Page 54

M axwell gave everyone a week to prepare for the final shooting in Enugu. The crew had reduced substantially as the remaining scenes were majorly the sex scenes and domesticity between Zik and Adena, and some office scenes to mark the opening of Agu's studio.

This also meant he had one week to prepare for the final showdown. Everything had been set. Money disbursed, flights booked, morale at the highest. Every step he'd taken since he walked out of the airport now had the destination at hand.

He was happy. Ecstatic. He and Alex were something. Uncle Jude would get his vindication. Agu would get his retribution. And Timi? Timi would finally be free to disappear, empty of the burden of guilt.

And therein lay his problem.

Despite the psychoactive clouds his head was in, a part of it was coloured in an axiomatic grey.

The moment he and Alex chose to be everything they could be with each other; the clocks had begun ticking.

An expiry date of their euphoria waiting at the end of either them getting caught or Red Tinsel's denouement.

Like the Grim Reaper. Unwanted but inescapable.

He'd banked on his feelings being unable to sustain the crazy intensity, but the more time he spent with Alex, the more he had to accept the excruciating pain of an eventual goodbye. And it didn't help that their bodies always unlocked a new, more intense pleasure threshold whenever they made love.

He'd never thought about or yearned for sex. In his first life, he'd hated the mere mention of it. As Timi Lawson, the Casanova, he simply had it because he believed he was supposed to. Even if the urge was barely there.

However, with Alex, he was slowly going mad. All he could think about was rushing home after work, showering with him, then sinking into his body like his personal fort. Every moment was experimental. Learning something new about their bodies from the articles and videos they consumed.

Shame and fear, at first, posed as metal panels hindering him from fully letting go.

Then, one night, Alex had turned him over and tenderly drawn a slick tongue across his hole, whispering how sweet he tasted, and the walls had crumbled from pleasure's corrosiveness.

That night, with Alex's tongue deep inside him, and his moist hand wrapped around his hardness, he'd come so savagely, he blanked out for a long while.

Alex's trembling arms had wrapped around him like a drowning man clinging to a drifting log, warm mouth imprinting his name into Timi's sensitive skin as he recovered from his own orgasm he'd attained from just giving Timi pleasure.

And Timi snuggled in, afraid of how much he wanted to enter the skin of the man holding him.

Suffocating in his feelings till he sought Alex's mouth for air.

In the first few days, their dynamic was clearer.

Alex, telling Timi what he needed from him, and Timi putting up a resistance before falling completely subservient under Alex's expert fingers and mouth.

They'd non-verbally accepted their roles, until during a session, Timi's lubed finger had found its way into Alex, pushing incessantly against the smooth bulge that always shot hot lightning through him whenever Alex breached him, and Alex had groaned out a "I'm coming, oh God", like he couldn't believe the pleasure bearing down on him, andhad erupted on a full body convulsion, untouched.

They had to acknowledge then, how much figuring out what worked for them they still had to do.

However, despite their explorations, full penetration only came up once in their discussions.

They'd agreed it wouldn't be a bad experience for either of them, then treated it like the final latch on a gate they didn't want engaged yet.

As it meant a permanence to what the world already believed they were.

Or maybe these were Timi's thoughts, but since Alex also kept mute about it, he assumed they felt the same.

For the very short one week they had left, Timi decided to make the most of it, and Alex communicated his own plans too.

They visited Uncle Jude's grave where Timi tearfully told him he would soon rest in final peace, then introduced Alex as the man who had fought by his side.

Then, they visited the kids, to their manic delight, and it took the divine strength of two sisters to peel his limpets off his and Alex's body. And for a moment, a picture, sharp and clear, formed in his mind.

Him, Alex, Sarah and Henry. Together in his home in Byron Bay. A yearning swept through him, so intense, his eyes watered. Or maybe the teary sting was from the hopelessness of such a dream.

They also had dinner with Mumsie at Alphonso's cafeteria, who recognised Timi as her son's coffee-shop boss and advised him to return to filming.

Alex had to reintroduce him as his friend, and a pang hit Timi at the hesitation in his voice.

Here he was with his lover's mother, and he couldn't introduce himself properly.

To lighten things up, he took Alex to A Gallery of Bad Arts.

A studio offering the opportunity to feel like Picasso for a day, with private rooms to butcher famous paintings shamelessly.

His Mona Lisa came out as a jowly-chinned, middle-aged Igbo trader enjoying his nap on a bus, and Alex's starry night resembled a microscopic image of a cancerous mouth riddled with pus-filled sores.

And as Timi discussed with the owner about framing their masterpieces, he finally understood Agu's peculiar taste in arts.

Alex insisted they try out a knitting shop, and despite Timi's wailings of getting so bored Alex would wheel his dead body out, he returned home with a baby-sized head warmer he wouldn't stop smiling at, two shiny knitting pins and a small bag of monochrome bundles of wools.

After fooling around with the piano and singing at the top of their lungs, much to his staff’s consternation, Timi took the show to the Billiard room.

They converted it to a karaoke, and when Timi got to the bridge of Foreigner’s 80s hit song, he straddled Alex, holding his gaze and singing from the depth of his heart.

In my life, there’s been heartache and pain.

I don’t know if I can face it again.

But I can’t stop now, I’ve travelled so far.

To change this lonely life.

I wanna know what love iiiiissssss!!!

I want you to show meeeeee!!!

Later that night, Alex showed him over and over again. Each round more frantic than the previous.

Three days to the Enugu trip, Charles showed up in Timi's house, bearing a carton of beer and bad news.

“Sorry, folks,” he said gaily, as he shot a snooker ball. “You remove your eyes from these builders and designers once, and they just fuck things up.”

Timi turned down the volume of the 2000's R&B mix playing. “Say what?”

Charles straightened. “Yeah, man. Oba Hall isn’t fully complete.

I also heard from the grapevine, Agu is going on a long overseas trip, might last six months, if not more.

Grand opening cancelled till infinity.” He studied Timi.

“I guess you and Eketi could use a break from all the fanfare and distractions.”

“When is he leaving?” Alex asked, when Timi continued to stare .

“In two days,” Charles said. “Heard it's an unplanned trip. Like someone's forcing him.” He frowned. “Who has such power?”

Yeah. Who has such power?

“How solid is this information?” Alex asked.

“Dame B on a not-too-secret phone call.”

Timi got up from the loveseat. “I need a drink,” he said, strolling out of the room.

Standing by the refrigerator, while gulping a bottle of water to moisture his severely dry throat, strong arms from behind him snaked around his stomach, drawing him into a warm body.

He stiffened, but Alex whispered against his neck. “Relax, I left him playing.”

Timi returned the bottle to the fridge, backed them slowly till Alex rested against the counter, then turned around in his arms. “It's her,” he muttered. “She must have convinced her father or something.”

Alex smoothened Timi's forehead with his fingers. “Yeah.”

“But why?”

“Perhaps to push you to make a move.”

Timi rested his cheek on Alex's chest. His steady heartbeat calmed him. “Unless she's a witch, she has no idea the plan hinges on Agu's presence at the grand opening.”

“It could be for her sake then,” Alex said. “Check your phone later, I'm sure she has a proposition for you.”

Timi raised his head. “And if she doesn't?”

“Then, we approach her and get her to make the grand opening happen.”

“I'll be relinquishing my upper hand. We'll have to use what she gave us.”

“When we reach that bridge, we'll find a way to cross it without sinking.”

Timi tucked his face into the dip of Alex's neck and let out a groan. “Why can't things move smoothly?”

Alex pulled his head up by his locks, then brushed his mouth in a soft kiss. “Smooth is tired and boring.”

Timi couldn't help smiling against his mouth. “Oh, yeah? ”

Alex's hands crept under Timi's butt and lifted him onto the counter. Timi laughed softly, and Alex used the opportunity to sneak in his tongue. Timi let out a small moan at the taste of the pineapples Alex had earlier mixed with the warm masculine flavour that was solely his.

A thought niggled at the back of his mind.

An awareness that this wasn't the right time for this.

But Timi didn't have the will to stop. In Alex's mouth, the heaviness in his chest took flight.

With their tongues languidly entangling, everything was right with the world.

He didn't have to think, to fear, to mourn.

All he needed to do was feel. And feel he did.

His bones melting into a puddle. His stomach muscles contracting so deliciously.

His slowly awakening dick understanding the kiss was going nowhere but wanting to partake in the pleasure anyway.

The crash came before the heated curse. “What the fuck!”