Appearances, copyright 2006, by Etienne. All rights reserved.
-31-
Interviewed
The next morning, as we were standing side by side in the bathroom, shaving, Philip gave me a funny look and said: “You’re up to something, I can tell by the look on your face.”
“Not really, but I just had a wild idea.”
“Tell me.”
“What would you think about putting on a little display for our waiter this morning, if it’s the same one?”
“What kind of display?”
“Well, you could answer the door wearing only a towel and I could sort of wander out of the bathroom naked. From the way he was looking at us the other morning, I know Terry would enjoy it.”
“What if it’s not the same waiter?”
“I can confirm that when I place the order with room service. I will simply request Terry, if he is on duty.”
“Okay, why not,” he said.
I wiped the lather off of my face and went back into the bedroom to use the phone. When I came back, I reported “Terry will be up with our breakfast in a bit.”
With that, we hopped into the shower. Philip had just finished drying his hair when I heard the knock on the door and the muffled “room service.”
“Show time,” I said with a laugh.
Philip wrapped his towel around his waist, adjusting it so that it was hanging very low on his hips, and went to the door
I gave Terry just enough time to follow Philip into the room and set his tray down. Then, I came out of the bathroom naked, toweling my hair dry. “Was that the door? Do I smell coffee?” I said as I removed the towel from my head.
I surprised the crap out of Philip by walking over to him, grabbing his towel and pulling him into an embrace. “I didn’t get a good morning kiss,” I lied, and kissed him deeply and thoroughly. Philip’s towel landed on the floor and I could feel both of our dicks beginning to swell between our bodies.
“Charles,” he said as he turned around to face Terry, whose jaw had dropped “we’re not alone. What will Terry think of us?”
I laughed at that. “I don’t know what Terry’s big head is thinking, but the little head is about to poke a hole in the front of his pants. I think that good old Terry is enjoying the view, aren’t you, Terry?”
Terry seemed at a loss for words, but managed to say “What are you guys, porn stars or something?”
“No,”I answered, “why would you think that?”
“Well,” Terry continued, “I never saw anyone but porn stars with shaved crotches.”
I said “Then you’ve never been to a nudist resort. A lot of nudists shave all of their body hair below the neck. They call themselves ‘smoothies.’” I stepped forward two paces, took Terry’s hand and rubbed his fingers across my smooth groin. “See how smooth that feels, you should try it sometime.”
I let go of Terry’s hand, and he pulled it back with some reluctance . I also noticed that his pants were tenting even more prominently in front.
I looked at him. “Sorry about that, you seemed to like looking at us so much the past two mornings, we decided to give you a little show before we left, and that bulge in your pants tells me you really enjoyed it. Surely when delivering room service, you must encounter naked or nearly naked men all the time.”
“Yes,” he said, “but they are nearly always old, fat, and gross.” I stepped back and put my arm around Philip, and Terry continued “this is the first time I have ever served anybody so young and so totally hot.” He stared at us, and repeated himself. “You guys are so HOT I can hardly stand it, he said.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” I said, “but we’re also newlyweds, so to speak, and we’re not really looking for a threesome. Now while I sign the check why don’t you slip into our bathroom and take care of your problem.” I pointed at his crotch. “You can’t go back to the kitchen with your dick at attention.”
Terry gave me a look of total gratitude, went into the bathroom, and closed the door.
Philip began pulling on his underwear and tossed mine to me. “I think we just did our good deed for the day.”
“That about sums it up,” I said, laughing.
I signed the room service bill, added a tip, and we were sitting on the edge of the bed drinking our coffee when Terry came out of the bathroom. His pants were no longer tented in front.
Philip smiled at him, and said “Feel better now?”
“You know it,” Terry replied. “ I have a date tonight, and I am going fantasize about you guys while I fuck his brains out.”
I laughed and handed him the signed bill. “Go get him, Terry, you deserve it.”
We each gave him a hug, and he left the room.
We spent the rest of the morning lazing around the hotel. We had an early lunch on the terrace, and as luck would have it, Terry was our waiter. Every time he came back to the table, he had a knowing little smile on his face.
I noticed that the other waiter and the busboy were both giving us looks.
“I think our boy Terry has told his buddies about this morning’s adventure. Have you noticed how the other two look at us from time to time?”
“Yes I have, and I think you’re right.”
Just then, the busboy came up to the table to refill our water glasses, and he had the strangest expression on his face. I finally realized what his expression was telling me. “Andy,” I said, reading his name badge, “you look like you are dying to say something. Go ahead guy, out with it.”
Andy looked nervous “Can I ask you guys a question without making you mad?”
“Fire away, ask anything you like,” I said.
He leaned forward between the two of us and spoke softly “Well,” he said, “I was just wondering, did Terry really get to see you guys naked this morning in your room?”
“He did indeed. He brought our breakfast just as we stepped out of the shower.”
“Wow,” said Andy, now emboldened “And is it true that you guys don’t have any...” He began to stammer “DDDon’t have any...”
“Don’t have any what, Andy?” I asked.
“You know, like some of the porn stars.”
“You mean pubic hair?”
“Yeah, that,” he said with a sigh. Poor kid just couldn’t make himself say it.
“Yes, Andy, it’s true, we are both totally smooth below the neck. What else did Terry say?”
“That you guys were so hot he had to use your bathroom to beat off.”
“Well, he went into the bathroom for a few minutes, and I can’t say for sure what he did, but I can say that his pants weren’t tented out in front when he came out of the bathroom, so I guess he must have done just that.”
“Gosh,” he said “I always miss out on all the good stuff.” And with that, he went on to the next table.
I looked over at Philip, who was barely able to contain his laughter. “I guess we made one hell of an impression this morning.”
“I think that would be the understatement of the decade.”
We finished our lunch without further interruption, and by one we were on the way to Sacramento. Philip was driving this time. After we were a few miles up I-80, I said “You just like to drive fast, period, don’t you?”
“Yep.”
“Well if you really want to go ‘fast,’ you should learn to fly.”
“Will you teach me?”
“I’m not really qualified, but if you want to take lessons, I will help.”
He thought about that for a minute. “Sure, why not?”
Needless to say, we got to Sacramento in record time. We located the studio, and then went down to the old historic district and wandered around for a couple of hours, killing time. We had dressed casually in khaki slacks and Tommy H shirts that would go well with sport coats, so all we had to do when we got to the studio for the taping was to put on jackets and brush our hair.
Philip and I had discussed the interview at length and had agreed with near unanimity on every conceivable question. There was one surprise, however. We had expected to do this interview remotely, with ourselves in the Sacramento studio and the host in Los Angeles. Evidently he wanted to do the interview with us in the same room because he had flown up from L A for that purpose.
We sat in wingback chairs on one side of a large desk, while the host sat across from us, at the desk. Donald Brown, up close and personal, was a bit older in appearance than he appeared on television. He chatted us up for a while, to place us at ease, before the interview proper began. Finally, when he deemed us ‘warmed up’ enough, he said: “Ready to begin?”
Philip and I both said “Sure.”
“Okay, here we go,” and he looked over at the camera crew and said “show time.” Then he turned in our direction, ostensibly looking at us, but in reality looking at the camera situated between and directly behind our chairs and began.
“Good evening. We are coming to you tonight from Sacramento, California, where my guests are Philip d’Autremont and Charles Barnett, both of whom have been very much in the news this month.” He continued with a precis of the murder and subsequent trial, and turned to Philip.
“I’ll begin with you, Philip, if I may, this must have been a long and somewhat gruesome ordeal for you.”
Philip replied “Well, it certainly was no picnic, and I, for one, and more than glad that the experience is well and truly behind me.”
“When did you learn of your wife’s murder?”
“I heard it on the radio in my car,” Philip said. “I had been out of town for several days and had tuned in a local Atlanta station when I was about an hour North of Atlanta late that Sunday evening.” This, of course, was a bit of misdirection, but we did not want anyone snooping around Savannah, so it was the story Philip and I had agreed would serve.
“What did you do when you heard it?”
“I drove a lot faster, and went straight to the house, instead of going to my apartment as I had planned. By the time I got there, the police had long since departed.”
“It must have been a shock.”
“That’s the understatement of the year.”
“Do you miss your wife?”
“Of course I do, she had been my best friend since we were children.”
“The two of you had an unusual life, did you not?”
“Perhaps not as unusual as you might think. I daresay there are more than a few couples who maintain marriages for the sake of appearances. We were simply a little more open and honest about it than most.”
There were more questions in this vein, and then the subject was changed.
“How did you happen to select Charles as your lawyer?”
“Andrew Chandler, the Senior Partner of his law firm, was an old family friend of an old family friend of mine. The selection was arranged in that manner, and it was certainly fortuitous. I find it hard to believe that any other Lawyer could have accomplished what this guy did.”
That shifted the focus of the interview to me.
Donald asked “The trial was, in its own way, a bit of theater, and a bit spectacular. Can you sum it up in a few words?”
I said “The results of the trial were due in part to experience, in part to intuition, in part to the hard work of a great many people, but in the end, mostly just plain dumb luck. Things fell into place for us literally at the eleventh hour. A lot of people expended a great deal of time and effort to make it all happen.”
“You’re referring to the investigation you conducted?”
“Yes. We learned, early on, that the DA was focused solely on Philip, and as everyone now knows, the police had been directed specifically to not look elsewhere. We were using virtually all of the resources of a firm of Atlanta investigators, and they were being assisted by two national firms in areas outside of Atlanta. The total cost of the trial and investigation may well approach a million dollars.”
“That is a LOT of money.”
“Too true. A lot of money my client was forced to spend solely because of the political ambitions of one dishonest politician, who was blinded to reality by his ambitions and his homophobia.”
“Well, according to the news, he is paying the price, as we speak.”
“He has only just begun to pay. We will be bringing suit against him personally, against his department, and against everyone in the police department who is implicated in the cover-up. Sadly, it is the taxpayers who will ultimately pay.”
“I believe you said at your conference after the trial, that all of the above was going to fund a foundation.”
“Yes indeed. We are going to go after the bigots, and hit them where they live, that is, in their pocketbooks.”
Donald changed the subject suddenly without so much as a segue. “You were asked at that conference if you and Philip were an item, and you both did the side step. What about it? Are the two of you a couple?”
I looked at Philip and said “Yes, we are, from the moment we met.”
“Is this the first time you have been in a relationship?”
“No, I met someone when I was in college, and we were together for a number of years, until he died of cancer almost four years ago.”
Donald made vaguely sympathetic sounds and then looked at Philip. “What about you?”
Philip replied “I have never been in a relationship before now.”
“So what are your plans for the future?”
“I rather imagine that we will ride off into the sunset together.”
“Have the two of you kept up with happenings in Atlanta, and Virginia?”
“We have made a point of not paying attention to the news for the last week. However, I was brought pretty much up to date on Sunday when one of my Law Partners called me to discuss your request for an interview. He also told me that there have been death threats directed against both Philip and myself.”
“Really? That certainly hasn’t been in the news. How are you handling that?”
“Frankly, there isn’t much to handle right now while we are traveling, because no one knows our precise itinerary, but we will certainly take it seriously when we return to Atlanta next week.”
The interview veered briefly into current events, and before we knew it, it was over, and we were being thanked for being there.
When we were off the air, I asked Donald “How much of this will actually appear on screen?”
He replied “All of it, I should think. Contrary to popular belief, we do very little editing other than bleeping out four letter words and such.”
We said goodbye, and were soon on the way to the airport. The timing of everything had been perfect, and we were able to surrender the rental car and have a bite to eat before boarding our flight to Denver. We changed planes in Denver right on schedule and when we arrived in Atlanta we went straight to one of the airport hotels and crashed. Very early the next morning, we caught a cab to the airport in Marietta. I had arranged for my plane to be serviced and ready, and we were in Florida by nine, and at the beach house shortly thereafter, having stopped only to stock up on groceries.
-To be continued-
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