Author William Maltese interviews Stud Draqual: Interview With A Stud

INTERVIEW WITH A STUD

By WILLIAM MALTESE



Author’s notes:

The most recent “Kanelli People-Recognition Poll” puts “Stud Draqual” in the 98-percental range. Possibly because he’s the heir to a well-known silk-producing empire; heads an ever-expanding fashion house, including men’s and women’s couture; has been listed on the world’s best-dressed men’s list for the past twenty years; has expanded into boutique liquors and wine; is often pictured on society pages, lately in the company of industrial mogul and heiress Roxanne Whyte; has been the object of worldwide media attention for his involvement in two sensational murder cases that resulted in his first-person autobiographical internationally best-selling books — A SLIP TO DIE FOR and THAI DIED.

I met up with Stud during New York Fashion Week where his couture runway collection had, once again, gleaned rave reviews for House of Draqual. While his penthouse was being remodeled, he was staying in the palatial roof-top condo of Baronness DuVille Falwell-Marget, whose living-room boasts its spectacular 200-degree view of Central Park and the parenthesizing city skyline. The Baroness was on holiday in Corfu.

Stud was decked out in a couture Draqual silk three-piece men’s gray suit and shirt; blue tie; blue-leather Gucci shoes. Evident was his signature emerald-and-diamond pinkie ring.

Throughout the interview, our champagne glasses where kept topped with chilled Falwell-Magret vintage champagne from the Baroness’s French vineyards outside Leon.

Stud appeared poised and cordial.



WILLIAM MALTESE: I imagine you’re quite used to being interviewed by now.



STUD DRAQUAL: You’d be wrong. Most of my press has been the result of reporters out to fulfill their own agendas, no consultation with me whatsoever. If I didn’t personally know your publisher, Jon Michaelson, I probably wouldn’t have agreed to this interview.



WM: You’ve said publically that the reason you wrote your two books was in order to set the records straight.



SD: I still can’t believe all of the false information and ludicrous spins the press put out to make those murders seem far more sensational than they really were.

WM: Although, you do have to admit, each case had more than its fair share of sensationalism. I mean, male corpses, in the one, turning up in Draqualian-silk women’s lingerie; a Thailand boy/girl, in the other, heading an international crime syndicate.



SD: I did not, however, participate in any three-day orgy with the latter, as reported by one British scandal rag whose name I won’t even bother to mention.



WM: Do you see all that coverage by the media, true and false, to have been a boon to your expanding business empire: All publicity chocked up as good publicity?



SD: At the end of the day, probably yes.



WM: Tell us something about the Draqual silk worms which, unlike others of their kind, secrete silk that’s already colored without any labor-intensive dying.



SD: Purely the sheer luck of my father who stumbled, quite by accident, upon a small colony of hybrids whose anomalies of DNA sequencing has even had Draqual scientists, until recently, unable to produce silk from outside the primary-and-secondary colors spectrum.

WM: The gray of your silk suit indicating recent progress?



SD: Yes.



WM: Your competitors having tried for years to garner similar results, even without variations.



SD: Our managing to keep a lid on the worms has, indeed, provided us with a definite edge in the business.



WM: How much, roughly, did your expanding empire net this last fiscal year?



SD: Since Draqual Industries is privately owned, I’m not legally required to release financial information, and, therefore, never do.

WM: A net figure, though, somewhere in the millions?



SD: That’s safe to say, yes.



WM: And, while you started out in silk and ladies’ couture lingerie, you have now expanded; not only in those two areas — more than one man and woman wearing Draqual silk couture on red carpets, these days — but you’re, also, now into boutique liquors and wine.



SD: So far: vodka, tequila, and a vintage cabernet sauvignon.



WM: Not to mention the eventual gargantuan result of the predicted hook-up between Draqual Industries and the Whyte Consortium. By the way, congratulations on Roxanne Whyte and your recent announcement as regards her pregnancy with your son.



SD: Empires always have need for heirs. No combining of ours, however, until Roxanne and I are both ready for retirement, our son old enough to take over the reins.



WM: A wedding anywhere on your immediate horizons?

SD: Not at the moment. Roxanne and I cherish our independence, although I’ll likely have an active part in raising the boy.



WM: There are people, you know, including, by your own admission, your long-time psychiatrist, Dr. Melissa Doolittle, who think you disingenuous in the writing of both your best-selling books when you emphasize your sexual liaison with Ms.Whyte while downplaying whatever sexual relationships you may or may not have had with Inspector Don O’Reilly, and with the mercenary Jeff Billing, and with the Thai underworld boy/girl kingpin “Ram”.



SD: Less disingenuousness, on my part, than my simple refusal to pander to prurient interests by providing details that never happened.



WM: You’re still officially insistent, then, that there was no sexual relationship between you and any of those three men? Certainly, not the result of Billing or Ram’s lack of trying. And there was your own admission that you were thinking of sex with Billing while actually having sex with Ms.Whyte. Plus, you did spend one whole voyeuristic night with only Ram and you in witness. Nor have you ever denied having been aware of the physical arousals of these men, in your presence, and, sometimes, even your own sexual arousal, by way of direct reciprocation.



SD: I merely state it as it is. Arousals never really my problem. Acting on them, each and every time, is something else again.

WM: Your reluctance to confirm homosexual activities, do you think, is still the ongoing result of your previous on-record admission that so many people have always thought you gay, their judgment only reinforced by your exceptional good-looks, and by the fact that homosexuality is so often associated with the fashion industry?



SD: During my associations with O’Reilly, Billing, and Ram, probably, yes. At the present, I’m more inclined to admit that I may, very well, be bisexual. Then, again, there’s that underlying suspicion I may not really be “sexual” at all. I have no problem performing the sex act, even enjoying it, to a certain degree; I mean, an orgasm is an orgasm is a pleasant orgasm. Have I ever been in true rut-mode for any man or woman, though? No. Have I ever concluded that sex, in general is, more often than not, more bother than it’s worth? Yes.



WM: Have you seen O’Reilly or Billing recently?



SD: I’ve seen O’Reilly, on occasion, in passing; after all, he’s still an active member of the New York Police force. And, although I’ve not had any recent reason, like murder, to call upon his professional services, we have ended up in some of the same crowds. As for Billing, there were occasions I tried to locate him, but with no success. Black-ops don’t provide easy avenues for tracking down its membership.



WM: Any possibility of giving either man a second chance?



SD: I’ve never been convinced that O’Reilly was genuinely interested in me — in that way. As for Billing, I suspect that’s all water under the bridge, too. Then again, who knows? I’ve seldom found anyone as good-looking and charming as he is, and I work in an industry filled with good-looking and charming people.

WM: Any immediate plans for your future? Another book?



SD: Since another book would likely require another murder, I’d just as soon pass on that, if you don’t mind. Frankly, I consider myself having experienced more than enough life-threatening events to last me a life-time.



WM: There are rumors that you plan to launch men’s and women’s fragrances in the very near future?



SD: Stay tuned for a definitive announcement on that within the next six months.



WM: With thanks for this interview.



SD: You’re very welcome.

 

About William Maltese: He first published in the late sixties an article for the men’s magazine “Argosy” that documented his search for Inca treasure in the jungles of South America between his junior and senior years at university. Shortly, thereafter his three-book pulp-fiction “Adonis” detective series was launched. Over two-hundred published books, and at-one-time-29-pseudonyms later, he can boast a whole list of writing in the Gay Mystery-Thriller-Suspense genre, including SLAVES … SS MANN HUNT … A CONSPIRACY OF RAVENS … BEYOND MACHU … THE GOMORRAH CONJURATIONS … GOLDSANDS …THE MOONSTONE MURDERS … TUSKS … SNAKES … and his four-books-to-date SPIES AND LIES series

 

 

Find William Maltese on the web:

http://www.williammaltese.com/