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Chapter Two
I don't get it," Vanessa Ellerbee said, seemingly to the wall her husband, William, had slouched against. "Make me understand, William." But he still said nothing. His freshened appearance and the whiff of Escape spoke volumes. He had sprayed on Cool Water when he left the house ten hours earlier. And he smelled of Irish Spring, not Ivory, which he showered with before he left home. Finally and slowly he lifted his face and stared at her with a look that said, "What's to understand that you don't understand already?"
Knowing full well what he meant by the stare, Vanessa threw up her hands and shook her head full of church-ready curls. With weary disgust she sucked on her teeth and shifted her weight from one side to the other and sighed as she always sighed whenever he returned home wearing new soap and cologne.
"I'm not letting you go," she vowed like the fool she knew she had become.
"I have no intention of leaving. The congregation wouldn't understand."
"Go get dressed," she then said.
"Are we going to Lucy Florence afterwards?"
"Do the twins serve pie?"
And while William dressed in the suit Vanessa had laid out for him, she stormed out of the bedroom, down the staircase, and stared at herself in thefoyer mirror. She was still beautiful and alluring, still intelligent and articulate. But was she still the unconventional freethinker who had not thought her marriage would be hindered by her husband's bisexuality? He had been up-front with her right from the beginning. And she had gone along with it, encouraged it even. William was a great lover who was even better afterbeing with a man. She loved watching her husband getting fucked and thengetting hers afterward.
But things had changed. She missed DuPré Dixon almost as much as her husband did.
DuPré Dixon, who William had met in a chat room, was one of those slim, torpedo-dick dream pops who smiled like a happy drunk when he fucked, and fucked like good samba when he drank. Her husband loved being fucked by a drunken DuPré, and though she enjoyed the show as much as the sex she got later, she began to suspect that her husband liked getting fucked by DuPré a little too much.
But those suspicions she soon set aside. For no matter how good it was forher husband, it was simply the sex that made DuPré deliver. DuPré was not about to fall in love with William. He was in it just for theintrigue, for the hell of it, for the freaky thrill, for the pussy, no matter who was wearing it. DuPré loved his women like he loved his men like he loved his drink. And on more than a few occasions, Vanessa got in on the action as well. For DuPré, having this beautiful couple, these beautiful bookends, was almost as good as a fantasy threesome with Halle and Shamar.
And DuPré was highly discreet and not curious. He came over only for sex, not conversation, not friendship, not romance. He never asked about hometowns, hobbies, or occupations, nor was any information volunteered.
But DuPré was gone now, having driven home drunk once too often, having lost his head rear-ending an eighteen-wheeler while his convertible top was down, making a mess on the 405 freeway. Gone. The one man that could keep Vanessa's man home, that would fuck him then hand him back over. Gone. And she was scared.
After DuPré, William went out often and got with God-knows-who. As wild as their times with DuPré were, their sexual encounters never occurred outside the privacy of their Ladera Heights home. They had to be very careful, for they had reputation and standing to protect. Everyone knew Reverend and Mrs. Ellerbee as the perfect couple, a shining example of love and devotion for the community and the congregation that William shepherded.
All throughout church service Vanessa listened from the front pew as herhusband preached with a fervor so intense that she could not help but think of the man he had been with last night; how good it must have been to fire him up like this, to have him prancing in the pulpit as he'd never pranced before, laughing and humming and writhing like a holy roller.
And while the church rocked to the thunder in his voice, she found herself rocking, too, shivering with fear and jealousy, moaning with an anguish those around her thought was spirit caught up by the good preacher's wife.
She broke into tears out of nowhere. She threw up her hands and wailed loudly. The tongues that she spoke in cursed her husband the reverend for who he was and how he was, and cursed herself for letting it be.
She jumped up from the pew and stomp-danced in a circle, balled up her fists, and beat on her breasts. The nurse's attendants came to her rescue and wrestled her down.
And then Reverend William James Ellerbee called on the choir to make joyful noise.
Copyright © 2007 by Stanley Bennett Clay
Excerpted from Looker by Stanley Bennett Clay
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
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