Henry looks aghast. “That would make us no better than them, Brent. What would that accomplish?”
I haven’t taken my eyes off Anthony. He’s listening to this exchange while looking back and forth at the video. Suddenly he senses my eyes on him and he looks over at me.
“You okay?” I ask him quietly, reaching over and touching his arm.
“It’s just so sad,” he replies, barely above a whisper.
Again my heart leaps out at this guy. No, he’s not a schemer. Whatever mystery is wrapped around Anthony Sabe, it’s not about scheming. It’s about sadness. This kid has been through something wicked. No wonder he doesn’t want to talk about his past.
“I say an eye for an eye,” Brent’s saying. “That’s from your Bible, Henry. It was the Christians who got all soft and said turn the other cheek.”
Henry’s getting huffy. “Are you implying all Jews should be for the death penalty? I’m sorry, Brent, but that sounds a little anti-Semitic to me.”
“Oh, Henry, puh-lease.”
I step in. “Stop it, children, or no milk and cookies before you go to bed.”
“What do you think, Jeff?”
It’s Anthony. Something in his voice causes us all to look over at him.
“What do you think should have happened to Matthew’s killers?”
I sigh. Unlike Henry, I’m not one hundred percent always against the death penalty. But neither am I as barbaric as Brent. I know the death penalty is overused, especially in places like Texas, where that idiot governor who wants to be president seems to take sadistic glee in pulling the switch. I wrote an article about the death penalty once several years ago, and ended up nearly convinced that capital punishment should be abolished. But there are always cases so heinous—Oklahoma City, James Byrd being dragged to death along a dirt road, Matthew Shepard—that I feel nothing can quite balance out the scales of justice except the ultimate penalty.
“I feel sorry for them, I suppose,” I say, after reflecting a second. “I think Henry’s right. In some ways, they’re as much victims of a homophobic society as anyone. But still, they killed an innocent kid.”
“So should they have died?” Anthony persists.
I look at him. What is it behind his eyes? What does Matthew Shepard represent for him?
“I don’t know,” I admit. “In this case, the brutality of the crime—hey, maybe I’m just too emotionally connected to offer an unbiased opinion. The bottom line is, they killed one of us. I suppose I wouldn’t have been sorry to see them fry.”
I try to see the reaction in Anthony’s eyes. But there is none. He just nods.
“Well,” Brent announces, clearly tired of the conversation and the fact he’s no longer the center of attention, “I suggested to Anthony we grab some Thai food. I haven’t had any dinner. Any takers?”
“No thanks,” Henry says. It’s obvious he’s had his fill of Brent for the night.
“Not me, either,” I say. If Anthony’s going home with Brent, I’m definitely not tagging along to watch it happen. “I’m just going to get a slice of pizza.”
“Fine. You boys have it your way.” Brent turns his back to us to face Anthony. “You’ll love this place. It’s—”
“Well,” Anthony interrupts, “if Jeff’s not going, I think I’ll take a rain check.” He smiles. “See, I was gone yesterday, and he and I really haven’t had any time to catch up.”
“Oh.” Brent looks properly rebuffed.
I study Anthony closely. “Hey, if you want Thai, don’t let me hold you back.”
“I don’t want Thai,” he says decisively. “I want pizza.”
My heart melts.
Okay, so I’m getting in too deep with yet another trick. I can see the flashing caution lights as well as anyone. But it’s too late to turn back now.
Late That Night, Provincetown
Lloyd
I think it’s Jeff. No one’s been in my bed but Jeff for the past four years. But even asleep, I know there’s something different.
The smell. Too sweet.
Perfume.
A woman’s perfume …
I sit up in bed. Something has startled me awake. My breath is coming fast and hard, and I put my hand over my chest. My heart is racing. My studio apartment is dark. Only the moonlight offers any illumination, a soft blue tint. I took around. The first thing I realize is that I am not in my bed, but on the couch. Right. Eva. I let Eva sleep in the bed.
I squint through the darkness, trying to make her out, but it’s impossible. Certainly she’s there, asleep. It’s so completely silent. I strain to hear her breathing, but there’s nothing.
What woke me up? Was I having a dream?
Then I smell it again. Eva’s perfume. Like lilacs.
Why shouldn’t I be smelling it? It’s a small apartment, and she’s lying there asleep not six feet away. It must be on her clothes as well, hung carefully over a chair. It must be everywhere in this room.
I lie back down. But why does it seem stronger here, near my pillow?
I sit up again, swinging my legs off the couch and placing them on the floor. I stand, padding across the shag-carpeted floor to the bathroom. I pull the sliding door shut behind me and switch on the light. From the mirror, my eyes blink back at me. I pull down the front of my sweatpants and begin taking a pee, the sound of water hitting porcelain echoing through the quiet space. It momentarily stops me, causing my pee to dry up. It feels odd, a little too intimate, for Eva to be lying there just a few feet away, listening to me pee.
Stop it, Lloyd, I scold myself. She’s fast asleep. And anyway, who cares?
I resume peeing. When I’ve finished, I rinse off my hands and quickly shut off the light. Stepping back outside the bathroom, I hear a small voice.
“Lloyd.”
“Sorry,” I whisper. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t asleep,” she says.
I can barely make her out in the moonlight. I stand at the foot of the bed, trying to fasten my eyes on her. She remains a dim figure, every once in a while shifting in the darkness, a flash of white sheet catching the moon.
“I haven’t been asleep at all,” she says softly. “Would you turn on the light for just a second?”
Part of me doesn’t want to. Some unexplainable, ridiculous part of me feels safer in the dark. Good God, Lloyd, what am I scared of? What was I dreaming that’s gotten me so edgy? I reach up and pull the string for the overhead lamp.
Her eyes are big, looking up at me. They don’t even blink from the sudden brightness of the lamp. She lies there in my bed, her hair loose and down around her neck, her pink shift falling off one shoulder. For the first time, she seems unconcerned with trying to hide her bosom. A deep cleavage reveals itself as she sits up. She positions herself on her arms behind her. It looks as if she’s presenting her breasts as gifts.
I take a step backward. “Are you—okay?”
Her voice is dreamy. “I just can’t stop thinking about all we’re doing. How similar our paths are. How much synchronicity there is between us.”
“Eva, go to steep. We can talk about all this in the morning.”
“It’s impossible to sleep, Lloyd. I’ve just been lying here, so many thoughts going through my head …”
“You think too much.”
“Please, Lloyd. Sit beside me a second.”
I hesitate. “I’d rather stand here,” I tell her.
She starts to cry. “Do you know there was never anyone for me but Steven? Not before, not after. Even after he told me he was gay. I never wanted anyone else.” She covers her face with her hands and falls back on her pillows.
Oh, God. I approach the bed and look down at her.
“I’m sorry to be crying again, Lloyd. Really I am.”
“The grieving process is never really over, Eva,” I tell her. “It’s okay to cry.”
I’m trying to be supportive. Trying to show sympathy. I really am. But you know what? For the fi
rst time, I feel a little manipulated by her tears. I’m tired of comforting her. All I really want to do is get back into bed and turn off the light.
She moves her hands away from her face. “I know. Thank you, Lloyd. Thank you for being here.”
She reaches across the bed and takes one of my hands. She holds it to her face. She kisses it. She doesn’t let go.
“Let’s try to get some rest,” I say. “You’ve got a long ride ahead of you tomorrow back to New York.”
She still hasn’t released my hand. She’s turning it now so that my palm is face down over her face. She kisses the soft fleshy spot beside my thumb. Her eyes look up at me from between my fingers. “Lloyd …” she murmurs softly.
I pull my hand away. I say nothing more. I just walk back toward the couch, reaching up to grasp the cord for the overhead lamp. Then, in the last second before the light goes out, I notice a long hair on my pillow. It’s curled in a big inverted S. My mouth goes dry. Even without thinking about it, I run my hand over my own buzzed dome.
For the rest of the night, my pillow remains on the floor.
A Few Nights Later, The Westin Hotel
Henry
What the fuck am I doing?
I stand in the hotel lobby listening to the steady rushing sound of the indoor waterfall.
Jeff’s right, I think. The guy could be a cop. There could be a whole fucking squadron waiting for me up there. To arrest me, toss me in jail. It would make all the papers.
MALE ESCORT ARRESTED IN WESTIN HOTEL STING OPERATION.
What would my mother say?
“A nice Jewish boy like you, Henry Weiner.” That’s what she’d say. “A nice Jewish boy like you. A common hustler. A whore. A tramp!”
I pull out my Chapstick from my jacket pocket and run it over my dry lips.
I am a whore. I’m whoring myself. I’m selling my body.
There’s no denying it, not now, not as I stand here waiting to go upstairs to some stranger’s room and take off my clothes and receive cash for doing so. There’s no denying what I’m about to do, nor is there any use in denying that the idea turns me on. Already my dick is swelling in my Calvin Kleins. Forty minutes I’d spent obsessing over which underwear showed me off to best advantage. I want to make sure the guy gets his money’s worth.
Two hundred bucks. Two hundred fucking bucks.
“Henry!”
Oh, shit. It’s Shane. Of all people. The damn Westin Hotel is smack-dab between the T station and Copley Square. If you take the skywalk, you have to pass through the lobby, and on cold nights like this, everybody takes the skywalk. But of all the people to run into, it has to be Shane.
“So I’m glad you reserved those tickets to Philly,” he says. “Knew you would. Though I was hoping you wouldn’t drag Jeff along. You’ve got to learn you can do stuff on your own.” He bends down to give me a quick peck on the lips. “So, wanta grab some dinner? I’ve just got off work and I am starved.”
Shane’s still in his office garb. Plaid suit and a smiley-face tie, all wrapped in a long gray flannel overcoat. But it’s my clothes that suddenly seem to draw the most attention. Shane pulls back a bit, studying me, his brows knitting together and his lips pursing in interest.
“Well, look at you in your studly motorcycle jacket. And your jeans sure couldn’t be any tighter.” He lifts my jacket to peek in under my arm. I try to protest, but he’s too quick and too tall. “And what a hunk-a-hunk muscle shirt …” His face lights up. “Henry. What are you doing in this hotel?”
I can feel myself blush. “I’m just stopping by to see a friend who’s in town.”
“Who is he? Tom of Finland?” Shane shakes his head, grinning from ear to ear as the truth dawns on him. “Henry! You’re here as an escort! You took my advice!”
“Shhhhh!!!” I glance quickly around. “You trying to get me arrested?”
“Oh, you stud! I’m so proud of you! How enterprising!” He gives me a quick hug. “Oh, my God, tell me everything!”
“Shane, I’ve got to go. I’ll be late.” I look around again. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Oh, no. You don’t think I’m going anywhere, do you?” He folds his arms across his chest. “Dinner can wait. I’m going to sit right here in this lobby and wait for you to come downstairs so you can give me all the details.” He quickly spots a chair and settles his tall frame into it. “I’m assuming it’s just a standard hour session. It’s not an overnighter, is it? Because then I’d have to run over to Au Bon Pain for a turkey sandwich—”
“Shane, will you please be quiet?” I sigh. “I’ll be down in an hour.”
He grows misty-eyed. “I feel like a mother watching her baby trot off to school for the first time.”
I ignore him and head off toward the elevator. Truth be told, somehow, having Shane waiting in the lobby makes me feel a little less anxious. By now the horniness has become paramount, and as the elevator doors slide shut anyone who looked could tell I’m circumcised right through my tight jeans.
Walking down the hall to the guy’s room, I even kind of swagger, like a goddamn porn star or something. Hey, man, Jeff Stryker here. You want this big dick, dontcha? You want to get down on your knees and—
Here’s the room. I gulp. The bravado vanishes. What the fuck am I doing?
I rap on the door.
My initial thought when the guy appears is that I must have gotten the room number wrong. First of all, he says, “You must be Brick,” and I momentarily forget that’s the alias I’m using. Second, the guy is a tubby little gnome with a shiny bald head. He’d described himself as average, dignified, with just a receding hairline. I imagined an august college professor, not one of the Keebler elves.
“Uh,” I say, standing in the doorway. So much for studly entrances.
“Oh, Brick, you are everything you said and more,” the guy says, taking me by the arm and almost pulling me inside, quickly closing the door behind us.
I blink a few times. He’s no more than five feet and almost as wide. When he smiles, I can’t shake the impression of a Halloween pumpkin. His big ears are bright red.
“Oh, my, my, my,” he says. “Take off your coat, Brick.”
I swallow and do as he instructs. He throws my coat over the back of a chair.
The man beams. “Such muscles. I looooove muscles.” He reaches over and lifts a plate of fruit from a side table. “I had room service send us up something to eat. I thought maybe you hadn’t had your dinner. Would you like a strawberry?”
Something about the image of this little man standing there offering me a strawberry makes me want to both laugh and cry. “Thank you,” I say, and accept one from him, popping it into my mouth.
“Yes, yes, indeed. You are beautiful. Please sit down.”
I oblige. The man approaches me and runs his small, cold hands up along the length of my upper arm. “Such firm biceps. Such amazing triceps. Will you flex for me?”
I do as I’m told, feeling very self-conscious. The man holds a hand to his heart.
“Oh,” he says, as if he might faint. “My name is Vernon, by the way.”
I feel like crying again. Vernon. Knowing his name touches me. This little guy has a home somewhere, and a mother, and maybe a dog.…
“Would you like another strawberry, Brick?” Vernon’s asking me. “A piece of melon?”
“No, no, thank you,” I manage to say. “And my name … my real name is Henry.”
I don’t know why I tell him that. It just comes over me; I just blurt it out. He approaches me again. Our faces are almost level now that I’m sitting down. Vernon seems to study me, to look into each and every pore on my face. “Henry,” he finally says. “Do you allow kissing?”
I look into the little man’s eyes. They’re blue. Bright blue.
That’s the great thing, Jeff. I don’t have to touch them. They just do me.
Vernon’s eyes look at me with all the wonder of a kid at Christmas.
“Sure
,” I say.
And so we kiss. At first Vernon just kisses me, his little tongue squiggling its way into my mouth. Then I begin kissing him back. I put my hand behind the man’s head and pull him in tight.
I want to make sure he gets what he’s paying for.
Two Weeks Later, Philadelphia, The Blue Ball
Jeff
“Shane, if you put that in my eyes again, I will break it over your head.”
I’m crotch to crotch with Anthony in the middle of the dance floor. Shane has just unveiled his latest gimmick: a laser with all the power of a goddamn police searchlight. Normally I wouldn’t be such a bitch, but the X is finally loosening Anthony up, and he’s talking a little about himself. He even mentioned his father. Then along comes Shane to shine the sheen, and Anthony clams up instantly.
“Well, isn’t she a pet all of a sudden?” Shane gripes to Henry. I know the lingo. Pet. Poor edgy thing.
“Hey, Jeff, X is supposed to make you happy,” Henry calls over. “What part of happy don’t you understand?”
“Listen, Happy Hooker, I’m going to report you to the IRS.” He makes a face as I rest my forehead against Anthony’s, looking into his eyes. “So … you were saying?”
Anthony smiles dazedly. “I thought you didn’t like to talk on the dance floor.”
“Usually it’s a hard-and-fast rule.” I kiss the tip of his nose. “But you said something about your father. It’s the first time you’ve ever mentioned either of your parents.”
Anthony closes his eyes. “It’s not worth telling. He was an asshole.”
“Was?”
“Hey. What’s this song?”
I scowl. “Don’t change the subject.”
“I think it’s a diva vocal.”
I sigh, laughing. We’ve been waiting for one for a while. The music is awesome, but there’s no denying the sudden blast of power that happens on the dance floor when the DJ suddenly slides in a remix of Madonna or Celine or Whitney, or even something from one of the lesser-known circuit divas, the “Triple A’s” I call them: Amber, Anastacia, or Abigail. This one actually turns out to be Taylor Dayne, one of my all-time fave divas of the Eighties. “I’m naked without you!” I sing out, grabbing Anthony by the waist and grinding into him.
Where the Boys Are Page 14
