Aching For It Read Free Page B

visit.
    We continued to lie there in each other’s arms, still and
quiet, dreaming, taking in the storybook sky above.
    “I have beautiful country,” Étie finally said to me, quietly
yet with a deep and abiding pride only native sons know. “We are oldest city in
all of Western hemisphere. When Spaniards come to conquer us, we conquer them
right back. We have —¿Cómo se dice en inglés? —a fighting spirit, a spirit
that fights.”
    And then he went silent again, and when he finally spoke,
there was a low, cold steeliness in his voice. Still, the tears that glazed his
eyes spoke volumes.
    “The scar I wear my father give me for being gay, is now my
battle scar. The streets I lived on when he threw me out is battlefield I
fought on. My hate for him is what has killed him in my heart. I have no love
for him, the enemy. But unlike what I feel for him, I will always have the love
of my country in me, just as I will always have the love in me for you, Jesse.
But what is different is I will leave my country that I love. I will never
leave you.”
    * * * * *
    “Edgar told me your boy Étie is a lousy lay.”
    “What would you expect him to say, considering the
circumstances? And besides, I’m not interested in what Edgar has to say.”
    “Well, is it true?”
    “Listen, Sylvester, I’m not going to even dignify that with
an answer.”
    “Well I suppose he had a chance to practice his sexual
techniques before snatching you.”
    “You and I are supposed to be friends, Sylvester. So before
you piss me off any more than you already have, I’m gonna hang the fuck up.”
    And that’s exactly what I did.
    Edgar’s opinion of Étie’s sexual abilities couldn’t have
been more off base as far as I was concerned. I can’t speak on Étie and Edgar’s
sexual chemistry or lack thereof. All I know is the beautiful love Étienne
Saldano and I make. Even when I’m away from him, when he’s in his country and
I’m in mine, he remains the singular fantasy that fuels my loins and stiffens
me, that fills me with lust, that shivers me with panting and howling, contorts
me into grimaces and eye-bulging as I masturbate with a madness, thinking, dreaming
and seeing only him. Love makes him the best sex partner in the world. And
there is nothing lousy about that.

Chapter Five
     
    Six months had passed. The trips I made back and forth
between Los Angeles and the Dominican Republic, and the daily phone calls Étie
and I shared when we were apart, were not enough to quench our burning need to
be with each other, to make love at a moment’s notice, to share a home
together.
    I could hear the weariness in Attorney Caitlin’s voice as
plainly as he could hear the exasperation in mine whenever I called him, which
was often. His response was always the same.
    “I told you, Jesse, it’s going to take a while. You must be
patient.”
    “There’s nothing you can do to speed up the process?” I
whined.
    “Nothing that I haven’t done already.”
    “If he was a white boy from England, he would’ve been here
months ago,” I snapped.
    “I’m afraid you’re right,” Caitlin surrendered, giving me no
fight to fight.
    I even toyed with the idea of moving down to the DR
temporarily until Étie’s papers came through. That is if they came
through. There was still a good possibility his application could be rejected.
    Still, a temporary relocation would have to be at least
eighteen months. And eighteen months unavailable to my Los Angeles-based
clients—actors in need of headshots, Hollywood tabloids, book-cover jacket
photos, and my production photo contracts with The Center Theatre Group and the
Geffen Playhouse—would put a serious dent in my income. Sure, I still had my
three tenant-occupied units in the fourplex I owned, but it was mortgaged up to
my eyeballs, and with the economy being what it was, Caitlin’s legal fees, and
eventually getting Étie settled and supported in the States while he looked for
meaningful work