Читать книгу Between Boyfriends - Michael Salvatore - Страница 9

An hour later I was still aglow with the possibilities of romance. It was therefore appropriate that I found myself at my second favorite location in all of New York City—the first, of course, being any Starbucks coffee bar. I stood on the southwest corner of 20th Street and Fifth Avenue, right in front of Club Monaco or more precisely the entrance to what I call Gay Men’s Shopping Mecca—or GMSM, which should not be confused with Gay Men’s Sado-Masochists, unless you stand at the entrance with a maxed-out credit card.

GMSM is so named because if you walk south on either side of the street you will stumble across Gap, Banana Republic, J. Crew, Zara, Kenneth Cole, Pier 1 and, at the lip of the retail river, Paul Smith. To be honest I have never bought anything at Paul Smith, but I did briefly date an androgynous Pan-Asian Paul Smith salesclerk, whom I christened Ho-Sale, just to get a few free Paul Smith multicolored vertically striped shopping bags that I absolutely adore.

So there I stood in front of Ralph Lauren’s Canadian bastard child with the number of my future life partner tucked into my pocket next to a credit card that demanded to be exploited. I always spend money whenever I feel my life is about to change in a positive way. I did it when I first got promoted to real producer at ITNC and not a yogurt smoothie–fetching, phone message–taking associate producer; I did it when my first, and only, case of gonorrhea cleared up; and now on the threshold of the most significant romance since Miss Barbra Joan Streisand married some former TV doctor, I would do it again. And although this was a spiritual celebration it was also a practical one—I needed a new wardrobe for my new life with Frank.

As is typical on a retail shopping excursion in the GMSM, you’re bound to run into people you know or see at the bars or have had sex with once or twice before. While I was deciding if I should try on a pair of distressed jeans, size 32, thank you very much, Frank’s face was momentarily pushed out of my mind as I noticed a familiar guy wearing the Chelsea Uniform: baseball cap pulled down low, light blue Abercrombie & Fitch zip-front sweatshirt, navy blue Nike track pants with a white stripe down the side. This particular guy was someone I affectionately called Fuck Counter. He earned his nickname not because his ass could double as a folding tray, but because he literally counts the number of times his dick enters you while fucking.

The first time Fuck Counter and I met was during Gay Pride in front of the Duplex Cabaret. Shaved down and horned up, we drank Bud Light out of plastic rainbow cups and sang Carol Channing’s more memorable tunes with a bunch of other drunken partygoers, mocked the physically impossible alien-spawn Splash employees who do nothing but tend bar and work out, then went to his apartment and tried our hand at conversation, but realized we both just wanted to have sex.

Like so many sexual encounters south of 14th Street it began with a promise and ended with a lie. “Great cock!” somehow always ends up becoming “I’ll call you.” Here’s what happened. Fuck Counter started fucking me and I was mentally airlifted to that place you think is only attainable for dewy Bel Ami models and their siblings and then I started to hear mumbling. I assumed Fuck Counter was being airlifted to the same place I was about to enter and he’d chosen to speak in tongues to the Bel Ami children. Then I realized he wasn’t mumbling words, but consecutive numbers, and by the time he got to twenty-five I realized he was counting the number of times he had entered my ass. I felt like a Tootsie Roll Pop and he was the Owl trying to figure out how many thrusts it would take to get to my center. I tried to turn off my ears, but the Owl’s counting only grew louder and my erection softer.

“Are you actually counting cock thrusts?” I finally asked.

“Forty-seven, remember that number,” Fuck Counter ordered before pausing, but not exiting. “I tend to ejaculate prematurely. So my therapist suggested I count thrusts to control my sperm and teach myself not to come until I reach a certain number.”

I digested this information like a sexual trouper who has seen much and done some.

“And are we approaching that magic number?” I queried.

“Well, my personal best is one-fifty-three, but your ass is pretty tight, so I don’t know if I can make it that long,” said Fuck Counter with a dopey grin.

In spite of my disappointment that he’d broken one of my cardinal rules and used the word sperm during sex, I’m a sucker for a challenge as well as a dopey grin. I felt my inner Mary Lou Retton grow along with my dick, and I tried to loosen up my inner ass. However, as my proctologist once told me, “Steven, you have the sphincter of a straight man.” I had to face facts: my asshole is tight. If I couldn’t help Fuck Counter by loosening up my ass, I’d have to help him another way.

“You want to count thrusts, boy?” I bellowed.

Fuck Counter was startled at first, but quickly realized I was totally on his side and willing to act as his sex coach.

“Sir! Yes sir!”

“Well, counting costs. And right here’s where you start paying. In sweat!”

I kept shouting like Debbie Allen instructing dancers whose only chance at fame would be as chorus members of the bus and truck tour of Fiddler on the Roof starring Eddie Mekka and it seemed to do the trick. Fuck Counter was energized. His hands gripped my ankles like two vises, his face became a mask of focused concentration, and his dick swelled.

“Fifty-five!” he shouted.

With each thrust his shouting got louder, so by the time he reached 178 I could swear I heard the parade watchers outside counting along with him. Soon he gasped, “Two hundred and ten,” orgasmed, and collapsed on top of me in a pile of muscle and sweat. His body felt wonderful and I rode an emotional roller coaster lying underneath him as I realized Fuck Counter could be a fun boyfriend if he wasn’t so fucked up. Once I resigned myself to the fact that I couldn’t explore this relationship emotionally, but only numerically, I was able to shoot my load and rush back to catch the end of the parade leaving Fuck Counter to clean up.

Heading to the Club M dressing room with my size-32 distressed jeans I walked by Fuck Counter and gave him a smile that said, “Hey, how are you doing?” “You look great,” and “Glad to see you’re alive and well, but I have no desire to get naked with you again.” Comprehending my silent comments, Fuck Counter just leaned into me and whispered, “I’m up to three-twenty-five.”

As I entered the dressing room, I carried not only my merchandise, but also an unexpected erection. Shopping satisfies on so many levels.

By the time I got to J. Crew, I had five bags and felt like Joan Collins sauntering down Rodeo Drive, if Joan Collins carried her own bags, which everyone knows is an activity relegated to a paid employee, i.e., her husband. I clutched one side of the J. Crew door as another good-looking Sunday-strolling gay retail whore clutched the other. Much to my joy I realized it was my best friend, Flynn McCormack.

“Ahhh!” Flynn shrieked.

“Ahhh!” I shrieked back.

“Bad night?” Flynn asked, eyeing my bags.

“Yes,” I confessed. “But now I’m in love.”

“Ooh, baby got bounce. I want to hear all about it, but first Mama needs some argyle.”

Steven Ferrante and Flynn McCormack would make the perfect homo-couple if only we were in love. But, alas, some things are just not meant to be. I met Flynn when we were both at Boston University and he was an out-of-the-closet junior and I was a please-don’t-unlock-the-closet-door freshman. Mutual friends set us up on a blind date not so much because they thought we’d be compatible, but because they knew Flynn would rip open my closet door and fling me out into the real world like a skilled obstetrician ripping a baby from the comfort and security of its mother’s womb. And that’s just what Flynn did. He reached into my symbolic vagina and yanked out my true self. He was the first person who taught me what it really meant to be out and proud. And even though we physically looked like a couple you’d be jealous of—Flynn’s auburn hair, freckled cheeks, pale complexion, and six-foot-two swimmer’s body perfectly complemented my dark brown locks, olive skin, high cheekbones, and five-foot-ten nicely muscled frame—there were no real romantic sparks between us. We did engage in a hot make-out session that resulted in my first facial burn, which still makes me wistful whenever I think about it, but something better than romantic sparks grew out of our first meeting, a flame of friendship that still burns to this very day. No one knows me better than Flynn and no one knows Flynn better than me, so for better or worse we’re stuck with each other, which is just the way we both like it.

“Did you measure it?” Flynn asked in reference to Ely’s penis, as we walked further south on Fifth Avenue toward Washington Square, carrying multiple bags of queergotten merchandise.

“No, but when I went to stroke it, it got lost in my fist.”

“Ah jeez, poor guy. Perhaps I should send him this book I’m reading—You’re the Top: How to Be a Better Bottom in Twelve Easy Steps. It’s changed my life, it could change his.”

“Thank you, but I think it’s best if Ely and I go our separate ways.”

“Sometimes that’s best,” Flynn agreed, “like me and Andy.”

“I thought he was the new love of your life?”

“He was until I realized he’s a freak,” Flynn said. “Like every other man I’ve ever had, except you of course.”

“You never had me,” I corrected.

“I know,” Flynn said. “Just testing you in case this latest setback made you embellish your memories.”

“How thoughtful,” I said, then asked tentatively, “Did he get upset when you told him?”

“No, he was fine with that,” Flynn said.

“Good.”

Flynn has been HIV-positive for the past ten years and on occasion it has gotten in the way of a budding relationship. Fortunately, healthwise, Flynn has never had a serious problem. At first we were both frightened and devastated by his diagnosis, but those feelings quickly gave way to the survival instinct—we both wanted Flynn to live. So I helped him find a wonderful doctor who found the right combination of medicine; he got to the gym more often, started eating healthier and, most important, clung to his optimistic spirit. It’s what I love most about Flynn; he truly believes life is worth living. The only caveat being that there has to be good musical theater—so now that Cats has finally closed Flynn should live for a good long time.

“So what elevated Andy to freakdom?” I queried.

“Last night we were about to have sex for the first time,” Flynn began. “We’re on his bed and his dick is almost all the way in and he stops. I figure he wants to take it slow, which I love, so I close my eyes and get ready for him to crank up the volume, but there’s no sound. I open my eyes and I see him smoothing out the sheets and fixing the pillows. So I said, ‘Are you gonna fuck me or make your bed?’ The freak pulls out and starts making his bed!”

“Losing out to bed linen, not very good,” I said, trying to console him.

“No, it’s not. He said, ‘I just got these sheets from ABC, let’s do it on the couch.’ To which I respond, ‘The moment’s passed, hon, like Elton John’s Broadway career.’”

“Really? What about Billy Elliot, I hear that’s supposed to be great.”

“That’s a West End transfer, it doesn’t count!”

“You theater queens are so harsh at times.”

“Listen, Elton’s said good-bye to the Yellow Brick Road, it’s time he said good-bye to the Great White Way too. Especially after that Lestat debacle. That show sucked so bad it made Dance of the Vampires look Tony-worthy.”

“I was talking about Andy.”

“Oh yeah, him,” Flynn continued. “I just got dressed and left. Last thing I heard him say before the elevator doors slammed shut was ‘Those sheets are seven hundred count.’ Fuck him! I am worth nine hundred count at least!”

“It’s like I always say, if you’re gonna fuck a man, be a man and buy your sheets at Target like all the other cheap Marys,” I declared. “Never mind, I didn’t really like him anyway.”

“Thank you,” Flynn said.

“He had that birthmark on his earlobe. I always thought he was wearing an onyx clip-on. And each tooth was a different shade. Didja ever notice that? One was off-white, one was ecru, a few were mother-of-pearl.”

“I said thank you,” Flynn interrupted tersely.

“Sorry, I wasn’t sure how bad I had to mock him to ease your pain.”

“I’m eased,” Flynn said, then smiled that warm smile I have grown to cherish. “Now tell me about you: my baby’s in love?”

“Well…”

So as we entered Washington Square Park I told Flynn about my fateful meeting with Frank and how I totally understood love is not born from a few glances in Starbucks, but that I had a good feeling about him. And even if that feeling turned out to be completely wrong and Frank joined Andy as the newest resident of Freakville, it couldn’t hurt to be a little happier for a few hours.

“My optimism seems to have rubbed off on you,” Flynn said with a smile.

“I’m trying.”

“I’m happy for you,” Flynn said with complete honesty. “I’d give you a hug, but Frank may be stalking you right now and I don’t want your love life to turn into a Three’s Company episode where Mr. Roper mistakes our friendly bonhomie for full-out man-to-man love.”

“You really think he could be stalking me?” I asked, trying desperately not to look around the park.

“Steven honey, I’ve lived in this city for twelve years, nothing shocks me.”

That night when I got home I had four messages. The first two were from Lindsay. Message number one was placed from the bathroom of some guy whose appendage, Lindsay claimed, might rival Ely’s thumb/penis. Message number two was placed by a hysterical Lindsay from the street three minutes later after he discovered the man whose thumb/penis rivaled Ely’s was none other than Ely. The last two were from my mother and compared to her messages, Lindsay’s seemed tame.

“Steven, it’s your mother. I need you to do me a favor. Call me!” my mother’s voice, a nasal mix of northern New Jersey and southern Italian, bellowed.

“Steven! It’s your mother! Are you ignoring me?” my mother’s voice bellowed even louder than before. Her tirade continued, each word hitting the air like the heels of an angry, post-menopausal flamenco dancer. “I called you almost an hour ago, why haven’t you called me back? Where can you possibly be on a Sunday? You said you liked to rest on Sundays. That’s why you can’t come over to have dinner with me. Are you lying to me, Steven? Have you become a son who lies to his mother? Are your restful Sundays an elaborate lie? I would really like to know so I can adjust my positioning on the chart of what’s important in your life. I thought I was in the first box, Steven, but obviously I am mistaken!”

Contrary to popular opinion, my mother is not Jewish, she’s Sicilian, which means she’s like a Jew, but has access to a gun. At sixty-seven, Anjanette Ferrante is a forceful woman who has only taken no for an answer once, when she asked my father’s doctor if the operation he suggested would save his life. I knew that if I didn’t call her back immediately she would be at my office tomorrow morning wearing a black mourning veil.

“Ma, it’s me,” I said after she picked up the phone before the first ring ended.

“Me who?” she countered.

“Your favorite son!”

“Paulie, how nice to hear from you,” my mother said over-dramatically. “I wish your brother Steven would return my phone calls as quickly as you do.”

“Oh shut up, Ma! I was out shopping. It’s how I relax.”

“Where’s your cell phone? What if I died, how would anyone contact you?”

“If you die, it doesn’t matter when I get the call. You’ll already be dead!”

“Don’t yell at your mother!” my mother yelled.

“Don’t leave crazy messages on my machine!” I yelled back. “I save them, you know. When I accumulate enough I’m going to use them against you in a court of law and have you committed.”

“Like your father didn’t try that a hundred times,” she replied.

“Anjanette, I’m ignoring you,” I said, then braced myself and continued, “Now what do you mean by ‘favor’?”

My mother’s tone of voice immediately changed from marked to telemarketer.

“As president of the Salvatore DeNuccio Tenants Group it is my responsibility to entertain the tired, the hungry and the poor of our small, impoverished village.”

“You live in a retirement community in Secaucus, Ma, not Ellis Island!” I said. “You have tennis courts, a pool, a bingo hall, and a piano bar. I can’t wait until I’m sixty-five so I can move in. I’ve already put my name on the waiting list.”

“We want more, Steven! We’re in the twilight of our years and we want more than a few laps in a heated pool and Sing-a-Long with Jerry Herman night,” she shouted back. “I ask you as a gay man who knows a thing or two about the musical theater, how many times can you sing about corn husks and bougainvillea?”

Finally my mother was speaking my mother tongue.

“All right, what do you want from me now?”

“I want one of your soap people to come here and sing for our Christmas party,” she said nonchalantly.

“Christmas isn’t for another two months,” I shot back without a trace of nonchalance.

“A good president plans early,” she responded with a trace of disdain. “So which star can I say is going to sing? The pregnant nun or the blind obstetrician?”

“You know I can’t help you,” I said, trying to reclaim my calm.

“Remember the songs need to be happy ones, nothing about Jesus freezing in a manger or wise men bribing innkeepers,” she said calmly, ignoring me. “Ideally we’d only like songs that Bing Crosby might have sung. Everybody loves Bing.”

“Ma, we’ve been down this road before. I need to separate my personal life from my professional.”

“Oh really?”

My heart missed a beat. I knew that this tone of my mother’s voice meant that she had found something out about me that she was about to use against me. It was the same tone of voice she used when she found the Playgirl magazine under my bed when I was seventeen and then asked if I wanted to hone my organizational skills by cleaning up the garage.

“Then perhaps you can explain why you are quoted in this week’s Homo Extra magazine as saying, ‘I’m thrilled that I was able to work out our production schedule so Lorna Douglas—one of the top stars of If Tomorrow Never Comes—will be the showcase of this year’s Gay Men’s Health Crisis holiday show. It gives me such real satisfaction when my professional life can merge with my personal.’”

My mother had so blindsided me with this stunning revelation that for a second I almost missed the obvious.

“Why the hell are you reading Homo Extra?”

“Lenny Abramawitz recently became homosexual and his granddaughter who lives in the city brings him gay materials to help him cross over,” she explained. “Loni is very sweet. Buck-toothed, but sweet.”

“Ma, the GMHC gala is a very high-profile gig for Lorna,” I said. “She wants to transition to Broadway and this is a great opportunity for her.”

“And what is the Salvatore DeNuccio Tenants Group Christmas celebration?” she asked. “I’ll tell you what it is. It’s what the Secaucus Herald called ‘The annual holiday treat for mature adults.’ And they put the The in italics!”

“Ma, I really don’t think I can help you out,” I said, knowing full well that by the end of our conversation I would have committed to help her out and agreed to run the lights for the show myself.

“Stevie, you have to do this for your mother,” she began. “I already told my ladies that one of your soap people will be appearing live to sing and perhaps dance.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have committed yourself,” I said, exasperated. “You watch I Love Lucy every day. Have you learned nothing?”

“I was put on the spot! Paula D’Agostino started talking about her kid who works on that friggin’ Today show. She said Katie Couric—who Paula said still talks to her daughter—is going to come here and demonstrate what a colonoscopy really is and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I told Paula, ‘Katie can shove her colonoscopy up her ass, my Stevie is going to bring us the gift of music this holiday season.’ My ladies cheered me on,” my mother added proudly. “You cannot make me disappoint my ladies, Steven.”

Before I could even utter a reason why Lorna could not perform at Mr. DeNuccio’s retirement villa, she continued.

“What did I tell you the day you told me you were homosexual when I found you trying to squeeze into my Easy Spirit beige pumps? What did I say?”

“You said you weren’t disappointed in me,” I responded sheepishly.

“That’s right. I was disappointed in your choice of shoe, but I was not disappointed in you because you were gay.”

“I know,” I said even more sheepishly.

“So don’t disappoint me now, Steven. I need you more than ever.”

“I will do my best to get someone to sing at your show.”

“That’s my boy,” my mother said proudly. “Now I have to go, bingo starts at seven and Mama need a jackpot!”

So many things raced through my mind after my mother hung up on me. Why it should never surprise me that I get sucked into her hijinks, how I secretly love to get sucked into her hijinks, and how Flynn and my mother both refer to themselves as Mama. I made a mental note to ask Lorna Douglas if she’d like to tour as I pulled the torn piece of the New York Times Arts section out of my pocket. I took a deep breath, happily realized that I hadn’t felt this nervous since I asked out Johnny Sanducci, the premed student who became my first boyfriend, and dialed Frank’s number. After four rings the machine clicked on. As I listened to Frank’s deep masculine voice assure me that I had called the right number, that I should leave a message with my date and time, and that he would get back to me as quickly as humanly possible, I thought that perhaps I should hang up and call him back later. But then I realized my number would be electronically saved on his machine so when I called him back later he’d know I had called him previously and hung up. Damn technology!

“Hi Frank, this is Steven,” I started. Then I coughed. “Sorry. This is Steven from Starbucks. You, um, gave me your number on page three of the Arts section so I’m calling. I’ll keep this short and sweet so I don’t scare you off before I ever learn your last name, which I swear is something I’ve only done to two other guys before. That was a joke. It was actually three guys. That was another joke. Sorry, I guess it’s not good to joke when you don’t have an audience. Makes you feel like Carrot Top. That was another joke.”

It was then that I remembered what Johnny Sanducci said when he broke up with me. “You’re a really sweet guy, but you should never try to tell a joke.” Taking a deeper breath I continued rambling on Frank’s voice mail.

“Please note that if I could erase this message I would, but I can’t so this, sadly, will have to count as our first conversation,” I said, stifling a nervous laugh. “Please don’t use this message against me and give me a call when you can or as quickly as humanly possible—you see I do listen, even though I have a tendency to ramble when I’m nervous. Okay, that’s all, I’ll talk to you later.”

I left my home number and my work number on his machine and was about to give him my cell phone number when I realized I had already blown it with Mister Devastatingly Handsome Regular Guy so it really didn’t matter if I gave him my Social Security number, he was never going to call and my love life, which had been so promising less than an hour ago, was now as infertile as Lorna’s character, Ramona, on ITNC.

Two hours later, Frank still hadn’t called me. I stood in front of my bathroom mirror for about twenty minutes trying to figure out why I felt so handsome when Frank’s green eyes stared down at me and why I felt so ugly when I stared at myself. When I finally tore myself away from the mirror, I immediately picked up the phone and started to dial Frank’s number, then stopped. I started several more times, stopped several more times and once got all the way to the sixth digit before slamming the phone down in frustration because I realized if this relationship stood any chance of survival Frank had to return my first phone call. It was the least he could do.

For the rest of the evening, I putzed around my apartment, cleaned then re-cleaned my mini-kitchen, and finally watched an I Dream of Jeannie episode on TV Land, which simply made me long for a simpler, more magical time. But no matter what I did, I kept wondering why Frank didn’t call me back. A few minutes before midnight, I finally turned off the television and accepted that my day would end like it had started, with me being duped by a man. As I dragged my taut-yet-single ass into bed and pulled the charcoal gray Calvin Klein comforter and complementary pale pink sheets up to my chin, I clung to one saving grace: my full-size bed is much smaller than Ely’s, so chances were good that at least one other gay man in New York City was feeling lonelier than I was tonight.