the flowers and him showing up at dinner at the end of the day. I don’t want to let him know that he’s made my day. My day was complete shit so far.

“Come on in.”

I walk Valentine in allowing him to give me a kiss. My heart pounds every time I see him. I take the flowers and inhale their delicate fragrance deeply. I smell his love all over them. It’s amazing.

Valentine walks to the table.

“This must be your brother…,” Valentine states.

Valentine holds out his hand out for Israel to shake. My brother looks at his hand for a minute. My brother looks at me. It’s almost as though he’s sizing us up or something. I’m not sure what the fuck that is about. Just at that moment Israel does probably the rudest thing I’ve ever seen him fucking do in my life. He gets up from the table almost immediately.

“I feel sick,” he announces.

He ignores Valentine’s hand and disappears to the bathroom. Valentine looks at his hand as though something is wrong with it before dropping it.

“Damn…I thought Valentine Cavalli could charm just about anyone,” Laurence snaps with a smirk on his face.

I give Laurence an eye, hoping that he’d play nice to Valentine. He never came out and just said he didn’t like Valentine but he took these little subliminal shots at Valentine every time he had the chance. Laurence had a smart mouth. I wasn’t surprised the Balmains were beating him up.

“His last name is Booker,” I correct Laurence.

“My last name is Cavalli in the streets,” Valentine quickly tells me before quickly turning to Laurence, “GODDAM—what happened to you?”

“Thanks for noticing. My confidence needed that.”

Just at that moment, Israel comes back to the table. He quietly sits at the table. Valentine looks over at him. I expect my brother to apologize or something. He doesn’t have any fucking manners though. He just dives into the food and pretends like Valentine isn’t even there.

“Are you going to speak to my fiance?” I ask Israel, “Or just continue to be fuckin’ rude…”

“He doesn’t have to,” Valentine quickly responds, “Besides Laurence was just about to tell us what happened with his fucked up eye.”

“The Balmains happened to me. Chaos Balmain to be exact,” Laurence responds, “Along with the gay thugs that he calls his house brothers. They wanted to fuck up this pretty ass face of mine. I’ll let them win a few balls but once these bruises heal I’ll be sitting those bitches down in the category again.”

“You should join Cavalli,” Valentine tells Laurence, “The Balmains wouldn’t try that shit with the House of Cavalli. You’d be protected.”

“Because you are all meatheads right?” Laurence asks.

“Meatheads.”

“Laurence…” I butt in.

Laurence fixes his tone, “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. Everyone knows that the House of Cavalli doesn’t let in anyone who has less than 6 percent body fat. No thanks. I like being the only sexy one in my house. It’s hard enough to get attention in the scene.”

“Well maybe you should ask Naomi to get her kids to stop beating you up,” Valentine says.

Laurence looks at me. I can tell what he’s thinking. I know Valentine isn’t trying to be rude. He’s just blunt. Laurence got beat up. That’s what happened. I can honestly say that Valentine isn’t the type to be throwing shade at people. He’s literally just saying what he says. I can tell that Laurence is offended though.

My brother comes out of nowhere and jumps into the conversation, “Naomi Balmain?”

Laurence looks over at Israel, “The one and only. The female figure face of Balmain. She is the only one in that fucking house that has any sort of talent. The rest of them are a bunch of thugs that just surround her and scare people into voting for them.”

“They can’t be so bad,” my brother responds, “Not with a mother that is so beautiful…”

“What the fuck do you know about the ballroom scene?” I ask.

“Just videos I saw.”

“So you just going to lie?” I ask.

Israel looks like a deer caught in the headlights at that moment, “About…”

“I know where you were last night Israel…stop fucking lying. I KNOW what the fuck you did last night.”

“Oh, fuck. Oh fuck. Yo it’s not my fault,” he starts freaking out.

Valentine gets up from the table, “It’s not his fault baby. I swear it’s not your brother’s fault!”

“I don’t NEED you fucking defending me!” my brother screams at my fiance.

I look at my brother like he has two heads.

“Israel…you better sit the fuck down,” I respond.

Valentine looks over at me at that moment, “Ok then it IS your fault. Is that what you wanted me to fucking say? This is all your fucking fault. Because honestly it was. I was trying to be the nice fucking guy.”

I look at Laurence. I’m confused as fuck why Valentine is screaming at the top of his lungs. I’m even more confused on how Israel finally grew some balls over night.

Laurence looks at the wine, “Something in this wine?”

I look back at Laurence, “Shit I don’t fucking know.”

Valentine just shakes his head, “JUST TELL HIM WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT BEFORE I DO…”

My heart is racing. The fuck is Valentine talking about? I look at Israel. I look back at Valentine.

“Wait…Valentine you were at the ball last night?” Laurence states, “Wait hold up. HOLD UP. I didn’t see you at the ball Valentine. Were you really there?”

Laurence looks like he knows something. My brother looks scared. Then there is Valentine. Valentine is shaking as though somewhere between his emotions and some unknown place. My heart is racing. I don’t understand what’s going on but I need answers and I need answers right fucking now.

Valentine looks nervous, “Yes. Yes I was. And I need Israel to tell Morocco what happened at the ball last night.”

“I’ll fucking tell him,” Israel replies.

“TELL HIM!” Valentine responds almost screaming.

“We fucked,” Israel states.

Just at that moment my heart drops.

To read the next chapter go to www.crushedcrown.com