Object of Desire

by William J. Mann

  “I used to see Arnold Schwarzenegger here all the time when I first moved to Venice,” Frank told me. “That was way before Conan.”

  I smiled, looking around at the people on the boardwalk. A couple of sixties leftovers, a man and a woman, with exactly the same long, straight gray hair, sat ahead of us on the curb, passing a doobie back and forth.

  “This is so not West Hollywood,” I said.

  Frank laughed. He gestured to a pizza joint, and I followed him inside. We ordered a large hamburger and pepperoni. I was suddenly famished. Digging in, I momentarily forgot I was with the man of my dreams. I blocked out, for the moment, just how beautiful Frank was, how green his eyes were. He had tucked a napkin into the front of his shirt, a gesture that I’d always found rather dorky. My father used to do it. But when Frank reached over with his napkin to wipe tomato sauce from my chin, I remembered exactly how I felt about him. I was smitten.

  And suddenly jealous.

  “Is Gregory your boyfriend?” I asked.

  Frank sighed. “No.”

  “You don’t sound convincing.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Then what is he?”

  “Long story.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  Frank looked past me, his eyes seeming to rest on the steaming pizza ovens behind us, as if they were far more interesting to consider.

  “I’m sorry if I’m prying,” I said.

  “It’s okay.” He looked back at me. “Gregory was very good to me when I was young. When I was your age, in fact. Back then, I was a poor kid just trying to make my way through school, and he…he helped me.”

  I smiled. “So then we’re not all that different, are we?”

  He shrugged. He seemed a little defensive.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you,” I told him.

  “It’s okay,” he said, for something like the hundredth time. “I fell in love with Gregory. I can’t deny that. He was a glamorous older man who seemed to have everything. And I had nothing.” He smiled. “I’ll always be grateful to Gregory. He gave me the confidence I needed to stay in school. He believed in me when nobody else did.”

  “So you were boyfriends?”

  “For a while.”

  “Then what happened?”

  Frank smiled. “Well, as you may have noticed, Gregory likes younger guys. And eventually, I was no longer a college kid.”

  I sat back in my chair. “You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”

  “No,” Frank said.

  But I didn’t believe him.

  “We’ve stayed friends,” Frank went on. “Underneath all his swagger and airs, Gregory’s a good guy. I know you probably don’t feel that way right now, but…”

  “I guess I was a fool,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “For backing out. If I’d gone ahead and given Gregory what he wanted, maybe he would’ve been as good and helpful to me as he was to you.”

  This seemed to stir something within Frank. He sat forward and leaned across the little table we shared. “No,” he said. “You did the right thing, Danny. Gregory couldn’t have helped you. Not the way you’re imagining.”

  “Hey, I saw the pictures on his wall—”

  Frank shook his head. “Everyone in Hollywood has pictures like that. You go to an event, you pose with a celebrity, and you put it up on your wall.”

  “He doesn’t represent them?”

  “No. This agent stuff—it’s just an idea that’s gotten into his head this past year. The only people he represents so far are a couple of soap actors and a guy who writes jingles for television commercials. Gregory’s from money. He doesn’t need to work. He just decided he’d try being an agent because he was bored and it sounded like fun.”

  “And maybe a way of getting young boys to take their clothes off for him.”

  Frank didn’t have a response to that. Because it was true.

  I was certain, sitting there, that he was still in love with Gregory. I imagined that ten years ago Gregory had been quite the debonair lover, and in Frank’s eyes, he had remained that way. In fact, I felt positive that they’d still be together if Gregory hadn’t had a roving eye, always on the lookout for fresher meat.

  “I’m glad you said no to him,” Frank said.

  I nodded. I thought I understood why.

  A father with two little boys sat at the table next to us. The boys were making a mess, throwing paper plates, spilling their paper cups of Coke. A slice of pizza landed cheese-side down on the floor.

  “I’m glad I don’t have kids,” Frank said.

  I looked at one of the little boys. He had dark hair and a pug nose. He looked like the kid I’d once imagined I’d have, the son with whom I would pose with Mom and Dad and Nana for our four-generation picture. I used to call the son of my imagination Joey. Not sure why. The name just came to me. I hadn’t thought of Joey for some time, but I guessed he was still there, in my mind.

  Frank asked if I wanted to see his place before he drove me home, and I said okay. We walked over a couple of blocks to a small, second-floor studio apartment, where the wallpaper was starting to peel from the salty air and the water in the toilet kept running. The centerpiece of the room was a desk overflowing with papers and books. We sat together on his futon, which unfolded at night to become his bed, and watched Joan Rivers sitting in for Johnny Carson on a black-and-white television. We made sure our thighs never touched. Afterward, we switched off the TV and talked in the dark. I told him about Becky. He listened in a way that made it clear he was listening, even though he didn’t say a word. I told him about my mother and my father and Nana and how I’d got on that bus and ridden three thousand miles across the country. He listened; he nodded; he took it all in. Still, for that entire time, we made sure our thighs never touched.

  When I finally fell silent, Frank said he’d drive me home. But he asked if maybe I’d like to go for ice cream first. I said yes. At two o’clock in the morning, we were slurping strawberry and pistachio ice cream out of sugar cones, strolling once more along the boardwalk. Frank’s ice cream fell out of his cone and onto his shoe, and we laughed so hard, harder than I had laughed in a long time. Maybe ever.

  Then, as we neared the car, Frank suggested we take a walk on the beach. I agreed. I wasn’t so high that I didn’t realize that neither of us wanted the night to end. We walked quite a ways down the beach, where the coastline darkened. We were the only people we could see. The waves crashed at our feet, like the sound of breaking glass. Our shadows stretched through the moonlight far ahead of us on the sand.

  We were quiet now. The cocaine had worn off, and I felt sleepy.

  Frank reached down and took my hand.

  Overhead, I heard a gull call out, though I couldn’t see it.

  And then we were kissing. I didn’t even realize he was bending down to press his lips against mine, but suddenly there they were, warm and moist. I responded instinctively, my tongue thrusting into his mouth. Wrapping my arms around him, I felt the strength of his shoulders and back. He was taller than I was, bigger, and stronger. It excited me. We stood there kissing, stumbling around in the sand, for a long time. Then he pulled me under a wooden pier, where we sat in the sand, resting against a pile. I snuggled in between his legs, his arms around me, his lips on the nape of my neck. And we fell asleep that way, lulled by the steady sound of the surf.

  We woke with the sun. There were no words, just Frank’s breath on my neck. I felt his hands slide up under my shirt, removing it. There was a jingling of belt buckles and the displacement of sand, and before I knew it, I was underneath him. I felt his cock press against my hole. Above us the sun rose like a benevolent god, wrapping us in its pink and golden arms. The brine of the sea was so strong, I tasted it on my tongue. Sand crept up my bare legs, scratching its way into my ass, but I didn’t care. I loved him—I loved him with every part of myself, even if I knew he was still in love with someone else. I loved him so
much that I felt as if my whole body would explode, arms and legs strewn across the beach. Right there, on the open sand, Frank made love to me, kissing me the whole time, our bodies entwined, two dogs in the surf.

  I finally understood what they meant when they talked about falling in love.

  PALM SPRINGS

  Frank was out of breath, a bag of groceries in his arms, when I opened the front door to find him trudging up the walk.

  “What are you doing home?” I asked.

  He had told me this morning that he needed to stay at the college late tonight for a departmental meeting. The keys to my Jeep were in my hand. My shirt smelled of cologne.

  He was wiping his forehead with his hand. “Still so hot,” he said. His light blue oxford shirt was stained with sweat under his arms and above his belt. “Here we are, almost at the end of September, and it’s still one hundred degrees at six o’clock. Can’t wait for next month, when things start to cool down.”

  I stepped aside to let him enter, watching him as he huffed and puffed his way to the kitchen. I followed, conscious of how floral I smelled. He set the bag of groceries down on the table. A loaf of French bread stuck out of the top.

  “They were having a sale on pork chops over at Jensen’s,” he said, bracing himself and resting against the kitchen counter. Beads of sweat dripped down his forehead. “Thought we might grill them out on the deck. Whad’ya think?”

  “I thought you had a meeting,” I said.

  He stood there, catching his breath. “I really need to start jogging and get back into shape. This heat just makes everything worse.” He let out a sigh and moved over to the table. He began unpacking the groceries. “I said to hell with the meeting. Every night it’s something. I told them we needed to reschedule. So what do you think, Danny? Fire up the grill? Damn. I forgot applesauce. Do we have any?”

  “Frank,” I said, “I…have plans.”

  His green eyes, bloodshot, met mine. I felt exposed. My cologne seemed overpowering.

  “Oh,” he said. “Where are you going?”

  “I didn’t know you’d be coming home. I thought you were out for the night.”

  “Where are you going?” he asked again.

  “I’m meeting Hassan.” The words came easily, quickly, without any thought. I hadn’t anticipated the need to lie. I’d made the date early so that I could be home before Frank returned. These departmental meetings rarely ended before nine thirty. “I’m sorry,” I said. “If I had known you were going to be home…”

  He waved me away. “Danny, it’s okay. We’ll save the pork chops for tomorrow.”

  “Good,” I said, smiling to cover the horrendous feeling of guilt that was rising up from my stomach, like acid reflux. “Because we don’t, in fact, have any applesauce. I’ll pick some up, and we can grill the chops tomorrow.”

  He smiled, opening the refrigerator to put the food away. “I’m glad you’re making friends out here finally. For so long all you’ve had is Randall, coming in from L.A. And I like Hassan.”

  I smiled back awkwardly.

  “I guess I’ll just make an omelet for dinner, then,” Frank said, taking two eggs in his hand and shutting the refrigerator door. “When will you be back, do you think?”

  “Oh, not late.” I was growing increasingly anxious.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Not sure.”

  He shrugged, trusting me completely. “Well, tell him I said hello.”

  “I will.”

  Frank made his way over to the stove. With a creak in his knees, he bent down to withdraw a frying pan. He set it on the burner. I just stood there, watching him.

  “Okay, then,” I said.

  He turned and smiled. “Okay, baby. Have a good time.”

  I despised myself.

  Outside, starting the ignition of the Jeep, I tried to remember if I’d ever lied to Frank before. No, I didn’t think I had.

  I was not sure why I’d felt the need to lie to Frank about where I was going and who I was seeing. We had an open relationship. It wasn’t that I was cheating on him. I had no idea if the meeting with Kelly would even lead to sex. It was just a get-together with someone who had intrigued me. Frank wanted me to make more friends in Palm Springs. I could have just told him that I’d had a conversation with one of Donovan’s friends who was a young artist and that we were going to have dinner. It would have been no big deal. Frank would have been glad to hear it.

  But I couldn’t tell him.

  Because I knew I wasn’t just meeting a friend of Donovan’s who happened to be an artist. I was meeting a young man who had obsessed me for weeks. Whose face stopped my breath. Whose eyes made my heart freeze. And, of course, I wanted the meeting to lead to sex. I wanted it to lead right back to his bedroom, where I’d strip him of his clothes and feel his body all over, where I’d kiss the soft hair on his arms and lick the eagle tattoo on his neck.

  Even then, I could have told Frank. Our relationship allowed such freedoms. Many times I’d told him about a particular boy I fancied, and he’d say, “Great, Danny. Sounds great. Bring him home. Let’s meet him. Maybe we can have some fun.” But not this boy. I didn’t want to tell Frank about this boy.

  Because, I realized, I wanted Kelly all to myself.

  The sky was a pale orange. The sun was gone, having dropped behind the mountains an hour earlier, but its light remained, hazy and muted. I looked at my phone to see the time and realized the unexpected interaction with Frank in the kitchen had made me a few minutes late. I had told Kelly I would meet him at six thirty, and it was almost that now.

  He’d been insistent that he meet me at the restaurant, that I not come by to pick him up at his place. I didn’t really know why. Meeting at the restaurant, I feared, might eliminate any chance of the night ending in sex. But, I reasoned, if the ostensible reason for this get-together was to look at his sketches, then I’d need to go back to his apartment at some point, since I doubted he was going to show up at Spencer’s with his portfolio. Then again, he carried around that little sketch pad. Maybe he was planning on bringing the whole Kelly collection under his arm.

  He did not. When I got to the restaurant, I saw him standing outside, his hands thrust in his pockets. I pulled up to the valet and handed him my keys. I remembered Hassan’s admonition that the tip came afterward. And in my mind, I made a mental note to call Hassan later and make up some excuse for why I would tell Frank I was with him tonight, in case Frank ever mentioned it.

  “Hi,” Kelly said as I met him on the steps.

  He was, as always, beautiful. Standing there in that pastel orange light, he appeared like a figure out of a painting, a dark-eyed, pouty-lipped Caravaggio boy. He wore almost exactly the same outfit I’d seen him in last week, brown corduroys and a black sweater, except instead of blue this time, his shirt was green. Its collar barely surfaced past the neckline of his sweater. On his feet he wore bright white running shoes with a red stripe.

  “Hope I’m dressed okay,” he said.

  I smiled. “You look fine,” I told him.

  “This is a pretty fancy place,” he said.

  “No fancier than the Parker.”

  He smiled. “And I was dressed the same then.”

  “Were you?” I asked, pretending I hadn’t noticed, that I didn’t keep such details about him stored away in my head. “You look fine.”

  I wasn’t dressed up, either, really. I wore a black open-collar shirt over a pair of dark blue Dolce & Gabbana jeans, with the pointy-toed black shoes I’d bought a couple of weeks ago at the Beverly Center. The pointy look was starting to become the rage in L.A., and I figured on introducing it to the desert. And cologne. I was wearing cologne. Too much of it, I was now beginning to worry. I thought of my father then but pushed the thought out of my mind.

  We headed inside. The maître d’ found my reservation and escorted us to our table. We sat, neither of us quite knowing how to begin the conversation. I ordered a bottle of wine, a re
d pinot. We both looked down at our menus.

  “You’ve been here before,” I said.

  “Yes,” he replied. “Once with Donovan and Penelope Sue. It was her birthday.”

  Part of me wanted to know how that little ménage had been managed; another part hoped fervently that the name Donovan Hunt never again surfaced in our dialogue. So I changed the subject, to the professed reason I had asked him out this evening.

  “So where are your sketches?” I leaned forward on the table, clasping my hands together over my plate. “Are we going back to your place afterward so I can see them?”

  He looked up at me with those glossy black eyes. “I’m not sure I want to show them to you, after all,” he said. “I hope you understand.”

  The waiter came by to uncork the wine. We went through the whole rigmarole: he poured a bit into the glass, I sniffed and I sipped and I nodded my head, and then he poured us each a full glass. When it was all done, I looked back over at Kelly and frowned.

  “Not show your sketches to me? Why?”

  “I Googled you. You’re famous.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m so not famous.”

  “You had a show of your work downtown.”

  I made a face. “Kelly, I make prints for hotels. I’m not famous.”

  “High-end hotels. And you did that poster series for Disneyland.”

  “Yeah.” I took a sip of the wine. “I did do that.”

  “I can’t show you my work. You’re a big-time artist.”

  I laughed. “Kelly. Please. Stop saying that.”

  “Well,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “Maybe someday. But not tonight.”