Читать книгу The Night We Met - Rob Byrnes - Страница 8

David Carlyle and I had always been friendly in a distant sort of way, but, in the weeks after Ted left me, a stronger bond developed between us. I think a number of factors brought us together, especially the Ted crisis and the fact that, even though I wasn’t exactly climbing the bestseller lists, I was now a twice-published author and therefore slightly closer to belonging in David’s social circle than the average editorial assistant at PMC.

For his part, it soon became apparent to me that David Carlyle needed a real friend. Because once you stripped away his exotic and largely apocryphal tales of weekends with David Geffen, dinners at Gracie Mansion, AIDS benefits with Elizabeth Taylor, and sexual encounters with countless German boys, Filipino boys, Japanese boys, Swedish boys, Mexican boys, Thai boys, Greek boys, Turkish boys, and a particularly deranged threesome with an Israeli boy and a Palestinian boy, the sad reality was that David Carlyle was fifty-five years old, overweight, effeminate, and, for all his money, pretty damned lonely.

So, there we were, a lonely, successful older man and a lonely, less-successful, slightly younger man who had no interest in each other beyond mutual entertainment and passing time. It was kismet; how could we have avoided becoming close friends?

In recognition and acceptance of this fate, we started bonding and doing the kinds of things friends do with each other when they’re gay and platonic. Like shopping and gossiping and eating at trendy restaurants and singing at Greenwich Village piano bars.

In fact, we were on our way to dinner in the Village one day after I finally more or less accepted that Ted was history when David said something that started the course of events that would change my life forever.

“Guess what?” he said. “I’ve just heard about the event of the season!”

“You say that about fifteen times every season.”

“That’s just rhetoric. This time I mean it. There’s a new club opening, and guess which night they’re having a private grand opening party? And guess who snagged a couple of the hottest passes in gay New York?”

“I give up,” I said without even trying to guess.

“Well, I’ve got the passes.” With a flourish, he pulled two black and pink squares out of his pocket.

“I sort of assumed that. So, what night is the party?”

“Halloween!” he squealed. “Don’t you just love it?”

Halloween. A night beloved by people everywhere who want to put on costumes and masks and cloak themselves in anonymity. And, I had to admit, a hell of a good night to open a gay nightclub.

“It’s going to be called Benedick’s,” he continued as we walked down Christopher Street, with the sincere excitement over something as common as a club opening most men his age had lost decades ago. “They’ve got this huge old building over on West Street they’ve been pouring money into. It’ll be fantastic. And, Andrew, there are only five hundred of these passes. This is going to be a very exclusive crowd.”

“Sounds good,” I said noncommittally. I just couldn’t bring myself to join in with David’s overheated enthusiasm. Between us, hadn’t we seen hundreds of nightclubs come and go over our years in the city?

“Good? This is great! I don’t think you realize how exclusive this place is going to be. No riffraff; just the brightest, wittiest, cutest, and studliest.”

The question had to be asked. “Then how come we got invited? Or have we just been notched up in the ‘studliest’ category?”

“You’re doing okay for your age,” he said with a laugh. “A bit too old for me, but you’re not falling apart yet.” He returned to my question. “We got them because I’m on all the best lists. I can’t even begin to tell you how many things I get invited to. Openings, benefits…Most of them are very tiring. I don’t even bother opening half the envelopes that come in the mail.”

“Then why are you inviting me? Aren’t there going to be any eighteen-year-old Armenian sailors in port that night?”

He glared at me unpleasantly. “If you’d rather not go…”

“Sorry.”

He brightened again. “I’m inviting you for three reasons. First, because I’ve come to enjoy your company despite your puzzling habit of biting the hand that feeds you. Second, because I’m hoping that an appearance by the author of Allentown Blues and The Brewster Mall might generate a little interest and publicity and help make both of us some money. And third, because maybe you’ll meet your next lover there.”

“That’s very noble of you.”

“Nobility has nothing to do with it. If you meet a nice upstanding white-collar man, maybe you’ll stop moping and rediscover your muse. Then you can write me a best-seller.”

I realized with a jolt that we were heading toward Ted and Nicky’s love nest, so I gently took hold of David’s arm and guided him around a corner. He never even seemed to notice.

“This place is going to be great!”

“Who owns it? Who’s Benedict?”

“Benedick,” he corrected.

“Oh. Now I understand.”

“No, you don’t,” he said, shaking his head. “Benedick. Remember your Shakespeare? Much Ado About Nothing? Although I can’t be sure there’s not an intentional double entendre at work.”

“Classy. There’s nothing like a bunch of Shakespeare-quoting homosexuals in spandex dancing to Madonna to give me hope for the future of our sexuality. And anyway, wasn’t Benedick straight?”

“As far as I’m concerned, the jury is still out. Remember, he was a confirmed bachelor in the beginning of Much Ado About Nothing…”

“And almost a married man at the end,” I pointed out.

“Details,” he snorted. “Even Oscar Wilde was a married man. Maybe you’re still too bitter to go out in public.”

We stopped to window-shop in front of an antique dealer’s store and, as we peered in the dusty window, David recited, “ Sigh no more ladies, sigh no more/Men were deceivers ever…’”

“Excuse me?”

“Much Ado About Nothing. I think I recited it correctly, although I’ll be damned if I can remember the context. Do you understand the theme of Benedick’s any better now?”

“If this is known as a gay club with gay patrons, where’s the deceit? This isn’t the Nineteen-fifties.”

He rolled his eyes at my naïveté. “Trust me, Andrew. See who’s there on Halloween, then watch the society columns for the next few weeks and watch them all pop up escorting blue-haired dowagers to weddings and charity balls. I think you’ll see that deceit is still alive and well.”

We continued our walk, admiring the well-preserved town houses lining the eerily quiet streets. And as we walked, I asked David again who was bankrolling Benedick’s.

“I don’t know. I think it’s owned by some corporation they’ve thrown together for this. Barry Blackburn is promoting parties there, but he’s the only one I know who’s involved in the venture.”

“I hate Barry Blackburn,” I pointed out, although I could barely remember why. Something to do with us both competing for the same man ten years ago or so. He won; I hated him.

“I know. But you’ll probably never see him, so don’t worry about it.”

“What if he’s in costume and I don’t recognize him, and I accidentally pick him up?”

“I see you’ve got your creative imagination back up and running. And speaking of that, we’ve only got two weeks to come up with some stunning costumes! An event like this is see and be seen, and we have to be seen at our best. I want to be ravishing!”

“Do you want the front end of the horse or the back end?”

David’s imagination was flowing now. “I see us going as French aristocracy. Or pirates.”

“Nothing with too much makeup. It makes me break out.”

“Well, you’re a sorry excuse for a faggot!” he shot back.

“Ain’t I, though?”

David stopped so abruptly I walked into him. When I looked up, I saw why he’d stopped. There, directly across the street but not seeing us, were Ted and a twink I presumed to be Nicholas.

Strangely, despite the fact that I was obsessed with Ted and had been for several years, it was Nicholas I noticed first. But then again, he was hard to miss. He was very young, very cute, very thin, and very, very bleached. His hair, stripped of almost all of its natural color, looked almost white.

“Um…” David fumbled for something to say, coming up with, “Let’s go the other way, Andrew.”

“No, I’m fine,” I said, and was a bit surprised that I almost meant it. “Small city, huh?”

“Far too small.”

Seeing Ted after all these weeks didn’t have the jarring effect I feared it would. Seeing Ted with Nicholas didn’t even pierce my heart. But I did realize I was transfixed; I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

“Was Ted that animated when he was around me?” I asked David.

“Nothing animates a man like coming home to a twenty-three-year-old body,” was his wistful reply.

We watched them window-shop, talk, and laugh for several minutes from across the street. They didn’t move far; we didn’t move at all. And then Ted turned and spotted us.

“Uh-oh,” said David. “Our cover’s been blown.”

Playing it casually, I waved and called out, “Hi, Ted.” He—no, they—waved back. Then, horror of horrors, they started to cross the street toward us. I froze a smile on my face and David let out a long moan under his breath.

And then they were in front of us, within easy striking—or strangling—distance.

“How have you been, Andrew?” Ted asked. I said I was okay, which was more or less true, but nevertheless was the only thing to say. One never admits to one’s ex-lover that one’s been devastated.

“Hi,” said Nicholas. “I’m Nicky.”

No, you’re not. You are and will always be Nicholas.

But I said nothing, of course. Instead, I bit my lip and gamely shook his hand, as did David.

“So, what’s going on?” asked Ted. He was clearly uncomfortable, his fidgeting hands jammed deep in the pockets of his baggy khakis.

“Nothing,” I replied sadly.

“Oh, come on!” said David, bursting in between us and grabbing Ted by the elbow. “Guess what we’ve got?”

“What?”

Again, the black and pink squares emerged from David’s pocket. “Only the hottest passes in New York!”

“Oh, my God!” gasped Nicholas. “I’ve seen those. Aren’t those passes to the Halloween party at Benedict’s?”

“Benedick’s,” mumbled David. “One and the same.”

“Let me see them, dude,” said Nicholas.

David gingerly handed the passes to Nicholas, who treated them as if they were holy relics.

“What’s Benedict’s?” asked Ted, and I was very happy to be farther ahead of the curve than him on the news of the newest, hottest club in town.

“Benedick’s,” I said, and was greeted with an approving wink from David. “It’s a new club, opening on Halloween.” I said this as if I’d known about it forever. “Those passes are for a very exclusive grand opening party.”

“It’ll redefine the meaning of the word exclusive,” added David.

“We’ll give you five hundred bucks for them,” said Nicholas.

“What?” shouted Ted. “You don’t have that kind of money!”

“I’ll pay you back,” said Nicholas without shame.

“It doesn’t matter,” said David. “They’re not for sale. And I don’t think the people at Benedick’s would ever forgive me if I started trading their passes on the black market.”

“A thousand dollars, dude!” offered Nicholas, in the true spirit of a person who can’t handle or doesn’t understand money and the relative value of club passes.

“Nicky!” snapped Ted. “Stop trying to spend my money like that!”

David took the passes out of the young boy’s hand and slipped them back into his pocket. “Sorry, but it’ll be open to the public the following night.” Then, after glancing at his watch, he added, “I didn’t realize how late it was. We’ve got to get going, Andrew!”

We said our good-byes and left them standing curbside, Ted staring at Nicholas and Nicholas staring at the pocket where David had stashed the passes.

When we turned the corner, David said, “And that’s how you handle the ex-lover and his new boyfriend.”

“I’ll give you a billion dollars for those passes, dude!!” I screamed, and we dissolved into hysterical laughter as we slumped onto someone’s front stoop. “A zillion!! Please! C’mon, dude!! Please!”

“He certainly picked himself a young man of substance. And that hair! What an interesting shade!”

At dinner, David planned our costumes for Halloween. I tried to contribute but spent most of my time trying to think of a way to drown Nicholas in the Hudson River without anybody knowing I did it. Finally, I decided that it was impossible. That’s the problem with premeditated murder; the person who did it can’t help but become a suspect.

David watched me over the rim of his wineglass. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Why do you keep dropping cauliflower in your gravy and holding it under with your fork? Are you afraid that, if it floats back to the surface, it’ll scream for help?”

Oh. I was doing that, wasn’t I? I was committing the premeditated murder of cauliflower. And unless I killed the witnesses—David and Randy, “our server for the evening”—I’d become the prime suspect. Since I didn’t have enough gravy to kill them both, I speared the cauliflower and rescued it.

David nodded approvingly at my rescue effort. “So, what do you think about the costumes? Drag?”

“I don’t do drag. I’ve managed to live in this city for almost eighteen years as an openly gay man without ever dressing in women’s clothing, and I’m not about to start now.”

“But your features are so fine. I think you’d be devastating.”

“No.”

“I’ve never seen you undressed. Are you hairy?”

“No. But it doesn’t matter because—”

“In that case, you could go strapless. Oh, this is exciting!”

“No.”

“I think you should be a brunette. If we find the right hair color, it’ll bring out your eyes.”

“No.”

“And just a touch of makeup—”

“No.”

The cab dropped us off in front of a nondescript former warehouse on West Street, marked only with a huge neon B and a line of people waiting to get in. We were at Benedick’s, it was finally Halloween, and David had just spent the past three hours repeatedly assuring me that I was a dead ringer for Demi Moore, if she were five foot-eleven without heels.

“I hate you,” I muttered as he paid the driver. “And you don’t look a thing like Bruce Willis.”

“I most certainly do,” he replied, although except for the receding hairline, he most certainly didn’t.

“Okay. You do look like Bruce Willis. After he’s gained about forty pounds, aged fifteen years, and totally fagged out.”

“You’re just upset because you’ve discovered the joys of drag so late in life.” He took my elbow and guided me toward the entrance. “And remember, try to keep your voice at a higher level. You sound like a man.”

“I am a man.”

He smiled. “In your dreams.”

At the entrance, David presented the beefy bouncer with the passes. He looked us over carefully.

“You know this is a queer club, right?” he asked, looking directly at me.

“Speak to the man,” David commanded.

I came up with a voice out of my normal register, a hybrid of Southern belle and Lauren Bacall. “Why do you think this place is so queer?”

The bouncer still stared at me, unsure. So David, still playing Henry Higgins, said, “Now, speak in Andrew’s voice.”

I gave him an uncomprehending look and stuck with my Belle Bacall voice. “Who’s Andrew?”

“Sorry,” said the bouncer, moving to block the door. “I don’t know where you got the passes, but this place is open tonight for gay men only.”

Gay men only. I recognized that as one of Barry Blackburn’s themes, the periodic and controversial “Boys Need A Safe Place” parties that I’d always managed to avoid in the past. I mentally added misogyny to the list of Barry Blackburn’s sins.

“Oh, for Chrissake…” muttered David, less concerned with the political correctness of the situation. “Okay, Andrew, you’ve shown the world you can pass as a woman. Now would you knock it off? I’d like to get inside.”

No longer entertained, the bouncer moved us off to the side to admit a leather version of the Lone Ranger and Tonto. When the door closed again, he said, “Please move it somewhere else, folks.”

“I’m a man,” I confessed to him in my normal voice, but he still blocked the door.

“Andrew,” said David, growing more annoyed than the bouncer, “since this man doesn’t believe your voice anymore, show him your dick.”

I hoisted up my skirt, pushed aside my garter, pulled my panties slightly to the side, and exposed one testicle.

“You’re pretty convincing,” admitted the bouncer, somewhat embarrassed, as he ushered us in the door.

“Thanks…I think.”

“Told you so,” whispered David.

“Shut up,” I growled.

Inside, Benedick’s was lavish, gaudy, and an exaggeration of everything good and bad about gay nightclubs. The voice of Grace Jones—who was rumored to be making an appearance later that night, gay icons being the only apparent exception to Barry Blackburn’s no-girls-allowed rule—throbbed over the speakers as hundreds of New York City’s brightest, wittiest, cutest, and studliest men gyrated on the huge dance floor. Hundreds of other men crowded the bar and ringed the dance floor, drinks in hand, watching the dancers do what they wouldn’t or couldn’t do and hoping someone would try to pick them up.

And everyone was in some semblance of a costume: soldiers, sailors, police officers, firefighters, cowboys, Indian chiefs, Roman emperors, Greek gods, hard hats, a lot of masks, and an awful lot of awful drag. It was a theme park for fetishes; every fantasy was represented, although not always by fantasy men.

David went off to “buy a girl a drink,” and his space next to me was immediately filled.

“You’re the best-looking woman in the place,” said an older, balding faux police officer. “Mind if I frisk you?”

“Sorry, no thanks,” I replied in my Belle Bacall voice. Just because I’d let David talk me into this costume didn’t mean I was going to help trolls fulfill their fantasies. “I’m here with someone.”

“I’ve got handcuffs.” He patted the cuffs dangling from his belt, then leaned closer to me and added, almost inaudibly, “And I’ve got a hose I can beat you with.”

Oh, please. I’d been here less than ten minutes and already wanted to go home and take a shower.

Still Belle Bacall, I sweetly said, “Thanks, but…”

He smiled and nodded downward. I glanced down to see the tip of his penis poking out from his fly, then looked him sternly in the eye.

“Fuck off or I’ll rip it out by the roots and shove it up your ass,” I said, this time as Andrew Westlake. Shaken, he stuffed it back in his fly and moved away.

“Wasn’t that Paul Musso?” asked David, who was suddenly there with my drink.

“Who?”

“The cop.”

“I don’t know who the fuck it was,” I replied, in a surly mood. “But I wish he’d go back to the Port Authority Bus Terminal where he belongs.”

David nodded his head. “Yes, that would be Paul Musso.”

We made a circuit of the club. David ran into a number of his A-list acquaintances and pointed out several young men on the dance floor whom he allegedly had slept with, all conveniently too far away from us to be engaged in conversation.

I, of course, knew no one, although a towering black drag queen did approach to tell me, “You look fabulous, darling. You’re a natural.”

“That’s me,” said Belle Bacall. “I’m all woman.”

“You sort of look like Demi Moore,” said the drag queen as she departed.

David smiled smugly.

After an hour I had to go to the bathroom. I excused myself to “powder my nose” and left David chatting with the president of a major record label, who was dressed as a pimp.

I walked in the direction of what I presumed to be the men’s room, but once I passed through a set of doors and into near darkness, I realized I’d made a mistake. When I heard the doors latch behind me and I was trapped in total darkness, I realized I’d made a big mistake.

“Great,” I muttered, out of character, as I fruitlessly tried to open the locked doors.

So there I was—my first time in drag, let alone heels—standing on the wrong side of the door in an unlit, locked corridor of a converted warehouse now hosting what would hopefully become the hottest gay dance club in the world, lost and really having to take a leak.

What was a poor girl to do?

After my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw faint light at a far end of the corridor. I took a few steps, bumped into a cardboard box hidden in the dark, lost my balance in the heels, and fell over.

“I hate David Carlyle,” I growled through gritted teeth as I picked myself up off the floor. I slipped off the high heels and carried them with me, walking carefully as I navigated toward the light.

When I reached the end of the corridor, I saw that the light was coming from a small room around the corner. In stocking feet, I walked gracelessly to it.

“I’m lost,” I announced, back in character, as I entered the room. It was an office, and the only person in there was a handsome young man with bright brown eyes, sipping coffee and reading the Daily News as a Marlboro Light sat burning almost to the filter in an ashtray that desperately needed to be emptied.

“You’re not supposed to be back here,” he said cautiously. His hand reached for something under the desk.

“I’m sorry, but I walked through the door down there”—I pointed back down the dark corridor—“and it locked behind me.”

His brow furrowed under a thick overhang of curly black hair. “That door’s supposed to be locked.”

“Well, it wasn’t. Anyway, I’m just looking for the bathroom.”

“I’ll show you.” He relaxed his grip on whatever was under his desk.

When he stood up, I gasped and almost collapsed in character, an overheated Southern belle with an attack of the vapors. The handsome face sat on top of a six-foot frame, and muscles bulged from his wide shoulders through his narrow hips and down his powerful legs wrapped tightly in denim.

Almost speechless, I followed him as he flicked fluorescent lights on and led me through the catacomb of halls, which were the non-public places inside Benedick’s. Although lost, I paid no attention to the path we were taking. After all, I didn’t intend to ever be locked in this corridor again and, more importantly, I was too busy watching his ass sway back and forth in front of me as he led me to the bathroom.

“Here you go,” he said, finally stopping at a door. “Now, to get back in the club, you just go through here.” He opened the door slightly, and the loud sounds of late seventies disco poured through. “Hey, pretty packed,” he said, surveying the crowd.

“Yes, it is,” I replied as Belle Bacall. “You’ve got a nice place here. Are you the manager?”

“The owner.” He gave me a broad smile and extended his hand. “I’m Frank DiBenedetto.”

“I’m—” Oh, why not? I took his hand. “Belle Bacall. Nice to meet you.”

The smile never left his face. If anything, it grew broader. He was adorable. “No. Nice to meet you. I hope I’ll see you here again, Belle. Hey—Bacall? You any relation?”

“Uh…no.” For some obscure reason, I decided giving him my freshly coined drag name was as far down this road as I wanted to travel.

“Yeah, well…” Still smiling, he glanced shyly at the floor but didn’t move. When he looked back at me, his brown eyes fixed on mine and he swallowed nervously. Which made me swallow nervously, too.

From the other side of the door, the final notes of one song segued effortlessly into the lush opening notes of the Bee Gees’ “How Deep Is Your Love.”

Frank swallowed hard again. “Um…Would you like to dance?”

I laughed. “Here? Back here? Really?”

“I mean, if you don’t want to, it’s all right. It’s just, well…I sort of feel like I’m missing my own party.”

“Well, we can’t have that. Yeah, sure, I’d love to dance.”

So, he wrapped those thick arms gently around me, taking care to not appear overly familiar. I took hold of his shoulders and we swayed slowly to the music for several minutes, not talking but occasionally smiling self-consciously when we caught each other’s glances.

When the music ended, we let go and backed a step away. Ever the gentleman, Frank bowed slightly. “Thank you for the dance.”

“Thank you.”

It looked like he was about to say something else but couldn’t find the words. Instead, he settled for, “I suppose I should get back to work.”

Awkwardly, I said, “Well, it was nice meeting you, Frank. And I hope to see you again soon.”

He looked up at me. “You know, you look a little bit like Demi Moore?”

Under my light makeup, I blushed, although I wasn’t sure if I was blushing from the compliment or from the fact that I was embarrassed to be complimented on looking like a woman. I mumbled a little “thank you” and left it at that.

He shuffled for a second, then said, “I’m gonna go lock that door so no one else wanders back here.” Then he paused again, adding, with a hopeful tone in his voice, “I’ll see you later.”

And with that, he turned and walked away, flicking lights off as he vanished down the corridor, giving me only the slightest glimpse of his perfect butt as it disappeared into the darkness.

The sign on the bathroom door said WOMEN.

But…No, he had to have known. I mean, this was a gay dance club, right? And didn’t the bouncer explicitly tell us that no real women were allowed to enter? And he was the owner, after all, so wouldn’t he know the policy?

He must. So, he must have known I was a man dressed as a woman. Which meant that Frank—sweet, handsome, muscular Frank; Frank with the broad, enticing smile and curly black hair and the cutest little butt on the planet; Frank who slow-danced with me and held me in his arms—wasn’t flirting with Belle Bacall or Demi Moore. He was flirting with Andrew Westlake.

As if to prove something to myself, I peed standing up.

“Where have you been?” David asked when I returned. “Whole countries have had time to go to the bathroom while you were gone. Pee shy?”

“I was lost,” I replied. “And then I was found.” I leaned close to him. “I think I’m in love.”

He grimaced and mumbled unpleasantly. “That didn’t take long. Who’s the lucky man?”

“His name is Frank. He owns the place.”

More unpleasantness from David. “Andrew, you cannot date a man who owns a gay dance club. They’re all into drugs and other illegal activities, they all screw anything that moves, and they all end up going into bankruptcy within three or four months. Now, what’s his name?”

“Frank,” I replied, dismissing his disapproval. “Frank DiBen—DiBendenna—Di—I don’t know, something like that.”

He waved a dismissive hand at me. “Great. You don’t even know his last name, but you’re in love. You know what that means, don’t you? It means you’ll go home with him tonight and he’ll screw you and you’ll never hear from him again.”

“Are you jealous?” I asked, amused.

He was distinctly not amused. “Trust me, Andrew. I know how these people are. And what was that last name again? Something Italian? He’s probably in the Mafia.”

“What do they have? A gay auxiliary?”

He sighed. “I’ve been around for a long time, and I remember well how the Mafia used to own all the gay bars. It still owns a lot of them. They made a lot of money off us, Andrew, and they still make a lot of money off us.”

“I didn’t think homosexuals were supposed to stereotype other people. Don’t we get stereotyped enough ourselves?”

“There’s a certain amount of truth behind every stereotype. Considering the fact that you’re a gay man wearing a dress, I think you should recognize that.”

“Hi, David,” said a familiar voice hidden behind a leather mask, interrupting my friend at the end of his tirade.

David squinted, as did I, until the masked man said, “It’s Barry.”

“Barry Blackburn!” gushed David. Apparently, he was going to make me pay for Frank by cozying up to my bitter enemy. “God, it’s been a long time! How have you been?”

“Great.” Barry removed the mask to reveal his pinched face and freshly frosted, unnaturally blond hair. “I’m promoting this place, y’know.”

“I heard,” said David. “Congratulations. This is quite an opening.”

“We’re happy. Tomorrow night’s the real test, though. Then we’ll see how the common man likes it.” He turned to me and held out his hand. “Hi. Barry Blackburn.”

I reluctantly took his hand and forced a smile. “Belle Bacall.”

David rolled his eyes.

“You look a little bit like Demi Moore,” said Barry.

David rolled his eyes again and decided to end the charade. “You remember Andrew Westlake, don’t you?”

Now it was Barry’s turn to squint. He dropped my hand when he realized it was me. “Hello, Andrew.”

“Barry,” I acknowledged, equally cold.

David chose to punish me for what he felt was my heart’s poor choice in men by talking interminably with the evil Barry Blackburn. After a few minutes of their conversation, I moved a few steps away. After five more minutes, I moved several feet away. And some time around the fifteenth minute, I moved to the other side of the club.

I was leaning on the bar, minding my own business, when I heard a voice say, “Well, hello there.”

When I turned, I saw it was Paul Musso, the balding trollish cop wannabe with the occasionally unconcealed nightstick.

“Go away,” I told him with irritation, making a point of not looking at him…especially below the waist.

“I’d really like to take you home,” he said. “It would really be hot. I’d fuck you so hard you’d be begging for more—”

That was all I heard.

It was time to leave, and not with Paul Musso. And, for that matter, not with that meddlesome, Barry Blackburn–schmoozing David Carlyle, either. I left a full drink behind on the bar and headed for the exit.

Halloween might have been a great night to open a nightclub, but as I walked out the exit and onto West Street, I realized it was a very bad night to find a cab. Earlier that night, the annual Halloween Parade had flooded Greenwich Village with tens of thousands of revelers. At this hour, any cab driver who had the slightest interest in picking up fares would be several long blocks east, hovering around Sheridan Square, rather than cruising the rundown outskirts of the Village.

So I started walking. I was half a block away when I realized someone was following me.

Ordinarily, that wouldn’t faze me. Up to that point, I’d lived in Manhattan for the better part of two decades without incident. But tonight wasn’t an ordinary night. Tonight, I was wearing a skirt and a wig and stockings and heels. Tonight, I was Belle Bacall, walking unescorted through a neighborhood that had a tendency to be a bit rough. Tonight, I was a potential rape victim…at least until my panties were torn off, at which point I would become a potential rape and bashing and castration and murder victim.

So, I tried to remember what every woman in every woman-in-jeopardy movie had done when she heard footsteps approaching. I started to walk faster.

Behind me, I heard the other set of footsteps quicken their pace.

I was about to break into a sprint when I heard a voice call out, “Belle!”

That stopped me. I turned.

It was Frank. With an ear-to-ear smile. “I’m sorry,” he said, jogging up to me. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just leaving and saw you leave, so I thought…” He trailed off and glanced shyly at the sidewalk.

“You’ll never know how glad I am it’s you,” I said breathlessly, slipping instinctively into Belle’s voice.

That dazzling smile widened at what he perceived as a compliment, and since I meant it in part as a compliment, I decided not to add that I was also glad it was him because he wasn’t a rapist/basher/castrator/murderer. Unless one listened to David Carlyle.

“Wanna go get something to eat?” he asked. “There’s this diner a few blocks from here—”

A diner—a brightly lit, very public diner—was probably the last place I should have gone with Frank. It was one thing to do drag in a dark club with strobe lights, alcohol, and hundreds of other distractions; it was quite another to sit in an overlit booth with stubble trying to poke through minimal makeup.

But there we were, Belle Bacall and Frank DiBenedetto, sipping coffee and talking in Frank’s favorite diner. I took some consolation from the fact that there was some drag there far worse than mine, and even more consolation from the belief that actual women wore some of it.

Frank and I didn’t talk about anything too deep or important. We just skipped along the surface of small talk. It was over in half an hour.

“I gotta get home.” He waved for the check. “I’m exhausted. Getting Benedick’s ready for the opening was a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

“How come you didn’t join the party?”

He shook his head. “Not really my crowd.”

“Mine, either,” I confessed.

He paid and we walked outside. “I’ll hail you a cab. Where are you going?”

“Upper West Side.”

“No kidding? Me, too. We can share.”

Traffic was light, so the cab sliced through Manhattan. We were closing in on Frank’s apartment on West Seventy-second Street near Central Park when he gave me a boyish smile. “Can I have your home phone number?”

“Sure,” I said with a laugh, and I scrawled it out on a slip of paper. “Promise to call?”

“Promise.” He pocketed the phone number. The cab slowed as we approached his building, and he added, “And when I call you, you can tell me what your real name is.”

“Don’t I look like a Belle Bacall?”

“Nobody looks like a Belle Bacall.” He handed the cabbie a handful of crumpled bills, then leaned over and gave me a kiss on the lips, which wasn’t as passionate as it was forceful.

“Good night,” he whispered.

“It’ll be a much better night when I get out of this wig and dress,” I replied, and the voice of Andrew Westlake slipped out.

He smiled, closed the door, and, as the cab started its sixteen-block trip to my apartment, did a double take.

And that’s when it hit me. Despite the fact that he had no reason whatsoever to think that I was a woman, he did.

Frank didn’t call the next day.

Neither did David.

But Denise came over.

“You did what?” she asked, stunned, sitting amid the scattered and discarded sections of the Sunday Times that littered my apartment.

I was embarrassed, but reasoned that confession was good for the soul, so I said it again. “I accidentally tried to pick up a straight man.”

She folded her arms and kicked at the Real Estate section for a few seconds. “Aren’t there enough gay men out there for you? Why do you have to try to ruin things for the rest of us? Some of us want straight men to stay straight. Some of us need straight men to stay straight. And I’m not even talking about propagating the species, Drew. Gay men aren’t the only people who like to have sex, you know!”

“Sorry.” I flopped down next to her on the couch. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think my efforts to convert him were successful. And anyway, how was I supposed to know he was straight? He owns a gay nightclub, after all.” I had a thought. “Maybe I could introduce the two of you.”

“Oh, that would work.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “Hi, I’m Denise Hanrahan and I’m a friend of Betty Bacall!”

“Belle,” I corrected her.

“Like it matters. I really don’t feel like meeting any guys who are trying to find out whether or not I have a penis before they’ll talk to me. Face it, Drew, you’ve traumatized one of the few remaining single heterosexual men in New York. He’ll probably become a priest.”

I tossed the Business section off the couch and uncovered a pillow. Denise ducked as I swung my legs around until they came to rest, propped on the back of the couch behind her head.

“This is all Ted’s fault,” I said. “If he hadn’t left me, I never would have been there last night. And now I’ve made a fool out of myself.”

She wrapped one of her hands delicately around my left leg. “Oh, it wasn’t all bad. Even if I am mad at you. At least you found someone who made you feel like you could fall in love again.”

“He’s straight,” I playfully moaned, burying my head in the pillow.

“It happens. No one knows why—maybe it’s heredity, or maybe it’s upbringing—but sometimes it just happens.”

I laughed, and she joined in. And we spent the rest of the afternoon watching football on television and calling Barnes & Noble to see if they had copies of The Brewster Mall in stock.

The passage of thirty-four hours had mellowed David when I finally saw him at work the next day.

“At least you discovered you’re very convincing as a woman,” he said after I told him about my night with Frank.

“I’m never doing drag again.”

“Demi Moore will be relieved.”

When I got home, there were a few messages waiting for me on my answering machine.

Beep. “Hi, Drew, it’s me,” said Denise’s voice. “A bunch of us from work are going to see Rent on Wednesday night and we have two extra tickets. If you want one, give me a call. Talk to you soon.” Beep.

Beep. “This call is for Andrew Westlake. My name is Tom Percy and I’m with Citibank. I’m calling about your Visa bill. Please return my call at your earliest opportunity. I can be reached at…” Beep.

Beep. “Uh…I’m not sure who I’m looking for, but…uh…my name is Frank DiBenedetto and…uh…I think we met Saturday night at…uh…my club.” He laughed self-consciously. “I’m looking for Belle Bacall…I guess…Uh…Anyway, call me at the club if you get a chance. The number is…”

I played the message over and over again, listening to his voice. The soundtrack in my head played “How Deep Is Your Love” as accompaniment.