by F M Land
My turn came in the living room, over brie, yogurt dip, and sesame crackers. And, then, in the kitchen, we got Ken there again. And me again, too, with food growing cold on the dining room table. It was like a machine we couldn’t turn off. It kept running and running between us, like endless currents of electricity. We ate dinner, but I didn’t taste anything except the desire that was gnawing at my gut. Ken’s eyes glowed like blue flames. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.
Ken’s friends arrived around 9:30. I had met most of them at Ziggy’s the night of my birthday. They joked around with me like they’d known me for years. They made a lot of cracks about Dizzy. I laughed and laughed. I’d never laughed like that before. It might have been the reefer. It might have been the wine at dinner – I did have a small glass. It might have been the way Ken watched me, the way Ken made me feel when he watched me.
Later, we took a cab downtown to go dancing. Mindful of admonishments from my parents, I tied a scarf over my head and donned horn-rimmed glasses before I got out of the car. That raised a howl among Ken’s friends.
“Hey,” I told them, “I’m just doing it to protect you! Otherwise, you might get your picture in some national rag, dancing with me.” I raised my eyes to Ken’s and read the gratitude there.
“Shit,” Scott, a second-year resident at C-P, replied, “my big chance to be seen with a celebrity, down the toilet!”
We all chuckled at that. Ken lagged behind the others as they moved toward the door of the club, pulling me to himself. “You look great!” he murmured. “Those glasses are wonderful on you! You seem so --- intellectual, or something. Older, maybe?”
“They bring out the real me, huh?” I asked him, flashing a wide grin. Then I dropped my voice, speaking barely above a whisper, “All of a sudden I want to be alone with you again.”
Ken nodded, “I know.” He looked toward the others moving through the door. “Let’s make the best of this. I’m sorry to drag you along.”
“No, no! I want to be here. I want to be with you. I don’t care what we do.”
Touching my arm lightly, Ken smiled into my eyes. Then he pulled my head to his, his mouth on my ear. “I want to be with you, too, Paul,” he said softly.
We closed the club down that night. Ken’s friends were tireless. They were used to staying awake all night, that’s what I decided as my own energy started to flag about midnight. But, an hour later, I felt wired again. Most of the night, Ken and I danced in a circle with the other guys. When my tune, “Scream,” came on, the place went crazy. I never could get used to hearing my own music on the dance floor. It was wild to be caught up with dozens of other bodies in the pounding, familiar rhythm that was “Scream.”
“Nice tune,” Jared, another of Ken’s friends, remarked to me when the song was through. “I wonder who did it.”
I laughed and turned to Ken, who pulled me close. I could feel Ken’s erection as I pressed my hip into Ken’s belly. It was huge. “Jesus!” I told Ken, leaning meaningfully into his crotch.
Ken nodded and watched my eyes, not replying.
“Jesus!” I repeated. We began kissing then. Before that night, I would never have put on a display like that, standing next to the dance floor, feeding some guy my tongue. But, before that night, I’d never been out with someone like Ken. I pulled my face from Ken’s. “You are dangerous stuff!” I told him.
When we finally got home and were alone, we messed around, then talked until past seven in the morning. We dozed after that. About noon, I awoke and, lying very still, watched Ken sleep. I studied Ken’s fine dark eyebrows, the dark hair that curled around his mouth, the sloping silhouette of his nose. I sighed contentedly.
Then I thought of Terry for the first time in days, or so it seemed. And I wasn’t thinking “Oh, I miss Terry so much,” as I usually did after an absence of a couple of days. Instead, my thoughts ran like “Terry should see this. Terry would love to be with someone as gorgeous as Ken. Terry would understand.”
But Terry didn’t understand. I saw that in Terry’s eyes when Ken and I arrived at Valhalla for dinner that afternoon. Stepping out of Ken’s car, the first thing I did was throw myself at Terry. Terry held me stiffly and gazed at me with tired, empty eyes. Terrifyingly empty eyes.
Dad hurried forward to welcome us, obviously thrilled to have Dr. Sullivan visit Valhalla.
In his best friendly manner, Ken held out his hand to Drew. “Pleased to meet you,” he said warmly. “Gerald was a big Blaise Morgon fan.”
Terry coughed abruptly, and Drew quickly withdrew his hand from Ken’s. He gazed at Ken with a hostile intensity for a moment, before speaking. “I am so glad that Blaise was not alive to witness Gerald’s horrible death,” Drew told him in a cold voice.
Terry hardly acknowledged Dad’s introduction to Ken, but that didn’t stifle Dad’s enthusiasm. Dad followed Dizzy and Ken around like a puppy the rest of the afternoon. He couldn’t get enough of their doctor talk, so it seemed. At one point, Dad organized a two-on-two basketball game with him and Ken on one team, and Dizzy and me on the other. Dizzy and I got slaughtered.
“At last,” Dad called to Maman in French, “there’s someone in this family who’s taller than me!”
Drew nearly choked on that one. He exchanged a peculiar look with Maman that made me uneasy. What was Drew’s problem? On the other hand, I was relieved that Terry had not understood Dad’s exuberant remark to Maman. I promised myself that I would work it out with Terry later that evening, after Ken left.
Ken didn’t stay long after dinner. He looked exhausted, so tired that Dizzy made a cheap remark about me keeping Ken awake all night. Demurring weakly, Ken reached out and hugged me. Then he said good-by to everyone, with me on his heels as I followed him out the door.
We stood by Ken’s car, both reluctant to say good night. It was a warm night for mid March.
“Your father is something,” Ken told me, a broad smile on his face.
“He really digs you,” I replied. I took a step toward Ken, not sure what to do next. Anxiously, I glanced toward the house, searching the windows for faces. I hoped that Dad or, worse, Terry wasn’t watching.
Ken shrugged, “Yeh, but Drew sure can’t stand me.”
I reached out and caressed Ken’s cheek along his cheekbone, right above his beard. “Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s convinced that you killed Pace, ah, Gerald.” I let my voice trail off. I hadn’t planned on saying anything about Drew’s suspicions to Ken.
“Is that what you think?” Ken’s eyes flashed like the blue lights on a police cruiser.
“No, of course not!”
“Is that what Terry thinks, too?”
Sighing, I looked away from Ken, away from his flashing eyes. “Terry’s a whole other story,” I said quietly.
“I know. I could tell by the way he was watching you.” Ken grabbed my chin and forced me to meet his eyes once more. “He’s the one, isn’t he? The one who gave you the earrings.” His fingers came to rest on the ring Terry had placed in my earlobe.
“Yes,” I answered in a small voice.
Ken seemed to lose it for a moment. He sucked in his breath loudly and brought his hands to his face. Then he gazed through his fingers at me, straight into my eyes. “I need to know where you stand, Paul,” he said with a strangled intensity. “I feel very vulnerable.” He paused. “I’m falling in love with you.”
I smiled radiantly at his words. I nodded eagerly. “I want you to.”
“I don’t want to get hurt. I’m still very fragile. From losing Gerald.”
I threw myself on Ken then, not caring who might be watching. “I want you to love me,” I told him before I seized his mouth with my own.
“I want you to love me,” Ken responded when I released his mouth.
“No problem.” I came close to taking him on the hood of his car after that, but Ken pulled me into the back seat before I got my pants off. We made love then with an intensity that made me think of Terry. I knew
I was in trouble then. Ken was taking me beyond the Terry Walters barrier.
It was nearly an hour before Ken drove off to Manhattan, leaving me alone in the driveway by the back door. With a deep sigh, upset that it would be weeks before I saw Ken again, I entered the house in search of Terry. I poked my head into the den, where Drew and Terry usually watched television, but it was empty. Then, I went to the kitchen where Dad sat, alone, sipping from a teacup. His face brightened when he spied me.
“Paulie! Ken’s headed back home, eh?” He smiled broadly, his gray eyes crinkling merrily.
I nodded and looked around. “Where’s Terry?”
“He and Drew went to bed a half hour ago.” Dad paused to take another sip of tea. “Hey, Ken’s a great guy, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I replied, nodding distractedly. I could feel my cheeks glowing. “We’re in love,” I confided. “I feel like I’ve been swept off my feet. Shit, I wish Terry were still up!”
I didn’t get a chance to talk with Terry, either, the next day before I left for Los Angeles. What I wanted was for Terry to drive me to the airport, but Terry politely turned down my request for a ride, saying he and Drew were leaving soon to go home. And I didn’t want to beg, not in front of Maman and Drew, whose side Terry refused to leave all day. I flew to Los Angeles that evening, full of frustration that I couldn’t settle things with Terry before I had to leave.
By the time I reached LA, however, a new emotion set in. Loneliness. Even before Robbie met me at my gate. Even before I reached Robbie’s oceanside hacienda in Casas Viejas, which seemed to be overrun by the female singers in his band. Even before I heard their whispers about my being a homosexual. I was lonely. And I wished I were back in New York with Ken and Dizzy and my own band.
Robbie tried hard to make me feel at home. He had leased a sporty Mercedes for me to drive. He offered me a choice of five or six bedrooms, even an entire wing of the place if I wanted it. I could have everything, anything, the way I wanted it. That first night, Robbie must have thanked me a dozen times for coming out to sit in with his band.
I, for my part, was not ungrateful. I smiled and laughed appropriately. I even sat around in Robbie’s room with Robbie and his “girls,” three dark-skinned beauties, snorting coke. Robbie had no idea how alone and depressed I felt, I tried to make sure of that.
One of the women, Elena, started warming up to me, after we’d worked our way through a dozen lines. She sat behind me on the bed and began to massage my neck and shoulders. Because it felt good, I let her do it. But, as soon as she tried to pull me down into her lap, I jerked away from her touch, which made Robbie giggle hysterically.
“Elena,” he told her, between fits of laughter, “Paul is one man you’ll never take down!” He moved close to us. “But you can take me, baby,” he suggested, still laughing.
Elena gave Robbie a shove. “You’re a bore,” she pouted. She turned back to me. “You’re cuter than your cousin,” she told me.
Another woman, Trulia, spoke up. “They look just alike. They could be twin brothers.”
Robbie and I studied each other for a moment or so. We both were about the same height, had dark curly hair, cut short, and those large, almost black, Fremont eyes. But the similarity ended there.
“The cheekbone and nose are different,” Robbie observed. He was right. My profile was identical to my father’s, whereas Robbie had the Fremont facial features.
“Yeh, so are the mouth and chin,” I added.
Trulia shrugged. “You look like twins to me.”
Later, when we were alone, Robbie asked me, “Are you okay?”
I nodded, slowly. “You know, I’ve never had a woman come on to me before. That was kinda weird!”
Robbie chuckled. “Isn’t California wonderful?”
Shrugging, I was not impressed.
“Come on!” Robbie nudged me with his foot. “There are plenty of guys out here, too! We’ll get you plugged into the gay scene!”
Again I shrugged. I missed Ken. I wished that I were back in New York and that Ken weren’t on call that night. “I’m not looking for any scene,” I told him quietly. “I’m in love, totally in love, these days.”
Robbie studied my face closely. “You mean, with Terry?”
Startled, I raised my eyes to Robbie’s. “Terry?”
“Yeh, come on, Paul. I know all about you and Terry.” When I didn’t respond, he repeated, “I know,” with an emphasis on the “know.”
“What do you know?” I tried to ask casually.
“I know all about you and Terry humping behind everyone’s back. I’ve seen Terry sucking your dick - yes, I have! Up in Dizzy’s, on the third floor. And I saw you cop a squeeze once in Valhalla.” He caught my dubious expression. “Now don’t deny it. I’ve seen your car parked at the motel on Route 9. Yes, and once I saw you and Terry leave the motel together.”
I gasped. “Jesus, what are you, a private detective?”
“It’s okay,” Robbie told me. “I haven’t said a word to anyone, not even Dizzy. You can trust me.”
“Seems like I have to trust you.” I was silent for a moment as I contemplated what Robbie had just told me. Feeling extremely anxious, I decided to change the subject. “I’m in love, really in love now. With one of Dizzy’s friends, a doctor named Ken Sullivan. Ever meet him?”
Robbie nodded. “Yeh, he lived with Diz for a while, didn’t he? Intense guy.”
“He’s the one. It was very hard to leave him in New York.”
“Shit! Bring him out here!”
I looked at Robbie in surprise. Everything was just so easy for Robbie. Robbie thought he had it all figured out. I felt sorry for him. “He can’t leave his job at the hospital,” I reminded Robbie.
“Yeh, but he doesn’t work every weekend. Invite him out!” He leaned toward me, confidingly. “And don’t worry about this Terry business. My lips are sealed!”
Suddenly, I remembered “Shaking with Fever” and “Serious.” I smiled at my cousin. “Hey, I brought you a birthday present.”
Robbie looked dubious. “My birthday isn’t until May.”
Shrugging, I widened my smile. “I thought you could use them now. Consider them an early birthday present.” I handed Robbie the scores and lyrics to my songs, “Shaking with Fever” and “Serious.”
“How much will your dad ask for these?” he asked me sourly.
“Nothing. He knows nothing about these.”
“Shit, Paul. I can’t go taking two of your songs like this and calling them mine.”
I nodded adamantly. “Yes, you can. Look, I didn’t even write them in my notebook.” I pulled my music diary out of my hip pocket. “Check for yourself.”
Robbie waved the notebook away. He turned his attention to the score to “Serious,” moving to the piano. Together we ran through it, even harmonizing on the vocals. It was a hot tune. Robbie glanced up at my face, then smiled. “I can’t take this song. It’s fantastic!”
“Yes! I wrote it for you, as you would do it. I even wrote it for your voice, did you notice?”
“Jesus, Paul, it’s great, but your dad would come after me, sure as shit!”
I grabbed my cousin’s shoulders and shook him lightly. “He won’t know. This is my present to you. I wrote them to thank you for getting me out of New York, away from my band. They were depressing me.”
Chuckling, Robbie tucked the songs away. “I thought you were missing New York tonight.”
“Yes,” I replied. “Yes, I am, especially Ken.”
We put in a long day at the studio the next day. Robbie was as particular as me when it came to recording. We rehearsed all day without recording anything. But Robbie hadn’t expected to record anything for weeks. And now that we had two new songs to rehearse, who knew when we would actually record something?
Ken had been on my mind all day. Everything seemed to remind me of Ken. Even the short dark driver who brought Robbie’s car to us at the studio made me think of
Ken. When I got back at 6:30, 9:30 Ken’s time, the first thing I did was grab for the phone.
As I waited for Ken to answer, I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say. Mainly I wanted to hear Ken’s voice, to tell him that I loved him and missed him. My heart nearly jumped out of my mouth when he answered.
“Hello?” Ken sounded tired, as if he’d been sleeping.
“Ken, hi. Did I wake you?”
There was a short silence. I began to panic, afraid that Ken wasn’t alone.
“Paul?” Ken spoke at last.
“Yes, dear. Can you talk?”
“Paul! I’ve been thinking of you all day. For two days now.”
“I know. I miss you.” And it all came tumbling out, about how I wanted to be with Ken, about how lonely I was. Ken told me that he loved me, which made my loneliness feel even more acute. I began to sob loudly.
Ken got upset when I started to cry. “Are you okay, sweetheart?” he asked. “When I told you that I loved you, I meant to cheer you up, not make you cry.”
All that prompted me to sob even harder.
“Shit. This is ridiculous. Come home, will you?” Ken said.
“I can’t. I’ve got to stay and help my cousin.”
“Well, I can’t stand to hear you falling to pieces like this. We should be together.”
I nodded into the receiver, sniffing back tears. “I know. Come out this weekend, why don’t you? I’ll get us a great suite at the Plaza. We can go to the beach, shop --”
“And make love?”
It was early Friday evening when Ken arrived in Los Angeles. In a Yankee’s baseball cap and dark sunglasses, I waited for him at his gate. When he appeared, seeming taller and more powerful than I remembered, I almost swooned. We embraced tightly, rubbing our cheeks together in greeting. Then we stepped back to gaze at each other.
To my disappointment, Dizzy tagged along for a weekend at the beach. The first order of business, then, was to ditch Dizzy at Robbie’s. In the parking lot, Dizzy insisted on driving, claiming that he knew the way better than me. So, with Dizzy in the driver’s seat, Ken and I showered wet, sloppy kisses all over each other’s face and neck. Ken, who was seated beside Dizzy up front, tilted his seat back so I could have easy access to him from the back seat. We kissed the entire 45-minute trip to Casas Viejas.
