Prologue

There are times when, upon the occurrence of a certain event, Time itself will seem to stand still; it would seem to be suspended above the specter of space. That is the feeling I have in the pit of my stomach at that moment when I watched the life leave the body of a man, when the life seemed to seep from him. It was a big moment and I thought in mind: Oh my God, Phoenix what have you done?
And there was the guy himself, standing still and erect, and he looked beautiful; in the flash of the light, the guy was a stunning beauty, and the Angel of death itself. In the stillness of the night Phoenix seemed to be the very embodiment of the things that was scary about the night. He was a murderer, one without a soul, and he had killed someone who loved him dearly. It was a man who had loved him enough to think to die for him. But the society would not have understood that kind of love, that love which existed between two men, one that may be pure and yet misunderstood in every way.
Phoenix, you are a murderer. I know what you did, and I think I will tell on you. But from the look on that stunning face which had been calculating enough to take the life of another person, there seemed to be nothing that the guy could not handle, no scandal he could not take and then turn to his own advantage and popularity, the love of the screens, the siren that drew all in and left nothing of you when he was done with you.
It takes a special kind of person to think to take the life of another person, and Phoenix was that kind of special person. He had the guts and the special kind of mercilessness to do it, and there was that look in his face, that cold dead look of triumph in his face that showed that the guy knew what he was doing. And what if he was caught? What would happen?
‘He was trying to forcefully have sex with me, and that was the reason why I had to defend myself,’ he would probably say to the screens as the throng of the masses that loved him and yet hated him would weave a massive demonstration in his favor.
But I know what you did, Phoenix, and though you may hide behind the mask of your beauty and your good show of yourself to the world, I know you, I know what you did.

Chapter Eighteen

The night was black because of the erratic power supply, and the weather was cold, almost bleeding with unshed rain. But that was not what Henry was interested in as he stood staring at the yellow house across the street, the wrought-iron gate that kept out trespassers hanging half open. To his mind, it was as if the house with its lush surroundings were a living breathing mass, beckoning to him invitingly.
Phoenix was inside that house waiting for him to come, and he knew that he had to no matter how scared he felt he was, or how unsettled.
He reviewed what had happened on the night he had finalized the change of power of Ethnicity Studios with Anthony St. Claire and had come out to the terrace which was flooded with artificial light to receive some of the balmy evening air that was circulating outside. And then he had spotted Phoenix, the actor looking dazzling and beautiful, talking to his wife Fiona. The shock of seeing his lover after the passage of so many years had been so great that for a moment he could do was stare at the pair as they stood there together. He stood there watching them, and then Phoenix had gotten away from Fiona, and the guy had continued to make his way to the house; suddenly, Phoenix was looking up and then Henry found himself looking into those intense brown eyes that he had missed for years.
Phoenix’s face had registered no emotion; there was no shock, no recognition and no pleasure in his face, only that unreadable blankness. Then Phoenix had broken eye contact and had turned and walked away. The beast had dared to walk away! It was as if he had encountered a stranger on the road, one that was nothing more to him than something he’d stepped into on the sidewalk, and he had turned and walked away.
That night, for some reason only she was privy to, Fiona had clung to him, almost desperately, as if she was about to lose him, and in compensation for her love he had made slow, tender love to her. Then she had cried afterwards, but she wouldn’t tell him what the problem was, making him to suspect that perhaps there was something that the beautiful guy had said to her, but he dared not ask her about him. He was afraid that he would re-open old wounds to start bleeding anew.
Heaving a sigh, Henry crossed the street and slipped through the dark gate into the compound. He walked straight into the house, the strong smell of jasmine and roses seeping into his senses. Moving past the elegant foyer, he walked into the living room through which white light shone from a florescent lamp on a table. He had never been there before, but he seemed to know where he was going to without having to be told. He knew where to find the person he was looking for.
T. O. Phoenix stood facing the windows, his back to the door, his eyes watching the night. He was dressed entirely in flaming red, and he seemed to have been waiting for Henry for he said: ‘Henry’ and then turned round slowly to face him.
Phoenix’s eyes looked like baked bricks, and his face was clenched as hard as a fist, shuttered totally. Henry thought that his beautiful face held a lot of secrets, words that should have been spoken when he and his mother went to bail the bastard out of the police station and cover up what he had done. It was that secret that had made Henry to pull away from him, and it was also that secret that had kept them away from each other through the years. The actor should have stayed gone, but he was here now, and now was the time of reckoning.
‘I saw you stab Ali Hassan to death,’ Henry said coldly. ‘Why did you do it, Phoenix? What drove you to go and stick that thing in his chest? What made you to do it? I thought it was just the special kind of person that can think to kill another person, but I never pegged you for such a special person.’
Phoenix kept quiet, but there was that cold look on his face, that look that hid all the tragedy in the world and kept the fans begging for more of his performances when they saw him act. It was him at his classic best, the hard guy of the screens, sure of what he had to do and how he had to do it.
‘And then Rosalie lied for you; she covered up for you even though we both know the truth; that I was the one that had been with you on that night. I had fucked you, but we had chosen to keep that a big secret between us. And then we had both kept that secret. We are accessories in murder, you and me.’
‘That night, I had gone to his house to talk to him,’ Phoenix said, his voice barely above a whisper so that Henry almost had to strain to hear him. ‘I wanted to give him what he wanted so he could leave me alone and stopped dragging my name in the mud the way he was doing at the time. The man told me to strip naked, and I had to obey him to the letter. He stripped too, and I thought that he wanted his pleasure. It was what our relationship had been based on while it lasted, really.
‘He came to me and he told me to kneel down and suck him off. So I knelt down, and I did as he asked me to. When he had his pleasure and came in my mouth, he ordered me to pleasure my own self and get my own release, and I had to. He made me go slowly while he watched me go at it, and then I came too. But I felt filthy, abused, something that had been used. Then he ordered me to get dressed. I did what he wanted me to do then because I was really under him and he could do with me what he wanted to do with me. He had me in his power then and he knew it, as did I.
‘Then he started to talk. “You are the one man I have ever loved,” he said to me. “Oh, how I loved you. I would have married you and kept you by my side had the society not made this impossible. It is an abomination, something never to be thought of. But I think I have found another way to make you mine.”’
‘What did he mean by that?’ Henry asked, curious now to know what had really happened there in that room, why his lover had chosen to take the life of a man without even blinking as he did it.
‘He told me he was going to kill me because he had to make sure that no man or woman ever touched me again. And then he told me he was going to kill himself afterwards. He was going to dump my dead body somewhere and then go back home and commit suicide. That way, it would be a murder-suicide, and we would be wedded in death. It sounded perfect to him.
‘And I looked at the deranged man and swore to myself that I was never going to die for anybody in this world. He had picked up the knife on the table, and he was telling me in that creepy voice to stay calm, that there was no way I could just ever escape him even if I wanted to. And the man was really strong, and I had to defend myself from the man who wanted to kill me, so I picked the nearest weapon at hand and turned to defend my life. You were there and you saw the rest of what happened. But you had been a coward and had chosen not to help me even though you could have stopped him from doing what he wanted to do with me then.’
And Henry felt the bitter pill of pain and shame swimming down his throat. He knew that the actor was right; that if he had chosen to do something then nothing would have happened. Or at least nothing that drastic would have occurred. But still, he felt that the young actor could not justify what he had done there that night.
‘You could have given yourself up to the police or owned up to the crime you committed when they had invited you to come to the station to talk to them. Your lawyer could have been able to raise the defense of self-defense and made it stick.’
Phoenix laughed. ‘Oh, and who would believe me? This is ridiculous, and nobody in his or her right mind would believe that the man had been trying to kill me and that I was only trying to defend myself from him when I took his life. One homo man is dead, and he was killed by the stereotypical gay man who has his bitch face plastered all over the screens. The press would love this.’
As Henry looked at that stunningly beautiful face which had been the only thing that had rendered his life worth living, Henry knew that Phoenix had said the truth. Feminine men were often fixed as the stereotype of the ultimate gay male in the country, and they were made to suffer for it. It did not matter that they may be straight as an arrow. And there was no proof that Ali had really been trying to kill him, so the odds were stacked so high against him; there was no doubt that he would be made to burn for what he had done.
‘I killed Hassan, yes, but I had to have done it or he would have done it to me,’ Phoenix said, and his voice was very icy. His eyes were burning with the light of defiance too. ‘I had to destroy him before he destroyed me, and it’s the same thing you would do to anyone that tried to do same to you.’
‘You are not a monster,’ Henry said quietly. ‘It was your soul that had made me to love you. But now . . .’ he broke off.
Phoenix smiled. ‘I know that you despise me very much, and that was why you walked away from me when you did. But I would like to know if you would sit back and watch someone who was trying to destroy you to get away with it or of you would strike back and get them first before they got you.’
Henry said nothing.
‘Ah, so you’re not going to answer. That’s fine with me. But I would have you know that I did not go there to kill the man; he had attacked me, so I had to retaliate and save my life before he took it.’
But still Henry said nothing, and then he watched as the incredibly beautiful face of the actor unclenched and then seemed to crumble into a million pieces. It was his ultimate look of tragedy and insecurity, and all these was due to the fact that he was one who could never bear to hold his own under criticism because of the barrage of merciless criticism he subjected himself to. Henry wanted nothing more than to take the guy in his arms and console him, but still he stood there and did nothing. Let the actor be both the accuser and the punisher of his own soul; let him punish himself there. Henry had nothing to do with it.
God, how desperately he wanted to believe all that Phoenix had told him, all that had dropped from that delicate-looking mouth. Yet, he had seen Phoenix kill. And there had been that look of pure maniac in the lovely brown eyes as he took the life of a man.
It was not a game, then; that Phoenix had driven that thing into the chest of the man and he had done it coldly. What would stop him from doing it again?
And he had to do well to remember too that Phoenix was a very seasoned actor, one of the very best there was, so he could just be putting on an act like he was used to doing. He wanted to believe that his lover had killed Ali Hassan in self-defense, but he was terrified of what he felt swirled round them at that moment. He could not forget the crazed look and the excitement he had seen in Phoenix’s eyes that night. What lived inside Phoenix was something black and deadly, and yet seductive enough to make you wish to believe in him and in what he was telling you. He was an actor who played his roles so realistically that you had to believe that what you saw him do on the screens was real.
Now, there was no way for him to know what the guy was doing, whether he was for real or had slipped into the role of actor once again.
And yet, there was the possibility that Phoenix could be saying the truth. Hell, with the bastard actor, anything was possible. The bastard could well be saying the truth!
At that moment the NEPA chose to bring on the electricity and cries of ‘Up NEPA’ rose through the street outside. In the sudden harsh glare of the overhead lights, Henry blinked, and Phoenix was there, standing in harsher, brighter focus. The guy was like mortal sin and sensuality both wrapped up in that brown, lissome body, an irresistible seductive being that had delighted Henry in so many unprintable ways that had made him so devastated and lonely during the years they had spent apart.
A small voice at the back of his mind was whispering to him that he had his wife at home, but still, the man that tempted him to sin was someone he could never resist, and he found himself involuntarily moving forward and embracing Phoenix.
There was the smell of the guy’s perfume that permeated his nostrils, and he was whispering the name Phoenix over and over again. Then he drew back to kiss the man he loved, and when their lips met, it was like liquid fire searing through his flesh, and he let out a deep silent moan and drew Phoenix closer.
‘We cannot do this,’ Phoenix snapped, pulling away. ‘It’s been good while it lasted, but I must tell you that the fun is over. You’ve had your fun and I have had my money and received your insults and your threats, but now, it’s time to say goodbye.’
‘It was not all about the fun!’ Henry ground out.
‘Yes, you’re right. You’re a homo to the core of your being, but you’ve succeeded in hiding it so well by getting married to Fiona. But behind closed doors, you’re a homo and nothing you do or say in this world changes that. As for me, you’ve to understand that I can’t continue to be what you want me to be for you. I plan to settle down. I am twenty-nine now, and there are girls that are just waiting for me to snap my fingers at them. You have to get out of my life because you’ll continue to pollute it.’
Henry gaped with disbelief at the man he loved, and he felt the shock coursing through him. It was almost as if there were malodorous fumes being infused into his nostrils, and he seemed to be finding it hard to breath. He was silently screaming no in anguish as he continued to draw back, and it was as if he was now looking at Phoenix through a steamed mirror; he realized a moment too late that it was tears that had blurred his vision.
‘Phoenix, don’t do this to me,’ he begged.
‘What nonsense are you talking about?’ Phoenix snickered. ‘Everything does not revolve around you, and you know that. You walked away from my life after I had killed a man, and you were there when it happened though you uselessly did nothing to stop it; it’s not right for you to come back years later and try to talk me into submitting to you as if nothing had happened. Things had happened; people change too. It’s over between us.’
Henry shook his head.
‘What is wrong with you?’ Phoenix snapped as he threw his hands up in exasperation. ‘You are gay, yet you have four kids and a wife. Everything is working perfectly for you! I am getting older, pushing to thirty, and I have to settle down. You cannot expect me to be sucking your cock when I should be settling down. And know this too: the Nigerian parliament is in the process of passing the Anti-Homosexuality bill, making what you do a criminal offence. Don’t expect me to go to jail for you or for anyone because I do not intend to do that.’
‘Can’t you just give me at least one more chance with you?’ Henry asked, and he hated how desperate he sounded, how just like a needy chick his voice was like.
‘You’re not even listening to me,’ Phoenix flung at him angrily. ‘This has to stop! In this country, what you want from me is an abomination, and the people will not hesitate to kill you if you’re discovered. I know you remember Dan, one of the guys that worked for Lawrence. In 2004 he was discovered having sex with another guy, and that made him to receive the beating of his life. Well, he’s now in London, has been since then, and he would have been an object of scorn if he’d remained. He’s got a lover now there, and he’s out like the birds of the sky; that’s what he’s told me because we correspond with each other a lot.’
Henry understood what Phoenix was telling him, but still, it was like a soccer punch in the guts. His good looks would get him nowhere once he was discovered to be gay, and there was nothing that could save him from the wrath of people should they choose to set upon him.
‘I am not like you,’ Phoenix continued, and this time, there was the hint of a sneer in his voice. ‘I like women, but in your own case you don’t like them, and that makes us different from each other.’ He waved one hand dismissively. ‘Go and be with your wife, Henry, and make sure you forget about me. I am a murderer, but I had killed for the purpose of protecting myself from a man who had wanted to murder me all in the name of loving me.’
Henry stood there, a broken man, a trembling mass of masculinity, his heart singing a fast tune in his chest. He knew that the guy before him was right; that in Nigeria, there was no place for people like him. If he wanted to be with other men, then he would have to hope for another time, another world.
‘Did you ever really love me?’ Henry tried, for he felt that he had to be sure of at least this one fact because Phoenix was a guy who was as unreadable as a ruined piece of papyrus, with all his emotions carefully masked beneath that serene resting face he always maintained. With him, you could never be sure of anything until he chose to tell you.
Phoenix smiled, but there was nothing to show what he really thought, as per usual. ‘What do you think?’
Henry nodded and turned away, but he felt Phoenix’s hand on his shoulder, smelt his perfume. He turned back round, and then he walked into the embrace that waited for him, the very first Phoenix had ever initiated since he knew the actor years ago. They stayed in that position for a few moments, and Henry felt the contentment welling within him. But he wanted more, so he claimed Phoenix’s lips in a kiss, half expecting the guy to shove him back or to slap him or to do something to break the connection. But the guy did nothing, though he slowly broke away, shaking his head.
Henry nodded as the frustration boiled within him. How could he say that he wanted the guy when he had been the person that had cast the guy out of his life years ago? And he had been there watching Ali try to cut his lover up and he had been unable to do anything about it because he had felt paralyzed with terror. It was his entire fault; he berated himself now, for he believed now that if had done something, that what had happened would not have happened.
And he knew that he had to go, for there was no way for the actor to accept him back now that they were over with each other; what was he even saying? They had been over with each other for years. It was just now official between them, and it occurred to him too that it was possible that Phoenix had slammed the door on him many years ago, and he had gone around thinking that he was the one with the power, that it was him and not Phoenix who had walked away. How could he have stupidly mistaken what Phoenix had said to him at the police station before he had turned away and got into his car and driven away from the guy? Phoenix had known then that it was over; the actor was an extraordinarily good judge of human character, so he had known.
Goodbye, Phoenix.
He turned away and headed for the door, feeling the eyes of the guy burning holes into the back of his neck with the intensity of their brown blaze of fire.

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