Faggots

by Larry Kramer

  And then, oh was it not ever thus!, in the wicker wastebasket by the desk, Fred found a crumpled draft of a letter dated just the other day to he-doesn’t-mean-anything-to-me George:

  There is so much I want to say, but I’m afraid. Afraid of going too fast, pushing too much, giving too little. Afraid of tomorrow, of being hurt, of hurting someone else, oh so many things. However, your tenderness brings me back. It is something I have been without for so long that I forget what it makes me feel, or better, that it makes me feel. Oh, George, I feel wonderful. I only hope that I have given you at least a little of what you have given me. I hope that you are wonderful, too. On paper we make so much sense. (But words are words and to turn them into feelings is very difficult.) Maybe I should draw a tear. But a happy tear, running down a contented cheek, coming from a tender eye, my cheek, my tear. Would you understand? Do you understand? I hope so. Please hurry and come to me.

  Our Hero welcomed Death.

  Timmy, who was released unto the recognizance of R. Allan Pooker, obviously much experienced in handling such tricky matters, had just completed his part of the afternoon’s shooting, with his co-star, Paulie, of what had appeared an innocent-enough vehicle for their bodies in the woods of Central Park.

  R. Allan had video-taped him only from the front. The back part was evidently Paulie’s. Timmy’s own was still most sore, he couldn’t remember quite how or why, he’d been so drugged, people in this city just seemed to appear from nowhere, popping them, selling them, even the cop in the jail had slipped him a nightcap for breakfast, yes, his yesterday’s journeyings had been a drug sundae indeed. He wouldn’t mind some more because he presently felt so down.

  He ran to the nearest phone booth and directory to begin his search. In his blind hopefulness he’d expected to discover the name “Winston Man” listed there and to dial the proper numbers and rush into those safe arms and all would be heaven thereafter.

  Of course it wasn’t to be. No help from Ma Bell. So he ran from the Zoo and over to an elegant Fifth Avenue doorman.

  “Does the Winston Man live here?”

  “No, young fellow, I’m happy to say he don’t.”

  “Where is the nicest, fanciest, neighborhood in this entire city where if you were rich and famous you would live?”

  “Why, right around here,” the doorman answered, further explaining that Best extended from Fifth to the East River and from 57th to 90th and that unless he had a name, it might prove rather difficult locating a cigarette model, no matter how famous the face.

  Not knowing that the object of his stubborn adoration, his only salvation after his detours with that nasty Dildough—make me a Star indeed! he ran away and left me hanging!—was at present performing, as must all famous models after such a night, Sleeping Beauty, having Dedrominixed himself to bed at dawn, his skin and loveliness rejuvenating, until this very evening, when he’d put in his Toilet Bowl appearance, Timmy took a deep breath and plunged right in.

  He knew he hadn’t much time, he had to get to the Bowl himself, to watch his film debut and, more important, perhaps to find his Winnie there. But, just in case, for now, he started here with Fifth, headed east, hit all the buildings, looked at all the mailbox names, asked the doormen, studied all the faces in the lobbies, on the streets, hoping against hope he’d find his man, his face, his beloved, not knowing when he visited the brownstone, 66th off Madison, that up above, right up there, the name is Heinz, sleeping, so continuing, next next next, ignoring cruises from many a resident, many a dog walker, 73rd Street finished, Fifth to Park only, crisscrossing the area like a darned sock, still no clues, no leads to Winnie, persevering, he’d find his man, Yes I will!, the little boy lost and needful, crying I want my Winnie!, Winnie, why can’t you hear him?, why can’t you hear when love is calling, screaming, yelling, bawling out for you? Turn on your antenna, fine tune the reception, picking up no static, only the clear sign of Tim Purvis, lover, looking. Not finding.

  Irving Slough was not at the Sutton Place hearthside he shared with his mother. Nor was he in his various offices on the 54-55-56-57th floors of a Lexington Avenue skyscraper. He was in that small pied-à-terre he kept in Tudor City, the hideaway love nest he kept just like his two straight married partners, Heiserdiener and Thalberg. And here he waited all afternoon for Dinky to come and fuck him, as a call from him earlier had indicated he might do, if he had time, and had Irving remembered to send the check for the monthly terrace maintenance and new plantings?

  This morning Irving had gone to the Village and to the Marquis de Suede and there he had picked up the special order he’d placed in a moment of miff after Dinky’s lam out of town on the conclusion of their shotgun wedding. He didn’t think he’d use it, but he thought he’d pick it up now anyway, and if Dinky was a good boy, then he’d use it on someone else instead.

  Irving was not at heart a nasty man. He thought this as he strutted in his leather gear before his mirror. The boots with three-inch heels and crossover bucklings at the ankle. The chaps tight around his thighs and hips and holding in his stomach firmly while revealing his still not too generous cheeks. The shirt with stringed crosshatchings to display his hairy chest but disguise his sagging tits. But, for all his studies at the Universities of Niesdorf, Glantcha, the Isle of Wight, he could never fully, completely, understand the subliminalities of his attraction to leather. For let his cock touch leather and it instantly staticized, erected unto magnitudes unknown in tweed or cotton, and brought to his already forceful personality a surging, throbbing stature that oozed around him like a contagion he thought could render victims to his feet in droves. Such an authoritarian fabric, leather! Perhaps this was enough to know. Not think of it as gift wrapping for the s-m package, that replacement box for the parental authority I wanted as a child, and wo war mien Pops? Was it not better to wear it, do it, live it, than suppress it? That only leads, on an international scale of course, to war. And he did get such wonderful sensations in his schlang when men chose to grovel neath his leathered self.

  Dinky had yet to grovel. Would Dinky grovel? Or would Irving do the bending? Yes, Irving was also considering for the first time in his life that he might like to get down on his hands and knees and allow a dog’s collar to be put around his neck and to be led around on all fours. This morning he’d even bought the collar. Interesting.

  What was Dinky doing to him? Should he wear his gear tonight, in public, for Dinky to see him? A shining black knight, a fantasy man for Dinky’s dreams, to spirit him away? Was this how he could get Dinky? Yes, time was running out. I am open to intimacy, I understand all human problems, I have a strong sense of myself. So why am I still so unsatisfied, so alone?

  Why is that child so ungiving and withdrawn! True, as a youngster Dinky had said he was a “Pretty Boy,” a role that he had hated. Everyone wanted to fuck him. So he grew his beard and muscles so no one would fuck him anymore. Yes, he could then humiliate everyone, as I am sure his parents humiliated him. Humiliation is so essential to Catholics. And to faggots! So many of my fantasies in sex are of vengeance and retributions and humiliation and anger, against men!, and…why cannot I admit my hope of finding security in the warmth and love of another man is vanishing?…

  Yes, he’d go out like this tonight and surprise his Dinky. I shall overcome all fears that my partners will find out or see me. Enough of Adriana as beard. I want to shave. Just as I encourage all in our therapeutic sessions to so do.

  Then he worried that tonight might not be so good. Tonight was an opening that would be covered by Women’s Wear and filled with slummers and celebrities and socialites, now that gaydom in this city is so chic. They will probably disappear after an initial look-see, but one never knew, one could not take chances, there might be that one person hiding in a shadow later when more heavy scenes transpired—a patient, a partner, a client, a client’s perverted wife. No, best wait till Sunday, Fire Island, my party, The Meat Rack, I’ll show my leather to my Dinky there.

  So
he plopped down on the large fuck bed with its rawhide spread to wait for Dinky’s call and to contemplate a photograph in the Times, of a young man from Oxford in tweed hunting jacket and holding furled brolly, with that long blond hair and those high cheeks and the fine skin and patrician nose, all bespeaking Class and In-ness, neither of which Irving felt close to possessing, not even after dining with The President or making as much money as The Queen.

  Yes, the strong sense of myself is built on a bed of quicksand and never never will I have what I want! Irving knew all this and still he thought of Dinky, fantasies of Dinky’s dangling cock and Dinky’s white tight tush, and still he gazed at Master Oxford gazing back at me, might you just not come across the sea and whisk me off into a wild romance, played against the drama and background of tropical nights and sunny sandy beaches and much lovemaking tempestuously on floors, wickedly rampant in bathtubs, closets, naked under moon and stars (no, maybe not naked, a diet first, no, Oxford will take me as I am!, and love me)…but wait, Oxford would not like me in leather, and anyway it’s time to change, so off come military hat and boots and jerkin and chaps and jockstrap and cock ring, back into the closet they go, try not to look at fat chubby in the mirror as it changes back into Egyptian cotton and lisle and Countess Mara and vertical stripes and wing tips and a more respectable form of drag, oh he was sick of hiding, sick of Tudor City, sick of time running through the hourglass of sadness, sick of not being able to hold hands with someone in public, and kiss in the presence of partners, and say; “Hi, honey,” “Hi, sweetheart,” “Hi, pumpkin,” “Hi, Love,” oh, where now were Tad or Bart or Whynn or Chauncy or Gaston?, all gone, why do I go through them all so quickly?, Whynn, the last before Dinky, summarily dismissed along with a few thousand and a ticket to London when he threatened revelations, he wished him momentarily back for old fuck’s sake, that fine body, that fine if unformed mind, why were they always unformed?, why did he always wish to form them?, why did his heart always go out to all the Dinkys?, let me teach you, let me give you, let me treat you as I would have been treated, he wondered if that Fred Lemish suffered the same curse, he obviously did, for Dinky had showed him Fred’s seventeen-page letter of love, his “Ode to Possibility and Potential,” just you wait, Fred Lemish!, when you come to this, he thought momentarily of touchtoning One Touch of Penis, have them send that cute Paulie over, no, Dinky still might come or call, the hours of waiting for those promised: “I’ll call you later”s, ah Penis, should I?, shouldn’t I?, we could do it quickly, it isn’t Acapulco but it is a floor, no, he’d save his all for Dinky, and continue waiting, Dinkyless, going to a Toilet Bowl, swathed in vertical navy pin stripes from Scrill, Naw & Derdip of Old Bond Street, vertical helps fatties, what is wrong with me today?, I need a new lover in my life, the old ones leave me wanting, is this what old age brings?, I need something like tutti-frutti used to taste when I was ten, where will I go on lonely nights now that the Everhard’s burned?, and then, looking once again at The New York Times and Master Oxford, Irving Slough tried fervently to wish the image from the page and into his arms, the two of them on the Royal Road to Romance, take your choice, Master Oxford, immissio penis in anum or in os?, as he zipped open his Scrill, Naw & Derdip and jerked off.

  As our Saturday-night grand opening comes closer, let us join two distaff members awaiting the arrival of Randy Dildough.

  Dordogna del Dongo, a handsome woman, redolent of flaming red: her hair, her dress, her essence (her eyes are black), confides, in her living room, expensive views of Central Park, from the Fifth Avenue side, damask and toile and flimsy nettings of gentle gauze and chiffon and crepe de Chine, billowing o’er furniture gathered from the globe’s four corners, elegant, unusual, original, uncomfortable: tables of tusks, sofas of puffs, side chairs of slats, floors of marble, walls of wool, an impressive decorator’s dream in lemon-green-white-limestone-cement-and-Harris-tweed, to her good friend, Adriana la Chaise: “I am nervous.”

  Dordogna is called Dordogna. She does not have a nickname. And, while nervousness can be a touching quality in a woman, Dordogna and nervousness will never be on intimate terms.

  While sounding German, her husky accent is not. But she had been educated abroad, on the island of Sylt, where she had met, fallen in love with, and married her first faggot, Helmut del Dongo (who does have a nickname—Mutty), thereby relinquishing her maiden name of Jones.

  They were two innocents then, Mutty and Dordogna, she already described, he medium, wiry, pie-and pasty-faced, both only twenty-five, and they played with each other and at life as if the enchanted cottage in which they dallied would never be spooked.

  But it was not to be. Dordogna soon discovered that there was more to a man than his providing her with an ancient name, a vast inheritance, a jetting into the society in which she wished to deplane, her own bank account, a skyscraper duplex, and pleasing companionship, including a shared passion for marbles—and that Mutty was simply not providing it. Along about the second year of their blissful, storybook marriage, she began to have dreams about gigantic cocks, often more than one at a time, all somehow protruding from Mutty’s body, she impaling herself on one, on all, on one after the other, and being transported unto a rhapsody thus far unplayed.

  Not being an hysterical young woman, she attempted with the suavest of psychological devices to lure her Mutty toward scaling more lascivious heights. At first she would merely play with him, which, since he did a great deal of this by himself, provided scant results. She then reversed her body so that they both might practice mouth-and-mouth resuscitation, also to little avail, beyond a slight proneness on his part toward gagging. Eventually, with the aid of marijuana, scented unguents imported from the East, where they were thought to know about these things, plus a great deal of time and patience and loving words and soft music and the burning of a special incense imported from the West Coast, where they were thought to know about these things, she managed to make him semihard.

  In despair, she finally asked him directly: “Mutty, querido, what would make you nice and hard?”

  He paused a long moment before answering. After all, his marriage was at stake, a marriage the del Dongos of Argentina not only sanctioned but thanked their lucky stars the boy has finally stopped his Selbstbefriedigung (jerking off) (there is much German feeling in Argentina) and taken a woman, even if she is from Flatbush and common, but who will ever know with that accent and a classy name like Dordogna?

  However, Mutty knew he couldn’t keep up the charade forever, that his softness was only going to make Dordogna, an insistent type, try harder, and anyway he had his own realizations (once you have tasted cock, you can never forget it) to contend with. He figured he might as well get it out and over with.

  “What would I like?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything in the world?”

  “Anything! Tell Dordogna.”

  “To make me nice and hard, Mutty would like that you would on the wall opposite to this bed of swan project pornographic films of men doing things to each other.” He felt cleaner for his confession.

  To her credit, Dordogna took it like a mensch. She lay back on their feathered bed, stuck his rich fingers into her fine Selbst, and had him befriedgte her off. Then, relieved of her tension, she relaxed and tried to think things out.

  “You must have what you want, Mutty, without guilt. I could not keep you away from sucking your cocks.”

  “Who says you have been keeping me away?”

  “You have been leading a double life?”

  “Not so double. I thought you knew.”

  “I never knew.”

  “Now you know. And I am more in love with you than ever.”

  “And I with you, Mutty, more than ever.”

  So they cuddled together, played a good game of marbles, and then she looked at her bank balance and decided that she would become a successful designer of men’s clothes. That fancy South American name should be so useful.

  Two years
later three million men around the globe are wearing her suits and sports coats and slacks and lounging robes and Argyle socks. Her casual style was an instant success, the satisfaction of an unfulfilled international need. She now has a bank balance to rival Mutty’s father and is considering branching into Cologne.

  Mutty on his part found bachelor’s digs, kept in daily touch with his still wife, and spent two glorious years sucking cock from city’s bottom to city’s bottom. He is dimly aware that he has yet to find the companionship he enjoyed with Dordogna, she is still my best and only friend, he has thought to himself many times, but then he is now mature enough to realize that one cannot have everything and besides she is now such a success as to frighten even a del Dongo.

  Dordogna continued to play nervous. “Adriana, whatever will I say or do?”

  “Oh, Dordogna, stop it! You’ll know precisely what to say and do. You always do.”

  Adriana the helpful, Adriana the romantic, Adriana the bosom buddy to the current and fair, Adriana the rich, all that English beer, Adriana still looking good for sixty, not so bad for a tired English bohemian leftover from the edge of Edna St. Vincent Millay, now hiding in a sea of faggots, for whom feminine beauty was not the keystone, outrageousness was!, making them tons more fun than straights, Adriana was placing her young pal, Dordogna, in the path of that nice young mate of hers, whom she had run into just this morning at The Pits and warned him: “Darling, if you’re going to be quite so visible, we’d better find you another beard!” Yes, Randy Dildough was due shortly for tea.

  “I suppose,” Dordogna said, checking herself in her mirrored wall and ceiling, deciding that she was flamingly beautiful and huskily, muskily so. “I am always having faggots,” she then said. “Why am I always having faggots?”