Mr. Ponytail ...

As I watched him prepare to shoot up on the bathroom floor, I felt a mix of fear, horror, fascination and arousal. He didn’t tie that rubber thingy around his arm like I’d seen Diana Ross do in Lady Sings the Blues. Then again, this was no movie. “You’re beautiful,” I said. “So fuckin’ beautiful. Anyone ever tell you that?” His eyes cut up to me and sparkled; his thuggish craftiness faded. He could have been a wholesome, doe-eyed Norman Rockwell painting. “Yeah," he smiled, displaying teeth surprisingly white. “Sometimes.” He wasn’t a junkie anymore, just a beautiful young man sitting on the floor next to my toilet. Or maybe a handsome leading man, playing the hell out of his junkie role: Wardrobe had done a great job of making him disheveled, and make-up was on point too, giving him that hollow, hungry look. But as our eyes locked, I saw the real José. I wanted to bend down and kiss those lips, stroke that angular cheekbone. I wanted to peel that dirty oversized shirt from his lanky frame, massage him with lavender oil; wanted to loosen that ponytail, so I could brush his black mane until it gleamed like it was meant to. And then his hair could hang wild, savage, and tickle my flesh as I held him close, kissed him, made love to him, again and again. “Why you wanna watch this shit, pa?” “I don’t know,” I responded. He was so young, so classically handsome. I heard myself saying, “With your looks, you could be . . . do anything you want. Why this?” His innocence faded, the cameras stopped and the leading man stormed off the set. He slapped his arm like a baby’s butt and said, “Same reason you wanna watch.” ~~

excerpt from Dancing with the Devil Available 02.26.09 Press Release www.ChumaSpiritEBooks.com