Red Bull Chapter 6
Chapter 6
I’m in the shower when I hear Marcella.
“Hurry up babe...I need you.”
The water is cascading down my abdomen. Long white suds form from under my pectoral muscles and I’m amazed when I feel the water steam over me and begin to drip slowly down my body. I rub the suds into my pubic hair, rubbing it on the shaft of my long dick that is getting harder in these moments.
“Go to sleep,” I call from the shower, “I may be a little while…”
My dick is getting harder because I’m thinking. It’s been so long that I’ve had sex with Marcella. She’s in the room right now naked and wanting to have sex with me. I know she wants because she has made comments. So why the hell am I hear suffering from what I’m suffering from now?
I’m beyond horny. My dick is throbbing hoping to be inside of something.
But is it her?
I reach down and grab the shaft of my dick. My entire body shudders when I feel the shaft. And I begin to pull violently, letting the long hard strokes guide my hands and guide the thrust of my hips. The water gets everywhere including my mouth. I love every second of it. I feel as though I’m drowning in myself.
It isn’t long until I begin to cum but then I realize the last image in my mind isn’t Marcella...it’s Meek.
~
I get out of the shower and see Marcella. She’s laying there naked. Completely naked. I walk to the dresser. My mind is still stuck on having seen Meek. I don’t understand why I can’t get him out of my head. I can’t escape him no matter what I do. Meek always seems to just pop up in my mind as though he was stalking me. Or maybe in my fucked up mind, I was stalking him.
It was getting worse.
“You not in the mood again, are you?” she asks.
That’s another thing about Marcella. She’s very blunt. She just keeps looking at me waiting for me to answer. I turn away from her. My mind is really out of it right now and I don’t want to have to explain complex feelings that I’m having to her.
“Tired…”
“Yeah, I would be too with your tiring ass family,” Marcella shakes her head and starts dressing as though not caring one way or another if we have sex.
“That’s not necessary.”
“Not necessary?” Marcella asks, “Your crazy ass brother Jamison reached out to Joshua telling him that if he doesn’t repent Isabella dying is just the beginning. Who the fuck says that?”
“You don’t get it,” I explain.
“Explain it.”
“Our father was very strict on the whole gay. He hated it. I mean ----really hated it----”
“He’s dead right?” Marcella asks, “So why do you all care so much about what he thinks.”
“You so OK with this gay thing?” I ask.
“Why not?” she asks, “Are you OK with two lesbians?”
“That’s different.”
“How?” she asks, rolling her eyes, “Stop letting society dictate to you what you and what you don’t want.”
Marcella leaves. I wonder if she would have felt the same about in her support of Joshua if she knew that her boyfriend was having thoughts about having sex with another man. I bet she wouldn’t have had that smug face on that she did.
The truth was Marcella was mad about one thing and one thing only.
Joshua.
And I knew that I had to go see him and finally make sure he was OK.
~
Joshua’s house takes too long to get to. Joshua was just how most guys in the hood would imagine him to be. His house in the valley far away from the rest of ours. He probably thinks he’s too good for us. He’s in a gated community. It’s the kind of community where I get out of my car and walk up to the door and get all sorts of looks. The rest of us had managed to stay around the Marchioness and in Compton, but not Joshua. He was too good for that.
“Thanks for coming.”
Joshua opens the door. He doesn’t give me his usual smile or his usual wave. I don’t know how to react to him as his older brother even when I step into the threshold and see him shuffle to the fridge. It is clear he is making lunch for Eva.
I follow close behind him. The house is spotless. You wouldn’t think if you didn’t know him that Joshua was mourning. I knew him though. He tried to suppress his emotions usually, hiding it in places nowhere can find.
Today was different.
“I’ve been calling,” I offer.
He doesn’t look my way.
“Lots of shit going on. Thanks for coming through,” he says and then repeats it after a few seconds, “Thanks for coming. He should be over here any moment to get some of his stuff and you can leave after that.”
“I didn’t come over here just because of AK,” I tell him, “I came to check up on my little brother.”
There is a pause after he says that.
“I’m fine.”
He wasn’t. He wasn’t fine and he wasn’t good at convincing me in these moments. I take a deep breath. It’s one thing to care about someone but it’s another thing to show this sort of care when you too are mourning. Isabella was far too young. She’d experienced far too little.
“The sun comes up tomorrow,” I assure him, “It always does. The bible says…”
“I don’t give a fuck what it says right now,” he tells me.
The anger in his tone is harsh. He wants to stop having communication. He is frantically at this moment looking for something in his closet. From the cut-up fruit, I’m assuming he’s looking for a container or some ziplock back. There is one right in front of him at the counter but he is so emotional I doubt he sees it.
Maybe that’s why I lean it up and give it to him.
“What can I do to make this OK?” I ask him.
“Tell me that I wasn’t the reason that Isabella is dead. I was the one who brought a gangster into my home.”
The heaviness hits me hard. It damn new pummels me in the face to the point that I turn away from him and just stare down.
“AK is a mistake, but not in the way you think,” I explain to him, “Have you thought maybe it was the gay thing.”
He gives me a look, then rolls his eyes.
“You have been drinking the Jamison Kool-aid haven’t you.”
“No seriously,” I assure him before walking up to him and showing him the conversion therapy card, “I’ve had feelings...like you. Feelings for other men…”
When I say it I don’t expect Joshua to look me right in my eyes with the most confused look over.
“You gay?” he asks me.
“No of course not, I’m just----”
“Curious?”
He keeps doing it. He keeps trying to put one of those letters on me that comes with his agenda. I knew it by the way he kept probing. It made me uncomfortable. Knots are forming in my stomach and I have no idea how to really get those fucking knots out. He keeps staring at me as though I was about to come out to the world.
“Being gay is a choice. You can choose to live this life but you see where that leads you. Or you can choose to come to this place with me. We can solve our problems...together. We can remove this generational curse.”
He stops talking. For a moment I expect him to really consider it. I expect Joshua to really finally realize that it’s not OK to be gay like he thinks.
“I can’t believe that we are back to this gay thing after all we went through,” he states before pausing and finally saying, “I can’t deal with this right now….”
I see him twitch a little bit and he turns to the right. Somehow he catches himself and it isn’t until I turn that I see some pills up on the counter. They are closed but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was popping pills. Addiction ran through our bloodline the same way that the homosexual spirit ran through it.
“I just don’t want you to go to hell…” I tell him, “I love you. You’re my brother.”
I look at him and I wish that he understood the words coming out of my mouth but there is all this fucking resistance. I just want to beat it out of him but God knows if that would even work. It was as though he was set in his ways so much.
“I can’t deal with this shit right now,” He states, “The fact that no one thinks this is crazy is beyond me. You really think MY sexuality for my daughter’s death.”
Knowing he felt this way made me feel almost empty. I reach over and grab him before he moves away.
“There are forces in the world we can’t explain,” I warn him.
It’s going in one ear and out the other.
“The gun could have been anyone’s…”
“What?” I ask, “ARE YOU SAYING ITS MY FUCKING GUN? YOU THINK I WOULD HAVE BROUGHT A GUN IN THE REACH OF MY FUCKING NEPHEW?”
I don’t know why I blow up like that but as soon as I do I regret it because almost immediately my brother raises an eyebrow as though he is suspicious of the words I’m saying.
“I never said you brought the gun. I thought it was settled that AK brought the gun…”
I don’t know how to respond so instead of responding I simply just smile, “I mean...you’re right though. It could have been anyone’s…”
“So is it settled?”
“What?”
“That AK was the one who brought the gun in the house?” he asks.
I pause. Shit. I didn’t want to lie to him but I felt like if I told him the truth he wouldn’t be focused on the big picture.
“AK is no good for you. This is a punishment. Don’t you get that?”
“I’m glad you think so, but that wasn’t what I asked,” I state, “You and Jamison were at the house when Sean shot Isabella. Are you 100 percent sure that it was AK’s gun.”
“You think I would bring a gun in?” he asks.
“I never said you,” he explains, “And clearly Jamison never used a gun in his life. But is it possible? Is it possible that it could have been someone else’s gun?”
I pause. A part of me considers telling Joshua the truth at this moment. Lying to him was hard. I knew he was asking me this because he wanted to take AK back. He probably missed AK. The more I look at him the more I realize just how much AK has my brother wrapped around his finger in this way. It’s kind of hilarious in away.
“Um…” are the only words that come out of my mouth.
That was when there a knock on the door. It comes right in time. It almost feels in those moments like some sort of divine intervention. Someone didn’t want me answering that question. I feel a bit of relief until I see my brother pull out his monitoring device and shake his head annoyingly.
“It’s him...AK…” he states.
My heart is racing more and more at that moment knowing that AK was at the door. I hadn’t seen him since the kiss that we shared but a part of me knows that AK probably doesn’t want Joshua to know each other
~
I get to the door. I open it.
“You got 5 minutes to get your shit.”
He stares at the door for a second. AK looks good tonight; his polo is pressed, his jacket probably one of the most expensive I’ve seen and he has some skinny jeans on that make him look even leaner and taller than he already is. He looks like a model in those moments. One of the fancy ones in good high fashion labels. It’s quite interesting that he went all out like this and it’s at this moment that I realize that I’ve signed up to be the middle man. AK wasn’t here to get his stuff back. He was here to get his man back.
“Is he here?” he whispers gently trying to peer past me towards the kitchen.
“That’s not your concern,” I assure him, “What you need to be worried about is getting your shit and going?”
He pauses.
“It’s just that I haven’t seen him in so long and -----”
“AK get your shit and bounce nigga,” I state, “Or we are going to be fighting up and down this place. I assure you.”
I was looking for a reason to let go of a lot of this tension and beating the fuck out of AK would probably be exactly what the doctor ordered. My fists are already clenched. I should hit him right now and right here. The Old Joyous wouldn’t have hesitated.
I hesitated at that moment because AK doesn’t push back like I think he would. He shoots his head down to the ground.
“I understand…”
He walks into the house. I watch as he walks to the bedroom silently. I wasn’t expecting this. AK was a pop-off like me. I assumed we would have fought in no time especially in a situation like this, but AK seems almost...humbled. I’m not sure. Maybe it was Isabella dying. Maybe he just didn’t want to make a scene. Either way, he is rather docile as he walks into the house.
What I don’t expect however is when he is in the room, packing a few of his things, that there is a slow nervous sobbing coming from the kitchen.
Joshua.
I get up and make my way to the kitchen where I see him. Joshua has collapsed onto the ground and is breaking down sobbing into solid fists that he has rested on the cheek. I walk over to him and struggle on how to comfort him at this moment.
“It’ll be OK,” I state, “I hate seeing you like this…”
I really did. I loved my brother. I loved all of them, but I had a soft spot for Joshua. I always had. Maybe that’s why I care so much. Maybe that’s why I’m here helping him successfully break up from a toxic guy like AK. But at the same time, I don’t know how to be there. Instead of rubbing on his back and even saying kind words I just stare waiting for him to say that it is OK for me to walk away.
The OK thing doesn’t come until a few seconds later, “I’ll be fine. Just get him out of here.”
I exhale a little bit as though feeling relief. I don’t know why I have a feeling that I can’t even have a regular conversation with my own brother.
When I get to the living room I notice AK has a bag in his hands. He is staring at the kitchen. He stares at it hard as though he knew that Joshua was in there.
“Please....” he states.
The way that AK look at me was almost believable. I almost believed in those few seconds that he may have actually loved my brother. And the way he is talking makes me think that the powerful words are more than anything I could ever imagine.
“Please what?” I ask, “I told you that my brother wants nothing to do with you.”
“I just want to see him. Just for a second. I won’t say anything to him. Just to make sure that he’s OK.”
Damn AK was believable. I had kissed his lips. I’d felt, even if just for a moment, the kind of passion that comes from a guy like AK. I look back at the kitchen. I didn’t think that they cared about anything but sex. Wasn’t that the gay lifestyle? They fucked a whole lot. When I kissed AK though, he hadn’t kissed me back.
I wonder in those moments how the hell I can justify the idea that Jamison had. Jamison believed all gay men cared just about sex.
But the way AK was staring at a blank hallway that led to the kitchen showed that he cared. He cared...a lot.
“I don’t know.”
I have no choice. I can’t let him go back there. He was going to turn my little brother back to sin and that was just something that in no way, shape or form I could tolerate. Even if he may have been somewhat sincere.
What I don’t expect however is a grown man starting to cry.
“Please…” he says.
I see the tears and almost lose it, “I don’t like that soft ass shit man. It doesn’t work on me.”
“It’s not soft,” he assures me with this heavy look on his face, “I’m telling you how I feel. It was not my gun. Please at least tell him that.”
“We all go through trials,” I tell him, “But I won’t tell him that. You are done with our family AK. Sorry, but you were never a part of it, to begin with.”
I watch AK look at me. Then he looks at the door. I watch him leave. A part of me still wants to follow after him. I want to tell him that the gun wasn’t his. I want to tell him that the gun belonged to Meek but I don’t.
AK just nods, “Tell him I love him…”
WIth that AK leaves. He gets in his car and drives off. And it isn’t until he drives away that I turn and see my little brother standing there. My little brother is just standing at the foot of the stares looking defeated.
“Did he say it was his?” my brother asks me.
He’s desperate I think. He wants to love AK so much. He wants to go back into that lifestyle of sinning. I can see this look of his hope all around his eyes. He wasn’t getting it. We were being punished and he couldn’t understand.
I nod, “Yes.”
He’s angry at AK. He’s angry as I am. I think he’s torn about him.
“Fine,” he explains, “We’ll both go. We’ll do it all together.”
~
It isn’t until the end of that week that me and my brothers meet up. Jamison is driving.
“Did we really have to pack for a whole week?” Joshua asks.
He’s complaining and he has a reason to. Right now I look down at his phone and see Marcella’s number continuing to call.
“Don’t pick it up,” I tell him, “She’s been blowing me up as well. Marcella will just try to talk us out of this.”
I see Joshua is struggling, “Maybe that’s not a bad idea.”
I hear almost immediately my other brother Jamison give him a short, “Pft….” in return. It’s clear that he is irritated.
The idea of Jamison and Joshua being in a car together was not something that I was looking forward to, but I’m pleasantly surprised by the silence. I don’t think in any way that this is a good silence. Joshua is angry with Jamison and vice versa. It was the story of my life.
“We’re here,” Jamison explains.
I’m confused when he starts walking me up to the building but when I turn I notice Joshua hasn’t left the car at all.
“So this place will cure me of being gay in a week?” Joshua states with a small grunt.
I don’t blame him. After getting more information about the conversion therapy it just seemed a little bit suspicious. Joshua has been skeptical the entire time. We were literally dragging him into this kicking and screaming. Every few minutes I just assumed he would take off so I watch him closely.
Jamison is confident in this though. He’s more confident than I am at least that this therapy was going to work.
“We aren’t the only ones going through the curse, look,” Jamison states.
As he says that we see other guys walking into the conversion therapy. Good looking guys. Normal looking guys. Guys who I never would have considered gay. I watch as they all start heading into the building that has a long cross on it. As I walk in I see several men standing off to the sides. A few of them are staring just a little too hard making me want to beat someone’s ass right in there.
“Everyone please line up on the right,” an elderly woman with polka dots on her blouse says, “Your counselor will be coming in any moment.”
“What kind of asshole converts gay people for a living?” Joshua asks.
He was breathing heavy like he had some anxiety being here. I can tell this is hard for him, but he did have a point. What did it take for a man----any man to have to do this for a living? Clearly, the person had to have been through this in order to counsel others on how to turn straight right?
So that meant it was possible.
It was possible to get rid of these thoughts. All of a sudden I’m a little excited.
“Joshua if this works, then isn’t it all worth it?” I ask.
Joshua looks over at me, “I’m not sure anymore. I’m not even sure anymore why I’m even here...why I agreed to this.”
Joshua is panicking. He’s trying to leave. Jamison and I literally have to grab him and pin him up against a wall for him to calm down.
“You’re here for Eva, remember?” I ask him, “You’re here to be better for her.”
That’s all he had left. Isabella was gone and so was AK. He’d lost everything so quickly and I knew he needed this. He needed God. And this was where we would start with finding him. This was the starting line.
“Let go of me,” Joshua stated.
“It’s OK,” the older woman who worked for the conversion community states before turning, “Here comes your counselor now.”
I turn hoping our new counselor would be able to calm Joshua down and make him not want to run away or something like that.
But when I turn I am slapped in the face with who the counselor was.
“Oh….wow…” he states.
And that’s when I realize. The counselor for the conversion therapy is none other than Meek.
“