"Probably not,” Peter admitted.
"Case closed,” Gil said. Feluccas plied the water, skimming like water bugs, their triangular sails reflecting on a surface gone slate-colored beneath the midday sun.
"Still, I would have been comforted, even if I had thought it a lie,” Peter said. “And God, Gil, but I could have used a bit of comforting. I'm jealous of Abdul, you know? Always have been, probably always will be."
Gil turned from the panorama before him to the sight he preferred. There was nothing he enjoyed more than looking at Peter Donas. Peter was especially appealing now, standing there in a white shirt open to show a swath of bronzed chest, his brown breeches hugging his muscular lower body. “You needn't be jealous of Abdul,” Gil told him, desperately wanting Peter to come closer, to discard the champagne glass and enfold Gil in his arms. “The sheikh is merely a friend."
"Sure,” Peter said; he still seemed to have trouble believing it was so.
"I never lie to you, Peter,” Gil said. “Not when I tell you Abdul is just a friend. Not when I tell you've been the one to make me hotter than hell from the get-go."
Peter did come to Gil, then, pleasurably assaulting the latter's senses with a perfection of rugged handsomeness, the smell of lime cologne, the touch of a calloused hand, the taste of firm lip-balm softened mouth, the sound of Peter's voice against Gil's ear. “And I never lie to you, either, Gil,” Peter whispered, his face nestling against the strong curve of Gil's neck. By turning his head slightly to one side, Gil could feel the soft caress of Peter's silky hair against one cheek.
"You did actually call home and tell your Uncle George about me?” Gil asked.
"Yep,” Peter verified, hungrily kissing Gil's throat, working his body maddeningly against Gil's body.
"And what was his response?” Gil asked, knowing Peter's family now consisted of only that one person.
"Uncle George is ill,” Peter said, pulling back only far enough to run his hand along the side of Gil's face so a thumb traced the supple fullness of Gil's lips. “He has been for some time. His illness makes him more cranky than romantic."
"He wasn't pleased by the idea of you bringing some man home with you as your in-house lover?” Gil asked. Somehow, he let Uncle George's assumed disapproval bother him.
"My uncle and I have never been close,” Peter said, insinuating that Gil shouldn't be needlessly concerned about Uncle George's approval or disapproval. “My call was made merely as a courtesy to an old man who is beyond loving anyone the way I may—just possibly—love you. It certainly wasn't made to get Uncle George's approval or his blessing. I need neither to shack up with the man of my dreams who gets me hotter ... gets my dick stiffer and hotter ... than any fireplace poker."
Gil wrapped his arms around Peter's neck, wanting this man more than Gil had ever wanted anything or anybody in his whole life.
Peter kissed him deeply and lastingly, moving his mouth and tongue to draw the essence from Gil with a resulting ecstasy that made Gil giddy. When they came apart, it was only because of an unspoken agreement between them. Gil, if not Peter, owed Abdul the courtesy of not going as far as Gil would have liked with Peter in Abdul's house, even if the sheikh had insinuated it would be perfectly all right with him for them to do so. The sheikh, obviously still infatuated with Gil, had always considered Gil's happiness paramount, but Gil was reluctant to flaunt Gil-and-Peter-cum-soiled sheets before a man who was unhappy with how things had turned out. When Abdul hadn't joined them by ten that night, they retired to separate rooms.
It didn't take Gil long, though, to realize he was too excited to sleep; jacking off, not once but twice, didn't help. Hearing Abdul's speedboat shortly after two in the morning, but not hearing any sounds of the sheikh on the stairs by three, Gil slipped on his robe, determined to thank the man whose sacrifices had so assured Gil's happiness.
The rooms downstairs seemed deserted at first glance, so much so that Gil began having doubts that he'd heard the sheikh's speedboat at all. Then, he began getting strange chills. These were not pleasurable shivers, like he always felt in Peter's arms; these recalled images of a Land Rover barreling across burning desert sands, bullets whipping by, Abdul wounded and dropped in front of the tent. Gil refused to believe, though, that assassins would have ready access to Abdul's home. The sheikh would surely have taken sufficient precautions to....
Gil turned swiftly toward the sudden sound behind him, his taut nerves responding with a grunt that would have quickly progressed to a higher volume of alarm if Abdul hadn't immediately appeared behind the strange old man in the doorway.
"Gil?” Abdul asked, obviously surprised to see him up at that hour.
Gil's attention went back to the old man who was pinning Gil to the wall with a look of sheer malevolence. The old fart's gaze seemed to say that the man wanted to wrap his bony hands round Gil's muscled neck and squeeze all breath away.
"There!” the old man accused loudly, pointing at Gil in emphasis. His head was a wrinkled ball—like one of those dried apples used in making dolls. It seemed too small to keep aloft the massive blue turban perched precariously atop it. His forearms and hands—all that appeared from the long sleeves of his galabia—were thin, his fingernails long, dirty, and cracked. “There!” he repeated, and then added, “is one possible cause of your holocaust!” Thereafter, he moved with such sudden swiftness that Gil thought he was coming for him with a vengeance. Gil found himself strangely rooted to the spot, despite the silent alarm signals going off inside him, warning him to get his ass in gear. Although it had to be obvious that Gil was certainly a match for the old man, physically, Gil felt helpless to put up any defense, feeling great relief when the gomer merely rushed on by and out the door.
"My God!” Gil said, caught up momentarily in another shuddering shiver; this one produced humungous goose bumps.
"Don't mind Rashid,” Abdul said, coming over to offer comfort. “He tends to be overly theatrical at times. It's a common trait for those in his trade."
"What trade could that possibly be?” Gil asked, offering no objection when Abdul poured two large cognacs in very large snifters. “Scaring old women and children and me?"
"I shall tell you; you shall laugh, then possibly lecture; our pleasant night-chat will have disintegrated into something far less enjoyable than it might have been,” Abdul prophesied, sitting across from him. “However, I suppose you do deserve some kind of explanation, so here goes. Rashid al-Hidda is my astrologer, found this dark night waiting on my doorstep to whisper to me of stars recently conjuncted within the vastness of the universe and foretelling certain unpleasant consequences for me if—I repeat, if—I'm not especially careful.” He tried to make it sound rather amusing, but Gil was aware enough of the Arab world's belief in the occult to know that the sheikh probably took what Rashid al-Hidda said far more seriously than he was willing to let on. Granted, Abdul's education and exposure to Western culture should have tempered any beliefs in such things as arcane as astrology—but erase them? Gil thought not.
"And he thinks I'm going to be somehow responsible?” Gil asked, recalling the old man's hateful stare and pointing accusation. He swallowed cognac from the bubble of surprisingly heavy Baccarat crystal.
"Oh, you mean his little song and dance about you being one possible cause of my holocaust?” Abdul asked with such genuine good nature that Gil felt less uneasy. “Actually, all of that was purely extemporaneous, I'm sure, undoubtedly conjured up by him at the very last second, not because he dislikes you personally, but because he dislikes all Westerners. He considers them disturbing influences on the Arab world. I suspect that, for a moment there, he might even have thought you were my last lover returned. There is, even I've always realized, a decided similarity."
"About this last lover of yours?” Gil ventured.
"Almost as handsome as you. Quite took my breath away, like you did, when I first saw him. I was madly in love with him, too, from the moment I set eyes on him in the Prin
ceton library, and I simply had to have him. Sound familiar? It made no difference to me, at the time, that he was as well as married to a young man struggling through law school. I was cocky and confident, young, and certainly far less wise than I am today.” The sheikh got up and crossed to the window opening onto the veranda. He peered out at Aswân, seeing a city mainly dark except for the street bordering the Nile. He turned back to Gil and smiled sadly. “But I'm probably boring you."
"Of course you're not boring me!” Gil replied, and Abdul had to have known as much all along. It was logical that a man, like Gil, having become (perversely?) susceptible to the romantic tragedy of Frederic Donas and Geraldine Fowler at Thebes, would, now, be as helplessly drawn in by yet another tale of unrequited love.
"I was exotic, handsome, and very wealthy,” Abdul said with a smile that asked Gil please to forgive that if it came out like boasting. “The young-man-in-question's husband/wife was someone he had known since first grade, as American as baseball and apple pie, with only average looks and as poor as the proverbial church mouse.” The sheikh came back to his chair and sat down. He pyramided his fingers and touched them to his full lips. “And I can be quite persuasive when I really turn on the old charm."
"Agreed,” Gil said, smiling back at him.
"Oh, but you've seen only a small bit of what I'm capable,” Abdul said. “Had I found you before I had been tempered by past mistakes, you would have hardly held out hope of keeping me from you. Then again,” he said, eyeing Gil over his fingertips, “I might be mistaken there. You, after all, wouldn't take one simple neck piece, where this guy took the whole contents of a fairly large jewelry store. Not that I blame him. He, like his lover, was going to school on a scholarship, and his family was a long ways from wealthy. Don't think that I'm trying to pass him off as a gold digger, either,” Abdul said, as if he thought it suddenly important that he not paint a picture that was unfair. “In the end, he left behind everything I'd given him, exiting with only the cloths on his back. He always did have a sense of fairness, having found no harm in accepting gifts from the man with whom he was sleeping, but returning them all when he decided the sleeping-with was over-with."
"I am sorry it didn't work out,” Gil said. As for Abdul having been the “other man", in the just-told tale-of-three-men ... well ... it did, after all, take two to tango.
"It's harder than you might know being an Arab in the twenty-first century,” Abdul said, “especially when you're an Arab who's been able to see a bit of the world beyond Egypt. For such exposure comes with its own built-in cultural shocks, placing those of us who experience it in an interim dimension wherein we can end up really not part of one world or the other. We're westernized, but the country of which we're an intricate part, and which we love, isn't. Maybe that's one of the reasons I'm so anxious to find more oil and catapult all Egypt into the twenty-first century. At the moment, I feel as if I'm racing too far ahead, with no chance of my countrymen ever catching up. I tire of the attitudes of men like Rashid al-Hidda, who are too set in their ways, men who can't begin to fathom the challenge and joy of having another man as a partner, companion, and lover, instead of as just some other same-as unfeeling someone with whom to release mutual sexual tension and sperm within dark corners. It wasn't easy for my Princeton friend to come back here with me to live, despite all of the attending luxury offered by this villa built especially to cocoon and protect him. It isn't easy for any Westerner to make the transition from modern times to distant past. And it was wrong of me to suppose I would be setting him and me up as some kind of role model for Egypt's bi and gay communities to emulate—just as it was probably wrong for me to wish to subject you to the same prejudices. However, it's very difficult for me sometimes to be guided by my head instead of by my heart—not to mention by my cock—even though I do try my damnednest to be sensible."
"You do very well—for the most part,” Gil conceded with a smile.
"I hope I don't do it to a fault, though,” Abdul countered, his expression thoughtful. “I would hate to think I was fool enough to have let you go so easily when you might have surmounted all of the obstacles, wherein another buckled under the pressure."
"You haven't miscalculated, believe me, Abdul,” Gil said, knowing it would have been just as difficult for him, if not more so, than it had ever been for Abdul's previous lover.
"So, all that remains now is the ending of the story, right?” Abdul ventured. “I tell it, of course, merely as a courtesy tying up of loose ends into a neat little bow; it's certainly not the happily-ever-after one could hope for. He went back to find the man he had really loved all along, discovering that the guy had married a woman on the rebound and had one child already and another on the way. The two, for awhile, carried on an adulterous affair that ended in the divorce of the man from his wife and a very nasty fight for custody of their children. The husband didn't get the children, but he did get back his lover—but only for a year. Since their breakup, my friend has so successfully dropped out of sight that not even my money has enabled me to track him down."
"I am sorry to hear that, Abdul,” Gil said. “Really, I am."
"Just be happy, Gil,” Abdul replied, coming to his feet, possibly embarrassed that he might have already revealed too much, and displayed too much emotion in doing so. Even he could be affected by certain stereotyped role images. “You be happy for both of us, and maybe that will be enough."
Gil went back to his room but was still unable to sleep. He remained awake hours later when a maid knocked to see if he was going to accompany the men even then preparing to fly the falcons. Gil said no, finding it ironic that he had been deprived of one of the few times in ages that he could have slept in since beginning work at the dig. He got up for breakfast and spent the morning on the veranda, thumbing through newspapers and magazines Abdul had shipped in monthly from America and Europe. Shortly before noon, he glanced up to see Abdul. Gil was disappointed that Peter wasn't with him.
"In case you're wondering, Peter is still out in the mews,” Abdul said, referring to a building specifically constructed to house hawks and falconry equipment. “I told him I'd come see if you wanted to take a look at his newest acquisition."
"His latest what?” Gil wasn't at all certain he got the true gist of what Abdul had said. He was piqued, and distracted, that Peter was once again so entranced by the birds that he had, just as at Saqqâra, decided to outdo even Abdul in the time spent with them.
"I've given him a haggard for his very own,” Abdul said. “You do remember my mentioning her, don't you? She's the bird caught right here at Aswân."
Oh, Gil knew what Abdul had done, all right. He just wondered why the sheikh had done it. Surely, Abdul must realize that Gil wanted to spend some time with Peter. And Gil still saw Peter and Abdul's interests in the cruel sport as major character flaws. “How could you?” he asked the sheikh and felt genuinely betrayed.
"Gil, Gil,” Abdul chided gently. “I am not in the least being two-faced, here. You're an intelligent man, but you really do have a few things to learn when it comes to patience and trust. A man such as Peter has many interests. You're chief among them—of that I'm sure. But you mustn't begrudge him his other interests and, certainly, can't always be so obviously upset each and every time he briefly leaves you to pursue one of them."
"Are you insinuating I'm jealous of some damned birds?” Gil asked guiltily, his laugh implying that the notion was ludicrous even if it wasn't.
"Are you coming with me to see his haggard?” Abdul asked, hardly convinced that Gil had yet turned over a new leaf.
"I don't think that I am,” Gil said stubbornly.
"This problem you seem to have with trust will not be quickly solved by you merely pretending it doesn't exist, Gil,” Abdul insisted. He turned and left.
Okay, I'm being silly, Gil admitted to himself. And yet, he felt that he wanted Peter's presence so continually, so much, that he even envied the desert wind that ruffled Peter's black
hair. It should have been Gil's fingers, and only Gil's fingers, with the privilege of tousling those fine strands.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SOMEONE—GIL FORGOT JUST WHO, only it hadn't been Abdul or Peter—had told him that no falconer who ever enjoyed a good flight with a haggard would ever really be satisfied in flying even the best eyas. An eyas was a hawk taken from its nest while still without feathers; the haggard was a bird caught after it had gained adult plumage in the wild. The difference was in the degree of skill wild hawks acquired by experience. Hawks raised and trained by men did not acquire such skills quickly—if ever. The disadvantage was that the haggard, having had a taste of freedom, was less inclined to take to the fist. It fought with obstinacy to retain its wildness and independence.
Several days previously, upon first setting eyes on the haggard that Abdul, the trainers, and Peter seemed so intent upon breaking to their will, Gil had found it hard to hate any bird that, through no fault of her own, had captured Peter's attention. It also helped that the bird didn't look like a mere twin of Hatshepsût. Oh, the same basic birdy characteristics were present, but the two were definitely not hatched from the same egg, physically or otherwise. Hatshepsût had been taken as an eyas from her aerie long before she could have known what freedom was all about. Phoenix, for so Peter named the haggard in memory of Peter and Gil's first discussion of the bennu hieroglyph in the Egyptian Museum, had known the ecstasy of freedom and had a look about her that definitely said she preferred the wild to captivity.
Gil empathized with the captured bird. Unlike the falcon, he wasn't bound to any perch by a leash, or held onto any fist by a jess, or restrained by any fifty-yard creance to keep him from flying too far a field, but he was secured by his admittedly growing love for Phoenix's owner. Empathizing with the captured bird, however, didn't make Gil any the less jealous of her. Yes, Gil wanted to be able to allow Peter the joy of something so obviously considered by Peter as a pleasurable pastime; Gil wanted to understand what a grown man could get out of making something into less than God had intended. But all Gil had come to understand was that he, like the falcon, had once been completely free, had once enjoyed the miracle of independence, but had somehow, nevertheless, now, become entrapped. Gil was made extremely uneasy by the way the falcon seemed so determined to regain its freedom, resisted, and continued to resist restraint, whereas Gil had long since been conquered to the point of willingly welcoming any small attention Peter gave him. Watching the extra pains Peter took in his efforts to win the bird over, with less attention paid to Gil in the process, Gil began to remember all the things he had ever heard about men interested only in the chase, their fun ending when the pursuit was finally over and done. He saw Peter as having moved off to a more difficult seduction. It was of small consolation to Gil that Peter continued to tell Gil how much he desired and wanted him; that Peter still, now and again, delivered a kiss; that Peter even announced to the other members of their group that he and Gil were officially an item. The bitter fact remained that, despite all these things, Peter seemed to prefer the company of the damned bird.
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