Behind Closed Doors

Chapter Fifteen

The guy walked towards Henry slowly, the mystery figure dressed in the all-white ensemble that made him look ethereal. It was one of those lazy days in April, after there’d been a light drizzle and the air was cool and unsaturated. The guy looked like a mirage, with his beautiful face and his light brown skin that looked like some light sepia-toned photograph.

Henry smiled, and remembered that it was just a few days past the anniversary when he’d stood before Phoenix in that sex room. He was seated in the office of Anthony St. Claire with his mother and his friend Richard, the guy who had originally introduced him to the club where he’d met the beautiful dancer.

‘I think you’re getting on my nerves, Henry,’ the guy said softly as he stopped before them, the scent of Coco Chanel dripping off him.

‘You two know each other?’ Rosalie asked with a lift of her perfectly arched brows.

‘We met briefly, on April 3 1999; two years ago,’ Henry replied drily.

Phoenix settled down into a chair, and then he waved a bulky envelope in their faces. ‘You people are trying to control me, to have a say over my career and control all I do. It’s like modern slavery, and it is a slap in the face.’

‘No, my dear,’ Rosalie cut in. ‘What we’re trying to do is to help keep you afloat and keep you earning a lot of money and then we earn our own money from the arrangement. You’d wish to get only the very best, and I can help you with that. There are several producers and directors who want you and they can exploit you because of the fact that you don’t have an agent, and they will be making very tempting offers.’

‘I am considering those offers, madam,’ said Phoenix and then he threw his head back and laughed, laughing so hard, did Phoenix, that Henry wanted to throttle him to cut out that infernal laughter.

‘We have something better to offer to you,’ Henry said, sparing a smile. ‘We’re offering you twice what the highest bidder intends to offer you. You can go and hear the other studio heads talk their crap. If they have something to say to you, then by all means hear them out. They may give you their scripts and offer you their money, but I’d like for you to come and then I will give you a script three times better than theirs and offer you a price twice as hefty.’

Already, Henry could feel the wheels turning in the mind of the guy, and he refrained from smiling at the thought that his ingenious mother had been right all along; that they could buy Phoenix and stuff him deep in their pockets. She was a woman who knew the price of everything and everybody and the value of nothing. She had been able to tap into the guy’s mind, to see the world through his eyes in order to know what his price would be. And she’d offered it to him.

Phoenix finally agreed, just like Rosalie had predicted that he would, but he refused to sign anything, choosing to keep his options open. Their lawyers had already drawn up a contract that would keep Phoenix glued to them for the next one year—if he decided to sign, that is. The actor wasn’t biting, sadly.

‘Of course, dear,’ Rosalie agreed with him, and then she was on her feet, and having said her goodbyes, she swept from the room with Richard in tow like her slave puppy.

Since the whole conversation had been centered on Phoenix, Henry felt that there was no need for him to keep his attraction at bay now. He had thought the guy too sweet and pretty before, like the face of an ethereal being on a card and he liked it even better now. It was too finely defined and very beautiful even now, but there was cockiness there now, a sure belief in his power that had seemed lacking when Henry had encountered him two years ago.

Phoenix must have felt him staring, for the head of the guy jerked up suddenly, and their eyes met and it was the same as it had been the first time he’d accidentally stuck a wet finger into a lamp socket; it was a physical jolt that left him shaken. He looked away first because he trusted Phoenix to be bold and daring, not looking away demurely.

Without saying anything further, he excused himself and then left the plush office. He rode down in the elevator, and then he went to the parking lot; his mother and Richard had already left, so he had to go too. He felt a hand touch his shoulder as he was turning the key in the keyhole to open the car door, and he stopped and turned around.

Phoenix was standing there smiling at him. ‘Hello, Henry Johnson. So, after two years, we meet again, you and me. I was a broke young fool with nothing to fall back on, but now, you and I seem to be on equal footing. You’re offering me tons of money to do what I would gladly have done for free then.’

Henry said nothing to this admission; instead, he said, ‘I had always been thinking of you, Phoenix. Remember the old saying, that a guy never really forgets the first person he has sex with. Every night for these past years I have lain awake in my bed, thinking of you. I remember how you seduced me and got me into bed.’

‘I am a movie star now; I am somebody, and by that fact I know I can get any person I want. I know you surely understand that, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Henry replied quietly.

Phoenix had seen the ring he sported on the fourth finger of his left hand; his wedding band. ‘You’re married,’ Phoenix said.

Henry shrugged in resignation, because he felt that there was no use denying the telltale indicator of the fact that he was encumbered. ‘I am married, yes, but it’s only because of the fact that I have to fill the house with children since I was the only issue of my mother and there had to be a way to continue the family line or have the family wealth run into the hands of strangers. But surely you know that I still want you, don’t you?’

‘I know that; I am not as stupid as you seem to think I am. However, there is no way I can encourage whatever it is you feel for me because of the fact that I do not want it too. I want nothing to weigh on my career and get tongues wagging with gossip. Don’t you just get the message? We can never be together, and I may want you, but then so what? There are many people out there who want what you want but they keep their feelings to their hearts because this is taboo. So make you go carry stick fuck your nyash, Henry Johnson.’

And with that, Phoenix turned around and walked away, leaving Henry to stare after his departing figure in frustration, emotional pain sweeping through him. He knew that he had glimpsed the attraction the actor felt for him; it had seemed to boil and sizzle in the air between them. And he believed too that there were other things the guy was hiding from him, masking it all with that blank expression that looked so tragic. What had changed him? Because, when they had met, the guy had been the coy seducer, initiating the first move. But now, the guy was pulling away.

He wondered why.