Tag Archives: Max

Don’t Rayne On My Parade; chapter six, part three

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Paris has stopped massaging my neck and is slowly stroking it instead.  I close my eyes and let the magic of his hands do their work.  I am melting under his expert touch—just what I need at the end of a long day.  I sigh and let my head drop further forward.  Paris is patiently working out the kinks and the knots.  I wonder how many people he’s seduced with these magical hands of his, but I don’t ask for fear he will stop.  I let the tension and frustration of the last few days slip out of me, trying to empty my mind as well.  I don’t want to think about anything more than how good it feels to be touched.  It’s not sex that I miss so much as a friendly touch.  Although, sex would be nice, too.  My mind flits from subject to subject, but I just let the thoughts flow in one ear and out the other.  One refuses to leave, however, and buzzes persistently in my head.  Suddenly, I pop my eyes open.

“Paris!  I forgot to tell you about the email Vashti sent me about Max’s ex-hubby being at the party!”

“What?”  Paris is so startled, he stops massaging me.  “How did she know that?”

“From a friend of a friend.”  I pause.  “What was his name again?”

“Harry.”  Paris makes a face.  “Harry Seavers.”

“Harry?”  I frown.  “Emil called him something else.”

“His full name is Harrison, but he goes by Harry.  He’s one of those haute couture screenplay writers who talks about it more than he actually does it because he doesn’t have to make money doing it.  He sells insurance by day.”  Paris has a sour look on his face.  For some reason, the name Harry is resonating in my brain.

“Screenplays, Harry,” I mumble under my breath, closing my eyes again.  They pop open again against my volition.  “I remember him!  He had a hard-on for Guy Ritchie!”

“That sounds like him,” Paris makes another face.  “He likes to think he’s so deep and philosophical, but he really likes the shallow, flashy guy directors.”  Paris seems to be feeling low as well.  I know something that will make him laugh, however, and tell him the horror story that is my sister’s wedding.

Before I can stop him, he goes camp on me, flipping his hand up and waggling his neck.  He cannot believe ‘that heifer’ had the nerve to tell me to lose weight, not to mention her other demands.  He is up and stomping before I can stop him, but at least he’s lost the glum look.  I let him have his say, rather enjoying his defense of me.  When I tell him that she wants me to spend over a thousand dollars for this ordeal which includes me wearing mauve, well, let’s just say he loses his ever-loving mind.  He rants and rave about how selfish she is because any fool can see that ivory is clearly a better color for me.  He cusses Libby out while questioning her genealogy but in such a way that he’s not questioning mine as well.  He is in high camp, and he has me crying from laughing so hard.  It is nice to have a friend who cares so much about me.

Once he’s calmed down, he settles next to me again and resumes massaging my neck.  We diss Libby some more because it’s a national pastime with us and because she deserves it.  When we were in college, we devised an elaborate points system to see who could put her down harder.  It was no contest; I am the reigning champion of dissing Libby.  “She gets put on hold when she tries calling her conscience,” I say, to cap off the contest.  We both laugh uproariously at that before subsiding into giggles.  Paris wants to make sure that I’m not going to listen to ‘that heifer’, but I’m not paying attention as he is melting me with his fingers.  He lectures me to put my foot down or Libby will run roughshod over me, which I know to be good advice but which I also know will be difficult to follow.  He is still massaging and lecturing as the buzzer rings.

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Don’t Rayne On My Parade; chapter two, part three

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“Hello?  Paris here.”  He has one of those phones where a person standing near by can hear almost everything the other person says.

“Oh –y God, Pa—s.  It’s Ma—………..looking for Moira…….broke down the door….she’s de—.  You have to…….right now!”

“Max, calm down.  Are you sure about that?”  Paris looks concerned as he cradles the phone to his ear.

“She…..bed…..not moving.  Mur— .  Some—.  I want you…….now!”  Her voice rises hysterically as she talks.  It sounds as if she’s not even trying to control herself any longer.

“Ok, Max.  I’ll be right there.  Drink some water and take deep breaths.  Remember, stress is your enemy.”  He clicks off the phone and turns to me.  I’m eagerly waiting for the news, though I can piece together most of it from the excerpts I overheard.  “It’s Moira.  She’s been murdered.  Max’s going crazy.  We gotta go.”

“Who’s we, white man?”  I retort, trying to ignore his other words.  “She asked for you, remember?”  I do not want to see Max again, and I definitely do not want to see a dead Moira.

“I need you there with me,” Paris says soulfully, putting on the puppy-dog eyes.  “I need you for moral support.”  He leans over to kiss me on the cheek which breaks down my defenses.  Every time, I vow to be strong.  Every time, I fail.

“All right.  Let me pull on some clothes first.”  I walk toward my bedroom before something strikes me.  “The police will most likely be there.  Do you think this is a good idea?”

“I have to go,” Paris says simply.  “I want you with me.”  That seems to be the end of that.  We both throw on some jeans and long-sleeve shirts before jumping back into his car.  We are silent on the way there.

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Don’t Rayne On My Parade; chapter one, part two

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Over the years, our friendship has been forged through fire as well as through happiness.  He was there for me when my father died in a car accident.  A drunk driver plowed into my father’s car at three in the afternoon.  The driver had eight previous DWIs, but hadn’t spent any real time in jail.  Killing Dad netted him a year behind bars.  A year!  He took away a man’s life, and he got a year.  It was disgraceful.  I was a sophomore at Berkeley and almost went insane.  I had been Daddy’s girl since I was born, and his death hit me hard.  If it hadn’t for Paris, I would have been in horrible shape.  He was the one who held my hair—it was waist-length then—while I puked night after night of heavy drinking.  He would go to the parties with me, though he rarely drank himself, making sure I didn’t get myself into trouble.  He’s the one who kept telling me that it was going to be all right when I felt as if I had no more heart or will to go on.  He was the one who stopped me from slashing my wrists at one especially low point that year.  My mom adores him.

In return, I was the one who ran interference between him and his mother.  She sent him letters every week while we were in college just as she does now, but he wasn’t as inured to them then.  Each letter would upset him for days.  Unlike me, he didn’t realize he was attracted to both males and females until he was a junior in high school.  His mom caught him kissing a boy that year.  Ever since, she has been preaching to him, trying to save his soul.  After reading each letter, he would rush to our apartment and sit in the dark for hours, not moving from whatever position he was in.  Paris became so distraught after one letter—where his mom wrote she’d rather see him cut off his testicles and become a eunuch than for him to fornicate the way he did—he refused to speak for days, even in class.  I decided to take matters into my own hands.  His mother’s letters arrived on Friday without fail—I wouldn’t put it past her to have calculated when she’d have to send the letter from Memphis to get it there on Friday just so his weekend would be ruined.  I intercepted the next one and opened it.  I refused to let him see it, then read the innocuous parts to him such as how his mother was doing.  That’s how we read the letters until Paris felt strong enough to read them on his own.  I was also the one who kept him together after the love of his life died from AIDS, but I don’t like thinking about that.

“What are you thinking so hard about?”  Paris asks softly.

“Family,” I reply.  “Us.”  I take a deep breath before continuing.  “Do you ever think how much easier it’d be if we were a couple?”  We’ve talked about this before, but it’s a subject we revisit from time to time.

“Yeah, no doubt,” Paris sighs, ruffling my hair.  I move so that I am in his arms, rather than lying in his lap.  It’s not like we haven’t tried.  Paris was my first kiss from a boy.  I had been very unpopular in high school, more teased than dated.  The only physical contact I had was when a boy snapped my bra then ran away.  I messed around with female friends from time to time, but boys left me strictly alone.  Paris was popular, but had been gallant enough to take me to our junior prom.  When he dropped me off for the night, he kissed me on my front porch.  My parents had left the porch light on, but that hadn’t daunted Paris.  In some ways, it’s still my most cherished kiss.

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