Behind Closed Doors

Chapter Seventeen

His latest film had been released, and so Phoenix was the toast of the media; they wanted him on the face of their magazines, they wanted exclusive interviews with him, and he was happy to give it to them. Then he received a new script for a new role and he forwarded it to Anthony St. Claire. The man replied by sending him a script for a new line-up, Innocence Refined. It was a movie that traced the lives of two twins, one male and the other female, both of them having been separated at birth. The male had become a soft hustler when he grew up in the slums of Lagos, and the female had the life of a pampered princess. She was hard as nails, cruel, and sublimely evil, an angel-faced monster that wanted to destroy everything thatever stood in her way. Before her mother died of cervical cancer, she told the girl and her father that the girl had a twin brother, and she’d given the baby away at birth in order to safeguard his life then because there’d been a very serious problem in the family. The man had sent off men to search for his son because the woman had died before she could have said the location of the boy. But then his daughter poisoned him to death before he could find the boy and then set out on a quest to find her brother, this mirror of her life, and to destroy him when she found him. She was ready to kill and destroy anybody that stood in her way for the wealth her father had left behind.

It was a story that was filled with moral depravity. Nude scenes and sex scenes were to be amply supplied, and Phoenix was up for it, so he notified the Big Man that he was interested. The man then told him the schedule for the rehearsals, and then he added his own terms: he would play a double role in the movie; he’d play both twins. And he also needed the rich, glamorous ass of Rosalie Johnson in the movie as a secondary character to play the role of the glamorous close friend and confidant of the evil twin.

‘You’re joking!’ Anthony St. Claire exclaimed when he heard what Phoenix had in store for them.

‘I am not joking,’ Phoenix replied seriously. ‘I have thought about this very seriously so I know that this is the very best thing I could think to come up with. No man has ever played a double role in this industry before, and that will make this a very big smash. And then when you put in Rosalie Johnson as a bonus, one of the biggest faces ever to appear in the Beauty Pageant world, then you have the biggest smash movie of the year on your hands. Don’t worry about the money you intend to pay me; think about all the money that you’re going to be making from this. I am the one who has to be split into two, the one who will put on the heavy makeup and short skirts, plus the uncomfortable breast padding, not you.’

And that was true too, but that was not the main reason why he had wanted to do what he was trying to sell to the Big Man to allow him to do. He wanted to be among the very best, the Face among the Faces in the industry.

Anthony St. Claire was very silent for quite a while, and then he laughed, a loud braying sound that grated on Phoenix’s nerves. ‘You have a big head on your shoulders, and I like that, young man. We will have to see what they have to say about this when I call them to tell them what you think about what we have for you.’

Phoenix waited, and, the following day, he received a call from a woman with a nasal accent who told him that Henry Johnson would be happy to see him at the Brian-Johnson Ltd offices. Phoenix knew where that was, he knew that it was one of the biggest establishments in VI, and so he got into a taxi and went over to the place. It was huge, occupying the top five floors of the Vanilla Building which was just beside the prestigious Churchgate Building in Churchgate street, and there was the cars, the beautiful people stepping out of the stunning multi-million naira cars, the sweaty employees that were lifting heavy crates of very expensive merchandise out from a van and carrying it to the warehouse.

On entering into the building, he rode up in the elevator to the requisite floor where he met a stunning receptionist wearing Sleek makeup and expensive designer labels. He told her his mission, but he’d hardly let out the magic words from his mouth when a door opened and Henry Johnson stepped out. The young man’s face lit up as if with an inner fire when he saw Phoenix, and the latter felt touched that someone felt for him in that way. Without any verbal exchange, they went down a long corridor with faux imported marble on the floor to Henry’s office which was outfitted with every kind of luxury and electronic equipment imaginable.

‘You sure do know how to keep entertained,’ Phoenix said as he settled into one of the high-backed stuffed chairs that faced the polished oak table that must have come straight from the IKEA offices.

Henry sat on the other chair so that they faced each other. ‘And you sure as hell know how to milk people dry with your stupid demands,’ he retorted sharply. ‘What have you been thinking in your addled mind? Don’t you know that the figure you’re asking for is reserved only for the Bankable Stars?’

‘What you will pay me is pittance compared to what I will earn for you and your mother.’

‘You cannot guarantee that,’ Henry snapped irritably.

Phoenix smiled at him, this very handsome man who had the hot feelings for him. The man was a very stunning guy, the perfect male, very chiseled, with those lean muscular features. Henry was the perfect man, and why such a man could ever be gay was totally beyond him. But that was not what they were there to discuss with each other; Phoenix wanted the money, and he was willing to play whatever cards it took to get it.

‘I can guarantee that,’ he said in a low voice, the kind that always had people turning around to stare at him in the streets. He was doing the fantasy thinking; he wanted Henry to cough up the six figures he’d named because he wanted to leave Lawrence alone and stop being the parasite he was to the man and move into his own apartment either in Lekki or Ikoyi, and how else could he do that except with a very loaded paycheck? Why would the hot babes of UNILAG have to live in the expensive apartments and drive the flashy cars while he who was working his ass off for the country was staying with someone? It was unfair.

Slowly, he was leaning forward, his eyes fixed on Henry’s generous mouth and the face that had become frozen with expectation. He smiled then, for he knew that Henry had fallen for him like a sack of potatoes. How many real men are homos in this country? How many of them had wives tucked away while they enjoyed the fun of the flesh with their male lovers? He was thinking this as his face inched forward. This had been building for some time now, and everything was really ready to explode.

Phoenix kissed him.