The Fame Game (18 page)

“Why don’t you just let your modeling agency handle you?” he said.

“Because I think she should do more,” Fred said. “Come on, Mr. Libra, be a sport. You wanted me, and you and I both know I can go only so
far
and no
further
. I’m doing you a
favor
.”

Oh, so that was it. Fred was pulling out gracefully, handing him a lay. He should have known. That Fred was diabolical. The gift of Bonnie was her way of saying he could never have
her
. Well, then, the hell with her. He’d lay Bonnie.

Libra stood up. “Well, Fred, I think I’ll give the matter some thought. If you’ll leave me alone with Bonnie now to discuss it further …”

Fred gave Bonnie a quick, triumphant smile and stood up. She held out her cool hand and gave him a firm handshake. “You’re a peach, Mr. Libra.”

Some peach! They all knew what was going on. At least, he hoped Bonnie did, too. “You’ll be sorry,” he said, ushering Fred to the door. “I could have done a lot for you.”

“You’ll do it for Bonnie,” she said, smiling. And she was gone.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked Bonnie.

“Do you have a Coke?”

“Of course.”

He opened a bottle and poured it into a glass over some ice. Then he held it, standing there by the bar, so she had to get up and come over to him to get it. She walked in a very delicate way, taking little steps, like a geisha. He’d have to teach her how to walk, that way was too affected. When she stood close to him he caught the whiff of Ivory he loved. He wondered if Fred had coached her. He looked carefully at the roots of her hair to see if it was dyed, but it wasn’t, and he looked at her ears and the back of her neck, and they were as clean and soft as his own. Her little white vinyl dress looked squeaky clean, and the heels of her high white vinyl boots were as neat as if she had just come from the shoemaker’s. She had painted a tiny black beauty spot on one cheek, but other than that her face was as clear as porcelain, if artfully made up. She wore no lipstick; he liked that, too. She was really a lovely thing. He could feel his heart getting started, his heart being an area somewhat below his belt. He wanted very much to touch her. He took her hand in his. Her hand felt surprisingly rough, but her nails, he noticed with satisfaction, were immaculate.

“You should use hand lotion,” he said. “Better yet, sleep in gloves with emollient cream on your hands.”

“I will,” she said softly.

“So you want to be a star.”

“I never dreamed it was possible.”

“Somebody must have convinced you.”

“Fred encouraged me. She’s a good friend.”

“There’s nothing between you and Fred, is there?” he asked, looking at her shrewdly.

The girl looked genuinely shocked. “Oh no! I’m not a Lesbian, thank God!”

“Just checking.”

Bonnie sipped her Coke, looking up at him from half-lowered lids in a flirtatious way. Oh, she really looked ready for it, the hot little thing! He’d give her twenty minutes, maybe fifteen, and he’d have her in bed. Fortunately Lizzie was at a matinee with Elaine and they’d probably get soused somewhere after, so the bedroom was his, even though it was risky. Hereafter he’d have to make the kid take him to her apartment. He hoped she didn’t live with her parents.

“You’ll have to have a modeling agency, anyway, you know,” he said. “They’ll get you your bookings and I’ll handle your career.”

“I have one. Fred’s.”

“That was fast work.”

“Fred has done so much for me.”

“Amazing,” Libra said. “Amazing that she’s not jealous.”

“Oh, we’re completely different types,” Bonnie said. “I think Fred is the most beautiful girl in the world.”

“You’re not so bad.”

She smiled, enticingly. He let his finger stray to the nape of her neck, and seeing that she did not move away he let his hand move until it cupped her cheek. She smiled at him and quickly transferred her glass to her mouth. He took the glass away from her and put it on the bar. She moved away from him in a very quick, practiced motion, and stood smiling shyly at him from three feet away. He strode over to her, but she was already at the window.

“What a lovely view,” she said.

“Isn’t it?”

He got her at the window then, where there was no escape but down a long way, and put his hands on her waist. She was wearing one of those goddam waist-cinch things; those skinny models were so paranoid they always thought they were too fat. He hoped it did not have a million hooks in the back.

“What are you wearing that thing for?” he asked.

She looked startled, as if he’d said something obscene. Her eyes opened wide and she didn’t answer. He let his fingers stray up until he was just touching her tits. She pulled away and almost ran to the bar, picked up her Coke, and drank it, looking at him over the rim of her glass with those great violet eyes. She was really a morsel. So juicy and tender, like white meat of chicken. He wanted to bite that soft, curvy mouth.

“Cigarette?” he asked.

“I don’t smoke, thanks.”

“Pot?”

“Oh no.”

“I was just kidding about the pot. We don’t have that here.”

She shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

“You don’t mind that I don’t have it, or you don’t mind if I do have it?”

“Either way.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

She shrugged. “Nobody special.”

“Would you like to have a boyfriend?”

She looked down, smiling.

“Have you ever been to California?”

“No, but I’d like to go.”

“Maybe I’ll take you with me.”

“Really?”

“Why not? If we get along. How do you look in a bikini?”

She smiled and did not answer. He took a few casual steps toward her. She watched him but did not move. He was right up to her then when she slipped away from him and was across the room. This was unseemly and undignified! He was not going to chase her! But then he saw that she was giggling. He raced toward her and grabbed her shoulders, kissing her on the mouth.

That mouth! It was softer than he had ever dreamed. He mauled that mouth, sinking into it, until she gasped. His heart was really started now, he couldn’t breathe. Oh, that tender mouth! With one hand firmly around her waist so she could not get away, he let his other hand race to the hem of her mini-skirt, pushing aside her frantic hands that were trying to keep his hand away, and his passionate fingers probed the dark wonder that was between those thighs.

Holy shit, it was a boy!

CHAPTER EIGHT

When Vincent Abruzzi was a little boy he liked to play with dolls, but since his parents did not want him to play with dolls he called them his “puppets.” “I’m going upstairs to play with my puppets now,” he would say, and his mother would smile and go on with her work around the house. Then he would go into his room and for hours he would design and sew little dresses for his dolls, creating a fantasy life about them. They were always girl dolls.

Vincent was a shy and beautiful child, very well behaved, and since his parents were already middle-aged—he had been a menopause baby, born long after his parents had resigned themselves to being childless—they were glad that he was so good and did not trouble themselves to find out what he was thinking. He liked to play with girls, because they played games he liked. The girls loved him, because he was so gentle, and adults who noticed how much time he spent with girls laughed and said that he was already quite a ladies’ man. Because he was always so sweet and so pretty, none of the boys taunted him for being a sissy until he was in high school, and even then it was only a few who were already insecure about their own masculinity. For the rest he was a sort of mascot. Because he had a heart murmur he didn’t have to go to gym, but he hung around anyway to watch and attended all the school baseball, basketball, and football games, always with a gang of friends. People liked him.

Vincent lived in Irvington, New Jersey, in a run-down neighborhood that might even be called a slum. His parents had one of the nicest houses on the block, if it could be called nice, and he was never conscious of being impoverished. He never had anything much of his own, so he simply did not have any conception of ownership about anything. If something took his fancy he would usually manage to get it, and if a friend liked something of his, he would give it to the friend. His mentality was a curious cross between a slum mentality and that of a resident of the Garden of Eden.

By the time Vincent was in high school all the boys who were going to be homosexuals knew who they were and were already well versed in homosexual practices, but Vincent did not yet know what he was. He was sure he was straight, even though girls terrified him. The girls who had been his playmates were now his dates, but all the kids went out in groups, and the only time he started to shake with fear was during the car ride home when all the other couples were necking. He knew everyone was looking at him, wondering if he was going to kiss his girl. When he took her to her door he knew they were watching from the car, and he would start to plead a headache long before the car had reached his girl’s house. At her door he would give her a quick handshake, say: “Well, it was nice seeing you,” and think:
Her make-up looks the worst
.

Three of the boys on the block he’d grown up with liked him, and after all of them had deposited their girls home the three of them would each phone Vincent, to ask him how he was and if he wanted to go out for a late cup of coffee. He often did, but he did not have sex with them. He’d already had the customary sexual experimentation with them when they were all thirteen or fourteen, but he didn’t see anything queer in that. At this age, though, it seemed different.

He thought he was just slower to develop socially than the other boys. Some of the boys had lovers, but at the time Vincent thought they were only good friends. There were a few flagrantly nitty fags at school, who minced through the halls trying to attract attention, and some of the boys beat them up periodically. But Vincent was so timid and likable that some of the boys used to form a flying wedge around him in the school halls when the fag-beaters were around, and say: “Don’t worry, Vincent, we won’t let them beat you up for being queer.” Vincent would think:
Me, queer?
He knew he was effeminate, and supposed that was why everyone thought he was gay. When the fag-beaters yelled after him in a taunting way: “Oh, Vincent, you great big A-BRUTE-zi!” that hurt. He cried easily. But he had never confided in anyone, so when he was lonely or confused or hurt, which was often, he went somewhere where he could be alone and cried for a while.

As he grew older he became more of a recluse, preferring to stay home and play canasta with his mother to hanging around with the kids. He never went to school dances, although he prided himself on being a good dancer, and whenever he was invited to a party he spent the evening dancing with girls, embarrassed and confused, because some of the boys kept staring at him. At one party, a boy he didn’t know stared at him so much it began to annoy him. But after the boy left, Vincent found himself missing him. He could not figure out why he missed that boy so much. But he always asked his friends when the boy would be around again. His friends nodded knowingly, and Vincent couldn’t figure out what they knew that he didn’t.

His parents, who were religious Catholics, saw nothing strange in Vincent’s mental and physical purity; to them he was a good boy. They thought perhaps he might become a priest. To be a priest was the farthest thing from his mind.

He was very blond, and although he grew to normal size and had quite a large penis, from what he observed of other boys’ organs in the school locker room, he never had to shave. There was a pale blond peach-fuzz on his jaws, much like what you would see on a girl’s face, but that was all. He naturally assumed that was because he was so fair-haired. He always wore his hair cut short and combed back neatly, and he wore jeans every day except Sunday, when he wore his one good suit. He knew he was a rather pretty boy, but he did not consider himself handsome, and he wondered if anyone would ever find him attractive enough to fall in love with. He never let himself wonder whether that someone was to be a boy or a girl.

There was one boy in gym class whom Vincent particularly admired. That boy was a star athlete, well built, tall, and blond; an older, more masculine version of Vincent himself. His name was Buzz. And then one day, after basketball practice, Buzz asked Vincent out for coffee. Vincent was seventeen, Buzz was eighteen.

Vincent fell in love like a girl. He and Buzz took long walks holding hands, went to the beach that summer, and talked and talked. It was very romantic. From Buzz, Vincent learned all about how to have sex with a boy, and he liked it very much. It never occurred to him to be unfaithful to Buzz, or to cruise faggots in the streets, or even to date anyone else. It was bad enough that they were two boys, Vincent thought, but at least they were in love. Buzz told him he looked like a girl, but treated him like a boy. After all, Vincent
was
a boy, and he knew what he was himself better than anyone else seemed to.

Then Buzz went away to college. Vincent mourned his lost romance, the feeling of belonging, the affection. He began to date other boys, but for him it was always a romantic relationship, never just a number. He acquired quite a few fraternity pins and wedding rings.

At seventeen he still wasn’t shaving, and he was quite sure that he was pretty because so many people had told him so. One of his closest friends was a boy named Flash, who was a hairdresser who spent his time making shellacked confections of hairdos for the married women in the neighborhood who had their hair done on Friday and didn’t even put a comb to it until the following Friday, when they had it washed and set again. Flash despised his clientele, and longed to create really fashionable hairdos because he knew what was what—except that those horrors didn’t want to be chic. So Flash exercised his talent for creating chic women on himself, painting his face and wearing a wig and a dress, as a weekend drag queen. It was the first Vincent had heard of drag, being quite out of everything, but Flash took him to his first drag ball and Vincent was fascinated. He thought they were going to a masquerade; then they got there and he thought it was an ordinary dance … then Flash told him all those beautiful girls were really men.