What’s the meaning of “true love” shared between two colonized individuals?
At this point in his life, Amani aka Trillion does NOT want to find out!
A professional revolutionary, Amani uses his alter ego Trillion to navigate the treacherous seas of dating on the “colony” though his comrade Damu tells him love is just beyond the horizon.
Will the persistence of a past hookup be Amani’s undoing or will Trillion help Amani avoid commitment at all cost?
Either way, it goes, it’s Trillion’s Way or no way at all!
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***MATURE CONTENT, 18+***
Boy on boy
character list :
Amani, aka Trillion
Damu
Quazi
Shamir
Princetta
CHAPTER 1
Code of Discretion
It’s 3 am as I climb into my Uber. I nod and briefly smile to the driver as we make eye contact through her rearview mirror.
I pray to the ancestors that this white girl isn’t a talker but before my prayer can even reach the ceiling, she gleefully turns around in her seat to greet me.
Here we go. Doesn’t this “Becky” know it’s 3 am in the damn morning?!
Before she can even open her mouth, I hold my hand up as I lean my head back against the headrest and close my eyes.
“Please, just drive” I groan.
Head still leaned back, I peek through my left eye. I wait for some type of rebuttal but all I hear is her seat cushion as she turns back towards the steering wheel.
“Asé” I think to myself with a smile.
No longer under the influence of patron and the thick of unbridled lust, my thoughts begin to pour into me like an empty basin. I sigh.
Hopefully, Shamir won’t be too upset when he reaches for me but he couldn’t have possibly thought I was gonna stay the night? I never stay the night! And after expressing to me that he wanted to take things a step further, I knew that tonight would probably be the last night I’d be seeing him.
Shamir, along with the rest of the brothers that I’ve met while living in Columbia, SC, know little to nothing about me and I could really care less to know about them. I was determined to keep it that way.
I made it a point to make sure me and whoever I’d be seeing that night or whenever had no mutual friends.
They’d offer but no one was ever allowed to pick me up and they couldn’t text or call me until after 10 pm.
Sharing social media was a no-no, under no circumstances could I spend the night, and though I was fully versatile, the only way you could top me was if you were my boyfriend.
That was a deal-breaker for most but for every 3 who couldn’t deal came at least 5 willing participants.
Lastly and most importantly, to them all my name was Trillion.
I was often asked if I was DL or something which is laughable! I’ve never hid the fact that I was a gender and sexuality non-conforming black man. I mean, I wasn’t the most noticeable homosexual but I wasn’t the most closeted either. I’d like to think my “code of discretion” made me that much more appealing.
Simply put, at this point in my life, anybody trying to get close to me, relationships or otherwise, was a no go. Trillion was somewhat of an alias or alter ego rather that I’d developed to stiff-arm any type of advances from those who couldn’t take a hint. Trillion didn’t play that lovey-dovey shit, at all!
All I wanted and needed was my family, comrades, and organization.
As colonized subjects, we as black people have had this fantasy fed to us by white power that true love would find us, being the answer to all our woes. That someday, this person who was created just for us would come and whisk us away to our happily ever after.
And for the longest time I pursued that fantasy; thinking that being genuinely open and forthcoming with potential suitors, and often entirely too early, would bring me that one person that would mean my “completion”; that if I was the person to them that I wanted them to be for me, certainly I’d be carried off to my happily ever after.
It wasn’t until I became a revolutionary that I was able to understand that colonialism had destroyed any notion of the truest form of love between black people, that most of us entered into relationships riddled with imposed contradictions for survival and security. That a person’s worth was determined by what he or she could do for you.
Though this harsh understanding made it a little easier to move on from my MANY failed, one-sided attempts at love and to not put the onus solely on the brothers I’d be seeing, my self worth and esteem didn’t go unblemished. Sometimes it was just easier to chalk it up as these ain’t niggas ain’t shit!
It’s been said and sometimes even to my face that I’m heartless. And I get that, even somewhat agree. But I always keep it clean, cut, and dry with whomever I may be dealing with. If I couldn’t be committed, I vowed to remain transparent.
Shamir could’ve possibly even been the one, hell. And I can’t even front, Shamir had the makings of the most ideal partner! 6’2 ft to my 5’11, Shamir had the body of a pro track athlete, the sharpest low temp fade you ever did see, a smile that could break the dawn and the complexion of ripened plums!
I lick my lips at the thought of his naked body, his skin in stark contrast to the crisp white sheets of his king-size bed.
“FML!” I think to myself as I open my eyes to look out into the early morning sky. Why did he have to take it there?!
Oh well. One thing these brothers must & will learn is that it’s now Trillion’s way or no way at all. Period.
As Becky pulls up to my destination, I receive a text alert.
Shamir: Where’d you go???
I just simply turn off my phone as I close the car door behind me.
