by Alan Chin
“Leave it,” I said. “Up here is just you and me. No chair. No reporters. No tennis. No reminders.”
He grinned and began to unbutton my shirt. He must have noticed the pain spreading across my face, because he left the bed long enough to pull my morphine kit from my bag and prepare a comfort shot. I reached for the syringe, but he said, “No.” He wanted to do it.
We slowly undressed each other as my pain retreated. He pulled the green bedspread back, and we slipped between cool Egyptian cotton sheets. We made love while the sea breeze washed over us.
The dinner bell rang. We ignored it.
Most times, after we had made love, we would lie in each others’ arms to enjoy the aftermath, but this time, we had no sooner finished than Jared jumped off the bed and found two cotton robes hanging in the wardrobe. He tossed one to me, donned the other, and, scooping me into his arms, carried me out the door, along the hall, and down the back stairs. I held onto his neck as we crossed the garden and headed for the beach.
The evening sky had turned a pure shade of purple. The stars had not yet appeared, and in the distance, we saw men from the town gathered around their boats to prepare the nets. A few minutes later, they hauled their boats into the surf and glided across the water, leaving a green trail of phosphorescent light. The same light inflamed the surf and made the night seem magical.
We sat at the water’s edge. He untied the knots holding our robes, and they fell away. Lifting me in his arms again, we dashed into the boiling surf, diving into an oncoming wave of green light. We swam underwater until we found a warm pocket in the cool water. Breaking the surface, we floated lazily in the shallows.
After months of being trapped in a hospital bed and that chair, a prisoner without legs, I was suddenly and magically set free to frolic. I glided through that liquid environment. My arms were all I needed to swim like a seal pup. Deliciously liberated, I became Baryshnikov performing impromptu leaps, plunges, and pirouettes.
The sea felt like a thousand silky fingers caressing my nakedness. Jared playfully splashed a handful of water in my face. The air shattered with brilliant phosphorescent light. We tumbled about in luminescence, were covered with it, radiated it. Seduced by the splendor of it all—this freedom, a lavender sky, swimming naked with Jared—I began to tremble.
Jared came from behind, pulling me into that hollow space between his arms. The cool surf swirled over my skin and mixed with the heat from his body, igniting an inferno inside me. I spun around, and we kissed. I lost myself in that kiss, became nothing but lips touching lips and the frantic beating of the universe—or was it only my heart?
He carried me to the beach and laid me on the sand, smothering me with more kisses. I merged with the sand under me and his stone hard body over me while luminescent water swirled over us. It all coalesced into a sensation of ferocious love. The weight of the sky, the sea, the universe pressed from all sides, crushing us together with such agonizing ecstasy that nothing but our hunger for each other survived.
Later, as the tide rushed out, we lay with limbs interlocked, listening. The sea’s roar held a unique quality. It had a density that squeezed my eardrums, as if I drifted a hundred feet under the surface of the water.
Jared said, “We should live like this all the time.”
“You’re insane. Life would be too glorious.”
“Let’s do it. I mean it. After the French we’ll move to Spain, somewhere along the coast. We’ll get Spanish citizenship and marry.”
I nuzzled my face into his shoulder. In a world where most people, gay and straight, were not getting married, but rather becoming partners—as if being a committed couple were a ballroom dance competition or some risky business venture—here was a man who wanted to marry me, who wanted to say, “Until death do us part.”
“You really are insane,” I whispered.
“Why shouldn’t we? It’s what I want.”
I smiled into his shoulder. Yes, I thought, I want it too.
Clouds had rolled across the sky, and rain began to fall. Jared scooped me in his arms again and carried me further up the beach. We leaned our heads back and let the rain pelt our faces. We kissed and kissed until I began to shiver. I’d never felt so deliriously happy as being held in his arms with the cool rain falling on us.
“After the French,” he whispered in my ear, and I kissed him again. We donned our robes, and he carried me back to the villa, up the stairs, and down the hall to the marble bathroom. He filled the tub and got in with me. We horsed around like boys in the first blush of puppy love.
“God, how I missed you,” he said, rinsing the lather from my hair.
AFTER drying me off, we wrapped ourselves in bath towels, and he carried me back to the bed. I lay on my side, propped on one elbow, running my free hand up and down his smooth flank. After a few minutes, I had him flexing and squirming on the cool sheets.
He leaned his head back and laughed. I pressed into his body. We rolled this way and that, tangling in the sheets. He turned serious, and we made love again—fragilely, with obscene tenderness. We prolonged the buildup until it hurt. The whole universe turned frantic. I remember with an appalling clarity the weight of his driving body, his consuming heat, my gasping for breath, and his animal-like grunts echoing in my head as we climaxed together.
Around midnight, a scratch sounded at the door, hardly noticeable. I thought it might be a mouse. The door swung open and there stood Alma, holding a tray crowned with fine-cut crystal glasses filled with mint tea, bowls of bean soup, and a loaf of crusty bread. He carried it to the table on our balcony and told us with an impish smile that he had also delivered dinner to Harman and Spencer, who had also ignored the dinner bell.
We thanked him, and he bowed, turning a shade of scarlet I could see even by the lamplight. He started to say more but stopped. Jared and I smiled at each other in the embarrassed pause that followed, and Alma quickly left, closing the door as silently as he had opened it.
The rainclouds had blown over. Jared carried me to the balcony to enjoy our dinner by the moonlight. He sat me near the railing and caressed the back of my neck with one hand while sipping his drink with the other. The tea was hot and fragrant and opened up my head so that I seemed to breathe easier than ever before.
A light on the ground floor room caught my eye, and I turned my head to see a bare-chested Alma standing beside the Baroness, who sat in a chair by the window. She was dressed in her sleeping gown and looked as if she were already dreaming. I nudged Jared, and we both watched Alma open a small paper container on the table next to her chair. The container had a cut of white powder inside. Beside it he placed a spoon, a lighter, and a hypodermic needle.
We both froze, too surprised for words. The Baroness turned her head, and her eyes fixed on the powder. Alma expertly melted down the solution in the spoon, filled the hypodermic. Gently, he hunted for a usable vein in her arm and gave her the injection.
She laid her head back, eyes closed, her face clouded over with a relaxed and easy pleasure. Alma moved behind the chair, but now he held a brush in his hand. He pulled the pins holding her hair, and the silver mass fell about her shoulders. Ever so gently, he teased out the tangles from her long strands until it spread like a wave of silk across her thin shoulders. As he brushed, his lips moved as if he were absentmindedly counting each stroke to himself.
I felt an immediate bond with this ancient lady. The fact that we both required our comfort shots to face this world of pain made me love her in a sisterly way. I also wondered if her white powder held more comfort than my vial of morphine.
Well after midnight, with dinner a pleasant memory and the breeze becoming chilly, we heard Connor and Shar’s voices echoing through the wall, harsh, with abrupt accusations and retaliations.
There was a moment of silence followed by a bang that must have been their heavy wooden door slamming. I snuggled closer to Jared, and he kissed me. I knew we were feeling the same sense of gratitude for having overc
ome our fight.
I wondered what it was that bound us together, this thing we call love. I had no words for it, no way to define it or even understand it. It was simply some desperate yet fragile force that had grabbed hold of us and would not let go.
I closed my eyes and let sleep take me, still wondering what it could be and whether it would still be there in the morning.
Chapter 27
SUNRISE cast orange rays across our bed. I woke to the feel of warmth on my face and Jared stroking my bullet wounds. His touch left a queer sensation on my damaged flesh. I winced when I turned toward him, and he hurried to give me my morning comfort shot. As the pain receded, he nuzzled his face to my wounds, kissing my scars one after the other. Warmth flowed from my center into him like a mountain stream tumbling to the sea.
We made love again.
In the tender aftermath came another scratch on the door. Before we could cover ourselves, Alma flung open the door and breezed into the room carrying a full breakfast tray. He stopped dead in his tracks, eyes growing large and his mouth forming a perfectly round “O.” His confusion was evident as he struggled to decide if he should back out or proceed.
“Would you leave that on the terrace, please?” Jared said.
Alma dropped his head, staring wide-eyed at the tray, and shuffled to the table on our balcony. His eyes never left the floor as he scurried back across the bedroom. The door made a whooshing sound as it closed.
We burst with laughter, peals of it. When our mirth ebbed into calm smiles, we donned our robes and Jared carried me onto the terrace. We sat at the table with me on his lap.
“Are you going to spoon feed me too?” I took his ear in my teeth and bit down hard enough to get his full attention.
“If that’s what you want. This morning you get the royal treatment, whatever it takes to make you happy.”
“I’m already happy.”
“Happier.”
“Impossible.”
“Is that a challenge?”
I rested my chin on his shoulder and glanced across the garden, past the glass conservatory to the long, golden beach and the sea beyond. The water shone a bright blue all the way to the point where it merged with the sky.
On the beach, Shar led Connor and Spencer in their morning workout, running at a brisk pace on wet sand. I knew that Jared should join them, but I was not willing to let go of him, not yet.
On the other side of the garden, opposite the conservatory, a barefoot woman dressed in a patched-together grey dress rocked on the stoop outside the kitchen door. She hummed a perky tune while plucking a fryer; the feathers lazily floated from her hand like smoke on the wind. She looked to be in her early twenties and built like a wrestler. Her face had a dark brow with rosy cheeks and rosier lips, and her raven-black hair cascaded down her back like a waterfall. Later, we learned that she was Sara Domingo Sanchez, our cook.
We feasted on poached eggs on toast, yogurt, and a variety of sweet rolls, washing it all down with rich coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Both the breakfast and the setting were so delicious that neither Jared nor I wanted it to stop, but by nine o’clock, Shar appeared at our door for my therapy session. Jared crawled into tennis clothes and joined Connor and Spencer on the tennis courts while Shar worked on my muscles. An hour later, we joined the boys on the courts.
Connor was quiet and sulking, while Spencer outshone the morning sky. I wasn’t sure when he and Harman had become lovers again, but the fact of it made me glow.
My goal for our two-week retreat was to find a way for Connor to win points without his legs taking such a beating. For me, that meant shortening the points by coming to the net and with better footwork. All the great clay courters slide into their shots. That allows them to work less, because they take fewer steps to the ball, and it also allows them to recover with minimal effort.
The other thing clay courters do is stay behind the baseline, because coming to the net on clay is a sure ticket to be passed. That’s true if the approach shots and volleys are deep, but if you chip a short-angle or a drop shot, it’s a smart play and ends the point quickly. So I planned to focus on sharpening their skills of sliding, drop shots, short-angle chips and volleys.
We worked moderately hard until noon. Connor and Jared were already becoming somewhat comfortable sliding into their shots, so we spent more time perfecting their drop shots. Jared was all business, as usual, but Connor continued his sullen preoccupation. I guessed his moodiness had something to do with the shouts rumbling through the wall the night before. Spencer tried to cheer him up and keep him focused, which didn’t help.
From noon until teatime, the hottest time of day, the Villa Baraka experienced what Truman Capote once called “white midnight.” Everybody moved inside, the shutters were drawn, and a drowsy sleep stalked us all as we retreated from the sun.
In the hushed mid-day, there was only the pale sunlight peeking through the shutters and the unbroken heat. I laid atop cotton sheets, stroking Jared’s sweat-moistened body, the windows open to the sea, watching the waves march toward us, relentless, like ticks of a clock counting down the time until the villa came to life again.
Spencer used the hot siesta hours to work online, bent over Harman’s laptop to manage Jared and Connor’s websites and respond to fan emails. The hate email had greatly diminished since coming to Europe. The European gay men had become aware of us and were lavish in their support. We received invitations from all over France, Italy, and Germany to stay at gay-owned guesthouses, enjoy free meals at restaurants, even people offering to put us up in their homes. Some admiring fans suggested we get to know them intimately, while a number of long-term couples applauded our monogamy and what we were doing for professional sports in general.
At five p.m. sharp, the Baroness presided over high tea in the conservatory. Her ashen-silver hair was gathered into a tight bun behind her narrow head and was held in place with two chopsticks. That, combined with her Kimono-like, peach-colored dressing gown, gave the impression of an eighteenth century Japanese geisha. Her double strand of pearls, each one as large as a marble, completed the impression. She was never without them, her pearls, and she often absentmindedly twisted the strands around two fingers as she spoke.
The French windows let the afternoon sunlight pour through in amber-gold waves. A huge oak table dominated one end of the room, and at the other stood a polished, ebony grand piano.
Everyone sat side by side on antique sofas and love seats, looking rather awkward, while the Baroness arranged flowers and Alma set an elaborate array of refreshments on the table: silver teapot and strainer, delicate bone china, crystal champagne flutes, tongs for the sugar cubes, embroidered napkins. It was a grand treat for me, and I could tell from the sparkle in her eyes that the Baroness enjoyed it more than any of us.
We began with icy bottles of Bollinger champagne accompanied with cucumber sandwiches, toasted baguette with pâté, oysters, and strawberries from the garden. The Baroness ate nothing.
“I never eat,” she told us. “Never.”
She sipped from a flute, seeming to exist only on the sea air and champagne as she presided over the conversation as a conductor directs an orchestra.
She clearly enjoyed talking, but never about herself, which shrouded her in ambiguity. She talked about her villa, every aspect of it, as if it were a lover that dominated her thoughts. “The Villa Baraka,” she said, “the name comes from Africa, like so many wonderful things in Spain. It means ‘house of blessings’.” She went on to give us a detailed history of the house and the surrounding area. As she began to tell us about Alma, her voice dropped to a husky soprano, and her lips twisted into a sideways smile.
“Ah, well, Alma, he came from Africa,” she said, as if that explained much. “He responded to an advertisement I placed for a cook, but after a single meal, I knew he was an imposter. When confronted, he confessed that he was on the run from his family, who were forcing him into a marriage with someone he detes
ted. He was desperate not to go back home. Well, there I was.” She waited for a comment, and when none came, she said, “How could I have turned him out? I made him the housekeeper, and he seems to have a talent for it. He has many talents.” Her smile widened, and Jared and I exchanged amused glances.
She turned to me. “You are lucky to live in America. Ah, New York. It is delicious. The parties, the opera, Broadway. It is the center of the world: lunches on Park Avenue, dinner at Radio City, and champagne, champagne. Everyone was so gracious, so kind. The doctors said I could not stand the excitement at my age, but what do those fools know?” She lifted her flute with her brown, bony hand and sipped while the mantel clock chimed.
“Speaking of excitement,” she said. “I suppose you will all want to taste the nightlife of our humble town. The nightclubs are not particularly innocent, and I am sure you can find whatever interests you. They go from dark to dawn, which is not surprising, considering that the townspeople nap all afternoon and no one dines before ten. There are a number of excellent eating establishments around the main square, which truly is the heart of the town. Anywhere else, and you eat at your own risk.” She thought for a moment before adding, “The marketplace is a wondrous place to browse, but be forewarned, these locals have great pride and are not afraid of strangers. If you question the freshness of the fish, the sweetness of the figs, or the ripeness of the olives, you risk a loud and heated scolding.” She smiled and glanced around the room. “These Spaniards intimidate me so.”
After tea, Jared played piano, Schubert, at the Baroness’s request. He played poorly, with many sour notes, which was not surprising after so long an absence from his own keyboard. As he played, the breeze flowing through the open windows became stronger.
The Baroness turned to me and said, “We call this wind the Levanter. The Moors used it to sail here from the eastern end of the Mediterranean.”
As the wind strengthened, the force of it brushed my face. The wind that brought the Moors to these shores also brought the smell of the desert across the water from Africa. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, envisioning veiled women in the Kasbah with the mountains on the horizon. This wind that once carried men in search of gold and adventure teased me with its promise of freedom.
