Mirage

by Perry Brass

  "Wright-baby," Jack said, smiling, "so, the little chicken came home to roost?" He smiled at me. "Sounds like a very hot night for you, young man, disappearing like that. I didn't know what happened: you just completely disappeared on me. I guess you wanted to give Wright a clear field. Which—let me tell you—he took advantage of. Did anyone tell you your boyfriend is the hottest man in the world? This is one weekend I won't forget as long as I live."

  Greeland got up. His whole face, body, and voice changed. "Was great, wasn't it?" Wright said with a distinct leer. He tugged at the towel around Jack's heavy waist. Despite his size, Jack's body was firm. The only thing loose about him was between his legs. "How'd you like to play with us for a while?"

  Jack's eyes closed. "You are insatiable, Wright. I have never known a man like you. You must have handled every cock at the Club last night, and you still want more. Then you wanted me to come home with you. I thought you'd be pooped. But no! When did we get home, about three hours ago?"

  Wright got up, parading his large male pipe. "Search me! I feel great. Sometimes you need a little roll in the hay to get your juices back."

  "Roll?" Jack questioned, sitting down next to me, and stroking my back. "That wasn't a roll. That was a marathon. I thought men like you either died out, or disappeared by the end of the '80s."

  Wright began to kiss Jack, as if he'd never kissed him before, and all the wild horniness of a first attraction was still there. "I'm a new man," Wright said, breaking off for a moment. "Do we have any cigarettes in the house, Alan?"

  I didn't know he smoked. I got up and went to the kitchen. I knew Alan kept a pack in one of the drawers—usually for guests or a few times during the year when the pressure was on at work and he felt like one. I came back with an old pack of Winstons. I flicked out one, and lit it for Wright. He drew on it pleasurably. I watched Jack and Wright kiss again, then went back into the kitchen. There was half a container of orange juice, the type with the pulp in it, in the fridge. I poured myself a small glass, drank it, then went into the bathroom. This was a strange experience: the first time I'd had a bowel movement as Alan Kostenbaum. But all functions seemed to work—seemed natural now, from shitting to the expectation of going to work the next day. My day-to-day memory kicked in full blast. As I sat there, I remembered my secretary's name, and without any sense of pleasure in it, most of my agenda for Monday.

  I took a warm shower, and went, naked, into the bedroom. I eased down on the double bed, the sheets still damp from perspiration. There was a half-squeezed tube of K-Y on the night table, and several opened foil packets of rubbers. I heard Wright and Jack moaning and moving on the couch. I was now drained of my own seed. And I knew that I was definitely Alan Kostenbaum. At least for a while.

  I slept for several hours. Around noon, the phone rang. It was Ceil, screaming on the other end. How could I have just deserted him there? "All those horny men, Tish! Oh, Miss Scarlet! All men ever want is SEX!"

  I chatted with him for a while. It was easy to go into neutral gear, and just let Alan take over. Ceil was still in town, at the apartment of a new "friend from the night before." He had a glow in his voice. I could tell. It added a certain polish to his normal shrillness. He asked if he and Vinny ("Mary, what a hunk! You just got to meet him!") could come over. "Brunch, Tish! Mama wants brunch!"

  I told him we already had plans and gracefully hung up.

  I put some summer clothes on, and Wright came into the bedroom with a cup of coffee and some of the Sunday Times. "You really slept," he said, and handed me the coffee. What happened to Jack? I asked. He told me Jack, finally, regrettably, had to go home. Wright had already been out for the paper. "It's a great day out there, Alan. We shouldn't waste it. Let's go out and have brunch."

  "Brunch?" I said. I looked into his handsome face. It was hard to believe that Alan Kostenbaum cheated all the time on him, just for the thrill of younger men. Well, for the record, I was much younger. At least back on Ki. "Exactly who are you?" I asked him.

  Wright started to laugh. "Wright McClelland Smith. Remember? Are you still jealous about Jack? I thought you'd run off with some twinkie. I didn't want to be alone. I invited Jack back; you know how I hate to sleep by myself."

  The phone rang. I was afraid it was going to be Ceil again. Even worse, I was afraid Wright would jump for brunch with Ceil and Vinny from last night. In this depleted state, I wasn't ready for another assault from Richard Halpern.

  Wright answered. His voice lowered. "I'm sorry, Officer. I lost my keys on the beach, and a friend gave me a lift back into Manhattan. I'll arrange to pick up the car this afternoon."

  I asked him what was the problem, and he told me the State Police had tracked the blue Honda down. It was either come out and get it, or face the consequences. Parking over night at Jones Beach was illegal. So we'd have to drive the car back. "Or else"—Wright paused, "they'll do what they call towing. Do you know what that means?"

  I had no idea. I asked him if he'd be able to drive the car back from the beach.

  "Why not?" Wright asked confidently. "I've been driving for years—I think."

  The day—again a clear, warm one—was spent returning to Jones Beach by rail and bus, getting the car, and then coming back. Wright had no problem guiding the car through Long Island's horrendous traffic. He drove smoothly, took almost no chances, and knew every highway interchange back into Manhattan. I was impressed. But I could tell this was a great effort. He looked tired when we got back, parked the car in our garage, and resettled into the apartment. Our message machine had six messages on it. One was from Jack, one was from Ceil, and four more were from friends asking us about plans for the afternoon.

  "Nice being popular, isn't it?" Wright said, lying down on the couch after I played back the messages.

  I sat down next to him and he put his head on my lap. "How long can we do this?" I asked him.

  "We don't have weekends like this all the time, Alan."

  I told him to shut up. He knew what I meant. "Do you know what my real name is?" I asked.

  He sat up, then went over to the phone. "I guess we should call these people back," he said.

  He began to dial, then stopped, and put the phone down. "Enk, I can't help it," he admitted. "I become Wright Smith—he just takes over. I drove the Honda back, and I realized that at any second, I could go back to being Greeland and kill us. Just one small lapse of Wright's consciousness. That's all it would take. What're we going to do?"

  The phone rang. I told Wright to let the machine answer.

  All I had to hear was "Aa-lan," and I knew from the nasal voice it was Rosemarie Lanetti, my young assistant from work. She left a message that she hated to bother me "on this just gorjus Sunday." But she had to remind me of our breakfast meeting with an account group. "That's tomorrow, Aa-lan. Eight-thirty. Aa-Em. So, arrive with big bells on. We gotta make big-time ice cream plans. I wanna talk about some new research ideas, and for sure you have ideas of your own. You always do. Bye, sweetie."

  I knew exactly what Rosemarie was talking about. Alan—I, that is—had a plan to switch media buys for April's Organic Ice Cream, a Vermont line that had become hip and successful. I was going to start sticking their money into radio spots instead of TV. Although Alan had planned this meeting, I didn't want to go. Something was wrong here. We had landed on Earth in the bodies of Wright Smith and Alan Kostenbaum. But I just wasn't able to stay in their minds as well. At least, not as much as New York demanded.

  I confessed to Greeland that I had seen Woosh that night. I didn't tell him everything—certainly not that I had accused Woosh of trying to use me, since I was sure Greeland and the magician were on good terms.

  "You communicated with him? How?"

  "Sex." I told Greeland the story of my meeting Zachariah.

  "I knew it," Greeland said. "So he's black!" He spit the words out. "Interesting new attraction you have."

  I pretended not to be bothered, then told him I wouldn't be able to see Za
chariah again. I also told him the news that Woosh brought: the threat to our enclave; that the Dark Men had threatened to call off the Goddess Dance; and last, that we'd have to work as quickly as possible.

  "I don't think we can do it here," Greeland said.

  It was taking all the energy we had just to keep up with Wright and Alan. Most amazingly, neither of us were sure we liked them. I liked Alan most of the time, and I certainly lusted for Wright's physical body, but I wasn't sure Greeland was crazy about Wright. Although I wondered if there were—perhaps—certain aspects of Wright that Greeland was extremely happy to have take over. They gave Greeland an excuse to experiment, to get off his own arrogant high horse and wade into some Earth-type sleaze.

  For instance, Wright obviously took his mental self and his sexual self and put them into two distinct little packages. One rarely got in the way of the other. When the sex side surfaced, it wasn't a problem for him: he swang right with it. He got jealous sometimes of Alan, but this jealousy never stopped him from exploring the bushes and sex parties on his own. And certainly when Wright was off on his own, his cock led him on a leash.

  This was not Greeland's temperament. Greeland could let out his anger, but not his sex. His anger was volcanic, but his sexual self was strictly contained—except for those times when his anger became involved with it.

  I realized Greeland was going to change; but had no idea how much. Greeland looked innocently at me, and took my hand. "Yes," he concluded. "Their lives here are too busy. We'll have to leave."

  Chapter Eleven

  We tried to communicate with Woosh again that night, but it was impossible. My seed was too depleted. I didn't know when I'd be able to regenerate enough from my Egg to exchange with Greeland—as I had to—to allow me to communicate again with Ki.

  I wondered how Zachariah was able to drain me of so much. Then I realized he must have been very hungry for it. But as he said—so mysteriously—at some point, I would know all. I could hardly sleep that night. My brain was buzzing. Wright, sleeping soundly, and I faced each other on the comfortable double bed. I felt his soft breath on my face. I watched him, and wondered whose dreams were visiting him: dreams of the earth, or of Ki?

  I kissed him. I had never felt this way for Greeland, with so much desire and tenderness. Perhaps it was because I hadn't been promised to Wright since childhood. His handsomeness certainly held me, even if his personality bothered me at times. I got up and tiptoed, barefoot and bare-assed, into the living room.

  I turned on a light, and glanced over at the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf next to Wright's desk area. Something told me this might hold a key to our next move. I was naked, but not cold at all. I started pulling down books and sat down on the carpet, skimming through them. There were a great many guidebooks: Europe, South America, the Southern States. Had we visited all of them? There was a big blank in my memory. Europe—I wasn't even sure where it was. Then I spotted on one of the middle shelves a small, green book called Your Guide to America's Capitol: Washington, D.C. Washington—I had been there, or Alan had. I got back up, pulled the book off the shelf, and went through it. Distinctly, I remembered going to the National Gallery, the Smithsonian, the National Zoo, and several other museums.

  We had been there in the fall, ambling from the Capitol stairs through the Mall to the Smithsonian. It was a fine, crisp day, with fiery leaves on the ground, and I told Wright how much I liked Washington.

  I remembered how that made Wright laugh. He'd landed there dozens of times during his stint in the Air Force. Several important air bases sat in the greater DC area. People were always traveling in and out. Working for foreign governments, the military, the museums, attachés of various stripes. "Don't forget that useless army of politicians and their go-fers who change seats every couple of years," Wright had joked. "That's what's crazy about Washington. It's a city of strangers. You could drop into it from outer space and no one would question you. They'd just expect it."

  "Hi."

  I looked up. Wright had climbed out of bed, put on his gym shorts, and was looking at me reading the DC guidebook. He asked me what I was doing up.

  I told him that I had suddenly started thinking about Washington. What was he doing up?

  "Well, you know how much I hate to sleep alone." He sat down with me on the carpet, and curled me close to him. His hands dug into the hair on my chest; I felt very good.

  "Suppose we moved to Washington," I said. "Just fell in from outer space. Remember that talk we had on the Mall last October?"

  He closed his eyes. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I do remember. I'd been interested in a show about Assyria at the Sackler Gallery. Yeah, that's why we went down there on the Metroliner. Now that I remember—I was once very interested in Assyriology. Archeology. Cuneiform. I could read some of that stuff. I studied it at Michigan, before I realized I had to do something 'serious' with my life, and became an engineer. I went over to Iraq while I was in Turkey—and saw a lot of ruins. God, that was a long time ago. I guess since then it's become a hobby. I never wanted to give it up completely. Look at all my books."

  I did. There was a full shelf of them. I pulled out some of the books. Travels in the Ancient World. Egyptology Can Be Fun. Everyday Life in Ancient Sumer. When the Bible Was New. I started to leaf through them. Coming from a more primitive place, I found the illustrations of dark men, wearing almost nothing, quite interesting. Unexpectedly familiar. "What an amazing hobby," I said. "No wonder I'm so in love with you, Wright."

  "Which you is talking now?" he asked.

  I couldn't answer, because I wasn't sure myself.

  The next morning, both of us called in to work. We had some shocking news: neither of us were coming back. I told Rosemarie that my father had died over the weekend, and I was flying down to Miami to be with my mother. (I prayed that all of this jibed with the facts: that my parents weren't both dead already.) I had to take a month's leave of absence. Rosemarie could take over my position during that time. I didn't expect any salary, but I would stay in touch. I knew I had some profit sharing coming to me, so if I felt that I had to submit my resignation, I would write in for it.

  Wright was a bit more direct than I was. He gave notice. He was leaving New York for "professional reasons." Then he went into work for a full week. I'm not sure how he did it—perhaps Greeland just liked the thrill of it, seeing if he could pull it off. Obviously, if he could drive a car through Long Island traffic, he could bluff his way through anything. It was an easy week though. Architects were notoriously slow in the summer; clients were usually away. During the week, I packed up the apartment. I wanted our leaving to be as neat as possible. I didn't want any problems with our landlord, or nosy neighbors reporting us missing to the police.

  I made reservations on a small Hertz moving truck, and found a warehouse in New Jersey where we could store our heavier furniture. Then, while Wright was at work, I made a plan. I went through all of our bills and paid them. Despite how green I was at all this, I realized how thorough credit card investigators could be, weaseling through your life if nothing came in. I even canceled our magazine subscriptions.

  At mid-week, we went to our banks, and drew out everything Alan Kostenbaum and Wright McClelland Smith had in savings, CD's, or left in their checking accounts. After paying all the credit card bills, our finances were fairly drained. But the idea was still a real novelty to me: in the space of barely a week, I had gone from not even knowing what money was to handling ten thousand dollars in cash. That was how much money Alan had left after Visa, MasterCard, and American Express had their awful way with him.

  Wright had a little more—he was older, knew how to make a dollar go further, and spent less. Alan was a clothes horse, and he fell for most of the kitchen gadgets in Bloomingdale's house wares section. So he had a lot more plastic debts. But together, we had twenty-eight thousand dollars. It seemed like a fortune, certainly to take in cash. But already I had some idea how quickly it would go. Especially since we d
ecided not to use our credit cards again, unless we absolutely had to.

  I was impressed how methodically I could go about this—calling the phone company, telling them that we wanted no forwarding number; the same with the post office (asking them to hold the mail); canceling our Con Ed account; phoning friends; making sure that the neighbors knew everything was alright. We were just leaving. That was all.

  Then I hit a snag. I called the management agent for our building. A heavy man's voice picked up. "Jack Brofsky. Wait a second." He swallowed something. "Just grabbing some Chinese take-out here at my desk. Late lunch. Now, what can I—?" I told him we were both leaving, "for family reasons." "Not good, Mr. Kostenbaum; what about your lease?"

  Obviously, the market in Manhattan wasn't galloping, and Alan and Wright were being gouged for the rent. "We could take you to court," he threatened, sucking on his teeth. "Maybe our lawyer should speak directly with your lawyer."

  I confessed we didn't have one.

  "Leases are serious here, Mr. Kostenbaum." A moment of silence, while he chewed, then, "Look, suppose we just absorbed your deposit? You got any intentions of getting it back?"

  I hesitated. I wasn't sure how much the deposit was. Or, for that matter, what a deposit was. "No."

  He let out what sounded like a slight belch. "Good. Tell you what: if we can get somebody else in there—at a higher rent—we'll go in, check out your premises, see if you guys did any damages. If everything's okay, with some luck maybe we can salvage some of the deposit ourselves for you. It'll take a couple of months, see? Do you guys have a forwarding address?"

  I told him I'd let him know as soon as we did; then I decided I'd see him in hell first.

  On Saturday, we loaded everything into the truck and took it to Fort Lee, New Jersey, for storage. I paid for six months, telling them we were going to Europe, and didn't want our furniture in the apartment when we subleased it. The storage was expensive, but for my peace of mind it was worth it. With the exception of the management office, no one was a problem. Everyone took these stories as easily as Alan Kostenbaum told them. Even Ceil cackled on the phone that getting away from New York in the summer was "a tray gay" idea.