In Memory of Angel Clare

by Christopher Bram

  Danny rolled his eyes. “When I’m with a bunch of really bad actors, I prefer to keep my clothes on, thank you.”

  “You went to John and Ted’s with the wrong attitude.”

  “It was like being in the world’s slowest porn movie!” Danny insisted. “Like a porn video directed by Robert Wilson.” He nudged Michael and said, “Uh uh, my idea of sex is just me and a bed and one or two or three other guys.” When Michael didn’t respond, he said to Ben, “You wouldn’t have gone back if you didn’t think you had to set a good example for your so-called community. Why can’t you just go to ethnic restaurants like other politicians?”

  “I am not a politician,” Ben declared.

  “‘If nominated I will not run, if elected I will not…’ When we get back to New York,” he told Michael, “there’s somebody I’d like you to meet.”

  “Who?” said Ben.

  “Stephen Greer. The little blond at HB.”

  “I don’t think Michael needs a neurotic, self-involved actor.”

  Michael caught up with what they were saying and curtly shook his head. “Thank you, but I’m not looking for anyone right now.”

  “Who said anything about something serious?” said Danny. “I’m just talking about coffee, conversation, and maybe a little Dionysian mutual masturbation.”

  Michael froze; they didn’t understand, neither of them. He hoped Ben might understand and would explain him to Danny, but Clarence’s close friend only argued that Stephen Greer was a self-involved dingbat, cute though he may be.

  “When are you going back?” Ben asked Michael.

  Michael said he might go back tomorrow morning, if one of them could run him down to the train station in Mystic.

  “No problem,” said Ben.

  They were driving back on Friday and Michael had hoped they might ask him to stay and ride back with them. But it was just as well they didn’t. He had done all he needed to do here, and he had a strong desire to see his and Clarence’s movie again, which Jack had on videotape.

  They finished dinner and Michael remained at the table while Ben and Danny did the dishes. It was after ten when they finished, but Danny suggested they drive down to New London, to the only gay bar within a hundred miles. Ben said he didn’t feel like driving and didn’t trust Danny at the wheel after a couple of beers. Danny argued for a half hour until Ben gave in, then told Ben it was too late to go anywhere and what he really wanted to do tonight was read over The Seagull again for his audition next week. He went up the short flight of steps to their bedroom.

  “I’ll join you,” Ben told him and went downstairs to turn on the television for Michael. “You see how impossible he’s gotten?” he whispered. “These two weeks alone with him have made me realize enough is enough. Seven years is plenty.” He told Michael he was welcome to stay up as late as he liked and asked only that he be sure to leave the porch light on for Jesse outside.

  Michael tried watching television. He waited to hear a heated argument in the bedroom overhead, but things became very quiet up there. People who still had each other were fools to spend so much time fighting. Michael felt very wise and sad. He slowly realized how sleepy he was now that there was nobody to see him. His body did not seem to know what time it was, was still in transit, still caught somewhere between Europe and here. He decided the best solution was to go to bed himself. He turned off the television and lights and went up to the kitchen.

  Without thinking, he passed through Ben and Danny’s room on his way to get his toilet kit. They were both awake, sitting up in bed under the covers, Danny reading Chekhov, Ben a newspaper, Danny wearing his reading glasses and a T-shirt, Ben wearing nothing at least from the waist up. The crinkly hair on Ben’s chest looked crunchy.

  “Pardon,” said Michael, lowering his head and going into the guest room. “Excuse me,” he said when he came out with his kit and passed through on his way to the kitchen and bathroom. The layout of the house had not been a problem last night when Michael was too exhausted from his airline flight through time to think of anything besides sleep.

  In the bathroom he brushed his teeth, washed his face and armpits, and put his shirt back on, even though he’d be taking it off again when he went to bed. Returning through their room, he carefully looked away from them until he heard Ben say, “You going to bed, Michael? Good night.”

  “Yes. Good night,” said Michael. “Dinner was very good.”

  “If you get scared by the quiet,” said Danny, slyly smiling under his glasses, “or lonely, just remember we’re right outside your door.”

  Ben glanced at Danny, looked at Michael, looked down at his newspaper.

  “Good night,” Michael repeated, hurried into the room, and closed his door.

  He undressed quickly. Luckily, there were no mirrors in the room. He turned off the light, jumped into bed, and hugged a pillow to his chest. He thought he would fall asleep instantly, the rural darkness was so complete, but he kept seeing Ben and Danny reading in bed, then Clarence.

  He suddenly remembered Saturday nights with Clarence, when they bought the early edition of the Sunday Times, came home, and went to bed with it. The memory felt warm and homey, like Sunday mornings when he was a little kid and climbed into bed with his parents, only Clarence was his lover and Michael was always naked under the blankets. He seemed to have spent his entire life bound up in clothes and loved being nude every chance he got with Clarence, even if it was only while he did the crossword puzzle. Clarence read things aloud or showed Michael the ads for new movies they should see. Michael asked for suggestions for this word or that in the puzzle, although Clarence was useless with anything unrelated to the arts. Sometimes they made love when they finished; sometimes they only went to sleep, which was nice too because it proved they didn’t need sex to be together. That era of Saturday nights at home lasted only the first month or so, but Michael felt it represented their whole life with each other.

  Lying alone in the dark, comparing that with this, feeling an empty bed all around him, Michael became very nervous and afraid. The occasional rustle of paper or whisper from the next room hurt him, made him feel more lost than ever, abandoned and alone. There was a wide chink of light beneath the irregular handmade door. He did not want to sleep by himself tonight when he had friends so close.

  He got out of bed and stepped to the door. Michael slept in his underwear now, shirt tucked snugly into the briefs, and he adjusted himself to make sure he was covered before he lightly knocked.

  “Come in. Come out, rather. We’re decent.”

  He opened the door and stood in the light.

  Ben and Danny looked at him, calmly, then with interest.

  Michael finally said, “Is it okay if I sleep with you guys tonight?” He did not want to plead for sympathy, but truth was required so they wouldn’t misunderstand. “I feel really strange sleeping alone tonight. After reading his letters, I guess.”

  Ben and Danny looked at each other. Ben shrugged; Danny turned and said, “Sure.”

  “Let me get a pillow,” Michael told them, noticing their bed had only two. When he came back, Ben was scooting to his side of the bed, Danny to the middle, meaning Michael would be next to Danny. “Don’t let me interrupt anything,” he told them. “The light won’t bother me.” He set his pillow beside Danny’s and climbed into bed without looking at either of them. He lay on his stomach, turned his face to the wall, burrowed his head into his pillow, and said, “Good night.”

  Ben cleared his throat and Danny hummed, noises that sounded like part of an earlier conversation. The newspaper rattled, a page in a book was turned, and things seemed to be as they were. Michael felt better. He began to feel drowsy, soothed by the presence of other legs radiating beneath the covers.

  It felt more sexual than Michael thought it would be.

  He began to remember Tim in Paris and how good he had felt. But these were friends. They knew Michael’s other friends, and anything that happened here would get back
to the others and make them think Michael had forgotten Clarence. There had been sexual signals ever since Michael arrived, but there were always odd signals from Ben and Danny. They had offered to introduce him to some new guy, but maybe they were only testing Michael’s faith. Tim had been so uncertain what was safe and what wasn’t they had to negotiate over each thing they did in Michael’s hotel room. That wouldn’t be necessary with Ben and Danny.

  A warm body leaned against him. But Danny was only setting his book and glasses on the night table. There was the moist squeak of a kiss between two men and one of them whispered, “Good night, Michael.”

  “G’night,” he muttered into his pillow.

  The light was clicked off. The bed shook as the other bodies settled in. A foot grazed Michael’s foot as legs were shifted about. Then the bed was still again.

  Everyone lay very still for a long time. Michael heard breathing behind him but couldn’t sort out one set of breaths from the other, couldn’t decide if they were asleep yet. He lifted his head and rolled over on his side to look.

  Unlike the city, there was absolutely no light from the street; the room was so dark it was as though his eyes were still closed. Michael thought he saw two blurred faces floating like spots on his retina.

  “Something we can do, Mikey?”

  A hand gently took hold of his shoulder and Michael suddenly realized how close Danny’s face was to his. The hand held the back of Michael’s neck, fingering the wispy, untrimmed down beneath his hair. Michael opened his mouth against another mouth and was kissed.

  It was a slow, quiet kiss that left him too much room to think. He held Danny’s head with one hand while he tried to decide whose fault this was. They shouldn’t be doing this, sliding two tongues in Michael’s mouth. What would Ben think? Ben might approve but that wouldn’t make this right. Michael pressed his hand against Danny’s chest and broke off the kiss. He felt the curve of Danny’s chest against his hand. He lay on his back a moment. Then, with a quick flip of his shoulders and hips, Michael slipped his undershirt over his head and his underpants into the foot of the covers, as easily as socks or conscience, and stretched out against the body beside him.

  He felt himself kissed, stroked, and held again. Arms embraced him around his shoulders and ass and he was rolled over one body and lay between two, a confusion of hands and legs. Nobody spoke, which was good. He could pretend to forget this was Ben and Danny, pretend he couldn’t tell them apart once clothing disappeared, although he distinguished a familiarly older body with soft belly and muscular legs from a body that was all of one piece. And Ben’s body was gritty with hair and he jabbed with his tongue when he kissed. Even though Danny started this, Ben seemed to enjoy what was happening. The cock beneath a slight roll of stomach was as hard as Michael’s while the other longer one remained slightly flexible. But all identity seemed only cerebral in the dark.

  He was kissing a throat and fizzy chest when the bed began to seem less crowded. He hoped Danny was not fetching something peculiar. The light in the kitchen came on and the dark void suddenly gained a wallpapered wall, a dresser, and shadows. Michael glanced down and saw long white legs tangled with darker, stubby ones, but their bodies did not look as different as he had imagined them. They were doing each other with their hands. He kissed the mouth again so that, up close, all he saw of Ben was an enormous blur of eye shifting back and forth as if looking for someone. Michael hoped Danny didn’t intend to keep the light on so they could watch themselves.

  Ben’s hand was slowing down, as if tired. Michael stopped kissing. Ben gestured for him to wait, then twisted around to look at the light from the kitchen.

  “Right back,” he whispered. “I better see what happened to Danny.”

  He got up from the bed and stepped over to the light corning up from the kitchen. It really was Ben whose mouth and cock Michael had been touching, Ben Slover who spoke at rallies and bickered with his boyfriend, who gave advice and talked about the past like he was your older brother. Standing in the light and frowning at someone in the kitchen, he looked shorter and bulkier than he had felt in bed. A cock looked inappropriate on him. He started down the steps and disappeared through the doorway that stood at a right angle to the bed. Michael couldn’t see the kitchen from where he lay.

  He heard Ben whisper, “We were wondering what happened to you.”

  Danny’s voice answered, “Nothing. Just go on without me.”

  Something inaudible followed, then, “You’ve been talking about this all along.”

  “I know. I guess I’m just not in the mood tonight. But you go ahead. All I ask is that he go back to his own bed when you’re through.”

  “But I don’t want to do it without you there.”

  “You seemed to be doing pretty good a minute ago.”

  Michael wondered if it was his fault, if he’d been giving too much attention to Ben. It was just that Ben’s body was the kind he was most familiar with.

  “I was doing it just because I thought you wanted me to do it,” Ben whispered.

  “Forget it. I’m not blaming you. Just go back and finish, please.”

  But all the vague feelings of wrong Michael had been able to push aside in the dark were back now that he was alone on the bed. He slowly sat up, bringing the knots of his knees against his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs. He didn’t think he could continue when Ben returned.

  A chair scraped across the floor and was sat on. The whispering grew inaudible, but Ben seemed to be asking Danny why. There was the repeated mention of another “it.”

  Danny was suddenly annoyed enough to be heard again. “You think I don’t know that? Hearing it from you day after day? It’s not something I’m afraid of. Jeez, you and I are probably already—It just feels creepy. Don’t you feel that? It’s the boyfriend of your best friend. I don’t know. It’s not something rational. It’s like what I felt when I wore my dead grandfather’s coat.”

  And Michael finally understood.

  There was more whispering, and his mind raced ahead with what they had to be saying against him. He had suspected this was wrong all along, but had been too selfish to follow his suspicions or even stop to understand them: he was betraying Clarence.

  Going to bed with someone was bad enough. Going to bed with Clarence’s friends was like boasting Clarence no longer mattered. That Michael had already recovered from his death. That Michael had never really loved him to begin with.

  But he had loved him! He still loved him. Nevertheless, he horrified himself with the idea of his own heartlessness, sickened himself with how he must look to the others.

  His own body sickened him. He quickly hunted around the bed for his things. The undershirt was on the floor. The briefs were wadded up like a rag beneath the kicked-back covers. He pulled everything on and it wasn’t enough.

  The stair creaked and Ben reappeared, followed by Danny. Ben looked sheepish, Danny disgusted and unable to look at Michael. Their nakedness was strange and sexless, like the nakedness of cadavers in a classroom. Michael was sitting on the far side of the bed with his feet on the floor, wanting to run into his room and slam the door.

  Ben leaned against the footboard and said, “We apologize, Michael. It wasn’t fair of us to get you all worked up and not be able to follow through. It’s something between Danny and me. I’m sorry you were caught in the middle.”

  Danny had grabbed his T-shirt off the bed and hurriedly pulled it on. He tugged it down as far as it would go but he still hung beneath it. “This has nothing to do with you, Michael. I still think you’re an attractive guy. I just wasn’t in the mood tonight.”

  “Can you forgive us?” said Ben.

  They were being polite, being cowards and not telling Michael what they really thought. Their lies didn’t even match. Michael sniffed and said, “There’s nothing to forgive. I should never have gotten into bed with you in the first place.” He said it accusingly, accusing himself.

  Ben glanced at Danny
and Danny lowered his head.

  “Don’t say that,” said Ben. “It could’ve been fun. Under different circumstances. Nothing wrong with friends having fun with each other. It just wasn’t in the cards tonight.”

  Michael closed his eyes and nodded. It hurt that they thought so little of him they wouldn’t tell him he was selfish, disloyal, and wrong. They had been doing it too, but Clarence was only their friend while he was Michael’s lover, and they had known well enough to stop.

  “So don’t take it personally,” said Ben. “These things happen. Why, I remember Danny brought a dancer home once and I was the one who didn’t feel…”

  Danny sat on the bed and looked away while Ben talked, ashamed of Ben’s lying or Michael’s presence or maybe even himself.

  “I’d like to do something to make up for our rudeness,” Ben offered. “You’re still welcome to sleep with us. Just sleep, mind you. If that really would make you feel better.”

  He couldn’t actually mean it. He could only want to remind Michael he was the one who had started this when he came in whining about not wanting to sleep alone.

  “No thank you,” Michael said stiffly. “I should sleep alone.”

  “Probably better all around,” said Ben. “Given the circumstances. Again, I’m sorry it didn’t work out. But, no harm done. Right?”

  Michael nodded again and stood up. “Good night,” he said, for what felt like the hundredth time that night. “See you tomorrow.”

  Ben stepped forward before Michael could get away. He carefully touched Michael’s arm, then gave him a sudden hug. The very feel of skin was obscene. “We’ll laugh about this in the morning,” he claimed.

  “You want me to drive you to the train station tomorrow?” said Danny. Kindly? Or eager to be rid of him? Danny was always more honest than Ben.

  “Yes,” said Michael. “I do.” He stepped around Ben and into the next room, taking care not to slam the door when he closed it behind him.