And there was Tim. I worked with him. He was a really nice guy and I enjoyed screwing him. He was older. I was sleeping with him and Marianne at the same time, too, and I don’t think either of them cared, or at least I’m pretty sure they both knew but they never said anything. When I left for California I didn’t think about either of them very much.
And Marianne, of course. Another one of those older women I met in a bar in Denver. I was flattered that they wanted to sleep with me and I thought it was kind of kinky going to their apartment and sleeping overnight in their bed. Maybe not kinky. Maybe I thought it was kind of grown-up.
Ned, my roommate in California, who looked a lot like me. He was cute, but we always pretended that we were after girls and just were screwing each other because we’d had bad luck in the bars. I can’t say that I ever really got into being screwed, but I learned to live with it with Ned. We used to take turns and keep track of who went first last time. I always preferred to go first so I got to screw him last. It’s kind of a bummer getting screwed after you’ve already come.
There was Eliza. She was really beautiful. Ned and I picked her up on the beach. I slept with her off and on for all that time in California. She couldn’t have cared less if Ned and I were getting it on or not. Sometimes I wished she had. I think I could have really cared about her. But, you know California. Nevis says they’re like television sets out there. You turn them on in the morning. It plays all day, and then you turn it off at night. The video has played, but nothing really happened, nothing was remembered, nothing mattered, life just passed through. But the last time I saw Eliza we were on a terrace at night overlooking Los Angeles and she went to the edge and looked at the city lights and said, “Whatever is going to happen to us?”
I kind of went into my girly period out there. There was Helen, a girl I knew in high school who moved out there. I only slept with her once or twice, mostly because she wouldn’t have gone out with me in high school and I didn’t want her to think I was homosexual. And then Bryce came out and she and I really got a hot affair going.
Funny how that started with Bryce. She was visiting Helen, and while Helen, was taking a shower we were both lying on the bed so we started making out. It got real hot and we both realized that we had something going. Poor Helen. We even went home at Christmas as boyfriend and girlfriend. That sort of did it. I looked around at my brothers and realized that it wasn’t for me. I guess I imagined what my life would be like with a nice wife and kids and me slipping off to gay bars in Detroit or somewhere to get it on with some guy from time to time. So Bryce stayed home and I went back to the West Coast.
I guess I have to include that guy that Ned brought home one night and once he got there wanted me to screw him, not Ned. What a bummer. I did but I really hated it. With Ned sitting there in the next room. And the guy was zero. I ask you, why do we do these things? I guess it proved that I was better than Ned, which was a point I didn’t really want to make.
There was a girl I picked up with Ned. We each screwed our girls in different bedrooms, probably thinking of each other. Name unknown. She didn’t stay overnight.
Another girl I picked up with Ned. See above. I think this only happened twice. I think I probably got gonorrhea of the mouth from Ned. Yeah, I was giving him blow jobs; I guess it must have been pretty obvious all around that we were more into each other than girls. Denial. It isn’t just a river in Egypt, as Nevis says.
Esther. The girl I thought I loved.
Dan Danforth, the boy I thought I loved. No wonder I went to Europe. It even looks screwy to me. They both let me down. Esther wasn’t ever going to leave her boyfriend. He was our boss and she thought he was a better deal. And Dan didn’t really get it that I loved him. I was just an accessory for his life. He gave me a farewell party when I left for Europe and everyone there was a friend of his. There were no friends of mine there.
Now we move to Europe. Larry. I guess I thought I was in love with Larry for about fifteen minutes in Germany. Now I think he’s such a sleazebag. Where was my head? Between his legs, probably.
Angie. Poor Angie. Let’s face it. Once. Terrible.
Minerva. Poor Minerva. Let’s face it. Quite a few times. Always terrible. My only excuse is that I was really into being straight at the time and hated living with Nevis.
The Swedish girl on a motorcycle in Crete. Once. Not bad.
The Australian girl who ran the youth hostel. Once. Not good. Very bad results.
Since I’ve gotten this new job with the American company here in Paris I’ve been sleeping with Jackie. The Barbie doll come to life. She really is pretty and she really doesn’t particularly care about fucking.
Beatrice. The sexpot who works at the office out in Neuilly. She just walked up and said, “Want to come to a hotel with me?” when I was out there one day. I said, “Bien sur.” And off we went. I can always get excited doing something a little weird. Beatrice had to sit on top of me and really work herself off. She kept saying, “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me.” She got herself a bang-up orgasm, and then she let me do whatever I wanted with her. Which was pretty standard but good. Strange woman. And then Jackie found out about it and told me to go to hell. So there you are.
Frederic. The model I met at the gym. Never returned calls and then after a couple of weeks started calling me. Very athletic Frederic. Beautiful back. Quite a lot bigger than I am. Really loved getting fucked. But I could tell he was just trying to get me to fall hard for him so he could give me the brush-off. I never did.
Phillipe. Another model I met at the gym. He was a skier. A very nice body. Also liked being fucked. From the front. Frederic liked it better from the back. A very different kind of person from Frederic. Distant in that French way. Very polite. Very precise and neat and clean. Almost like a store window dummy until he hit the sack and then he let it rip. And then got up as though nothing had happened.
And now Jean-Luc. I seem to be definitely out of my hetero period and back into a gay one. It was funny, I was really all-out gay from about eighteen to twenty-one. Then I straddled the line out there in California and when I was first in France. And now I seem to be concentrating on the guys. Jean-Luc was my friend Muriel’s boyfriend. Another one of those neat and tidy good-looking Frenchmen. We started hanging out together, and one afternoon he was over at my place and started talking about how he knew nothing about homosexuality but was interested in experimenting. So I let him give me a blow job. It definitely didn’t come off as a first-time attempt in my book. So we’ve gotten into this little affair. Of a sort. He really digs those blow jobs. And since I don’t really dig him all that much I’m letting it go at that. Except that now he wants to go with me when I go to the gym all the time, and he’s hopeless there. But I think he wants to do it just to keep his eye on me so I don’t pick up somebody new.
I lie. I forgot the cousin of my friend Jillian. Jillian used to work with me and now works for a French law firm. She’s from New York. Her cousin Petra came over on a writing assignment and we had a little weekend affair. She was really too nice not to. I saw her again when I was in New York on a quick vacation and I told her that we should just chalk it up to experience since I wasn’t about to leave Paris. She really liked me. What gives? Everybody likes me. Romantically I mean. And I’d rather just have friends.
And there was Valerie. I shouldn’t forget Valerie. We worked together. A very nice girl. The kind of girl someone should marry. That’s my big problem, I guess. I’d love to be married except that I like to fuck guys. Valerie went to the Caribbean for a new job and that cunt Vivian wrote her that I was dating someone new. I can only hope she didn’t know the someone new was named Jean-Luc.
And of course there was Linton. The most recent. My ex-priest. Quite a good fuck for an ex-priest. But then again, maybe they all are. I shouldn’t be so casual about Linton. We really fell in love with a thud when I was back in Sandusky for a wedding. He officiated and we slept together that night. I know. I know
. It was one of those new-wave type of weddings where they poured sand into each other’s hands and that kind of stuff. An ex-priest was fine for the vows. He was just out of the priesthood and I got right into his pants. A very hot guy, but I can’t move back to the United States. I should probably think about that sometime, too.
~25~
Radomir Returns Again!
What kind of book is this that I’m writing about Radomir anyway? And why am I writing it? This troubles me more and more as I proceed. Why is it so important that I find him and his life so fascinating and in need of being recorded?
Some of it has to do with his sexuality and his interest in experimentation and experience. That, because of his physical appeal, he is pursued and can experience things that were never available to me. Also, his ability to sleep with both women and men with equal interest—women being so taboo and frightening and beyond possibility for me. His sexual self-confidence is a source of envy. For me, the idea of putting part of your body into someone else’s body is a major and intimidating act. For him, as with most really masculine men, it’s about as important as putting your finger in someone’s ear. Except more fun. My nature is much more essentially female. I’m not sure I want to stick something in someone else. For me, intercourse and interaction mean the same thing. What it boils down to, I guess, is that when you love another man much of what you love is what you’d like to have yourself: youth, a beautiful body, sexual self-confidence, sexual adventures. You love it because it’s one way to have it. And you try to hang onto it and control it.
So, after my not being in Paris for about six months Radomir called me in New York. I’d been in Los Angeles, Miami, and New York trying to whip some life into what I’m beginning to think is a terminally ill career. There’s a little work here, a little work there, but in general the response indicates that I’m an aging has-been. With a little added feeling that many of these people have been waiting for years for my luck to run out. And now that it has they’re certainly not going to do anything to reverse it. Radomir’s call comes as a very surprising occurrence. Not to say stimulating. He wanted to know if he could go down to my country house in the Loire Valley for a long weekend. He had been getting a bit down with the endless Paris winter and might go to Nice or might go to the Loire. This was such a big turnaround from our contact a half a year earlier. I was strung out somewhere between elation and suspicion. I told him that he could go down anytime and that keys were with our mutual friends, the young American couple.
We called back and forth a few times, establishing when he would go to the Loire. I finally asked him, “The overall tone of these calls would suggest you don’t think I’m the biggest shit in the world.” “No, I’ve thought a lot of things over. No, I’ve kind of changed my mind about some things. Not everything. But some things.” And we left it at that. It wasn’t exactly the kind of subject for an international phone call. Once started, it was obviously good for a couple of hours.
Hearing from Radomir again made me want to go back to Paris. I had been a little homesick from time to time for that city where any foreigner will forever be a kind of outsider. As a break from being in New York and made to feel an outsider.
As soon as I returned I threw myself into setting my Paris apartment to rights. A number of friends had stayed there through the winter, and it’s well-known that no houseguest doesn’t break at least one thing. They had rather outdone themselves, knocking out the heating system, the electricity, replacing locks because of stolen keys, and breaking the toilet paper holder. The little retracting tube that held the paper in place had been ripped out and broken. I tried to imagine the desperate attempt to replace the toilet paper.
I called Radomir at his office and we agreed to have dinner on Sunday evening when I returned from spending a week pulling the country house together, which had also had its share of ravaging visitors during the winter.
Radomir was doing well in Paris. He was working in the Paris branch of a big American company and was evidently making himself invaluable. One of the big differences between Radomir and other men I have been in love with was that he could actually work, and do a very good job while he was about it. He relished taking responsibility and could be counted on to carry through projects to their completion. I had seen it in action when he was renovating the country house. In his office he delivered the same kind of capability and had been rewarded for it with a decent salary and working papers. I was impressed. The time he’d spent at the advertising agency as my assistant he’d never been able to even be considered for working papers as you had to be cadre level, which required a salary well beyond what someone of Radomir’s age could expect to earn. If he was now earning enough to qualify for papers he’d proved himself well, Paris having preceded New York by several centuries as the “If you can make it there you can make it anywhere” town.
The Loire Valley was just like California when I got there. Cold and wet. The young American couple were at home, and I stopped in to see them shortly after I arrived. They said they’d seen Radomir and his friend when they were down. “What was she like?” I immediately asked.
“She?” the husband replied. “It was a he. Tall. Very good-looking. I think there might be something going on there.”
“French?” I asked.
“Yes, but speaks good English. Works in the French diplomatic corps. Very nice guy. Played with the children and they loved him. They spoke French to him, which you know they’re always reluctant to do in front of us.”
I looked around for the truck that had just run over me. Hmmm. This was pretty revolutionary news. I had always believed that one reason Radomir felt so hostile was that I represented a homosexuality he was determined to be over and done with. Somehow I could handle the idea of his girlfriends. I wasn’t so sure I was up to young and handsome boyfriends.
The week in the country house was long and empty and filled poorly with cleaning windows and scrubbing floors. I even scrubbed the attic floor and cleaned the back storage wing. I bought a small electric lawnmower and mowed the lawn.
One night I had a disturbing dream that I was departing from an airport and at check-in couldn’t find my ticket. I dug through my shoulder bag and carry-on luggage. I was trying to remain calm, but the withering glare of the check-in clerk was disconcerting me. A woman stepped up and asked if she could help me and I realized I was very old and easily befuddled. But not so befuddled that I couldn’t see she was one of those people of mysterious Hispanic origins who are always very correctly groomed so as to allay suspicion. “No, no, no!” I cried, sure she was some kind of con artist who would steal from me. At this point the wig I was wearing slipped askew and my desperation was complete. I woke up with feelings that this might reflect my life situation where everything from finances to emotions was almost beyond my grasp:
It was in this kind of tightly reined-in mood that I returned to Paris and to my dinner rendezvous with Radomir. He was living at the top of a very long seven floors of steps.
When he opened the door I was again reminded how much better his body looked unclothed than clothed. Clothed his waist seemed too tiny for the breadth of his shoulders and his legs seemed to need cowboy boots to finish them off. Unclothed there was a flow of form that always made me feel I’d been hit in the stomach.
The apartment had rather low-set windows overlooking the drop of seven floors or more to a courtyard. I sat in a tall canvas-backed folding chair and thought for a moment of pitching out of its shakiness through the window into the courtyard. It seemed for a moment a perfectly reasonable solution to the confounding situation in which I always found myself in with Radomir. Still being wildly in love with him after five years, no encouragement, even active discouragement, seemed more and more to have less to do with Radomir and more and more to do with my not being able to deal with my role as an aging poof.
But is being in love with youth and beauty such an anomaly for the aging? Could we really be expected to fall in love with a
ge and decrepitude? Should we be sexually excited by sagging male breasts and abdomens? Backs covered in hair? Wavering inner thighs? People seemed to expect older people to have a kind of warm and general affection, the kind you feel for dogs and your Aunt Betty, and call it love. Sorry. I guess if you don’t lower your standards you’ve got to lower your expectations. Something’s got to give.
What I really wanted to have was full information on the tall, handsome stranger that had gone to the country with Radomir. But I seemed to be in better control of myself than usual. And I was actually interested in finding out what Radomir did at his work and what it was like. Though the company he worked for had been going through every kind of shakeup, resale, and reorganization, he was surviving from one incarnation to the next. It was the remains of the same company who had originally sent him to Europe and then abandoned him there. He had the pleasure of seeing all of these people fired from their jobs while he had survived them. In fact, he was the only one of the original company still employed.
I was surprised to learn that he had not gone from his work as my assistant directly to this job, which I had always assumed. In fact he had quit the agency with no prospects, had considered trying to freelance, had decided to leave Paris and try his luck in Miami when the possibility of working for the American company appeared. He had applied, had interviewed, and voila, had been hired. And to add to my surprise, he had interviewed in English so his fluency in French hadn’t even been taken into consideration. So much for my salvaging my pride a bit in that I had helped him hang on in France while he learned the language.
Radomir in fact had found a job, done well, got working papers, and was making it. His mother once told me, “He was always forty years old.” How amazing that I was in love with not only a handsome and sexy person, but one who could run his own life and be successful at it. A first. And I’m sure a last.
The Millionaire of Love Page 15