Serenading Stanley (3 page)

Stanley laughed.

Arthur didn’t. He grabbed Stanley’s hand and lugged him up another flight. Somehow between the panting and an ongoing spate of bitching about the steps and the heat, Arthur still found the breath to give Stanley a running tour of the premises.

“We’ve got plenty of hot water. Utilities are included, don’t you know, so that’s always nice. There’s a laundry room in the basement. Don’t use the washer in the middle, it chews up clothes like a cow eats grass. We have four units on each floor, all one bedrooms. As far as I know, everyone who lives here is as gay as a cotillion.” Arthur batted his lashes in Stanley’s direction and snickered. “I interviewed them myself to make sure.” With a beat of afterthought, Arthur added, “Well, except for Ingersol.
Straight
Mr. Ingersol. On 3. Shiver! But he was here before I moved in, so I can’t just toss him out on his sneaky little ass, now can I? Would but that I could!”

Stanley wondered what was so sneaky about Mr. Ingersol but didn’t get a chance to ask.

Arthur pulled himself up the last step to the next landing and clutched his heart, which startled the shit out of Stanley. He thought the man was maybe having a third and final heart attack. But instead of keeling over dead, Arthur asked in a somber tone, “I’m assuming you’re gay, right? Not that it matters, of course. It would be illegal to deny you an apartment just because you were one of
those.
You know. Like the pervert in 3B.” He cupped a hand around his mouth and whispered the final words in Stanley’s ear. “
Heterosexual, I mean
.”

Stanley watched a dastardly smile cross Arthur’s face, and he laughed, realizing he was being teased. Arthur knew Stanley was gay as well as Stanley did. He gave Arthur a gentle punch in the arm like one locker-room buddy prodding another. “Me, straight? Oh, that’s a good one.”

Arthur’s eyes opened wide; his brightly painted lips formed a perfect O. “Did you say ‘Odessa Goodwyn’? Ooh, what a lovely drag name. Odessa Goodwyn. Maybe when I lose a couple more pounds I can use it. Mind?”

Stanley shrugged, and he kept shrugging long enough to figure out what Arthur was talking about. Then he got it. “It’s all yours,” he said, magnanimous as hell.

Arthur’s fat hand came out to pinch Stanley’s cheek. He smiled very sweetly. “Oh, you’re cute enough, Stanley. I think you’re going to be a very popular addition to the Belladonna Arms roster of inmates.” Then he pulled a cigar from his trouser pocket and popped it in his mouth. The cigar was already half-burned, one end slimy with spit, the other end’s cold ashes stinking to high heaven.

“Mind if I smoke?” Arthur asked. “It helps me breathe.”

“Well, I’m not sure it would actually help you bre—”

“Thanks. I knew you wouldn’t.” And Arthur lit the cigar. Odiferous fumes invaded the stairwell immediately. Stanley clamped his jaws tight, trying not to barf. He concentrated on the stairs to take his mind off the stench.

At the rate they were going, Stanley figured it would take them the rest of the day to reach the top floor. Oops, sorry. The
penthouse.
But he supposed asking Arthur to hurry it along, and then quite possibly having to call the paramedics to revive the man after his heart exploded, would take even longer. So Stanley held his tongue and plodded along. Arthur was still holding his arm, but he wasn’t
leading
Stanley now, he was
hanging
on him. Sweat was starting to pop out all over Stanley, just like it was Arthur. The stairwell was hotter than hell, and the stinky, soggy cigar Arthur had clamped between his teeth was making Stanley wish he had a gun. He could never shoot another human being, but he might seriously contemplate blowing his own fucking brains out. Of course, that would only prove his mother right in her condemnation of the Belladonna Arms, so Stanley pushed away all thoughts of suicide and concentrated his energy on not letting Arthur’s three hundred pounds drag him down to the floor.

Arthur seemed to get a second wind on the third-floor landing, so he resumed his duties as the Belladonna Arms tour guide.

“Sylvia lives on this floor. 4B. She’s lovely. A transsexual, you know. Ooh, and her Toll House cookies are to die for! Don’t let her ask you to dinner though. Cookies are the only thing she can cook. Sylvia is having a bit of a slowdown on her reassignment surgery due to lack of funds, although her hormone supplements have swelled her breasts up nicely. Perky little buggers. You’ll see. She’ll probably show them to you the moment you meet. She loves showing them off. Sylvia is one of the reasons for the Belladonna Ball this year. We’re raffling off a trick for the night to help with her expenses. Oh, Lord, and wait until you see who we’ve lined up to be auctioned off. You won’t believe it, darling!”

Stanley didn’t know what to say to that, so he simply said. “Poor Sylvia. It must be hard.”

Arthur gave a shudder. “If she gets the money together for that final round of surgery, it won’t be hard for long. They split it down the middle and tuck it up inside, you know.” Arthur gave another shudder, just to get his point across. Then he groaned, obviously creeped out by the very idea of it all.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Stanley said, appalled Arthur would think it was.

But Arthur wasn’t listening. He was watching his feet plod up the next flight of steps. Even Stanley thought the steps were getting steeper and farther apart, although he admitted it might just be his imagination. One more flight, he kept telling himself. One more one more one more.

At the landing with the number “5” stenciled on the wall, Arthur announced between gasps for air, “Roger and Ramon live on this floor. Not together of course, although Ramon sure would like to. Roger’s a dreamboat. God, wait’ll you see him. He’s a nurse. Everybody wants Roger, but he’s a little above the rest of us. Gods don’t usually canoodle with the mortals you know. They just don’t. I don’t know how many times I’ve asked Roger for a sponge bath, but he just laughs it off. Ramon is the beauty student I told you about. He’s so cute and girly and sweet. I just love Ramon to death. Although he won’t give me a sponge bath, either.”

Arthur molded his face in a hopeful expression and aimed it in Stanley’s direction. Again he batted his eyelashes.

“No!” Stanley barked. A preemptive strike if there ever was one.

“Well, poop,” Arthur said. He turned away and confronted the last flight of stairs with a sigh of resignation. “Almost there, my pet. Just a few more steps. Help me up, won’t you?”

So Stanley took the helm, and with Arthur hanging his full weight on the back of Stanley’s belt, Stanley pulled the man up the last flight, all the while ignoring the fat finger that had—surely unintentionally—slipped inside Stanley’s BVD’s and was now innocently reconnoitering the terrain of his ass.

Finally, Stanley reached around and slapped Arthur’s hand. He heard a chuckle, but the finger retreated. Stanley towed Arthur up the last three steps, and as soon as they got to the landing, the two of them fell against the wall as if they’d been shot.

“We made it,” Arthur gasped, and Stanley nodded, sucking in oxygen for all he was worth. His legs were trembling from the exertion of pulling Arthur along behind him and he could still feel Arthur’s fat finger digging around in his underwear, or he imagined he could.

Arthur pointed that same trembling finger at a door just to Stanley’s left.

“Apartment 6C,” Arthur panted, clutching his chest as if he could squeeze the air into it manually. When that didn’t work, he leaned forward with his hands on his knees. Sweat dripped off his forehead and made dark splotches on the tile floor, like raindrops on a sidewalk. “Go on in. The door’s unlocked. I’ll be along shortly. If I live long enough.”

Stanley pushed his weary body off the wall and gingerly opened the door to 6C to peek inside.

He knew immediately the apartment was perfect.

“Wow.” He grinned. “This is
great!”
And he wasn’t even inside the door yet.

“Told you,” Arthur gurgled happily. He blew out a billowy puff of foul cigar fumes and toppled over in a dead faint.

L
YING
flat on his back on the sixth-floor landing, Arthur bore a striking resemblance to a grounded cruise ship. The nasty black cigar he still had clamped between his teeth rose up out of his mouth like a lone smokestack.

Stanley was horrified. The man looked dead.

“Arthur? Sir? Ma’am?” Stanley dropped to his knees at Arthur’s side and tried to prop up the man’s massive head. It wasn’t easy. Arthur’s head weighed as much as a bowling ball.

Stanley gave him a robust slap on the cheek trying to rouse him, but all he accomplished was to knock the ash off the cigar and scatter it all over Arthur’s face.

Stanley was just beginning to panic when someone called up the stairs. “What the hell was that noise? Did an elephant fall out of a tree?”

“Oh, thank God!” Stanley yelled back. “Can you help me, please?
Please!”

Stanley heard footsteps clomping up the stairs, and soon a head came into view at the edge of the landing. The head was so handsome it almost took Stanley’s breath away. The body that followed the head
did
take Stanley’s breath away. It was clad in nurse’s scrubs, and nurse’s scrubs always leave very little to the imagination as far as the wearer’s form and substance are concerned. Well-muscled arms protruded from too-short blue sleeves. A broad hairy chest peeked out above a roomy V-neck collar. Long legs and slim hips tucked into drawstring pants of the same pale blue held the whole beautiful package upright, and they held it upright in a very enticing manner too.

But talk about a crowning glory! Stanley returned his gaze to the head sitting atop this tower of perfection, and yes indeed, it was without a doubt the most handsome head Stanley had ever seen in his life. Dark hair, buzzed off to maybe a quarter of an inch. Green, soulful eyes framed by lush black eyelashes. A sensuous mouth that Stanley could never in his wildest dreams imagine kissing. One doesn’t kiss works of art. One simply gapes at them lovingly while drooling. The man had obviously just shaved, but his cheeks and chin were still shadowed. That’s how heavy his beard would be if it was ever allowed to escape its beautiful skin prison.

Stanley loved men with dark hair and five o’clock shadows. Always had.

Quickly crossing the landing on his long legs, the man looked down at Stanley still cradling Arthur’s head. He stuck his fists on his hips and gave an annoyed little
tsk.

“Idiot,” he droned.

“I’m sorry,” Stanley said, eyes wide, feeling the blood rush to his face. “But I didn’t know what to do.”

The man laughed. “I wasn’t calling
you
an idiot. I was calling
Arthur
an idiot.” He dropped to his knees and plucked the cigar from between Arthur’s teeth and tossed it down the stairwell. “He shouldn’t be smoking.”

“He shouldn’t be dressing as a woman, either,” Stanley said, rolling his eyes, so grateful to have a little help he was even capable of making a joke. “Not with all that body hair he shouldn’t.”

“No shit.” The man grinned, joining Stanley in a communal chuckle.

The stranger peeled back Arthur’s eyelids with a thumb, a
beautiful
thumb, one eye after the other, and leaned in close to see what he could see. Then he took the same approach Stanley had. He slapped Arthur’s cheek. Only he slapped Arthur hard enough to wake the dead. Or resurrect it.

Arthur gave a groan and his eyes popped open, twirling for a minute like cherries on a winning slot machine. Arthur’s whirling eyeballs finally came to rest on the hunk hovering over him. A hopeful expression lit Arthur’s face. “Sponge bath. Pretty please.” Then he passed out again.

The hunk just shook his head. He tore his eyes from Arthur and gave his full attention to Stanley, who was still on his knees next to the once again unconscious patient. The hunk skidded his eyes over the open door behind Stanley that led to the only vacancy in the building, then narrowed his search engine down until it was centered entirely on Stanley’s face.

“You moving in?”

Stanley gave him a nervous smile. Beautiful people made Stanley uncomfortable, probably because he knew he wasn’t one of them. “Thinking about it,” he said.

“Well, good! We need some normal people around here. I’m Roger. Roger Jane.” And he stuck out the sexiest hand Stanley had ever seen. It was tanned and gorgeous, with a brush of dark hair sweeping across the back of it. And that sweep of dark hair coated the man’s forearm too. It coated it all the way up to a very substantial bicep, which was smooth, hairless, and managed to roll around like a baseball every time the guy moved. And as if
that
wasn’t enough, he had an identically beautiful bicep on the other arm, which made a grand total of
two
baseballs.

Stanley had to blink a few times before he could tear his eyes away from those perfect arms. All he could think to say was, “You must be the nurse.” And he took the hand in his and almost swooned at the heat of it. The firm, friendly heat.