One of the minor banes of Victor’s life was how he could so easily be burned to a crisp. Because of his half-Mediterranean ancestry, he would still look like a feckless Greek sailor lad, exciting the envy of friends and strangers alike, who would ooh and aah over his golden skin, while he rushed home panicked to pour on another pint of pure aloe vera so he could even think through all the itching and pain. He could thank his mother’s Scots ancestry for that particular dermal betrayal. She and his sister Cathy had at least received armsful of auburn hair and gray green eyes to compensate; all Victor had received was Mendellian-dominant and dull-near-to-death “br/br” ones, as his driver’s license so accusingly read—and natch, the damned sun-skin sensitivity.
So he had been lying there on his tummy for close to an hour, eighty percent enthralled and twenty percent mystified by the Polish sci-fi writer’s first novel. The Invincible was the story of an investigation from orbit and then on the ground of an alien planet’s single life form. The Earth scientists could not for the lives of them figure out what anything on the unpeopled world really is or how it works, especially that primitive yet dangerous, possibly animal, possibly plant, possibly machine life-form that appears to have inexorably taken over everything else on land. Suddenly he felt a thump next to his chaise longue that was too quick and light to be an earth tremor.
He’d been listening through very good earphones to Bach’s Partita #1 with Glenn-boy’s vocal accompaniment, and so he hadn’t heard anyone approach. Now he took the phones off and was about to turn around, when he saw a pair of tan work boots before him.
Raising his head he made out sturdy if slender legs in well-worn jeans, diagonally defined at the hip by a work belt holding a variety of serious-looking implements. Above that, a shirtless, Apollonian torso and head, the latter capped by a yellow plastic construction hat. The eyes were hidden. What he could see of the face was tan, square-jawed, and kinda’ lovely.
“I said,” Apollo shouted, “you’re going to burn like a mother!”
He tipped back the hat brim and his brow was revealed to be equally rectangular and flat, the eyes pale, pale green, the mouth wide, amused and slightly open, the nose strong, flat, almost cat-like. Correction: the face was perfect—and godlike.
“I couldn’t hear you,” Victor said, “since I had to put on these earphones to block out all the goddamn noise you were making next door.” He wasn’t willing to give even an inch, not even to a newly-dropped-from-heaven construction-god.
“We’re done now.”
“For good?”
“For the day.”
“Then go away! What’s keeping you?” Victor put the earphones back on and returned to his book.
Instead the roofer hunkered down in front of Victor. When Victor looked up, the guy was still speaking.
Victor removed his headphones. “Explain why are you still here blocking my rays?”
“I was saying that if I don’t ‘block your rays,’ you and especially that bare little ass of yours, is going to get good and burned.”
Victor looked back over one shoulder at his ass. It didn’t look in the least burned. Not even pink.
“I’m out in the sun all day,” the roofer continued, “so I’m a professional on these matters. Oh, by the way, the name is Jared, Jared Clapham. Don’t bother. I already know your name and who you are, and . . .” withdrawing a little bottle of some thick white, viscous-looking fluid that he opened and dripped onto one much work-cut and scarred but quite sturdy index finger, “this stuff has toasted me to an even light brown, and it can do the same for you, without any burning.”
Before Victor could tell him to get lost again, Jared had dropped some of the goo, immediately cooling and wonderful, upon Victor’s bare shoulder and then reached over him and began smearing it all over both his shoulders and his upper back.
Since Jared had to lean forward to do so, this placed his denimed crotch and most particularly a long tubular object within it in sudden proximity to Victor.
Good lord, he thought, is that thing for real?
Jared was continuing to reach over, and as his transfixed victim made no move to get up, the roofer now slid around to one side (cleverly always keeping the boner in partial view) and now began slathering down Victor’s back.
“I can see your skin is thinner than most folks. I can tell by the blue shadow beneath.” (It was.) “I’ll bet you’re the first one in any group to get mosquito bitten!” (He was.) “I’ve got a friend with a similar thin olive complexion and he burns like crazy, so I’m guessing you do too.” (Of course, he did.) “Which is why you’ve really got to cover it all! Every inch!” (Go ahead! Do it!)
And so doing, he now went to work on Victor’s baby smooth glutes. “Especially these darling little cheeks, which will bake to a high red if not properly attended to.”
Victor turned to watch the boner in denim take on a life of its own, thumping slowly but steadily against the encasing material. He then turned to watch Jared’s face and his concentration—that of a five-year-old tying his shoe—as he smeared on the lotion. He then noticed the guy wore a wedding ring, for Chrissakes, and so Victor dropped his head and thought, You’re just fantasizing, idiot.
Until, that it is, one lotion-filled finger went right up against and then slowly slid into Victor’s anus.
Victor jumped up, knocking the roofer aside, grabbing the towel he’d been reclining upon for front cover. “Okay, Mister Jared whatever your name is. That is just about enough.”
“You want a thorough covering don’t you?”
He’d caught himself from falling over and now stood.
“How about going home and finger-fucking your wife?” Victor suggested, pointing to the ring.
“My wife is in Biloxi, Mississippi.” (Real big surprise that, Victor thought.) “Many, many miles away. Listen, Victor, may I call you Victor? I had to break off work early today onaconna’ I was so distracted by your sweet little—“
“If I would have known that, I would have exposed it two days ago,” Victor said. “If only to stop all the fucking noise.”
Jared dug into his pants pocket and came up with a little square plastic sealed package. It read, “Flents.” Smaller print read, “40 Decibel Resistance.”
“I got these for you.”
Jared opened the packet and demonstrated how they would go into Victor’s ears. “Best, least troublesome earplugs on the market.”
Well! That was considerate of him.
“I know you’re trying to concentrate in there, while we’re hammering,” Jared now said, a tad too seductively to be contrite.
“These going to work?” Victor asked.
“Sure they will,” Jared cajoled. “Why don’t you lay down again? I wasn’t quite done. Your upper thighs need some too.”
“I’ll just bet they do.”
“I looked you up,” Jared said. Meaning he knew that Victor was gay—famously gay, notoriously gay. “Saw your books in Waldens.”
“That doesn’t mean I’ll let just anyone . . .” Victor began, then stopped. Because Nights in Black Leather said exactly that. So, he rephrased it a bit: “. . . put just anything up my butt.”
“Well once you get to know me, I won’t be ‘just anyone,’” Jared argued, then added, “and it won’t be ‘just anything,’ either.”
“Meaning what? You swing both ways?”
“Most definitely.”
Jared’s hands, thumbs hooked into each denim pocket, were spread open now, perfectly outlining the denim-bound Thumper.
Victor was thinking, Welllllll, okay, come in. I’ll do you, but I won’t let you fuck me, when they both heard the motor of a truck pull up next door.
“Hell! That’s Mort. He must have come back for something. He’ll see my Ram still parked and wonder where in hell I am.”
“You’d better go,” Victor said.
Jared turned and leapt five feet up onto the stone wall that def
ined the two back yards. As as he turned, Victor dropped the towel back on the chaise, preparing to lying down again.
“Man!” Jared whispered loudly, “I sure do want to come back and visit!”
As Victor began smiling, Jared said, “What say tomorrow I send him home early? You be out here again! You hear me?”
“Won’t Mort notice me?”
“Naww. He’s working on the other side of the house. And anyway he’s . . .” Jared drew four sides of a square with his hands, meaning he was too dumb to pick up on anything. “C’mon. Whattya say?”
“We’ll see,” Victor said coyly and collapsed onto the chaise, deliberately lifting his rear as much as possible
“Hot damn!” was the last thing Jared uttered before another voice said, “There you are, Jay,” and their voices went off together, out of earshot.
Well, nothing actually happened, Victor reminded himself. And possibly nothing still might happen, although that was pretty unlikely. Semi-intelligent Southern White Trash with big penises were, if not his number one physical type, then at least way up among his top three. It was about as perfect a set-up for marital unfaithfulness as Victor had ever experienced.
Ergo the guilt. Ergo his needing to work up his nerve before dialing Nueva Jorck. He could see by the schedule he had copied down that Mark would be at someone named Wayne Ralph’s place, studying.
“House of Doom!” an unfamiliar baritone voice answered. “You have reached Doom Master Wayne. To what section of Hell may I direct your call?”
“How about putting Sacrificial Goddess Mark on the line.”
“And this is?” the apparently amused and suddenly recognizably African American voice asked.
“This is Avenging Angel Victor.”
“Ah, so!” Off the phone, “It’s your lover boy.”
“Vic! Hold on.” Mark, sounding frantic. “I want to take this in another room.”
A few minutes later, Mark was on the phone again. “You there?”
“Right here.”
“Where is ‘here’ exactly?” Mark asked.
“‘Here’ is upper Benedict Canyon, just inside the Beverly Hills City Line . . . As I wrote in my note.”
“Well . . . about that note . . . “ Mark began.
Victor didn’t like the way this was going at all. “Yesssssss?”
“Well, well,” Mark paused, clearly flummoxed. “What are you doing there, anyway?”
“If you’d read my note—“
“I did read your note.”
“—you would know,” Victor continued, “that I was coming out here to write a script with director Frank Perry based on my second novel. Did you get that far reading the note?”
“Of course I got that far,” Mark said. “I just don’t understand why you’re there.”
Oh, honey, Victor thought, don’t do this!
“I mean, couldn’t you write it here?” Mark asked.
“Neee-ooo. Because Frank Perry and I are writing the script together! Meanwhile, he’s shooting one movie and finishing off another movie. Here! In Los Angeles! The place where people make movies! Is any of this becoming clearer?”
“Yeah sure. I mean I know all that. What I mean is why did you go?”
And here we are, Victor thought, at the crunch. Evidently Mark was doing well studying up on litigation techniques.
“Because, Mark, Frank Perry wanted me more than you did.”
“What?!” Then, “You’re not sleeping with him?”
“Don’t be silly. He’s older. He’s straight. He’s definitely not my type. There’s no possibility of sex, never mind romance. It’s all work related. And, Mark, even so, Frank clearly wanted me more than you did.” Victor waited a beat. “I guess I was tired of not being wanted by anyone for any reason. So I came here to work with him for his reason.”
He waited while all that sunk in. He could almost hear it all slither in, working its way around and through specialized torts and Ratchett vs. Minnesota, et al.
At last: “You’re coming back, though, right?”
“Eventually.”
“When?”
“Remind me when your Law Boards are?”
When Mark didn’t answer:
“Sometime after that,” Victor clarified. Then added. “And of course, when our script is written.”
Now Mark sounded very sober. “I really screwed up, didn’t I?”
“You’re busy studying. Why even think about all this?”
“No, I mean I really messed up badly, didn’t I?”
“You made a decision, Mark—or maybe you just let a decision be made for you—and now we’re stuck with it. I don’t know what would have happened if I’d stayed there. Maybe I would have bludgeoned you to death in your sleep and hung myself. This might be a good thing.”
“Oh, man! I am such an asshole!” Mark despaired.
“Look, Mark. You don’t need any of this right now. Why not just concentrate on what you’re doing? Study hard. Pass the Law Boards. I’m here rooting for you.”
“You’re there, being the point. Oh, my God, I’m such an utter asshole,” Mark’s voice was beginning to crack. “I don’t want to lose you, Vic. I don’t know how I let this happen. Say you’ll come back.”
“Of course, I’ll come back. It’s my apartment, remember?”
Oops. That didn’t help.
“Oh, God. I’ll leave. I’ll move in with someone else.”
“I don’t need the apartment, Mark. I’ve got a seven room house in Beverly Hills, rent free! Listen, Mark. Listen, okay? This. Is. What. Is. Happening! You are studying for your Law Boards in New York. I am writing a script to my novel in El Lay. These are both things we want to do! So we are doing them. How it happened, how we arrived at this point where we’re three thousand miles apart, for several months, isn’t really the point. It’s not important. It’s not useful. It’s not worth going into. We are doing these things. Do you understand?”
Mark was almost in tears, “I was just telling the guys today how I’ve never been happier. I mean never, Vic. Never in my life.”
Oy! Gott in Himmel! Now I’ve got to comfort him?
“Look, someone is at the door. I’ve got to go answer it. If you’re still upset tomorrow, talk to Gilbert’s boyfriend, Jeff. He’s a therapist.”
“Don’t go!” Mark was shouting into the phone.
“This is the right thing for the two of us now, Mark. Take a few minutes and think it through and you’ll see I’m right.”
“I don’t have any money or I’d fly out there,” Mark moaned.
“You don’t even know where I am!”
“I’ll borrow it. Between all of us, surely we can—”
“Now I really am hanging up, Mark,” Victor said. “Talk to Jeff!” and he hung up the phone, thinking, Well that was about as bad as I envisioned it. Maybe even a little worse.
Suddenly there was someone at the front door ringing the bell. Victor looked out the entry door’s side glass and it was Sam Haddad standing there, a long thin white plastic bag in hand. Victor opened up.
“Look I know this is unexpected and all . . .” Sam began nervously. He looked inside. “You’re not real busy or anything?”
“I just got off the phone,” Victor said. “You look kind of . . . rattled. There a problem?”
He immediately thought: Frank has changed his mind and wants to drop my project and he’s sent Sam to do the dirty work. And after all Victor had just told Mark!
“Not about you. No. God, no,” Sam said. “That’s all fine. Like I said before, Frank is nuts about you and you guys are making great headway and all. But I just have to talk to someone about something and I think you know enough and— Can I come in?” he interrupted himself.
As he asked, he held up the bag and pulled out an unopened quart of imported Vodka. “I thought this might grease the wheels a little.”
“Yeah, sure.” Victor
was intrigued, and moved aside to let the younger man in. Was it his love life again? Had Sam finally gotten into that three-way with another guy?
“Something smells nice!” Sam sniffed the air within the entry.
“Me. New sun tan lotion,” Victor explained.
“So! . . .” Victor said once the two of them were seated in the big top floor living room.
The February sun was setting quite splashily through the floor-to-ceiling windows through a scrim of eucalyptus and fir trees behind, making the valley below them look like a double page spread from a Thomas Guide map as it glimmered and glowed in horizontal grid-works of reds and oranges and golds and pale greens. “What’s up, Sam?
“I’m pretty sure Frank’s in love,” Sam spurted out, then downed his Vodka neat and poured some more for himself. “Not with his wife.”
“I see,” Victor said, although he didn’t at all “see” why it was any of Sam’s or his business.
“Since she kind of works for the company, my gut tells me it’s going to end badly—for all of us,” Sam added. “Unless we do something about it.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning total disaster.”
“That part I understood.” Victor had, in fact, felt a sudden chill up his spine. “What I meant was, what you and I can do?”
“Well, one, it concerns a script. Two, I hold the checkbook,” Sam said. “So, three, maybe I could hire you, perhaps under another name entirely, to help keep the disaster from happening. Or from happening quite so badly.”
“How much are we talking about?”
Victor meant to be funny. But Sam was very serious indeed as he said, “If it works, my man, it is a seller’s market.”
Meaning Victor could name his price.
Justify My Sins Page 16
