Greg Lilly - Fingering The Family Jewels

The first book in the Derek Mason Mystery series, 2004

"AUNT WALT IS dead." Mother's voice, strong and steady, struck my ear.

I switched the phone to the other ear. "What? She can't be." Walterene, a cousin of my mother's, was one of the few family members I liked. "I talked to her last week."

"Nonetheless, she died from a sudden stroke." Her simple statement stung from the lack of emotion, lack of sympathy.

My stomach cramped as if my breath had been knocked out of me by her words. "But" I struggledto speak. "When?"

"Tuesday night." Mother always was short and direct.

"How's Aunt Ruby?"

"Ruby thought I should call you. Let you know about Walt."

"When is the-"

The phone clicked, followed by silence, then a dial tone. The Bitch had hung up on me. "Damn you." I slammed the phone down.

My roommate, Emma, sat on our third-hand couch, smoking a Marlboro and painting her toenails a glossy vermilion. Vermilion. She always joked that I couldn't name three professional football teams but could come up with fifteen names for red; this was a trait Aunt Walt had cultivated in me. Emma glanced over with sorrowful eyes. "Who?"

"Aunt Walt died Tuesday, and that was the Ice Bitch letting me know."

"Derek," she hobbled over to me on her heels to keep from smudging her nail polish and hugged me. "I'm so sorry to hear she's gone. She's in a much better place."

"Yeah, away from the family." I couldn't believe Walterene was gone, out of my life forever. Her strong will, her logic, her kindness, her openness, she had always loved me no matter what I did. It was an unconditional love that I didn't find easily or really believe in except from her or Ruby. I checked the clock. "Too late to call Aunt Ruby tonight; she's usually in bed by ten. Though I doubt she can sleep without Walt.

Emma made her way back to the couch. Her skinny legs stuck out of her housecoat like two beanpoles. Trying to be a model, she threw up more than half of what she ate, living mainly on cigarettes, black coffee, and bananas. She had a beautiful face; of course that's what is said of fat girls, but it can be said of skinny, titless ones too. I liked Emma's black hair and blue eyes; she reminded me of an anorexic version of a young Liz Taylor. She dropped back to the couch and fanned her toenails. "Why do you hate your family?"

"Because they're fake." That about summed it up.

"For example?"

"They go to church because they have money, and in Charlotte, North Carolina, if you are rich and don't go to church, no one will do business with you. To them, it's a way to make business deals."

Emma smiled, casting her eyes up to me from her continued fanning. "Not because they don't like the idea that you are gay?"

"Like it? They tell me I'll burn in hell. Again, using religion when it's convenient for their purpose." I always became enraged talking about them; that's why I usually avoided it. Walking to the window, I noticed a young straight couple pushing a stroller up Hill Street; a cool mist was descending on the city. I turned back to Emma. "Do you know my dear mother told me she hoped I got AIDS and died? That way I would die out here in San Francisco, and no one in Charlotte would know."

"No?" Emma's eyes widened.

"Oh, yeah. She always let you know what she believed was the gospel truth. She ruled the roost, behind closed doors." I laughed to myself thinking about her in public. "But as soon as we would walk into that fucking Baptist church, she would fall two steps behind my father. Then, when we got home, she took over again, and Thomas shrank back into the background."

"If he's so meek, why did she marry him?" Emma lit another cigarette and leaned back.

"The Harris family is in the construction business. My great-grandfather, Ernest, believed that women should produce babies, not build houses. My mother grew up in the construction business and learned how to get what she wanted by yanking men around by their balls. She didn't want a power struggle in her marriage, so she married the weakest, meekest wimp she could find." My love for my father came from his affection for us kids, but I would have respected him more if he had stood up to my mother.

"Construction? You never told me that. Guess that's your attraction to men with tool belts." She smiled and tucked loose strands of hair back behind her ears. "You really need to get over these negative feelings toward your family." Emma nudged me on.

"I didn't feel like I deserved to be alive until I left that house.

Aunt Walt and Aunt Ruby were the only ones in the family who gave me any encouragement. They were two old maids who lived away from the family, stayed outof the politics of running the business. Of course, as unmarried women, they didn't get much of a chance to participate."

"Typical, male-dominated society," she huffed.

"This, coming from a woman who wants to strut down a runway in the name of fashion?" I teased her because I could.

"I'm using men to get what I want. If I can be paid big bucks to walk in front of a crowd, I'll take it. Your aunts should have stormed the office and taken over-or fucked the construction workers and led a coup."

I couldn't imagine Ruby or Walterene fucking construction workers. Hell, they were in their sixties; maybe in their twenties, they could have had a hard-hat or two. "Oh, great, now I have a mental image of frumpy Walterene on top of a muscled, sweaty back-hoe driver, riding him like there's no tomorrow." I laughed. Emma could always make me smile.

"Go, girl. Go, girl," Emma chanted, waving her arm in the air like a broncobuster and thrusting her hips off the couch in a simulated fevered fucking frenzy.

"Enough." My thoughts went back to the fact that Walterene was gone. "I hate that she never got away from the family. There's so much more in this world than Harris Construction, and I'm not sure she ever realized that." The canary-colored walls of our apartment surrounded me, a happy shade to counter the gray fog pressed against the windows that framed the San Francisco hills. Walterene and Ruby had never ventured out to California to visit; in fact, none of the family had ever flown out to see me.

Emma sat up straight on the couch. "Just how rich is this family of yours?"

"Rich enough to not have to play by the rules." In the dust of the coffee table, I drew the outline of a skyscraper. "They helped build Charlotte, literally. Harris is on the names of streets, buildings, and neighborhoods all over town."

"So you must have been quite a catch in the gay bars."

"Hell, I was never allowed out of the sight of some family member." My thoughts went back to the first time I'd had sex with another guy.

I was fourteen and on a camping trip with my cousin Mark. At nineteen, he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. Growing up, Mark and I had always been closest in age, but five years made a big difference. I had begged him to go to Grandfather Mountain on a camping trip.

"Kid stuff," Mark had huffed.

I thought he made the sun rise and set. I spotted his bench presses in his bedroom while he worked out for the upcoming football season at Duke. Going into his second season, he intended to be a starting wide receiver. The muscles strained in his chest as he pushed the barbell up, sweat trickled down his shirtless torso; he reminded me of Superman-broad chest, thin hips, flat stomach. A trail of dark hair snaked from his navel down past the waistband of his gray gym shorts where sweat had soaked the material to the color of a storm cloud. I glanced at the outline of his cock lying to the left, creating a bulge I wanted to touch. "Please, just overnight. My parents won't let me go unless you come."