Lives of the Circus Animals (5 page)

True to form, he did want a favor. He was coming to New York next month and needed to meet Christina Rizzo. “She's your new agent, right?”

“What? Where did you hear that?” Henry scowled. “All these damn little birds. Oh, all right. Yes. But it's not final yet. And it's not public. I haven't even told Dolly yet that I'm leaving her for CAA.”

“My lips are sealed. But what's she like, this Rizzo?”

“An absolute cunt. But she promises to be
my
cunt.”

“Lucky you. A good cunt beats a limp dick any day. And right now I'm being handled at ICM by a truly limp dick.”

Henry laughed, tossing his head back. And he saw Jessie sitting across from him. He'd forgotten she was here. “Just a sec, Roof.” He
covered the receiver with his hand. “I'm sorry, my dear. I'm being terribly rude, aren't I?” But he was annoyed with
her,
especially since she'd heard him say
cunt,
a real no-no with Americans.

“That's okay. I should be getting home.” She smiled at him as she stood up, a watery, hurt smile. So why the hell hadn't she left as soon as he started chatting on the phone?

“That's a dear,” he told her. “I'll see you, what, Monday? Have a jolly weekend. Indulge yourself. Don't give me a single thought.”

S
orry,” said Rufus. “I didn't know you had company.”

Henry waited until he heard the door clatter shut. “Not at all. Only my personal assistant.”

“Hmmmm.”

“No, nothing like that. Female. Fiercely competent. But a bit of a nosey parker. Where were we?”

“I should let you get back to your chemicals.” Rufus apparently had something or someone that he wanted to get back to.

“But you still enjoy life out there?” Henry asked. “You find the work satisfying?”

“The life makes up for the work. But I never was a real artist. Like you, Henry. I really should be going. But I'll see you next month. Take care of yourself.”

“Yes. Of course. So good of you to call.” His own tone turned curt, even icy.

“Good night, Hen.”

“Good night.” He punched a button and tossed the receiver onto the cushions.

A real artist, huh? What the hell was that supposed to mean?

But he was alone. At last. It was good to be alone. Ever since he arrived at the theater tonight, he'd looked forward to this moment, when he could stop being for other people and be simply for himself.

He gazed at the television. Silent men and women continued to come and go on the screen, as restful as an aquarium full of fish.

He was suddenly sorry that Jessie had left. Not only did he want company, but he also feared he'd been a horse's ass with her. He'd talked nothing but me-me-me-me. He should've asked how
she
was doing,
about that boyfriend—who was he, what did he do, were they fucking? Not because he cared, but because it would give him something new to think about, someone beside himself. But Jessie might misunderstand and assume he did care about her, which was a dangerous thing to do to a crusher. No, being selfish was an act of kindness here.

One of the joys about being onstage is that you think only about the moment at hand, then the next moment and the next. Unlike the rest of life, where the mind is constantly looking back, hunting down bad deeds and missed opportunities.

Henry still had half a joint left, but he was afraid to light up again. He was stoned enough already. He decided to take a shower.

The clothes came off his body like dry husks. The warm needles of water ran like a brush through his fur. His chest hair and pubic hair felt as soft as mink—or silver fox; they were full of gray. The terry cloth towels felt equally complex and wonderful as he dried himself. Then he put on his robe and his mind went back to work.

Two months in New York and the novelty of a new life had already worn off. He was feeling restless again, discontent. The show was set, the reviews good. There was nothing for him to do now but ride out his contract and hope this would lead to a movie or even television work. In the meantime, he was bored out of his skull.

What to do on a Friday night? All over New York, people were doing what the whole human race does on Friday nights: they were getting laid.

The Gaiety Theatre was just down the street. There was also an intriguing bar called Stella's. But shopping for a hustler required getting dressed, and Henry was exhausted, horny but indolent, especially after this lovely grass. His itch was the sexual equivalent of the munchies. Thank God for Ma Bell.

He retrieved his cordless from the living room, sat on his bed, and took out the sheaf of bar magazines that he collected last month when Michael the costume designer showed him gay New York.

So many ads to choose from: beefcake with choirboy faces, hard men with chiseled chins, potbellied ponies in leather. Henry finally chose and dialed a number. A gruff, tough, recorded voice came on.

“Welcome to Paradise. You must be eighteen or older. You will be billed at your number. If you agree to the terms, press star now.”

He pressed the button—he'd done this before—and heard a set of
clicks like the tumblers of a combination lock falling into place. There was a moment of Muzak—it sounded like “Old Man River”—and another recorded voice clicked on: “Your request has been processed. Welcome to Paradise.”

And his ear fell into a room of live voices:

“Me so horny.” “Wall Street bottom looking for a top.” “Any spankers here tonight?” “Hey, Wall Street. I got ten inches of raging manmeat hungry for your hole.” “Where are you?” “Canarsie.”

It was all actors out there, bad actors, the scripts stale, the roles flat and tired. A good actor can do wonders with third-rate material, but these guys were hopeless. There was one quiet, deadpan voice, however, that got Henry's attention.

“Anyone into words?” he said softly. “Just words. I'm staying in tonight. I'll get us off with talk.”

“Hey, Word Man,” said Henry in his butchest longshoreman voice. “You sound like just what I been looking for.”

“All right. Why don't you give me your phone number?”

Henry gave it to him and hung up. Then he lay on his bed and waited, feeling a bit silly sprawled here in his bathrobe. The toenails of his left foot needed clipping. Finally the phone beeped.

“Is that you?” he said.

“It's me.”

“So what do I call you?”

“Let's not use names.”

“No skin off my dick,” Henry muttered. “Whatcha into?”

“We're in church,” said the man. “It's night. It's right after evening mass.”

“Okay,” said Henry uncertainly.

“We're with a half dozen women waiting to go to confession. We're the only men there. We notice each other. We wonder if we're both there to confess the same sin.”

This was far more specific than anything Henry had yet to encounter in a chat line, but the guy was good. He knew how to set a scene. Catholic guilt was not on Henry's menu, though Catholics could make for very hot one-night stands. The fellow had a tenor voice with a nicely New York nasal burr. Did people still go to confession?

“All right,” said Henry. “I go into the confessional first. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“I'm in there a long time. When I come out, I look at you.”

“And I look back. And we smile.” He paused. “Then I get up to go in. I have a boner.”

“Yeah, yeah. I can see it in your jeans.”

“No. I'm not wearing jeans. We're both in coats and ties. We're dressed like working-class guys at a funeral. The kind of quiet guys who still live at home with their mothers.”

The fellow certainly liked his details. “All right,” said Henry. “You go into the confessional with a hard-on. What do you confess?”

“You don't need to know that.”

“All right.”

“But when I come out, I see you're still there, still on your knees praying. I don't pray. Instead I step over to the side door, the one that opens into the cemetery. I step out, looking at you over my shoulder. I close the door.”

“I get up and step across the aisle and cross myself.”

“No. You forget to cross yourself.”

“Okay. I open the door to the cemetery. Where are you?”

“It's night, remember. I'm waiting for you in the shadow, away from the streetlight, sitting against a tombstone.”

The base for the cordless phone sat on the night table by the bed. The little plastic matchbook with caller ID was parked beside it. Jessie had ordered caller ID for him, saying it would protect Henry from telemarketers. He never used it, forgot he even had it. He remembered it now, however, and took a quick peek, wanting a clue about the man's ethnicity, more meat for his imagination. The little calculator window read “Doyle, Caleb.”

“You hesitate,” said the voice. “You're nervous. But you're still excited.”

“Oh yeah.” This was Jessie's brother? It couldn't be. It was only the power of suggestion: Jessie was just here, she was still in his head. But he looked again and there it was: “Doyle, Caleb.” Doyle was a common name, but how many gay
Caleb
Doyles were there in Manhattan? And the guy knew how to set a scene, like a playwright. Henry hadn't guessed that Jessie was Catholic, although the Irish name should have alerted him. Everyone in New York theater seemed to be either Catholic or Jewish.

“But you come up to me,” the voice was saying. “You smell like Old Spice. And I grab your necktie and pull your face toward mine.”

“Oh baby, yeah,” said Henry. “I'm stuffing my tongue into your mouth.”

“Your warm tongue. Yeah, I feel it. And I can feel the cold stone through my trousers. And all around us the tombstones watch.”

Henry hadn't met Caleb Doyle. He may have read
Venus in Furs
but could remember nothing about it except that the lead role wasn't right for him. He was sure he'd seen Doyle's picture but couldn't remember what he looked like. He imagined himself kissing the male twin of his assistant, a kinky but not unpleasant notion.

“I'm undoing your belt,” said Henry. “I'm unzipping your fly. Oh my God. You're huge,” he whispered.

“Uh-uh. It's no bigger than most. But the first sight of any hard cock is so exciting that it seems enormous.”

Which was true, although Henry suspected most men would be put off by this kind of psychological realism.

“I'm crouching down,” said Henry. “I'm pulling down your trousers and underdongers.”

“My what?”

“Skivvies.” Underdongers were Australian, not American.

“Oh yeah. I can feel the cold stone on my bare ass. I can feel your breath on my cock.”

“That's not all you're feeling, buddy. I can't stop myself. I open my mouth, I got the head on my tongue. Then I take it in. All of it.”

“Oh yeah. I can feel whiskers under your lower lip. God you know how to use your tongue.”

“Hmmmm,” went Henry, then made a thicker, full-mouth sound—“Mmghgh”—trying for verisimilitude.

“And your cock?” asked Doyle. “What're you doing with it?”

“I got it out. I'm working it.” Which he was. His robe was wide open. He lay flat on his back on a warm bed in a bright room even as he knelt in a damp cemetery with a mouthful of dick. The mind was an infinitely elastic place.

“I've lifted my foot,” said the playwright. “I'm rubbing it against your cock and balls.”

“What kind of shoes?” said Henry.

“Loafers.”

“No. They're dress shoes. With the little holes? What're they called? Wing tips. So I can feel the waxed laces against my testicles.”

Doyle hesitated, and Henry thought he was going to argue, but then he said, “All right. Wing tips.”

“I got my free hand under your shirt and jacket,” said Henry. “I'm pinching your nipple.”

“Oh yeah. I'm holding your head in both hands. I'm tracing your right ear with my thumb. Your hair's cut short. It smells like Old Spice. You use Old Spice because it's what your father used. Your father's dead.”

“Uh-huh.” This line of talk did nothing for Henry's cock. He brought them back to basics. “Your balls are tightening up. You're getting ready to blow.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I am. You?”

“Getting there, buddy. Gimme a sec.”

They said nothing for a moment, only hummed and sighed into the phone. Then the playwright announced in a rush, “I'm pressed behind you now, we're naked, we're on a beach, my cock is up your ass, your cock is in my hand!”

“Oh yeah, baby. I'm with you,” said Henry, deciding not to fight the change of scene or break with realism.

“I'm going to make you come first, and then when I feel your sphincter clench my dick—”

Henry inhaled a groan, as if he were coming, but only to trigger his friend. There was nothing like a love cry to set off an orgasm.

“Ah!” the playwright cried. “Oh Toby! Yeah! Ah!
Ah!
”

It was beautiful to hear the man climax, but the sound did not finish Henry. He was more stoned than he'd thought. He arched his back and grunted—“Deeper, baby. Oh God. Keep it coming”—but none of his gifts as an actor could carry him across the mind-body divide. Nevertheless, he joined in a duet of moans and whimpers—words fail everyone at times like these—until all that remained was heavy breathing.

“Thank you,” sighed Henry. “Wow. Thank you.”

He looked at his cock, so stiff and stubborn and unmoved. Yet he felt some satisfaction, like he'd just moved an audience if not himself. “Your Toby certainly enjoyed getting his ashes hauled.”

“Toby?”
The playwright sounded alarmed.

“You called me Toby. Didn't you? Never mind.” Henry decided not to pursue it. A man after orgasm can be testy and unpredictable, even when he was in another bed in another part of town.

The breathing on the other end shifted from mouth to nostrils, satisfaction turning to a sound like remorse.

“Thank you,” Henry repeated. “That was most satisfying. Uh, would you like to do this again sometime?”

“No. Sorry. I'm sure you're a nice man. But no. Those are my rules. Just once.”

“Well. You got my number. If you change your mind.” Henry could not resist adding, “You have quite an imagination, you know. You should be a writer.”

“Good night.”

“Sweet dreams,” said Henry.

Click.

So
that
was his batwoman's brother? How interesting.

Henry lay on his bed, wondering why he should feel so tickled by this discovery. The world is full of secrets; other people's secrets are so much more interesting than one's own.

He closed his robe, tied the cord, got up, and went out to the living room. He vaguely remembered seeing something—and there it was, on top of a dozen books stacked on the sideboard, a play by Caleb Doyle, not
Venus in Furs,
but the new one, the bomb,
Chaos Theory
. Jessie must have left it here.

It was an acting edition in a mauve cover, with no picture of the author. Henry opened it and saw the dedication. Not to Toby but: “For Ben. A wiser, kinder man. In loving memory. 1952–1995.”