Object of Desire

by William J. Mann

  And then Frank would turn, his arm reaching out for me, and I’d feel guilty.

  That was why I couldn’t lie to him. Not again.

  “His name is Kelly,” I said. “He’s a bartender at Blame it on Midnight. I met him through Donovan.”

  “Oh,” Frank said, hunched, as usual, over his desk, reading a student essay. “That’s fine, Danny. What time are you thinking?”

  “I told him to be here at eight.”

  “Fine, fine.” He was barely listening to me.

  “Frank.”

  “Mmm?”

  I paused. “Maybe we might…well, I’m thinking that…he’s very attractive and—”

  That got Frank to look up at me. “Oh,” he said. A small smile crossed his face. “I see. That’s why you invited him to dinner.”

  “Well,” I said, “that’s not the only reason.”

  And it wasn’t. My fantasies of Kelly didn’t always involve sex. And when they did, the sex usually came long after our moonlit strolls, our whispered confidences, our tender caresses. Many a boy there was that I’d see at clubs and imagine taking home to fuck. But from the very first time I’d laid eyes on him, my fascination with Kelly hadn’t been sexual. It had been something much, much more than that. My fantasies about him were never masturbatory. That would have felt wrong. Dirty, even. I didn’t want to fuck Kelly. I wanted to make love to him like no one had ever made love to him before.

  Frank was still smiling. “Let’s see if I’m in the mood. If I’m not, you can take him out to the casita, like you did Ollie.”

  That was what I was counting on: Frank being too tired—and giving me the freedom to have Kelly all to myself.

  I turned away. I didn’t like how I was thinking. This whole dinner was manipulative on my part. Ever since the other night, I had wanted desperately to see Kelly again. But I couldn’t sneak out the way I had last time. I hated myself for lying to Frank. Just what a scoundrel I had become was made very clear when I called Hassan and asked him to cover for me in case Frank ever mentioned our so-called dinner date the other night. “Are you asking me to lie, Danny?” Hassan had replied. “Because I cannot do that.” I’d argued that it was because I’d been out buying Frank a gift for his birthday—which was months away, and yet another lie layered on top of the first. Only reluctantly had Hassan agreed to the ruse.

  So there I was, contriving a dinner engagement that could include Frank and would thereby forestall any guilt. But I couldn’t deny that I was hoping the night would end with Frank excusing himself and heading into our room to sleep alone. It was a Sunday night, after all: he had school in the morning. And then Kelly and I would have time to sit by ourselves, maybe take a swim in the pool, and yes, maybe wind up in the casita.

  Heading into the kitchen, taking the chicken out of the refrigerator, I felt just as guilty as I had on my first date with Kelly.

  It was crazy. Frank and I had been nonmonogamous for our entire twenty years. In the past, there had been plenty of occasions where I’d tell him that I was interested in some guy, and he’d ask which one, and together we’d cruise him at the gym or at the Abbey. We’d find a way to meet him, to size him up, and possibly bring him home. But that hadn’t happened in quite some time now, I realized. Instead, the way it usually went these days was the way it had gone with Ollie: I’d chat with some guy online, and we’d make plans to meet. Sometimes Frank would join us; other times, he’d take a pass—the more likely scenario of late. Frank usually excused himself by claiming he was tired. I wondered if that was the whole reason. But I never asked Frank about it. I guess I didn’t really want to know.

  I set my mind on preparing the dinner. Not only did I dislike cooking, but I wasn’t very good at it: it was one gay gene that I was missing. Frank wasn’t all that fond of kitchen duty himself, but he was better than I was. Back in the old days, when Frank was still teaching high school and I was still auditioning my ass off for jobs that never materialized, I’d come home all depressed, and Frank would be there, cooking away. He knew all my favorites—fried chicken, baked macaroni and cheese, his mother’s meat loaf recipe—white-trash comfort food all around—and I’d often come home to find him whipping up one of them. Those were bleak days for me, when all my great plans for success as an actor suddenly began to feel foolish. I’d look in the mirror before an audition and trace the small lines that had begun webbing outward from my eyes, and I’d whisper, “Danny Fortunato, what were you thinking? Who were you trying to impress? Kids from East Hartford don’t become television stars.”

  And yet, looking back, those days didn’t seem quite so bleak anymore. Funny what the rosy glow of nostalgia can do for the past. After dinner, Frank and I would sometimes take a run on the beach. We’d race each other. On warm days we’d run in the surf, laughing as the waves crashed against us, knocking us down. We had a dog in those days, too. Her name was Pixie. She was a pure white bichon frise, a little curlicue of a dog, with black button eyes and a tail that was always wagging. Other guys would laugh at us for having such a sissy dog instead of a big butch shepherd or setter. But Pixie was perfect for us. She’d run with us on the beach and stare in uncomprehending wonder whenever a bigger dog would bark at her, as if she were thinking, What’s the problem? Why can’t we all get along? At home, Pixie would run around in manic circles, ending with a giddy collapse onto her back, at which time Frank and I would both pounce, faces first, to nuzzle her silky stomach.

  Pixie lived a good long life. We got her as a puppy, and she was with us for eleven years. Like a lot of older bichons, she got cancer, and Frank and I made the decision to put her down. We went together to the vet. Poor old Pixie had gotten so thin, so frail. She was almost blind. No more running in crazy circles in the living room. Frank held her in his arms as the vet readied the syringe. At the exact moment the needle pierced her skin, the tiny spark of life was extinguished in her button eyes. We both saw her go. Frank began to sob, and the heartless vet looked at me and asked if I could step into the next room and make payment. When he offered to “dispose of” the body for us, we recoiled. Instead, we wrapped Pixie in a blanket and carried her home, talking and singing to her lifeless little body. We buried her in our backyard in West Hollywood. When we left that place, how I hated knowing we had to leave her little dog skeleton behind.

  Every once in a while, Frank and I would talk about getting another dog, but we never made the move. We told ourselves that when I finally moved out to Palm Springs full time, we’d go to the kennel and pick out another bichon. But it had been four years now since I’d been in the desert, and we’d made no addition to our family. We’d stopped talking about it, in fact. We hardly ever mentioned Pixie anymore, and that made me sad. When she died, I was so bereft, crying for days. I never wanted to stop grieving, because it would mean I’d forgotten what she felt like, how she smelled, how she sounded. But indeed weeks—months—now went by when Pixie never passed through my thoughts. I supposed that was called healing. But when suddenly I would flash on her, when something would remind me of her and that little white face would pop into my mind, I’d hate the fact that I hadn’t thought of her in so long. Mom had never done that. She’d always said that if we stopped expecting Becky to come through the front door, she never would.

  The chicken was marinating; the vegetables were cut; the salad was made. Now all that was left was to fire up the grill. I wasn’t much of a cook, but barbecues I could handle. Frank came out of his office and told me he was going to have a run. I was surprised; he hadn’t been running in a few years. But the nights were a little cooler now, and he said he wanted to start getting back into shape. I wondered if Kelly’s imminent arrival had anything to do with his motivation. I told him not to overdo it and headed into the bathroom to take a shower.

  He didn’t listen to me. When he came back about forty minutes later, he was panting, and his face was all red. He stood behind me as I shaved at the mirror. He was chugging a bottle of water.

  �
�Frank,” I scolded, “you can’t get dehydrated like that.”

  “I know, I know, baby,” he said. He came up behind me, planting a kiss on the back of my neck. He was warm and moist, and I could hear his heart beating. “But it felt good, nonetheless.” We exchanged a small smile in the foggy mirror.

  I wasn’t sure what to wear. I’d been somewhat dressy for dinner at Spencer’s. Tonight I thought I’d wear something that showed off my body a little more. I’d been to the gym that afternoon, and I figured I was still pumped up enough to pull off a tight black tee and a pair of low-rise Levi’s. I glanced in the full-length mirror behind the door to the bedroom and admired my shape. I’d come a long way since that skinny kid in a thong dancing on top of a box. Taking out some Brylcreem, I slicked my hair back, hoping to look hip. It made my hairline seem even more receded than it was, but it was too late to wash out the gunk now. I paused as I studied myself in the mirror. Once again, the face staring back at me seemed to be someone else’s. When had my face changed? I ran a finger along my jaw. Whoever’s face it was, it would have to do.

  Kelly arrived exactly on time. As soon as I opened the door, my heart was again pounding in my ears. He was holding a bottle of wine.

  “I told you not to bring anything,” I said, stepping aside to let him enter. “But thank you.” I took the bottle from him. He had left the price sticker on. Nine ninety-nine. My heart broke with affection.

  “Nice place,” he said, looking around.

  He was even more beautiful than I remembered. Just what made him more so, I couldn’t quite pinpoint. But he was. He was dressed almost the same as he was the other night, with his brown corduroys and white running shoes. His sweater was navy blue this time, and there was no shirt apparent underneath. Maybe it was the stubble, heavier than usual, that made his golden skin stand out even more tonight.

  I showed him around the house. The kitchen, the backyard, the pool, the spa. Then we peeked into the office. On one side was Frank’s desk, with all his papers and books. On the other was my work station, taken up by my Power Mac G5 Quad and its two thirty-inch monitors, as well as my HP laser printer, which was, at the moment, spitting out gallery-quality photos, thirteen by nineteen inches. I’d set it to print about fifteen minutes earlier so that when Kelly walked in, the office would look all high tech. I wanted him to see my office humming and be impressed with my work.

  Be impressed with me.

  He was. “Wow,” he said, lifting a photo from the printer tray. “This is gorgeous. It looks more like a painting than it does a photo. Who are they?”

  “They were with me that night at the Parker,” I said. “That’s my friend Randall, there, and this is the guy he’s dating, Hassan.”

  I had posed them the other morning at the top of the North Lykken Trail at the end of Ramon Road. The sky was pink, the mountains were blue, and their faces were an odd mix of gold and purple. I had jacked up the color on the computer and obliterated many of the lines and speckles on their faces, turning them almost into statues. I was pretty pleased with the piece. I was planning on giving it to Randall for Christmas.

  “Wow,” Kelly said again, still looking down at the image. “You see, this is why I can’t show you my sketches.”

  “You’re being silly,” I told him.

  “Danny, you’re a real artist. I just do it as a hobby.”

  I beamed. I liked hearing Kelly call me an artist. “You sell yourself short,” I said, echoing what Frank had said to me for so many years. I took a step closer to Kelly and looked deep into those shiny black eyes of his. “Here’s an idea. Someday we ought to scan one of your sketches into the computer, and then I can play around with it. Might turn out pretty cool.”

  “Really?” he asked. “You’d really do that?”

  “Sure,” I said. “In fact, we could—”

  “Hello?”

  We both turned. Frank stood in the doorway, freshly showered, smelling like lavender skin lotion. The first thing I noticed when I looked at him was his hair, so thin and lightweight, it was kind of sticking up. Then I realized he’d gelled it that way, maybe to look a little younger, a little more hip. My heart broke. He’d also nicked himself shaving his chin, and the brown spots that paraded across his high forehead seemed more pronounced than usual.

  “Oh,” I said. “Frank, this is Kelly Nelson. Kelly, Frank Wilson.”

  They shook hands.

  “Welcome,” Frank said. “I see you’re getting the tour.”

  “Yeah,” Kelly replied. “These are some amazing pictures.”

  He gestured around the room. Other examples of my work hung on the walls. There were cacti, palm trees, the Grand Canyon, Maui’s Haleakala volcano, the Seattle Space Needle, the London Eye, all looking like something other than what they were. I thrust my hands down into my pockets and grinned.

  “Danny’s quite the artist, isn’t he?” Frank asked, looking from me to Kelly. “They look almost like paintings, don’t they?”

  “That’s what I just said,” Kelly replied.

  We moved out into the dining area.

  “I remember when Danny first started playing with his photos on the computer,” Frank was saying. “He was like a kid who’d found a new toy. He’d be up all night, printing out images, and I’d say, ‘Baby, come to bed.’ But he’d be up until dawn sometimes, playing with images. I knew then he’d make it big.”

  Frank smiled at both of us. His little speech had made me oddly uncomfortable, but I smiled back at him.

  “Can I get you a drink?” he asked Kelly.

  “Maybe some wine.”

  Frank nodded. “Excellent. Danny’s barbecuing chicken, and he’s always heavy with the sauce, so how about if we break tradition and go with a red? A nice Shiraz?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Kelly said.

  The conversation went as well as could be expected. Frank got the basics from Kelly—San Francisco, the foster homes, the bus ride to L.A. Kelly gave a quick rundown of the various bars and restaurants he’d worked at in the desert, without explaining what had ended his time at each. He hadn’t shared those details with me, either. I knew only what Thad had told me.

  “But Kelly’s not going to be a bartender forever,” I said. “He’s an artist, too.” I lifted my glass of wine in his direction.

  Kelly seared me with his eyes. “Don’t say that.”

  “But he is,” I told Frank. “You should see his sketches. He’s—”

  “Please stop,” Kelly said in a voice that would have slit my throat had he been any closer. His black eyes blazed. I just lifted my hand in a gesture of “okay.”

  A couple moments of awkward silence ensued. We were sitting in the living room, Frank and Kelly on the sofa and me across the room, on the ottoman. Finally, Frank broke the tension by saying, “That’s another one of Danny’s,” and indicating the sunflower hanging over the mantel. “I call it my green daisy.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Kelly said, looking up at it.

  I stood. “Well, how about if I put the chicken on the grill? Frank, the salad’s in the refrigerator. Will you get it?”

  “All righty,” Frank said, standing and following me out of the room.

  “Can I do anything to help?” Kelly asked.

  “Nope,” I told him, carrying the marinated chicken out onto the deck. “You’ll see. When I cook, it’s definitely no frills.”

  “I don’t like frills, anyway,” he said.

  Our eyes caught. He smiled at me. I nearly dropped the platter of chicken.

  We sat outside to eat, under the stars. Once again, Kelly delighted me with his enthusiasm, tearing away at his chicken, getting barbecue sauce on his chin and his nose. I couldn’t help laughing.

  “I’m glad you like my cooking,” I told him.

  “It’s delicious,” he said.

  Frank was eating more neatly, cutting his chicken into small pieces. Into the front of his shirt, he’d tucked a napkin. “Yes, indeed, Danny,” he echoed. “I
t’s delicious.”

  The conversation was banal. There were no jokes, as there had been last time, no silly humor. I missed that. Instead, we talked some more about restaurants, which ones we liked, which ones we didn’t care for. We talked about Thad Urquhart and the rumors that he might run for mayor. Kelly liked Thad; he told us he’d paid him very well for his private party. We talked about Donovan and Penelope Sue. Kelly made sure only to say the most complimentary things about them, especially Penelope Sue. She was so generous to the community, he said, always giving money to every cause. He made no mention this time of her eye rolling. And after the look I’d gotten earlier in the living room, I wasn’t about to bring up anything again unless Kelly brought it up first.

  Dessert was lime sorbet and wafer cookies. For this, we moved back into the living room. I refilled everyone’s wineglass. I noticed as Kelly’s eye caught something in the bookcase on the side of the mantel.

  “Are those photo albums?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “From back in the days when we actually had photos to put in albums. Nowadays they’re all on my laptop or my phone.”

  Kelly was smirking. “You said you’d show me pictures of your stripper days.”

  “Oh, God.”

  This made Frank laugh. “Do you know that’s how we met?” He looked over at me, but I chose not to make eye contact. Instead, I stood to fetch the photo album from the bookcase. “Danny was dancing at some club in West Hollywood,” Frank began explaining. “And when I left to go home, he came running out after me onto the street. ‘Where you going? Where you going?’” He laughed. “He was frantic. I couldn’t believe he did that. Right, Danny? I was practically speechless. Wasn’t I, Danny?”

  I didn’t look at him.

  “Wow, that’s kind of romantic,” Kelly said.

  “Yeah,” Frank said, sipping his wine and smiling. “I suppose it kind of is.”