Читать книгу Between Boyfriends - Michael Salvatore - Страница 12

Thank God It’s Friday. Catchphrase, Academy Award–winning motion picture, truth. Even though I’m not like most nine-to-fivers and I truly love my job, I still get that lightheaded feeling whenever I wake up on a Friday morning. It’s the feeling of possibility.

This Friday turned out to be one of those exceptional Fridays that come along once every six months or so. One of the actresses who recently graduated from her anorexia outpatient program brought in a dozen boxes of Krispy Kremes for breakfast, our ratings shot up another three-tenths of a point, and each scene was shot in one quick take, including the cliffhanger when Stroke Roger uttered his first word to Ramona. Purloin. Because Roger had always joked that Ramona stole his heart.

I got out early enough to fit in a quick workout before heading home to find my answering machine blinking madly and I knew one of those blinks had to be an invitation to party like it was a Friday in 1999. Sure enough the first message was from Gus imploring his mates to gather tonight at Marys and meet his latest fling. This would actually be the latest in a string of flings that had started almost a year ago when Gus determined to sow each and every one of his wild oats before turning forty. By the lustful sound of Gus’s voice on my machine this latest boy toy might prove to be the wildest oat of all.

The three other messages were from Flynn, Lindsay, and Sebastian, all telling me that we should meet at Marys at ten o’clock, with Sebastian adding that he had secured Splash for Gus’s birthday bash and that his Thursday night fuck buddy needed to switch to Wednesdays so if I knew of anyone looking for a regular Thursday hookup I should feel free to give them Sebastian’s number. I didn’t think our human resources department intended for our community bulletin board to be used as a networking opportunity for sex addicts so I shelved the idea of posting a notice at work. Sebastian might have to watch TV on Thursday nights like the rest of us.

I made a quick dinner out of leftover Chinese takeout while watching white-hot Anderson Cooper on cable and soon I was eating bok choy with a boner. It was time for porn.

From my favorite cable bottom-liner to my all-time favorite porn top, I watched Aiden Shaw plow the ass of Tag Adams, in some triple X-travaganza entitled Perfect Fit. Tag was the perfect poster boy for the conflicted gay bottom. His grunts of absolute delight were in total opposition to his facial expressions, which made it seem like he didn’t know if he could take another inch of Aiden’s huge uncut dick. All I knew was that my cock fit perfectly in my right hand and I was able to stroke myself to climax while my man Aiden pulled out and shot an incredibly powerful load (and I choose to believe it was an angry one, in response to Tag’s mixed messages) all over Tag’s stomach.

The beauty of imaginary porn playmates is that they are often the most satisfying. My pretend partner, who in most cases is Aiden, is always a consistent performer so I never have to feign interest. The extra beauty of these early evening imaginary play-dates is that I get sex out of the way so I can concentrate on initiating conversation and not inevitable copulation while cruising the bars. Masturbation, for me, is a survival technique.

Dressed in a vintage purple and gold Duran Duran T-shirt, low-rise jeans, and color-coordinated Pumas, I waltzed into Marys a few minutes after ten grinning like Simon Le Bon on a VH1-sponsored comeback tour and immediately saw Gus towering above some blond, barely-out-of-his-teens waif wearing a vintage Human League T-shirt. How dare he?

Gus introduced the waif as Brady, a bloke he’d met yesterday online in a chatroom for gay anglophiles. Before I could ask for proof that straight anglophiles exist, Brady launched into an animated monologue about the first time he laid eyes on Gus. He rhapsodized and gesticulated in a manner that would shame any anglophile, gay or straight, and told me how he and Gus were just supposed to have hot sex but wound up having hot sex plus stimulating conversation, breakfast, a quick lunch at Gus’s office (and by lunch Brady informed me that he meant blow job), dinner, more sex, and now a night at Marys.

“Are anglophiles allowed to be so spontaneous?” I queried.

“I’m really not an anglophile,” Brady confessed. “The accent just gives me a boner!”

Gus smiled hard and slapped Brady’s ass harder, which prompted me to get the beginnings of my own boner. Then Brady went on to confess that his parents had named him after their favorite sitcom family, which prompted me to lose my boner completely since The Brady Bunch was also my all-time favorite sitcom and I suddenly felt very, very old. I spied Gus’s index finger introducing itself to Brady’s ass-cleft and realized I was the only one bothered by the fact that nearly two decades of reruns separated us from this Brady boy. I firmly believe that chicken-love has its time and place, but I just couldn’t imagine how Gus could enjoy a blow job from a man named Brady without it conjuring up images of three very lovely girls with hair of gold. Perhaps The Brady Bunch never aired in Britain. Perhaps I got too emotionally invested in television as a child. Perhaps life is sometimes just as annoying as Cousin Oliver. Whatever the reason, I knew I would be thankful when Gus inevitably told Brady he had been canceled.

Luckily Lindsay has the comic timing of Ann B. Davis and was soon standing by my side, drink in hand, jabbering away about the details of his recent foray into the world of the sex party.

“I loved it!” Lindsay squealed. “I felt free, like a kid again.”

“You were in a sling, not a swing,” I corrected.

“You had your childhood playground,” he said, “I had mine.”

While ordering another round of drinks for us all, Lindsay announced that he had seen several familiar faces at the party, including an Academy Award Best Actor nominee who made his partners wear gold condoms so he could imagine he was being fucked with an Oscar.

“I assume he wanted to know what it’s like to be the former Mr. Hilary Swank,” Lindsay declared. “That lucky broad’s got his and hers Oscars. When they were married I bet they lay side by side to see who could take more of the phallic gold statuette.”

“Jodie Foster can do the same thing,” I reminded him.

“Do you really think Jodie does anything with her Oscars except stare at them and envy their slim, boyish hips?”

“Well, I’m sure many Academy Award winners have had sex with their Oscars. What about Barbra Streisand? She’s got two Oscars too,” I responded.

“Do not take the name of La Streisand in vain!”

“Bette Davis had two,” I said, feeling very knowledgeable in gay cinema all of a sudden. “And she was a wild one.”

“The Oscar reminded her of her uncle,” Lindsay reminded me. “Even she wasn’t kinky enough for that.”

“Oh, my God! Katharine Hepburn had four!” I shouted.

Lindsay’s face went white as the blood drained from his face and raced to his dick. “Just imagine the sex party possibilities,” he sighed.

Before I could imagine the endless possibilities of a group of horny, naked gay men and four Oscars, Flynn and Sebastian joined us at the bar.

“Hola, chicas!” Sebastian cried, then noticing Brady he added, “And chiquitas.”

It looked like Sebastian was going to make a Chiquita hawk comment, but a remix of a remix of a Madonna classic blasted through the airwaves and he declared it was time to get into the groove.

One Madonna remix led to an Amber remix, which led to another musical attempt by Dolly Parton to have a hit song post– “9 to 5,” and soon an hour had passed. My lungs begged my body to stop moving, so I grabbed the boys and we huddled at the end of the U-shaped bar, which was manned by a strapping, hairless man-boy in a boy-sized jockstrap, and ordered ourselves a round of cosmos. Before the first sip, Brady took control of the conversation and announced that he was attending graphic design school and was looking for opportunities to perfect his craft.

“Isn’t that what you’re doing with Gus?” I asked, allowing myself a moment of bitchiness.

“No!” Brady squealed. “I’m letting Gus perfect his craft at being the perfect top with me!”

It sucks when your own bitchiness comes back to bitch-slap you in your face. The boys all saluted Gus’s quest for perfection and I felt like Dolly reading the latest, unkind Billboard charts.

“Maybe Brady can design the invitations for my upcoming birthday bash,” Gus suggested.

“We’re not throwing you a birthday bash!” Lindsay protested.

“You, Lindsay Wilde, are a gay liar,” Gus said. “And you know what happens to gay liars?”

“They grow up to become Scientologists?” Flynn suggested.

“Yes,” Gus answered. “But they also get spanked with an Olympic pewter medal.”

Before spittle could form at the edges of Lindsay’s mouth, Sebastian intervened and admitted that we were planning something special for Gus’s fortieth birthday, but would never divulge what that surprise was unless, of course, Gus fucked it out of each and every one of us, starting with Sebastian. Being the proper Brit that he is, Gus declined to go to such extremes, but he did allow his eyes to glance lasciviously at Sebastian’s extremely round ass, causing Brady to snuggle closer to Gus and hyperextend his own bulbous backside even farther away from his spine. Then, once he realized his friends had not forgotten his milestone, Gus showed that most improper of British emotions: joy.

“I can’t wait for the surprise!” Gus gushed. “But I have bad news for you boys.”

“Bad news has no place at your birthday surprise,” I replied.

“Bad news will not attend, and, unfortunately, neither will Wendolyn,” Gus said.

Flynn, Lindsay, Sebastian, and I didn’t dare look at each other, but gave each other imaginary high-fives.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” I lied. “You’re sure that there’s absolutely, positively, no chance in the entire whole wide world that Wendolyn will be able to attend?”

“Sorry, mate, she’ll be in Nepal with Richard Gere on my birthday weekend.”

“Your sister knows Richard Gere?” Brady asked.

“Yes, she hobnobs with the stars.”

“All of a sudden you’re even hotter than you were like five seconds ago.”

Gus and Brady started to make out with each other as if oblivious to our presence, so we decided it was time to give Daddy and Son some alone time. Almost instantly, Sebastian got sucked into the crowd by one of his many paramours, leaving the three of us alone to revel in our luck.

“I was so afraid we were going to have to invite psycho-sister!” I exclaimed.

“I know! Let’s tell Brady all about Ms. Wendolyn,” Lindsay suggested. “Guaranteed he’ll disappear quicker than my last crab infestation.”

“You still get crabs?” Flynn asked.

“Only when I have sex on the beach,” Lindsay replied. “We should find out if Brady’s last name starts with a G!”

We laughed hysterically, downing our cosmos like good homos, and wondered if Gus’s boy toy would still be so young, carefree, and gay once he found out the truth about Gus’s sister—that she is certifiably insane. And not just eccentric in that irrepressible Maggie Smithish sort of way, but undeniably nuts. It’s always difficult dealing with the mentally challenged, but the situation with Wendolyn is worse because Gus doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with how her brain works. To him, she’s his wacky baby sister. We think she’s missing a chromosome.

Among Wendolyn’s many symptoms is that she is mortally afraid of the letter G. Her real name is of course Gwendolyn, but she changed it before she hit her teens. It seems that when she was a little girl she got into her father’s collection of G-Man comics from the 1940s that was stored in the attic of their lovely country cottage. Gwendolyn was a shy child and preferred the solidarity of a stuffy attic to the overpopulation of a family outing, so while the rest of her family was enjoying a picnic on the rocky shore near the beach, Gwendolyn rummaged through the comics and spread them out in a circle around her until she was surrounded by the red, white, and blue uniformed G-Man, upholder of all things true and just. The floorboards of the attic, however, were not as strong and just couldn’t hold up Gwendolyn’s ample weight and she fell through. Actually, she only fell halfway through, as she got stuck right at the point where her size 35 waist bulged out over the wooden slats.

Clutching at the floor around her, Gwendolyn frantically tried to pull herself back up, but only succeeded in getting fists full of splinters and pulling the G-Man comics closer to her. Hysterical, she began to scream for help, but alas the family couldn’t hear her cries over their own laughter and the crashing of the waves. They went on frolicking about, assuming sensitive Gwendolyn needed some private time.

As night began to fall, the mice in the attic came out to play and exhibited the same interest in G-Man comics as Gwendolyn. Not as a way to spur the imagination, but a perfect place to poop—and Gwendolyn’s frizzy red hair the perfect place to nuzzle. When her family finally found her, they recall that she was maniacally pushing away the comics and the curious rodents screaming, “No G! No G!” And from that day forward Gwendolyn became Wendolyn and has been afraid to say any word with the letter G in it. Therefore, she refers to Gus as “Us” and he rationalizes her unique nickname for him as being symbolic of their close relationship. Long ago, I decided not to try to get Gus to accept his sister’s madness like I have accepted my mother’s, because I realize the British deem mental instability as weakness, while the Italians see it as standard.

I was about to raise my hand to order another round of cosmos and completely enter the world of drunken madness, when Lindsay yanked it and pointed it toward the dance floor.

“See that guy in the black Henley tank top?” Lindsay gasped.

“You mean Fuck Counter?” I announced.

“He’s Fuck Counter?” Flynn asked.

“He was also at the sex party,” Lindsay explained. “And he’s up to five twenty-seven.”

There was a moment of silence as we all realized what an accomplishment that was and what a pleasure 527 continuous penetrations could be. I watched Fuck Counter dancing with some hot boy and allowed myself a moment of pride in knowing that I had helped him on his way to becoming the super top that he obviously was. I noticed a stirring in my jeans and wondered if perhaps I had been too hasty in rejecting Fuck Counter or was I just getting horny again, even though it was only three hours since I had made imaginary love to Aiden? All thoughts of sex, however, were thrust from my head as I spied Sebastian dancing on top of the bar, thrusting his hips wildly, wearing only a stained white jockstrap. He would now have to add go-go boy to the career blank on his tax returns.

“Do you think he does it for the ego trip?” I asked.

“I think he does it for the tips,” Lindsay corrected.

We watched Sebastian gyrate and grind in front of an eager throng of barflies, allowing eager fingers to stick dollar bills in his jockstrap, his socks, and even in the crack of his eager ass. Then we noticed he kept stopping to gyrate in front of one pair of eager fingers that belonged to a man who had to be at least seventy years old. A real-world seventy, not a gay seventy, which would be around fifty-two. These eager fingers belonged to an honest-to-goodness gay senior citizen.

“What the hell is he doing now?” Flynn asked.

“He’s encouraging that poor old thing!” Lindsay cried.

It definitely looked as if Sebastian was encouraging the senior sinner, for he was poised directly in front of him, kneeling on one knee, pushing his crotch oh-so-close to the man’s wrinkled face, and whispering into his most likely hair-filled ear. Lindsay squinted and then opened his eyes in stunned disbelief.

“That’s no poor old thing!” Lindsay declared. “He’s shoving fifty-dollar bills up Sebastian’s ass!”

Suddenly Sebastian jumped off the bar and started sashaying toward us. When he got close enough he waved a fifty-dollar bill under our noses and I caught the faintest whiff of vinegar.

“I’m off to get ramgeezered,” Sebastian announced.

“You’re going to let that old man fuck you?” Lindsay asked.

“Mi amiga, papi need a new Jack Spade bag,” he said. “It’ll be worth it.”

We watched Sebastian walk toward the go-go boy changing room, his perfect ass flexing and unflexing with each stride as if it were waving good-bye to the boys who would have to wait yet another night, or at least another few hours, to have the chance to make an entrance.

“Do you think he has a Granddaddy complex?” I asked.

“No,” Flynn answered. “He’s just a whore.”

“Now every time he slings his bag over his shoulder he’ll be reminded that he slung his legs over the shoulders of some old bag,” Lindsay added. “Even Jack Spade’s not worth a memory like that.”

After a few more drinks we decided it was time to go. Actually I decided it was time I should go. Gus was off with Brady somewhere, Lindsay was dancing near Fuck Counter hoping it might add up to another chance encounter, and Flynn had bumped into an old flame and decided to see if the embers could still burn for one more night. On my way out I had a bump of my own.

“Sorry,” I stuttered.

“That’s okay,” the bumpee responded.

Fighting every urge to speak, I forced myself to remain quiet and just take in this moment. The music was blaring all around me, the lights were flashing above and below, sweaty arms were brushing against me, but I kept silent and stared ahead into one of the most beautiful faces I had ever seen. Full red lips, smooth ivory skin with creases at the ice blue eyes and around the mouth to prove it was real, and a thick mane of blond hair that fell loose and carefree on the forehead. This face looked back at me with what I interpreted as equal wonder and all the insecurities Frank had ignited in me were extinguished. I wasn’t a loser like the last time and the time before and this beautiful man in front of me would prove that. Unfortunately, the beautiful man behind him would unravel my newfound confidence and take from me another chance for happiness with one sentence:

“Come on, Brian, I love this song!”

With those words Brian’s beautiful face was whisked away from me and dragged onto the dance floor as a Cher tune pulsated through the air. I saw him glance back at me and I tried to follow him, but just then the DJ sampled an old Go-Go’s hit and I was nearly trampled to death by a swarm of gay men who just had to get the beat.

My luck had gone from bad to worse. At least Frank had given me his number before rejecting me; Brian didn’t hang around long enough to do the proper thing and create the façade that he wanted a relationship before giving me my rejection notice. Thank God Friday was officially over.

Alas, that meant Saturday had arrived and this Saturday meant having lunch with my mother and her best friend, Audrey, at the Secaucus Diner. Normally it was a fun event during which I would let the ladies tell me all about the wild adventures of the tenants of the Salvatore DeNuccio Towers and allow myself to get caught up in the pandemonium, but this Saturday would be different. It would be the Saturday after losing not one, but two, potential boyfriends. I would have to wear a smile tighter than Priscilla Presley’s.

“Steven, what’s wrong with you?” my mother asked instead of saying hello.

“Hello to you too, Ma,” I replied, ignoring her question. “Hi, Audrey, how are you?”

Audrey Pizzarelli is my mother’s best friend. She is a Sicilian widow like my mother and similar to her in almost every single way except that she dyes her hair jet black, is thirty pounds heavier, wears polyester twill jumpsuits from the ’70s with color-coordinated neckerchiefs, and has been dying for the past twenty years. It’s a self-diagnosis disputed by every doctor in the tri-state area, but one that Audrey clings to as tightly as I cling to the dream that I will someday meet the man of my dreams. Everyone has to cling to something.

“I found a lump,” Audrey declared with undeniable pride.

“It’s a mosquito bite,” my mother corrected.

“Since when do mosquitoes bite in October?” Audrey asked.

“You were down at the swamps again.”

“I was not.”

“Yes, you were! Rosemary saw you.”

“That friggin’ Rosemary! She’s always spying on me!”

“You were on her daughter’s property. Lori Ann lives right next to the swamp.”

“That is no reason to spy on someone.”

“Excuse me, Audrey?”

“Yes, Steven dear?”

“What were you doing down at the swamps?”

“Stealing flowers,” my mother answered. “Again!”

“Orchids! I wanted an orchid.”

“So buy one. Rocco left you a very wealthy widow.”

“Why should I spend Rocco’s money when they have perfectly fine orchids in the swamps? My granddaughter, Caitlin, told me that her science class grows the most gorgeous orchids in the swamps.”

“So you’ve made Caitlin an accessory to theft!” my mother declared. “You should feel very proud of yourself, Audrey. Very proud.”

“Anjanette, enough!” Audrey shouted, causing heads to turn at the Secaucus Diner. “Is it a crime to steal beauty? Is it? No, I do not think so. Now Steven, what’s wrong with you? You look unhappy.”

If Audrey was a criminal, she was a perceptive one.

“I’m fine. Just a little tired. We went out last night.”

“We as in you and your friends?” my mother asked. “Or we as in ‘Mother, I’d like to introduce you to my new boyfriend’?”

“Ma! Could you save the humiliation for when we’re alone?”

“Oh please, your mother tells me everything about your personal life. Nothing is sacred between us. I’m so glad your rash turned out to be nothing.”

“Waitress!”

Luckily the only thing my mother loves more than prying into my life is prying into her meal. She loves her food immensely, so while she ate I had a few moments to talk about the more superficial aspects of my life and make it appear as if everything was fine in the Land of Steven. I wasn’t sure if my mother was buying it, but the second I mentioned Lucas Fitzgerald and how excited he was to be part of their upcoming Christmas variety show, all thoughts of her son’s potential depression were overshadowed by her own thoughts of superstardom among the senior set.

“I cannot wait to see Paula D’Agostino’s face when Roger from If Tomorrow Never Comes starts to sing ‘White Christmas’ at my show. He will sing ‘White Christmas,’ won’t he, Steven? He knows how much we love that song, does he not?”

“Everybody loves Bing,” Audrey confirmed.

“Yes, Mother, Lucas knows ‘White Christmas’ is a deal-breaker.”

“Good. Paula is going to have a heart attack and drop dead before we serve the main course once she hears that. And she deserves it, after all the grief she has put us through.”

“You are so right, Anj,” Audrey said. “Between her size-four dresses, which I think are really eights if you want to know my opinion, and her friggin’ daughter….”

“Do not even get me started on her kid! I hate her!”

“Ma, what did Paula’s daughter ever do to you?” I asked.

“She has given her mother years of bragging rights! All that comes out of Paula’s mouth is how successful her daughter is because she works on the Today show. I thought for sure the show would tank after Katie left and then Paula would have to admit that working in the soaps isn’t such a dumb career move.”

“Paula D’Agostino thinks working in the soaps is a dumb career move?”

“Yes! She ain’t so nice anymore, is she, Stevie?”

“I never liked her,” I finally declared.

“That’s my boy.”

I had to admit that my mother was right. Maybe if I stripped myself of all social decorum and allowed myself to really listen to someone’s comments, I too could be insightful. But I would soon realize that even my mother didn’t know everything about everybody.

“Lenny, come join us,” Anjanette demanded. “Steven, this is Lenny Abramawitz. He, like you, is gay.”

As Secaucus’s only Jewish “out” senior citizen, Lenny Abramawitz had a certain reputation with the ladies. As he sat down and I got a good look at him, I realized he also had an old-fashioned reputation. Lenny was Sebastian’s ramgeezer.

Thank God I had already taken the last bite of my chicken parmigiana sandwich, so there was no danger of it getting lodged in my throat. But Lenny’s skin grew so pale the liver spots on his hands stood out like neon signs. If you connected the liver dots they would probably spell out I AM A DIRTY OLD MAN.

“Hello, Lenny,” I said. “It’s nice to…finally meet you.”

Sometimes acting as if you actually lived in a soap opera did have its benefits. I waited for Lenny’s response and something curious happened: Lenny acted like the perfect soap opera villain. He regained his composure, straightened his posture, and spoke in an affected whisper.

“Hello, Steven,” Lenny said. “I’ve heard so much about you. It’s a pleasure to…finally meet you too.”

To paraphrase the soldier from Les Miserables, I was agog and I was aghast that Lenny mimicked my timing and paused before uttering the word finally while arching his eyebrow. The old geezer knew that I knew that he was a dirty old geezer, but he also knew that I was put into the age-old gay dilemma. Should I expose Lenny for the go-go boy–buying old fart that he was, thereby confirming what many already believed—that gay men were hedonists and only looking to flit from pleasurable experience to pleasurable experience instead of settling for a life of heterosexual misery? Or keep Lenny’s secret, thereby condoning Lenny’s morally questionable behavior? But who was I to judge someone else’s actions when only a few days ago I had run out on a man cursed with a minipenis and then fallen head over heels in love with a guy whose last name was still a mystery to me?

“Will you be performing any special acts in the Christmas show?” I asked.

“Why yes, I hope so,” Lenny replied. “Though I haven’t found the perfect costar yet. Would you like to audition for the role?”

I could not believe my ears. Lenny Abramawitz was coming on to me in front of my mother! If only I had Priscilla Presley’s smooth, expressionless veneer of a face, so it wouldn’t be so hard to hide my outrage.

“I don’t think that would be fair to all the others who could really benefit from your generosity. Mother tells me you’re a very giving man.”

“He is,” Anjanette confirmed. “Lenny was just telling us that he likes to help out young men of mixed-race descent who are having trouble financially.”

“We think it’s a beautiful thing,” Audrey added. “Something we would never do because we’re widows and cannot afford to be so generous, but a beautiful thing all the same.”

“And do you engage in such activity for purely altruistic purposes, Leonard?” I asked, “Or do you benefit from your generosity as well?”

“My only benefit is the joy of knowing I’ve helped point some young man’s head in the right direction.”

My chicken parmigiana gurgled violently in the pit of my stomach; the only direction Lenny wanted a young man’s head to go was south toward his withered dick. I choked out my next sentence: “That is a beautiful thing.”

Like two teenaged girls at their first boy-girl dance, my mother and Audrey left the table to use the restroom, leaving me face-to-face with Lenny. Horrified, I felt as if I was staring into the face of my future. If I didn’t find a man to share my life with I could end up living the life of Lenny Abramawitz: having sex with strangers and then lying about my escapades to Anjanette and her friends. The horror I felt worsened as I realized this was in some ways the life I was already living.

“What will it take to keep you quiet?” Lenny asked, cutting right to the chase.

“What makes you think anything can prevent me from telling my mother the truth?”

“I have a reputation, young man, that I do not want spoiled,” Lenny began. “I also have needs that I need to fulfill and I think you may have noticed that there aren’t a lot of romantic possibilities for me at the Salvatore DeNuccio Towers unless I want to go back into the suffocating closet that I called home for the first seventy-four years of my life. Is that what you’re suggesting I do?”

For a moment I was torn between applauding his speech, which I vaguely remembered from an Ida Lupino movie, and slapping his wrinkled face indignantly, which would have made me the star of an Ida Lupino movie, but I decided to simply answer the question.

“I’m not suggesting anything. If you can live with yourself, I guess I can too.”

“So you won’t tell your mother about last night?”

“No, I won’t,” I replied.

“Wonderful!” Lenny squealed. “I knew I could count on a brother. Maybe I can show you my generous side sometime.”

Lenny accented his statement by placing his clammy palm on top of my hand. I flinched at this outrageous act of chutzpah right in the middle of the Secaucus Diner and blanched when I realized my mother and her cohorts thought this man was respectable. So I did what any respectable Italian mama’s boy would do: I defended my mother the only way I knew how.

“You listen to me, you old Jew fag. I will keep your secret because I do not want my mother to know what a creep you are. Just because you chose to live in a closet your whole life does not make it all right for you to go to bars and pay for sex when you should be in your own bed watching Jay Leno. You should be reminding young gay men that they don’t have to wind up like you, and that they can choose to be proud of who they are—not teaching them it’s okay to take money from strangers for sex. And if I see you at the auditions for the Christmas Show I will take that moment to tell the entire Salvatore DeNuccio Tenants Group just what you do on your Friday nights. And it goes without saying that you will not be playing Santa! I may not be able to stop you from degrading yourself and the men you buy, but I can stop you from degrading my mother and her friends. You aren’t worthy of their friendship.”

My anger surprised me more than it did Lenny. The night before, when he’d been a nameless, faceless old man shelling out money to help Sebastian buy a new accessory, he’d been a punch line. Now, as I watched him scurry out of the diner, he was a joke. And I was truly frightened that in a few more decades I would become that same joke. When my mother and Audrey returned from the bathroom, I explained that Lenny had forgotten he had to run some errands. Audrey thought it probably had to do with all the volunteer work that he did and I nodded in agreement. If my mother suspected anything had taken place between her son and her friend she didn’t mention it. But the way she hugged me good-bye told me that she knew there was something wrong.

When I exited the Port Authority bus terminal later that day, I wasn’t ready to go home so I started walking downtown. It was good to feel the familiar New York concrete under my feet and the cool air brushing my face. I was tired and I needed to wake up. It was time to face up to certain truths.

I was at a crossroads: I wasn’t young and I wasn’t old. Thus far, I had lived an interesting but mostly emotionally unfulfilling life. I could continue to live that type of life very easily as many others have, but my heart kept reminding me that I wanted something more than just spending my nights at Marys bar and my mornings getting out of some Mary’s bed. I said the words out loud: “I want a boyfriend.” I wanted what my mother had for most of her adult life—a partner, someone to share life and bad jokes with, someone to fuss over and argue with. Seeing how Lenny Abramawitz spent his evenings had made the feeling stronger. The thought of being a lonely, single senior citizen frightened me. As I turned the corner onto 23rd Street, I bumped into a stranger who wasn’t really a stranger at all.

“Oh my God, it’s you!” I cried.

For the second time in less than twenty-four hours I found myself staring into the most beautiful face I had ever seen. And once again that face was smiling back at me.

“Hi, I’m Brian, from last night.”

I took a deep breath and finally found the courage to speak. “Hi, I’m Steven. From right now.”