An Idol for Others (36 page)

“Good lord,” Mark said when they were seated. “Three movie stars, a famous writer, the greatest actor in the English theater, and a senator thrown in. These are the people you know, and you talk about liking me?
Glamorous
is hardly the word for you.”

“You’re the handsomest man here and nicer than any of them. I can’t tell you how proud I am to be with you.” He had noticed the eyes assessing Mark, the eyes turning speculatively to himself; and he wanted to burst out laughing with possessive pride. Mark could hold his own anywhere. His style was quiet and assured, his manners charming. He was going to keep him for himself for a while.

Despite his self-contained manner, Mark was a good talker, and everything they said was illuminated by the curiosity they felt about each other. Mark was familiar with all of Walter’s work and admired it, with a few intelligent reservations. They liked the same books and films and music. During pauses, when waiters hovered over them, they exchanged looks of such passionate mutual approval that their breath kept catching, and they forgot to eat.

It was understood that this meal was on Walter, and he signed the bill with only a glance at it and distributed the substantial tips that were expected of him. Their departure was accompanied by the gratifying flurry of attention that his arrival had caused. In a taxi their hands moved to each other on the seat in the dark, and their fingers interlaced and teased and caressed during the silent ride downtown. They stopped at the Tenth Street place for Walter to pick up some things.

He threw a change of clothes and some toilet articles into a small bag, noting the risks involved if Clara should come back unexpectedly. He grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the bar as an afterthought. “OK. This is great. I feel as if I were really moving in with you.”

“Careful, Walter,” Mark said, his brow furrowing. “Don’t give us any ideas.”

Waking up with Mark in the late morning was a new turning point in this unfamiliar adventure, and Walter knew it without examining the implications. He hadn’t spent a single night with another male–he didn’t count Greg–since Harry, and he was filled with the camaraderie he remembered from long ago. The sheer fun of it struck him the moment he opened his eyes and saw Mark’s dark tousled head lying a few inches from him. Mark’s smile brimmed with sweetness in greeting. Memories of Harry brought warnings that he could too easily disregard. Walter gathered Mark into his arms with a muffled cry and kissed the side of his head. The strange rapture of holding a boy, a man! Suddenly it seemed to him that he had never known a moment with a girl to equal its complex satisfactions. An exclusive closed circle that somehow impossibly opened to contain an identical circle. Male to male. Mysterious magic. His fingers strayed among silken shaved strands in an unshaved armpit. His legs tangled with unshaved legs. The pubic growth felt sparse and patchy, checked by the bulky exterior equipment, a conspicuous manifestation of desire, gratifying to the touch. I want. I need. The poignance of an echo, a call from the hidden twin of self. Male to male, a riddle of infinite impossibilities.

“What a lovely sight to wake up to,” Walter murmured.

“I didn’t want to move for fear of waking you. Let me up for a minute, darling.”

They took turns in the bathroom freshening up and fell back in bed, reaching for each other. They had spent 24 hours together, and Mark had become part of life. Walter laid his hands on him and felt his authority acknowledged.

“You’re mine,” he said into Mark’s ear when they had recovered from the aftermath of orgasm.

“Yes, darling. Oh, God, yes. What’s happening gets more and more tremendous.”

Mark had an electric kettle, and he made instant coffee, and they discussed the day. It was sunny. They decided to go out and roam the streets with no fixed objective in mind.

“We can always hurry back here if we find we have to hold on to each other,” Mark said.

They took a Fifth Avenue bus and rode on top with their arms thrown casually around each other’s shoulders. They leaned their shoulders against each other while they watched the animals in the zoo. They had lunch and strolled to the Frick Museum and doubled back, stopping at several bookshops. Walter found an album of photographs of Greek statuary, including the Olympian
Apollo
, and bought it for his friend.

“My goodness,” Mark commented. “I certainly wouldn’t dare make a pass at him.”

“You see what I mean? You’re sexy-looking, and he isn’t, but your features are a lot alike.”

There was an exhibition of pictures by one of Walter’s discoveries at a 57th Street gallery, and they stopped there. One of the pictures struck Walter’s fancy, and he immediately wanted it.

“Damn. There’s no point even asking how much it is, but I wish I could have it. Do you like it?”

“Yes, it’s beautiful. But I’m not sure. I think you might get tired of it if you had it around all the time.”

“You may be right. That’s shrewd of you.” Walter’s eyes probed the composition for weaknesses. “Good. I won’t buy any pictures without your OK. Not that I can afford to, anyway.”

“Aren’t you rich?”

“No, everybody assumes I must be,” Walter said dryly. “It’s a nuisance sometimes knowing that I could be if I wanted. I try not to think about it.”

“But isn’t your wife rich?”

“She thought she was about to be. There seems to be some difficulty with a will. That’s why she’s away.”

“So I’m not a rich man’s plaything? Tough luck. Let’s go somewhere, and I’ll buy you a drink.”

They took another bus and rode down to the Brevoort and sat out on the sidewalk and had long iced gin drinks.

“I like being out with you almost as much as I like being at home with you,” Mark said. “What a wonderful day.”

“Yes, everything fits into one big perfect something or other.” Their intimacy was so easy and so constantly expanding that Walter knew it was only a beginning. He kept pushing practical considerations into the back of his mind, but they were getting his attention nevertheless. The question of how he and Mark would be able to spend their days together in the future had an obvious solution, but he didn’t want to examine it too closely until he had decided how he would present it to Clara. She was to call tonight to let him know when she was coming home. He would know then how much time he had. He looked at the handsome profile beside him and wanted to make the beautiful body his again. “It seems to me we’ve proved we’re not just sex-mad. Don’t you think it’s time we get a reward?”

Mark turned with his lovely smile. “I’m all in favor of rewards, even if we haven’t done anything to deserve them.”

For the first time they closed a door behind them without rushing into each other’s arms. They stood with their hands on each other, quietly relishing the return to privacy.

“I do love being with you, darling,” Walter said.

“I’m beginning to believe you do. Maybe we won’t get sick of each other, after all.”

“It’s possible.”

They kissed while they took their clothes off, and they continued to kiss on the way to the bed. Walter stretched him out on his back and knelt between his thighs and moved in and took him in a way that permitted him to look into his eyes and watch the ecstasies of his body. Mark stretched out his arms to Walter and drummed his heels on his back and called to him. Walter handled his body and claimed it all, drove himself into it and held it where he wanted it, watched it being driven to thrilling contortions and held it again while Mark gave himself up to the power that possessed him as he shouted and sobbed with a wrenching orgasm. Walter prolonged his pleasure until Mark’s body was once more heaving and panting and thrashing about in paroxysms of surrender and another ejaculation leaped from it.

They were spent and abashed when they showered together, scarcely daring to look at each other but touching and holding each other with tenderness and solicitude.

“I honestly didn’t know it could be like this,” Mark whispered.

“Neither did I.”

“I’m not imagining things?”

“No.”

They slowly recovered with strong shots of whisky, which they drank sitting close together on the hard little settee with their arms around each other and towels around their middles. Their voices and the sense of camaraderie returned.

“I better get fresh sheets,” Mark said. “I came all over the place.” They changed the bed together and dressed again for dinner.

“I’ll get more clothes when we go to Tenth Street for Clara’s call,” Walter said. “I’m going to need a truck to move me out of here.”

“Don’t wake me up, even though it’s almost time,” Mark said.

They had a good cheap meal in a little restaurant Walter knew off Bleeker Street. Clara’s call wasn’t due until 11:30 or midnight, so they had time to kill.

“Have you ever been to a gay bar?” Mike asked.

“No. Why? Do you want a new boy for tonight?”

“Would you like to see one?”

“I don’t know. Don’t a lot of theater people go to them? I don’t want to be seen.”

“I can take you to one where nobody’s ever heard of Walter Makin. Anyway, I don’t have to say your name.”

“If you want to,” Walter agreed.

“I do, even though you probably won’t like it. You wanted to show me off last night. That was part of the dream. I think I’m talking about something closer to reality. My reality. It has to do with my belonging to you.” Mark’s heavy lids lowered as he spoke; Walter felt a renewed pang of desire.

“If it has to do with that, let’s go.”

They took a taxi to the East 50s. Walter was nervous about the expedition. He felt that going to such a place was a commitment of some sort he hadn’t bargained for and which Mark had no right to expect of him. His old dread of the brand was once more strong in him. He hated being deposited in front of the door by a taxi driver who probably knew what sort of place it was.

They entered a nondescript bar that was crowded, noisy, and populated exclusively by males. As soon as he could bring himself to look around, he was struck by the low esthetic level of assemblage. He had always thought of homosexuals as pretty youths, limp-wristed, shrill, perhaps even painted but more attractive in a strictly physical sense than the general run. A second glance revealed a scattering of presentable young men, but there was a generous share of paunches and bald heads and ill-formed features.

They found room at the bar and ordered drinks. He saw Mark nodding to several people. As he relaxed, Walter was aware of eyes crossing his in an effort at contact, but he was accustomed to this and paid no attention. After a few more drinks, they decided to leave.

“Did you hate it?” Mark asked when they were in the street headed for Lexington Avenue.

“No, not really, but I didn’t like it. Can you see any connection between that sort of thing and us?”

“Not particularly. Except we’re two men, and we’re having an affair. We may belong there as much as anywhere. It depends on what you mean by ‘us.’”

“Us? What do you think I mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s a subject you’re not exactly eloquent about. All the things I’ve been trying not to say.”

Walter hailed a passing cab and took Mark’s arm and urged him toward it. “Let’s wait till we’re back near the telephone.”

They drove downtown in neutral silence, the close connection between them suspended but untroubled by any sense of real alienation. It carried over while Walter was letting them in so that neither made a move toward the other after Walter closed the door. He went directly to the kitchen and got ice and made them drinks. He was amazed at how much he minded even this small coolness between them. He took a glass to Mark, where he remained standing tentatively in the middle of the living room. He touched his hand as he gave it to him.

“I can’t stand being even slightly at odds with you, darling. This is the first time we haven’t been completely right with each other. Don’t try not to say things. Tell me why we went to that place.”

“You hate everything to do with being queer. I wanted you to see the worst. It wasn’t so horrible, was it?”

“No, of course not. I’m probably silly about it. I’m sorry.”

“I’ve spent a lot of time in places like that, looking for sex, cruising. It was marvelous being there with the most attractive kid any of them had ever seen and not wanting to give anybody else so much as a glance.”

“Oh, baby, darling,” Walter enthused. He put his hand on his neck and pulled his head forward, and they kissed lovingly across their glasses. “That wasn’t much of a quarrel, but I’m glad it’s over. Come sit and say more things like that.” He kept a hand on Mark’s shoulder and went to the sofa and sat. Mark dropped to the floor on his knees and leaned against him.

“Can I stay down here for a while? I may not be able to look at you through what’s coming. You said you liked me as much as you’ve ever liked anybody. I can’t bear to say anything that might change that, but it’s going to come out, so it might as well be now. We’ve been together for two days, and I’m bursting.” He bowed his head and was silent. Walter touched his hair. “I’m … now that I’m going to say it, I’m scared. I don’t have to. I could go on being your whore but … oh, hell. We’re in love with each other, Walter. It doesn’t make any more sense to me than it does to you. I didn’t think it could happen to me. I don’t want to make complications, but you can’t be in love with somebody without wanting to keep him. I just hope it doesn’t seem like more of the queer stuff you hate.” He looked up with grave, intense eyes.

Walter met them without flinching. He took Mark’s hand and moved it to the fabric stretched over his rigid sex. “That’s what your saying those things does to me. It would be awfully easy to say the same thing to you. I just don’t understand what it means when guys talk about being in love with each other.” He had dodged the issue as long as he could. Surely he knew enough of his life to find an alternative to Mark’s declaration. Mark was making the mistake of expressing what had happened between them in the vocabulary of normal passions. It distorted everything.

Walter stroked Mark’s hand and looked him in the eye. “What do we do about it if we’re in love with each other?” he demanded.