Vapor

by Amanda Filipacchi

  I was annoyed at myself for not having brought his transparent clothes as a precautionary measure. Who did I think he was: a normal person?

  When Damon calmed down slightly, we stopped at a corner to get a cab. While I tried to hail one, I ordered Damon to hold the raincoat in front of him, shielding the oncoming traffic from his nudity, which of course did no such favor to the pedestrians and shopkeepers behind him, where a small crowd soon gathered.

  A cab finally stopped and took us to my apartment building. Before we got out, I luckily noticed, also disembarking, my parents, who had just arrived in another cab. I begged our driver to speed us away. My parents shoved themselves back into their cab and sped after us. It didn’t take us long to lose them.

  Our next most attractive option was to go to a hotel, but since we estimated that no hotel would welcome a naked man, I decided that we should go to an often deserted little park by the river, supposedly to think of what to do next, but actually I was secretly hoping that Damon would get cold enough to agree to wear the raincoat long enough for us to check into a hotel.

  But he didn’t. We stayed in the park for a while. Damon was sitting next to me on the bench, naked and shivering, his teeth chattering, and sometimes crying. Finally, even I was getting cold, and I couldn’t bear to see him frozen, so I thought of another plan.

  I decided to take him to Stress Less Step, a massage parlor close by, which I learned, after a quick phone call, stayed open until 10:30 P.M.

  The staff at Stress Less Step didn’t make a huge deal out of seeing a naked man walk in, perhaps because anyone walking in would end up naked anyway.

  While Damon and I warmed ourselves in the sauna before our massages, we lamented the fact that he had not worn a mitten instead of a glove at the dinner; it would have made so much more sense, on every level, even with regards to the birth defect excuse. I then tried to soothe him, stroking his hair and speaking comforting words, in the heat, while my teeth burned.

  After our massages, my masseuse came out and told Damon, in front of me, that I had been very tense. Then his masseuse, who overheard her, said “You don’t know what tense is unless you’ve done him. I wasn’t able to loosen a single knot.”

  I was sorry to hear this, because I had hoped that Damon might now be relaxed enough to wear the raincoat to a hotel. I asked him, just in case, and the answer was no. But then he nudged me, looking at the reception desk. He was motioning toward the curtain that hung behind the desk and that covered the window looking out on the street. It was made of white lace. It was ample.

  “Lace?” I said. “It’s not exactly the same.”

  “It’ll do,” he whispered. “It has holes everywhere. It’s like being naked.”

  I went up to the receptionist and asked him if we could buy or rent his curtain; that it was of utmost importance, and that we were willing to pay any price and to return it tomorrow or even later this evening. The man eyed Damon, and then agreed, as if understanding the purpose of my request. He asked for a large deposit, three-fourths of which he would give back to us upon the return of the curtain. The withheld portion would be used to dry clean the curtain, he said.

  As he was unhooking it, I asked him where the nearest hotel was. He told us it was the Regency, around the corner.

  Damon wrapped himself in the curtain and we walked down the street in this fashion to the Regency Hotel. We never got to find out if the Regency would allow us to check in, for the doorman wouldn’t let us through. So we kept walking, hoping to come upon another hotel. We did: the Pierre. This time we would be sly.

  Damon stayed outside, out of sight, while I went inside and checked us in. Then I fetched him, and we were able to get in without anything worse than glares.

  It was a relief to finally be alone in a room with his impractical nudity. We sat on the bed and hugged and commiserated. We went to bed early.

  The next morning, while Damon waited in our hotel room for what was supposed to be only a short time, I went to my apartment building to fetch his transparent clothes. To my surprise, my parents were there, keeping watch outside my building, with real, lethal antique swords at their waists.

  “How long have you been waiting here?” I asked them.

  “Since yesterday,” said my mother.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do with your lives?” I walked into the building, and they followed me.

  “No,” answered my father, climbing the stairs after me. “We have nothing better to do than to save our daughter, who has lost her mind. We want an explanation. Why did you bring your own kidnapper to dinner?”

  “I love him.”

  “You love him? But he kidnapped you!”

  “Well, now I love him.”

  “Why?” asked my mother.

  “Because he’s great.”

  “But he kidnapped you!” repeated my father.

  “Well, I kidnapped him too,” I said, unlocking the door to my apartment. “So now we’re even. I kept him in a cage and I fell in love with him. I got to see him living. And I got to find out about his tragic past.”

  My father forced his way into my apartment, and said, “No past can justify what he did to you. And how remarkable can one’s way of living be, in a cage?”

  “Not remarkable. He was human and enchanting.”

  I took Damon’s transparent outfits out of the closet: his shirt and pants, and the gown he had made for himself. My mother grabbed them from me, said to my father, “Look, it’s his clothes,” and held the shirt by its shoulders, letting it hang in front of her. My father took his sword out of its holder and slashed the shirt to shreds, and then held the pants while my mother did the same to them and then to the gown.

  This was a problem and a drag. There was only one thing left for me to do. I left my apartment and walked to the nearby fabric shop. It was a bridal fabric shop, which I entered with my parents at my heels, their hands on their swords, like guards.

  For a variety of reasons, ranging from the fact that there was a generous selection of lace, that the translucent silk there was not very thin nor very translucent, and that Damon had seemed to enjoy the holes in the curtain tremendously, I decided to buy lace instead of silk. I was attracted to one roll of lace in particular, called “embroidered tulle scallop lace.” I read the label: $13.50 per yard, imported, made of polyester and rayon. It was off-white, supple, satiny, and very see-through due to the fact that much of it consisted of tulle and not of embroidery. The little embroidery there was formed a pattern of birds.

  I asked the salesperson if there happened to be an employee in the shop who might be interested in immediately sewing a rough, basic outfit for a six-foot-three male. The person I was talking to was willing to do it for a good deal of money and said it could be ready in an hour.

  I was relieved that my parents didn’t grab the whole roll of lace and slash it to bits. I went to a pay phone outside with the intention of calling Damon and telling him why I was taking so long, but after I dialed the first three digits of the Pierre Hotel, I realized my parents were on either side of me, watching me like hawks, ready to pounce on the opportunity to find out where Damon was. I hung up the receiver, feeling sad that he would be wondering, all naked and fragile, where I was.

  I had to take more drastic measures or my parents would follow me to the Pierre. I went back to my apartment, still followed by my parents, and grabbed my pepper spray. I also took my antique sword—the present from Damon—which had allowed me to escape from him and would now allow me to rejoin him safely.

  Just as I was about to leave, the phone rang. It was Damon, wondering what was taking me so long. I was ecstatic to hear from him.

  “My parents slashed your clothes,” I explained. “I had to go and have an outfit made for you, and now they won’t leave me alone, so I came back home to get weapons. I won’t be much longer.”

  My parents grabbed the phone from me and insulted Damon and tried to find out where he was. I threatened them with
my spray and got the receiver back. I told him I’d see him as soon as I managed to ditch them. When I hung up, my mother tried to trace the call, but without success.

  I left my apartment. They followed me.

  I had half an hour to kill before Damon’s costume would be ready, so I sat in a café. My parents pulled up chairs and sat at my table. I didn’t bother using the weapons on them quite yet, since they knew I was headed back to the fabric store anyway.

  They tried to make me regain my senses. They threatened to have me kidnapped by a cult-deprogrammer.

  Finally, the half hour was killed, and I got the outfit from the tailor in the fabric shop. My parents immediately tried to take it from me. I threatened them with the pepper spray. They drew their swords. I drew mine. I backed out of the shop. The salespeople stared.

  It suddenly dawned on me that perhaps I should consider getting a bodyguard. I was, after all, a star. And I could afford one. A bodyguard who would carry a sword around and fight my parents on their own miserable level.

  I hailed a cab and shook my weapons at my father, preventing him from getting in with me. “I’m twenty-eight years old!” I shouted. “Leave me alone! I can do what I want!”

  He hailed another cab and hopped into it with my mother. They sped after me. This time it took a while to ditch them, their driver being more skilled than mine.

  I eventually went back to the Pierre Hotel and gave Damon the precious outfit. He liked it, and it suited him well, although it looked even more strange than his usual costume of translucent white silk.

  When I told him all the trouble I had had with my parents, he grew sad and sullen, but didn’t want to talk about it.

  We returned the curtain to Stress Less Step, and that night I decided to take him to dinner at Auréole, a very good nearby restaurant that I hoped would cheer him up. But it didn’t. I asked him again why he seemed so down.

  He said, “I think I should leave. I’m causing too many problems in your family.”

  “What do you mean: leave?”

  “Just for a while. To let things settle down, to let your parents calm down.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary. I’ll talk to my parents. I’m sure I can improve things.”

  “I doubt it. And even if you can, it’ll take time. On top of it, there’s a project I’ve been wanting to work on. Unbeknownst to me, what I needed was time to do nothing but think, and my stay in the cage gave me that time. I came up with ideas. And then our last few weeks of happiness together inspired me, they opened up my imagination even more. It may sound corny, but they provided me with the poetry I needed to give life and meaning to my ideas. But I’ll miss you.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a month, maybe less, maybe a little more. But we can visit each other, perhaps, after a while, when your parents aren’t stalking you as much.”

  That night, in bed with him in the hotel room, I cried.

  I hoped that by the next day he would have changed his mind. But he didn’t. When we had lunch, he seemed even more depressed than the night before. He said he was sad to be leaving, especially at a time like this, and that he would miss me. He wasn’t even sure he’d be able to concentrate on his work.

  “Then don’t go. Or let me go too.”

  “Your parents would suffer. This is really the best thing to do, for now. I’m sure you can see that.” He was speaking in a whisper, his head bowed over his plate, and I almost expected to see tears splatter into his soup. In his lace, he was beautiful and foolish-looking at once.

  I could take it no longer. I said, “Damon, I saw your brother.”

  He slowly lifted his face and gazed at me stunned, so I went on: “I met him, I spoke to him, and I know all about your past.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was this?” he asked, his tone growing urgent.

  “That time I went to L.A. Before I freed you.”

  “How is he?”

  “He’s fine.”

  “What did he say about me? Does he still hate me?”

  “No. Never has.”

  “But he hasn’t wanted to see me in years.”

  “I know.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you saw him?”

  I was hurt by his tone, but understood it. “I didn’t want it to affect what was happening between us. I’m sorry. I meant to tell you, so many times, but I didn’t want it to change things. We were so happy.”

  “You were selfish.”

  “Yes, for both of us.”

  “No, not for me. I would have appreciated knowing.”

  After a long silence, he added, “And that’s why you came into my cage.”

  “Yes.”

  “You felt sorry for me.”

  “No. I mean, of course I felt sorry for you, but that’s not why I came in. It’s because your past gave me an excuse to forgive you. And I did want an excuse. I had been wanting one for a long time.”

  “I can’t blame you for being selfish and keeping this from me. At first you were more selfless with me than I deserved.”

  “I hope you’ll still feel that way after I tell you that your brother wants to resume contact with you. I’m sure it’s something you would have wanted to know sooner. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away.”

  I never saw Damon so surprised and excited. “Are you sure? Did he actually say it or are you assuming?”

  “He said it. His words were, ‘Tell Damon I want to resume contact. Maybe it’ll help him regain some of his sanity.’ The reason he added that last part was because I told him you had kidnapped me and all that.”

  Damon insisted that we pay for the bill right then, before we had finished our lunch, so he could go back to our hotel room and call his brother.

  I offered to wait in the lobby to give him privacy while he talked on the phone, but he said he no longer wanted to hide any part of his life from me.

  He was able to reach Philip at home, and they talked for about half an hour, catching up on the last eight years of their lives. He told Philip he’d been watching him on The Bold and the Beautiful every day, and then added, “Oh, she told you already.” He also told him about his invention of small clouds, and that he was trying to make them solid. “You’ll have to see them,” he said. Finally, he told Philip that we were in love, and then he laughingly informed him that I had kept him in a cage until just a few weeks ago. At that point Damon handed me the receiver; Philip wanted to speak to me.

  “So,” said Philip, “you didn’t tell me you had my brother locked up while you came to visit me.”

  I chuckled.

  He quickly added, “I’m very happy for the both of you, and I hope you’ll come and visit me again. And don’t tell him you threw me off the diving board or he might get jealous.”

  I laughed.

  Damon discussed with Philip his plan to fly out to L.A. that evening to visit him.

  As soon as he hung up, Damon made love to me, adoringly and cheerfully.

  Then he wanted to go to Bloomingdale’s.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I can’t keep wearing this outfit; it’s too embarrassing, this lace.”

  “But I don’t think they have transparent clothes for men there.”

  “I’m sure I’ll manage to find something better than this.”

  “I doubt it,” I said.

  At Bloomingdale’s, he headed for the men’s department, on the main floor, where there was not the slightest piece of transparent clothing in sight. I knew; I had searched before.

  But Damon didn’t look around. He went straight to the turtleneck department and grabbed a very opaque, dark blue one. I looked at that piece of opaque clothing as if he had lost his mind and was handling a very dangerous material that he was highly allergic to and that could have disastrous consequences when handled improperly, like how a nut is, for people allergic to nuts. He took off his lace shirt with
almost as much eagerness as he had taken off his clothes for my parents two days ago. He donned the hazardous turtleneck.

  He then grabbed a pair of pants from a rack, took off the turtleneck and handed both items to the salesman in order to pay for them. The salesman eyed his bare chest, and mumbled some kind of disapproving comment like, “The store doesn’t approve of improper attire.”

  “I understand,” said Damon. “Forgive me.” And Damon put the shirt back on as soon as he had bought it.

  He then took off his lace pants, and for a few seconds was completely naked from the waist down, which caused the salesman to loudly say, “Excuse me sir, this is absolutely unacceptable in this store. If you don’t put your clothes back on this instant, I will call security, and action will be taken against you, which I can assure you will not be pleasant. You will be punished according to the policy of our store, which consists in being deprived of your privilege to return your purchases for a full refund.”

  By the time the man had finished talking, Damon had finished putting on his new opaque pants. I took his lace clothes out of the wastebasket where he had deposited them. I thought this was wise, in case of clothing intolerance or a delayed allergic reaction.

  But I wasn’t around him long enough to find out. We embraced each other—he passionately, me tearfully—and he was off to L.A.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Damon’s visit with his brother had lasted a few days and had gone well. It had left him feeling relieved that they had resumed contact, but pained at the sight of his mangled body. What was most upsetting, he said, was the extent to which the child’s death had scarred his brother’s expressions.

  After visiting his brother and before returning to me, Damon worked on an invention that had nothing to do with trying to make clouds solid. Even though we spoke on the phone every day, he wouldn’t tell me more about it.

  During Damon’s absence, I tried to persuade my parents to accept my relationship with him. I begged them; I even fenced with them willingly. They threatened to cut me off. I threatened to cut them off.