Lee grabbed Marvin’s bags and jacket and allowed him to walk in and take everything in. “I’ll give you a few minutes. Make yourself at home. Look around, kick the tires as they say,” intentionally using car salesman speak to put him more at ease and let him know that he had done his homework. “And if you have any questions at all or need anything, just ask. I’m here for you. Whatever you want or need, if I don’t have it, I’ll make a call and we can get it for you.”
Marvin, like almost every other Black man who had walked through that door, was stunned. First and foremost, Lee was sexy as fuck. The guy who drove him here had told him that Lee was good-looking, but, like everyone else he had encountered, was suspiciously vague about offering up additional details about him, saying that Lee had his own truth to tell. They all said he looked like a model. Marvin was expecting a Dick’s Sporting Goods type model, or some gym rat dude who called himself a model because he had an Only Fans page, not a Giorgio Armani during Paris Fashion Week runway model.
Standing 5’10”, a buck eighty, more salt than pepper gray hair, the slightest hint of 5 o’clock shadow, dressed in a suit that looked like, no, that had to have been custom-made for him, and blue eyes that sparkled like dancing Caribbean waters, Lee was, by all standards and measures in any time, fine. Marvin felt like he was in a fairy tale and Lee was Prince Charming. Marvin wasn’t even attracted to white men but he had heard so many positive things about the entire experience that he had to give it a try and see what it was like. To say that he was blown away by everything he had experienced thus far would have been a gross understatement.
It always takes men a good five minutes to get over the initial shock of seeing a white man surrounded by breathtaking Black art, in an apartment that was decorated to be the ultimate bachelor’s pad. The open-concept kitchen pass-through had been closed off and renovated to be a full bar with lots of uniquely shaped bottles that all had branded Wequilibrium labels.
In the living room, there was a 60″ TV with every game console ever made with video games galore although they hardly ever got any use as the need for distraction and entertainment weren’t as prevalent as before. Lee mostly used the TV to play erotic videos from the In Loving Color collection. It was the more sophisticated version of Netflix and Chill in the New World. There were board games, strategy games, and puzzles. Anyone who felt inspired had an art table with paints, pads, and several canvases available to them in a small cubby that had probably been a closet at one point. It was clear that the focus in the New World was much more on communication, and creativity; Love truly reigned supreme.
Two plush leather chairs flanked a lush, comfy microfiber sofa, there was a pool table under the stairs that led to the loft bedroom. Floor to ceiling navy blue damask drapes that had to be 12 feet long looked like they could not only make a gown for Scarlet O’Hara but for all of her Daughters of the American Revolution bridesmaids as well. The bookshelves were libraries in Black history and culture and, of course, the coffee table held all the entire In Loving Color collection. Everything was gorgeous.
Just off the living room was a long, narrow balcony that was decorated with more than a dozen stately, Arborvitae shrubs for privacy. To the right, the balcony opened up to a patio area that had a bistro table for two, a grill, a gorgeous water feature that softened the sounds of the street traffic below, and a navy blue and espresso seating area with a sofa, 2 chairs, a chaise lounge, a low, square coffee table, and huge tropical plants with dramatic foliage were everywhere.
The whole scene looked soooo comfortable that Marvin wanted to curl up in one of the chairs and read a book, and other than In Loving Color, he hadn’t read a book since . . . he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d read a book. In fact, he’d never read a full book before In Loving Color. In high school, he would read the Cliff Notes version of a book any time he had an assignment and he wouldn’t even read all of them, he just skimmed them. He majored in computer science in college so he really didn’t have to read any books, not fictional ones at least. Those chairs, however, were calling to him to read The War of the Worlds, or the complete works of Plato.
There was a small furnished bedroom and bathroom downstairs that had a feeling of being largely unused because it was decorated sparsely with just a bed and a dresser. Granted the bed and dresser were not from Value City, they appeared to be custom pieces but there were very few touches of personalization and design like the rest of the place. The kitchen was small but it smelled like something amazing was cooking, and he peeked his head in what he thought was the pantry and it turned out to be a laundry room.
Up the stairs was a huge bedroom and it was clearly where the magic happened because every square inch was personalized to be sensual. This bedroom had yet another private, smaller balcony, only this one had a hot tub and a fireplace in place of the table and grill. To get to the bathroom you had to walk through the walk-in closet that was like a long hallway with cabinetry on both sides. Spa would have been a better word to describe the bathroom because he had never seen a bathroom with TWO bathtubs, an infrared sauna, a shower that had so many shower heads, coming from so many different directions, that it looked like a car wash, there was a vanity that matched the furniture in the bedroom, and there was even a seating area.
Most striking about the condo, was on every wall, in every corner, there was Black art. The home looked like an art gallery. Paintings, huge paintings, small paintings, sculptures, and erotic photography of Black couples filled the walls; Marvin had never seen anything like it. Every lamp, every pillow, every pot that held a plant was stylized and coordinated with some other piece of art. Everything within the walls of this home had been carefully selected and chosen for its dramatic and emotional impact upon your senses.
His place, the one he’d just given up, he’d furnished with stuff his mother had given him from his grandmother’s house when she died, stuff his very first girlfriend had left when she moved out, and stuff he bought from Wilmington Dry Goods that was on sale.
Before the shift, his old job paid him well enough that he could have afforded to buy a house, or get a swankier apartment at the very least. He could have easily afforded nicer furniture and even some nice décor, but he didn’t have the eye or the inclination to ever do more than the bare minimum. He didn’t feel like he deserved a home, a real home if he was single, he believed it was pointless to have anything nice if he didn’t have anyone to share it with. While he didn’t have milk crates and folding chairs for furniture, he also didn’t have Architectural Digest begging him to do an Open Door video of his place, either.