Object of Desire

by William J. Mann

  “Are you sure that’s all you wanted from him? To get him into bed?”

  I couldn’t lie again. Instead, I evaded answering. “All I know is, it’s over,” I said.

  “Well, clearly, Danny, you really like the boy.”

  That was all I needed to hear. I did indeed really like the boy, and hearing Frank say it, recognize it, affirm it, made it all too real once again. My anger and disappointment dissipated. Suddenly I wanted to hurry back across town to be with him, to give it another try, to take him in my arms and erase whatever hurt had caused him to fear intimacy. I wanted to change his life. I wanted to save him. I wanted to take him apart and rebuild him from scratch.

  Of course, I couldn’t continue the conversation with Frank, not now, not with the way I was suddenly thinking. So I took off my clothes and dove into the pool. We didn’t speak of Kelly again.

  But I dreamed about him all night long.

  And in the morning, I felt desperate. My stomach hurt; my eyes teared up. At my computer, I couldn’t work. I wanted to take a drug to counteract the pheromones or whatever chemicals the brain releases when one falls in love. I could feel them coursing through my body, and I was helpless against their power. I knew the outcome could only be misery and discontent. The situation was hopeless. I wanted him still—it was a physical ache—but I argued to myself that if I couldn’t hold him, if I couldn’t kiss him, what good would it be? I truly wished for a magic drug that would allow me to forget him. Whoever could invent such a product would make millions. I would have paid any amount to get my hands on it.

  All day long I tried to push Kelly out of my mind. I’d alternate between anger and tears. But then I couldn’t stand it anymore. My will shattered, and I texted him. HEY HOW R U? As if nothing had happened.

  For more than an hour, I waited for a response, my phone at my elbow. Finally, the blessed chirp of an incoming text message. GOOD. WHATS UP?

  I immediately texted back. DINNER THIS WEEK? He replied, GREAT, and all my despair evaporated. I would see him again. I would see him again!

  And so we had dinner, and again he made me laugh, and again he drew some pictures of people at the other tables. And again we did some coke, rushing off to the bathroom in repeated intervals, with a little plastic Baggie in our pockets and a pen cap in our hands, using it as a scoop to deliver the delectable white powder to our nostrils. Beaming and giggling, I’d return to the table, a kid again, running around as I had in my twenties in West Hollywood. And I loved Kelly for making me feel this way.

  We didn’t speak of the sex until I took him home. When I went to kiss him good-bye, he pulled back and said, “No. We can’t. Not after the other night.”

  “Forget about that. We can do better.”

  “No,” he said, getting out of the car. “We can’t go there anymore.”

  “Why not? What are you so scared of?”

  “I’m not scared!” he shouted, defensive.

  “Who hurt you? Who made you so afraid?”

  “I’m not afraid!”

  “Then why won’t you try again with me?”

  “Because I don’t want to ruin a good thing,” he said, staring at me through the open window. “After the other night, I didn’t think I’d ever hear from you again. I’m so glad you texted me. Let’s not ruin things.”

  I would not beg. “Fine,” I said, starting the ignition.

  “Don’t be mad,” he said.

  “I’m not mad,” I told him, but I didn’t say good-bye, just drove off.

  Yet even before I got home, he had texted me. IM JUST NOT READY 4 IT. PLEASE DONT HATE ME.

  I COULD NEVER HATE U, I texted back, my heart melting like ice cream, dripping down inside me, all over my lungs and my guts.

  And so we made a plan for today, to ride the tram to the top of the mountain. I wanted Randall to meet Kelly. I wanted someone to understand how special he was to me. And I wanted to admit to someone, to speak the words out loud, that I was in love.

  We parked the Jeep and took the shuttle up to the tram station. As we stepped off, I spotted Kelly waiting outside. I was deliriously, disproportionately happy to see him. I practically ran to him, Randall and Hassan following more slowly behind.

  I made introductions. Kelly pretended he remembered them from the Parker. We hurried inside to buy our tickets, then stood in line to wait for the next tram.

  “What would we do,” Kelly asked, his eyes as wide as a kid’s, “if one of the cables broke and we were left hanging there, suspended over the canyon, for hours? What if they said the only way we could survive, to keep the last remaining cable from snapping, was to throw some weight overboard? We’d have to toss the fattest people off the tram, or else all of us would plummet into the canyon and die. What would we do?”

  Hassan looked at him, his heavy brows knitting together. “What a strange, cruel question to ask.”

  Kelly laughed. I was used to his offbeat questions, his quirky scenarios, his outrageous what-ifs. But Hassan and Randall didn’t quite know what to make of him.

  “I’d jump,” I offered, “and take my chances.”

  “That’s more than ten thousand feet,” Kelly replied. “Look, it says so right here.” He waved a brochure about the tram in my face. “This is so cool. I’ve never gone up the mountain before. This is excellent.” His dimples were deep as he smiled. I was glad I’d suggested doing this, since it seemed to make him so happy.

  When the tram arrived, Kelly pushed through a knot of kids so he could be first in line. “He is quite the impatient one,” Hassan said in my ear as we followed along.

  Kelly was far enough ahead not to hear us. “Tell me something,” I said to Hassan. “When you look at him, what do you see? If you were to take his picture, what would you be photographing?”

  “A blur,” Hassan said, without hesitation.

  We were crowding onto the tram. Kelly was waving us over to one side, against the window. “I didn’t want to get stuck in the middle,” he said. “I wanted to be right up front so I could have a great view.” His nose was literally pressed against the glass. “The tram turns, you know, so you get three-hundred-sixty-degree views.”

  “Yes, I know,” I told him.

  Frank and I had taken the tram many times. Back when we first started coming out to Palm Springs, we often made the trip to the top of the mountain so we could hike the trails. As always, our goal was to spot a bighorn sheep. But sightings of the famous creatures with their gorgeous curved horns so prized by hunters were rare. The sheep, dwindling in number, stayed mostly far from the trails. The Crow Indians had believed the bighorns possessed supernatural powers, and if you spotted them, they could grant wisdom and strength to worthy men. Yet in all that time, we never saw a single bighorn—though we did run into mule deer and rattlesnakes, and we watched red-tailed hawks arc across the blue sky.

  Sometimes, during the winter, Frank and I would go up on the tram so we could see some snow. Being an East Coast boy, I missed snow. I had fond memories of tobogganing with Becky down the small hill behind our house, into Flo Armstrong’s yard next door. In the beginning, Frank and I would go cross-country skiing at the top of the mountain. Our cheeks would be hard and cold, our hearts pumping fast, our breathing deep and clear. But it had been years now, maybe even a decade, since we’d done that.

  The tram began to rise, and the canyon floor dropped away from us. Very quickly we were very high up, and I noticed Kelly take a step backward away from the glass.

  “Amazing view, huh?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. But I noticed him take another step back.

  “Hey,” I said, “those kids are getting in front of you. Thought you wanted the up-close view.”

  “They’re kids. They should have the view.”

  I realized he was getting scared. I smiled.

  “What did you say about the cables breaking?” I teased.

  His face was white. “Stop it.” He turned away, facing the inside of the tram,
no longer looking out.

  As the tram passed each of its supporting posts, it rocked, sending a collective shriek from the passengers each time. Even Hassan, so unflappable, let out a small yelp. I was prepared for it, so I didn’t make a sound. I kept my eyes on Kelly. The jolt had left him trembling.

  “You okay?” I asked quietly.

  “Do you think,” he asked, equally as quiet, “we could walk back down?”

  I shook my head. “That’s more than two miles of sheer cliff.”

  “Fuck,” he whispered and closed his eyes.

  I reached over and put my arm around him. The tram was filled with straight couples and their chattering kids, but I didn’t care. I pulled Kelly in tightly toward me. “It’s gonna be fine, baby. Don’t worry. I’ve ridden this thing dozens of—”

  The tram rocked harshly again, and I reached out to steady myself. Kelly gripped me so tightly, I felt his fingernails through my sweater.

  “How long is this fucking ride?” he asked, near tears.

  “We’re almost at the top,” I assured him.

  When we docked, Kelly was the first one off. I noticed Randall and Hassan exchange small smiles, and I glared at them not to say anything.

  Once we were on the trail, Kelly was calm again. He had his guidebook, and was telling us the best routes to take. I allowed him to lead the way, even though I’d been up there so many times, I could have led us around with my eyes closed. But I knew that the best way to see a familiar place was to take someone who’d never been there before and experience it again through his eyes. Already I was thinking of places I could take Kelly and see afresh. Joshua Tree. Big Sur. Disneyland.

  He was up ahead, walking with Hassan. Randall was huffing along at my side.

  “So what do you think of him?” I asked.

  “He’s very attractive.”

  “Well, yes, obviously. But what do you think of him as a person?”

  Randall shrugged. “Hard to say. All I’ve shared with him is one tram ride, and he was too terrified to say much then.”

  “But, come on. You can see how sweet he is. He’s like a big kid. Look how eager he is.”

  Up ahead Kelly was pointing up into the trees, pausing to stoop down and examine rocks. He turned around to us at that point and shouted, “The book says there’s a clearing up here where we can see the whole valley. Maybe we can see our houses!”

  “See what I mean?” I said to Randall.

  “Danny,” he said to me, “I’m a little worried about you.”

  I stopped walking and looked at him. “What?”

  “I’m worried about you,” he said again. “You’re head over heels for this kid.”

  “And what’s the problem with that?”

  Randall looked at me as if I were crazy. “The problem has a name. Frank.”

  I laughed and started walking again. “Why is Frank a problem? We have an open relationship.”

  “Danny, this kid isn’t just a trick. He’s not what’s-his-name from Sherman Oaks.”

  “I know he’s not just a trick. I love him. And I can’t pretend I don’t.”

  “Bully for you. But what does that mean for Frank?”

  I scoffed. “It doesn’t have to mean anything. Frank doesn’t mind when I pursue relationships on my own. In fact, he hasn’t really participated with Ollie and me in a while, and the other night, with Kelly, he just said go ahead and do what we wanted on our own. He was fine with it.”

  “And you think he’ll have the same blasé kind of reaction when he hears you say you’re in love with another man?”

  I stopped walking again. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t know what he’d say about that.”

  “I don’t think he’d be happy.” Randall sighed. “Danny, the whole reason your nonmonogamy has worked for so long is that, deep down, Frank has always been number one in your heart.”

  “Well, maybe I just got tired of never having that be reciprocal,” I grumbled.

  “Oh, cut that out, Danny. Gregory Montague has been dead for a long time. Even if Frank did carry a torch for him all those years, about which you seem so certain, it was you he’s always been devoted to, you he’s loved for the past two decades.”

  “I know that, Randall,” I said, becoming more annoyed by the second. “But I can’t deny the way Kelly makes me feel. I feel alive again—for the first time in a very long while. When I’m with him, I feel young. With Frank, it’s all about aches and pains and being too tired to do things.”

  “He’s jogging. He’s trying.”

  I made a face. Yes, Frank was jogging. And he always came back in red and panting, and completely dehydrated. I told him he ought to take a bottle of water with him on his runs, so he wouldn’t dry out so much. I told him one of these days he’d pass out, and if that happened when he was running on the road, he could get hit by a car. I felt as if I was giving advice to my grandfather.

  “Danny,” Randall was asking, “how does Kelly feel about you?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  “You don’t know?”

  “He’s resistant. I don’t know why.”

  “But of course you know why! Danny, once again, it’s Frank! Of course Kelly would resist you. Who would want to fall in love with someone who already has a husband?”

  I shook my head. “I wish it were that simple.”

  “It is that simple! I can see it plainly. He’s trying very hard not to fall in love with you.”

  I wished that were so. I wished so much that Randall was right. But guys I liked never liked me back, not with the same passion. Why should I have expected it would be any different with Kelly?

  Randall leveled his eyes at me. “Do you know what Kelly is for you, Danny?”

  “What?”

  “A midlife crisis.”

  “Hey, you guys!” Kelly’s voice suddenly cut through the mountain air at that very moment. He and Hassan were quite far ahead of us now on the trail, having been unaware that we’d stopped walking. “What’s holding you slowpokes up?”

  “We’re coming,” I said and resumed walking. But I was steaming mad. I could feel my cheeks and neck burning. “How dare you?” I hissed at Randall from the corner of my mouth. “I tell you something really profound about how I’m feeling, and you trivialize it as a midlife crisis.”

  “Danny, I don’t mean to trivialize your feelings. But it would seem to me—”

  “Stick to orthodontics, buddy,” I told him. “You stink at psychotherapy.”

  I walked on ahead, catching up with Kelly and Hassan just as they reached the crest of the hill and an enormous vista of the valley below opened up before us.

  “Wow,” Kelly gushed.

  The desert floor stretched for miles across the lush greenery of the Coachella Valley towns and the arid sweep of tawny wasteland that ended at the Little San Bernardino Mountains some fifteen miles away.

  “You see down there?” I asked Kelly, pointing off to my right. “You can get a tiny glimpse of the Salton Sea. Over there is Indio, and across the way, you can spot Desert Hot Springs.”

  “And look!” Kelly said, his excitement apparent. “I can see the windmills. The ones north of Palm Springs by the 10.”

  “Yeah, looks like a garden of them, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” His eyes were soaking up the view. “It’s so beautiful up here. You look down and you think of all the people down there, going about their jobs and their lives, and we’re up here, looking down at them. Except that we can’t see them, and they can’t see us. But they’re all down there.”

  I smiled. “Yes, they are.”

  “It’s just so beautiful,” he said again.

  I moved closer and slipped an arm around his waist. We stood there silent for a while. Randall and Hassan had moved on down the path, leaving us to ourselves. I tightened my hold around Kelly’s waist.

  “Are you going to take the class at CalArts?” I asked him.

  “I can’t afford i
t.”

  “Then let me pay for it for you.”

  He pulled away. “No. I can’t let you do that.”

  “I want to.”

  He looked at me as if he didn’t understand what I was saying. “Why,” he asked, “are you so nice to me?”

  “Because I care about you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you…you make me laugh. Because I like being with you.”

  He smiled. “I like being with you, too.”

  We were quiet, just looking at each other. I thought my heart was going to break out of my rib cage.

  “So I’ll call the guy at CalArts,” I said. “Let me arrange it for you.”

  He was hesitant. He looked away.

  “Okay?” I asked.

  He looked back at me. “I just want to be clear that we are friends. Nothing more.”

  That hurt, but I didn’t let myself show it. “Fine,” I said. “I promise I’m not going to expect anything for helping you.”

  Kelly looked at me again with that strange expression. “Why would someone like you care about someone like me?”

  “We’re not so different, baby.”

  He looked back out across the valley. “Don’t call me baby.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  We stood silently for a few more minutes. Then Kelly turned and kissed me. For the first time, he took the lead and kissed me. I responded hungrily, grabbing his head in my hands. We kissed for a long time, and the entire world got swallowed up in it, every sight and sound and emotion—until I heard the snap of a twig. We broke apart and turned to look.

  For a moment, hope flickered inside me that the creature emerging from the woods might be a bighorn sheep. But instead, a small brown fawn came crunching through the leaves, coming to a stop about three yards away from us, its black, glassy eyes staring in wonder. For a moment nothing moved, not us, not the fawn, not the wind in the trees. Then a crow called, and the startled fawn bolted away on its fragile, tremulous legs.

  EAST HARTFORD

  The thing that troubled me most, even more than the fact that Dad had lost his job and that our house was up for sale, was the leather jacket I found hanging in Mom’s closet. I couldn’t stop thinking about it all day at school, wondering why she had bought it, and when she wore it, and who she wore it with.