King's Justice: The Knights of Breton Court, Volume 2 by Maurice Broaddus

the Sphinx's nose. But he had no time for intra-racial contempt; their hate was too small just like their love was too small. He was fey. He was the standard of his own beauty. A drop of fey blood made him one hundred percent fey. He was The Principle Beauty. Favored by his mother, he viewed his sibling – all women and for that matter, all that he surveyed – as an extension of himself. If the woman who writhed underneath him had a name, he hadn't bothered to learn it nor did he care to. She was a series of orifices who bucked in all the right ways, a piece of meat who offered herself as a paean to himself. A flesh-and-blood sacrifice on the altar of his dick. Sex with him was an offering of worship. He admitted to himself what few did: that people formed relationships that were altars to themselves. People sought out those who they had a lot in common with, who were like them, or who simply liked them; an external validation of their need and worth of being loved. The vanity of humanity. There were truths he dared not face. Like how sex was a balm. That it took another to give him meaning, make him feel like a man.
      Born with intelligence, luck, and the confidence of transcendent beauty, he didn't consider himself one of the light-skinned princesses who thrived on the attentions of others and then pretended that it annoyed them. Relationships were the comfort of another being only a hip turn away, a staunch of the open wound of loneliness they hoped to bandage. Colvin would never know the void of unfilled spaces within his heart because he trusted in the love of one who both knew and loved him intimately: himself. Turning to the camera hidden in the vase which sat on his mantle, he'd enjoy watching the playback of this session later. And pleasure himself to it.
      "Colvin!" A deep, dry voice called from the other room. "Colvin, man, we got a problem. A serious problem."
      "I'm busy, Mulysa. Can't it wait?" Colvin cried out in mid-stroke.
      "Nah, nukka, it's that deep."
      Colvin's was a long-lived people, and he'd spent so much time in the world of man, he'd learned their posture of adulthood, drank on their rage, and took on a man's role of conquest and bravado. He withdrew from the woman whose name he'd never know and wiped himself on her tossed-aside panties. She drew the sheets up about her in an "I'll be waiting for you" pose, but he'd already forgotten her as he dressed. Colvin put his gun into his pants. He never went anywhere without being strapped.
      His wave cap tied in back, Mulysa's brown eyes contained amber flecks. A scar underlined his right eye, acquired in prison. He had a broad, flat nose, the nose his mother hated because it was his father's nose. His complexion was what his grandmother would have described as sooty and his breath was the dragon. He wore defeat in the thick of his neck and roll of his shoulders. His faded blue jeans hung from his thighs such that he had to spread his legs whenever he stood still. He stank of sweat and what his boys called "African funk" behind his back.
      "What's up?" Colvin asked.
      "Tell him, nukka." Mulysa was a genial rogue, a selfdestructive fuck-up, but he had wit, charm, and most importantly, he produced. A lot was forgiven when you did the work.
      Broyn, on the other hand, was like an accountant. Quiet, dependable, and not for the life. Still, he had his uses. Some situations called for a square motherfucker who wouldn't draw attention to himself. Harried and haggard, Broyn began to speak with the wariness of a child recounting how a vase got broken in front of a temper-prone parent. How smooth the run went, along with the first exchange. And how on his way to the second meet, he was jacked. No money, no product. At each salient point in the story, he paused ever so slightly to measure the temperature of Mulysa, of Colvin, and of his place in the room. The messenger rarely fared well in such situations.
      "What did she look like?"