The Russos 3 Page 5

  "I don't think I understand what you are talking about, but..." Tony began.

  "Forget it," she repeated. "She has a head like a bull. The whole world revolves around Drake, and we're all supposed to stand in line to do his bidding."

  Tony looked at her in alarm. "Is Drake...I mean, Uncle Drake really like that?"

  Janet shook her head. "No. I'm being unfair. Drake isn't like that. She is. It has always bothered him that she's never tried to hide the fact that he's her favourite. She adores him. We all do. But sometimes, it just gets to be too much. If Drake wasn't such a rebel, she would have smothered him."

  * * * * * *

  In the car, Tony considered his aunt's words. There were a lot of things going on in this family that he had no way of comprehending. He didn't know the history.

  He couldn't appreciate the context.

  He felt cheated, cheated by his mother, and abandoned by his father and just plain out of it. Aunt Janet had tried her best to make him feel a part of this family and she wasn't even a Russo by blood. Without her, he would have felt quite lost.

  When they arrived back at the house, there were two cars out front. Janet let out a cry of frustration.

  "What is it? Who are they?" Tony asked, peering through the car window.

  "Press!" she said, practically spitting. "Damn it. Well, I'm going in anyway."

  She pulled into the driveway and hit the automatic door opener. Three people, two men and a woman with microphones ran up to the sides of the car.

  Tony kept his head down. He could hear what they were yelling, even though the windows were closed.

  "Are you Johnny Russo's son? What does your mother think of you being here in L.A.? Is your mother coming to be here? What happens if your father dies? Do you inherit everything?"

  They were still screaming when his aunt roared into the garage.

  Tony went to open the car door, then realized that the reporters had walked into the garage.

  "Stay in the car!" Janet demanded. She got out and yelled at them, "Get off my property or I will call the police!"

  "Just a few words, Mrs. Russo," they were saying.

  "It is Smith, not Russo. Now, get to hell out of my garage!" She was literally pushing them outside. "Go, get lost! I have nothing to say to you! Go interview someone else." She reached up and pushed the button to close the door.

  As soon as it was closed, Tony stepped out of the car.

  "Wow," he said. "They mean business."

  Janet sighed and then flung an arm around her nephew. "Never mind. To hell with them all. Let's go inside, I'm starved."

  Tony laughed. He watched as his aunt disarmed the security system and then followed her inside.

  * * * * * *

  It was quiet in the car after Drake escorted his mother back inside her hotel. They drove along the freeway, passing few cars. It was after midnight. Francine wished now that she could just go home, but her vehicle was parked in his driveway. She gave him a sideways glance and then looked straight ahead again.

  He seemed deep in thought, and it wasn't hard to surmise that seeing his brother tonight had distressed him. She wanted to comfort him, but she didn't know how. All she knew is that she wanted to hold him. Her desire for him hadn't waned. In fact, it seemed to grow stronger by the minute. It worried her.

  I'm going right home, she told herself. She said it over and over until it sounded like a broken record. She couldn't allow herself to step inside his house tonight because she knew what would happen if she did. As long as he didn't touch her or pull her into his arms and kiss her, she'd be all right. She could do this.

  Sophia had spent hours talking with her, telling her stories of Drake when he was a boy, as if she was to be his future wife. She had the distinct impression that Sophia desperately wanted her to pursue her son. She hardly knew her, and yet she kept saying that she would be good for Drake. How did she know that?

  Drake had said something. She looked at him and asked him what he'd said, surprised that he was speaking to her now.

  "I was saying that I'm sorry if I'm not being very good company. It just dawned on me that I haven't said a word since we dropped my mother off."

  "It's okay. I'm a little tired anyway. You don't need to make small talk."

  "Thank God," he laughed.

  "You're really worried about your brother, aren't you?" Francine said. If he did want to talk about it, she was giving him the opportunity.

  He didn't respond for a moment, then said, "Johnny and I are very close. It took me for a loop tonight, seeing him like that, laying there, his face like death. I was sure he was dead when I first walked into that room."

  "I'm sorry," was all she could think of to say.

  When they arrived at his house, Francine opened the door and got out quickly. Her car keys already in her hand, she walked over and stuck them in the car door.

  She had to get into that car before he came too close.

  He was behind her now. She was struggling with the damned keys. He placed a hand on hers and gently took the keys away from her. She moved aside as he slid the key in the lock and turned.

  She was trembling. She thanked him as he opened her door for her. He handed her back the car keys.

  "Francine...?" he began.

  She turned to look at him. "Don't, okay?" she said softly. "I don't think I could...you're a little too much for me, Drake."

  He met her eyes. "I don't want to be alone tonight."

  He moved closer and placed his hands on her shoulders.

  She avoided looking into those eyes. "Please...don't. It's not fair."

  "We don't have to make love. I just want the company. You can sleep in one of the other rooms if you want to."

  She started to laugh.

  "What?"

  "If I want to..." she continued to laugh. "Look, Drake, I have to be up early for work tomorrow. I need to get some sleep, and you would be the biggest deterrent to sleep in the world right now."

  "Well," he murmured, "if I'm a deterrent to sleep here, wouldn't I be a deterrent to sleep wherever you go?"

  He was right, but she forced herself to get into the car anyway. She rolled down her window. "Admirable argument, counsellor," she teased, "but you leave out one very important fact. Even if I can't sleep at home, at least I won't be able to give in to the temptation."

  He nodded. "I can't counter that one."

  * * * * * *

  She was gone. He was alone. He walked in the house and noticed that his answering machine was full of messages. He turned it off without replaying them.

  He had to somehow survive this night. If he could get through tonight, it would get easier. He wished that Francine had stayed. He could have left all this stuff behind him for a few hours. Sex always relaxed him, put him to sleep, and he liked Francine. He might have persuaded her if he had put a little effort into it. He didn't like to use people, although he had done it in the past, just like people had done it to him. Francine was a nice person and he suspected she really did like him, and it was for that reason he had accepted her decision without too much of a reaction.

  He walked into his music room. He looked around at the piano, the set of drums in the corner. There were keyboards and his guitar standing in the corner. He sat down at the piano. Maybe he should try and write something. Some of his best work was born out of his misery. Maybe his success was based on his pain. That made him laugh suddenly.

  He'd give away all the fame and the money if he could be happy. Happy, what was that? Happiness was holding Johnny in his arms just once without feeling as if he were somehow tainted. If he could kiss him, look in his eyes, make love to him and not hate himself anymore, he would be willing to spend the rest of his life making music in those dumpy clubs he and Johnny had started out in. He'd go back to eating Kraft dinner and baloney sandwiches, give up his Porsche for his old beat-up Camaro if he could embrace those feelings of passion he had for his brother, as natural. But unless tomorrow, society thre
w out the incest taboo and deemed that it was perfectly all right to be passionately in love with any member of your immediate family, it wasn't going to happen. That kind of happiness would never be his.

  Drake picked up the blank music score sitting on top of the piano and searched for a pen. Words came to him, music played in his head, the beat, the electric guitars, the bass, Pepi coming in with the keyboards, maybe a sax. Ya, he thought, lowering his fingers to the keys. Come on, boy, let's turn more of that misery into money.

  * * * * * *

  Tony woke up at four in the morning straight out of a dream. It had seemed so real that he actually expected to find him lying there.

  "Drake?" he whispered in the dark, running a hand over the place beside him. With a sigh, he lay back down and closed his eyes. He moved his hand down across his body, dismayed to find that the dream had spilled into reality. He swore softly and got out of bed.

  Stumbling into the adjoining bathroom, he jabbed at himself with a damp washcloth, still swearing. God, he hadn't had a wet dream since he was fourteen years old.

  Still feeling sticky, he gave up on the washcloth and crawled back into bed. A shower would take care of it in the morning. He was too tired now. He closed his eyes and felt himself drifting, going back to that same disturbing dream.

  Drake was making love to someone, but this time it wasn't to him, it was to his father, Johnny. Tony stood there watching them... but yet he was involved, because he could feel the pleasure. It was like he was at the same time a participant and a spectator. And then Angelo came into the room, walking over to him. He was saying something, but Tony couldn't understand the words. His cousin began kissing him. He heard himself start to moan. His moaning grew with such intensity and volume that finally it woke him up.

  Unfortunately, it also woke up his aunt, who came tearing into the room.

  Tony sat up in bed and saw his aunt standing there.

  She looked alarmed, and demanded to know if he were all right.

  Embarrassed, he confessed that he was having a dream.

  "God," she yawned, "I thought you were in pain. Someone must have been torturing you," she muttered.

  Hardly, he thought, hiding a smile.

  He told her to go back to bed, and apologised for waking her. She sleepily headed back out into the hallway, murmuring something like, "as long as you're all right," and disappeared.

  But he wasn't all right. Although the sun was now streaming through the window of his room, it wasn't the light that kept him from going back to sleep. That dream had disturbed him. It had served to remind him what really dwelt deep in his subconscious, desires that should have automatically cancelled themselves out when he discovered who Drake Russo was.

  Drake Russo was his uncle; the same Drake Russo he was wildly infatuated with as a teenager...and still was apparently, if his dreams were to be believed. The irony of it all was that he would probably have never met Drake Russo if he hadn't turned out to be a Russo himself. Drake was his uncle. It didn't seem possible, probably because he didn't want it to be. They were related. Drake was the brother of his own biological father. He would never be Drake's lover. "So stop dreaming about him," he muttered, "because you can never have him."

  Tony rolled over in bed, turning his face away from the window. Even if he had met Drake under different circumstances he wondered if he would have had the guts to make love with him. Drake was...well...bigger than life, even in person. He would have run a mile if Drake had come on to him.

  Tony closed his eyes. Was he ready for new experiences? Was he ready to go out dancing in L.A. gay bars? Not alone, he wasn't. Maybe he would take his aunt's advice, talk to his cousin. Maybe...maybe...no, he was too shy for maybe.

  He thought about Drake's son for a minute. His cousin was good looking--no, in fact, he was great looking. He was only his cousin. There was no law against cousins, was there? Maybe if they were going to get married and have children. Maybe Angelo could show him what it was all about. It would certainly be safer that way for the first time.

  Tony grinned as he thought about it. Only he could make all this sound quite practical. He wondered what Angelo would say if he asked him. He laughed out loud, feeling like he was harbouring some dirty little secret. He was being ridiculous now. It was never going to happen. He turned over and went back to sleep.

  This concludes Episode Three of The Russos.

  Stay tuned next month for Episode Four when:

  - Drake and Angelo argue.

  - Johnny opens his eyes.

  - Tony is attracted to Drake Senior.

  - Tony overhears a private conversation between Drake and his dad.

  - Tony gets sloshed and loses his inhibitions at Frank's party.

  - Mac and Janet make a...connection.

  Meet Pepi Russo

  He's the youngest Russo brother. He joined the band much later due to his age. He is the keyboard player for the band. He wants to be close to his brothers, especially to Drake, but he's always felt like an outsider, never able to penetrate that bond that exists between Drake and Johnny. He has absorbed a great deal of the sadness and confusion around him due to the family situation. He is close to his nephew Angelo, because they are not that far apart in age.

  A lot of Pepi's private life is shrouded in secrecy.

  He is very devoted to the family.

  D.J. Manly

  J. Manly is fast acquiring a reputation for D pushing the boundaries of male/male erotic romance. A reviewer once said of Manly's work that it was enough to give the reader "...third-degree burns in an air conditioned room..." and that's putting it mildly. If you adore gorgeous men who can't get enough of each other's bodies...if you like rich plots laced with steamy sex, thick and rich with aching need and glorious adoration and love...Manly's books will satisfy the craving and leave you panting for more.

  "If I wouldn't enjoy reading it, I wouldn't be writing it," says Manly. "I like to tease...but I always please..."

  To check out books by D.J. Manly, you can visit the website at djmanly.com, and take a taste...if you dare.

  "Fair warning, I've been told that it's highly addictive."

  D.J. .