Only on hot summer afternoons when the closed shutters let shadowy light through and I am snoozing on my fat pillows wearing shorts do I really like that bedroom.
At other times, waking in the night seeing the shutters making chevron patterns on the ceiling from the lights of the old street lanterns in front of the abbey across the street, I feel completely estranged from this bedroom. I would like to rise, pack, call a cab, and depart forever. I don’t because I have guests.
When Radomir stayed here alone he was never discomfited and the ghostly presence he felt only comforted him.
Amanda claims she has heard steps climbing the wooden stairs from the entryway while she was seated on the toilet below the stairs. She said, “But when I went upstairs there was no one there.”
I have no antennae for spirits. I have never felt a presence. I am not a very spiritual person, landlocked in reality and sensuality. That has always been pleasure enough for me.
But sometimes I think that the house’s failure to accept my presence and my atmosphere is the resistance of those who have been here before me. It is their house. I am only in residence temporarily. Once gone, it will again be theirs. Or theirs and Radomir’s. He will inherit this house because I think he is really far more at home here than I am.
~28~
Why Do I Keep Talking
About My Sex Life?
I told Nevis I wanted to go to the country for a weekend, so we met at the Gare d’Austerlitz. When he spoke to me on the telephone that morning he asked if the wonderful Radomir or killer Radomir was going to be his guest that weekend. I told him that at least it was going to be wonderful Radomir who would be departing with him. I couldn’t promise who would be coming back.
He was waiting where the information kiosk always used to stand. They had moved it, but that’s where we always met; so kiosk or not, that’s where he was. He said, “I never can be sure if it’s you I see coming from the Metro or if I’m hallucinating. I always want to be with you so much that sometimes I think I’m imagining it.”
“Actually, it’s me,” I said, kissing him on both cheeks. I was early because it was the long weekend of the French Labor Day and there might well be a mob on the train. The French just go all to hell with themselves when it comes to fighting for train seats.
We tried to decide which end of the train to get on. It turns around in Orleans because it doesn’t go through the city. So you start out riding frontward and wind up riding backward. It’s no big deal except when you have a ton of luggage and you get off at your destination to find the station half a mile away.
Nevis seemed nervous. I really do wish he’d get over me. But then again, we probably wouldn’t be going to the country together if he was. We talked about the complicated series of things to remember when boarding a train in France. When buying the ticket you have to decide on first or second class. The day before you have to decide if you want to make a special trip to the station to reserve a seat. Before you leave the station you have to slip your ticket into an orange electronic post to be punched. Nevis said that when he first came to France there were mean-looking ladies in uniform who sat in a chair and punched your ticket and you weren’t allowed on the platform if you weren’t taking the train unless you had bought a special ticket for those who were seeing passengers off. The French always have plenty of time to make life more complicated. Maybe that’s why they’re always bustling about. Even now, if you forget to punch your ticket you get fined fifty francs by the conductor. That’s when you fall back on English. They usually forgive you if you’re a stupid foreigner.
Once on the train you have to check on the back of the seat you choose to make sure that it isn’t reserved. It’s in a little sign on the back of the seat. All that done, you can usually rest assured you’ll arrive safely. All that said, we, of course, forgot to check if our seats were reserved, which they were, and we had to move.
Naturally we arrived a long hike from the station, but the only taxi wasn’t taken and we arrived at the village in a few minutes and were left off in front of the house. The shutters were all closed and it always looks kind of formidable, but we rushed right in and opened the shutters, put on the heat, put out the window boxes waiting in the garden. The usual drill.
Then we walked over to the Brownings’ house to collect the Peugeot. Nevis said he didn’t want me to spend the weekend working and that maybe we’d take the Peugeot and make a little trip somewhere. But as it turned out we went over to the little house we used to own together on Saturday morning and collected some furniture the tenants didn’t want. The sleigh bed he bought because I wanted it and the settee. Which really is a nice antique. The tenants didn’t want them. That’s the usual routine for Nevis when he rents a house. The tenants love it because it’s so charming and then immediately dismantle it so it looks really ugly. As we tied the furniture on top of the car Nevis said, “Bad taste is international.” “Le mauvais goût est international” is what he actually said. It’s a favorite saying of his.
Somehow that trip took up most of the day and we finished by having dinner in the kitchen. While we were eating Nevis said, “So, tell me about all those people who are in love with you?”
“Do you really want to hear?” I said.
“It isn’t a very good image for me, is it?” Nevis said. “One among the suppliant hordes, and rather far to the back among those who are definitely not in the running.”
It’s probably kind of sick, my talking about the people I’m fucking to Nevis. I could refuse, but I think that’s what he wants to know about me. He’s always so worried about my getting an AIDS test so I finally got one and I’m negative. I’m not getting AIDS from anyone and I’m not giving AIDS.
“First of all,” I said, “I just got an AIDS test and I’m not giving AIDS to anyone. And I’m not bottoming for anyone. Haven’t in years. So you don’t have to worry about me.”
“Whew,” said Nevis, wiping his hands across his forehead. I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me or not. But then you never can tell with him.
“How are things going with Jean-Luc?” he asked.
“I have to think about how I feel about him,” I said. “As far as beauty is concerned there’s no problem there.” I don’t want to talk about Jean-Luc. Like so many good-looking French men who are gay, they pretend they aren’t gay and when they admit it they are just another French girl who wants to settle down and live in the Sixteenth Arrondissement and fuck only on Sunday morning.
So I told Nevis about Jackie, the girl I work with who looks like a Barbie doll. She had recently gone to Crete with me, with suitcases full of clothes. All my pals who were still there called her “Mademoiselle.” She didn’t make a big hit. I told him about her “problèmes au lit.” She let me screw her, but she never moved. It meant nothing to her.
Nevis said, “What does she say when you talk to her about it?”
“I don’t talk to her about it,” I said.
“Your generation is so strange. You do very intimate things together but you’re not intimate enough to discuss them. Mine talked about very intimate things but were too shy or immature or awkward to do anything intimate.”
“Jackie and I didn’t last very long, anyway. She found out that I screwed Beatrice at the other office and she told me to go to hell,” I said.
“Who is Beatrice?” Nevis asked.
So I told him about Beatrice after pouring us both a second glass of wine. The sexy girl who abducted me one day and nailed me good. She mounted me and got herself off proper. Then I fucked her pretty good myself. I always love those bizarre setups. Just can’t resist ’em.
Nevis said, “She was probably revenging herself on Jackie because Jackie is prettier.”
“It couldn’t be because I’m a hot guy?” I said.
“Of course you’re a hot guy, but a woman can really hurl herself into it with abandon when she thinks someone else is jealous. Men, too, of course. But women more. I always said that for
myself I don’t care if people like me as long as they envy me. That applies to a lot of people.”
“Jackie just called me yesterday. She wants to get back together. She been seeing this older guy again but she wants to see me again. All is forgiven,” I said. “Frederic just called me again, too. He wants to see me again. I probably will.”
Nevis said, “Frederic is the guy you met at the swimming pool, right? The model. You surprise me. I thought you were becoming a little redneck homophobe. And now you’re telling me that you’re planning to shag Frederic again, also. I know you’re restricting Jean-Luc to blow jobs. How’s he going to feel about Frederic?”
I said, “If I sounded homophobic it was because I was in a bad mood because of Dan Danforth out in California registering positive. I kind of blame it on him—running around getting fucked by God knows who all—and then scaring the hell out of me. Hey, listen. I am who I am.”
“That’s a new tack,” Nevis said. “You were sure that you were just going to stop being gay and that was that. Like you were never going to wear navy blue again.”
I explained calmly and carefully that I used condoms always. Without any exceptions. And I told him about Frederic being invited to an orgy and when he told the host that he thought orgies were a really bad idea the host replied, “You don’t have to worry about getting sick. Ils sont les gens très corrects. These people are very correct.”
Nevis said, “I’m never sure what très correct means exactly. Does that indicate that you always use condoms or does that mean you only sleep with white men of your own class?”
“It might mean that you only do blow jobs and never get completely undressed,” I said.
“There’s that, too,” Nevis said.
“Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on,” I told him. “My friend Phillipe, he’s a model, hurt his knee skiing, and when they operated they tested this blood and he found out he was seropositive. He got very depressed and wasn’t eating so I went around with a pizza and tried to cheer him up but I didn’t feel very good about the situation when we said good night.
“I had to go to California for a couple of weeks and when I got back I called and his telephone was disconnected so I went right over to his building. The concierge told me. ‘Il est décédé.’ You should have seen the look she gave me. He must have committed suicide and she probably thought it was over me. Or I had given him AIDS. Those concierges know everything.”
“She didn’t say he had killed himself?” Nevis said.
“No. And I just couldn’t ask. But he couldn’t have died of AIDS that rapidly.”
I thought I might as well tell Nevis about Linton, too. So I told him about the handsome minister who married my friends in Sandusky when I was there for a wedding. A minister who used to be a priest but decided he was too gay to make a go of it.
“His name was, or rather is, Linton,” I said.
“That’s quite a distinguished name,” Nevis said.
“He is quite distinguished. Really handsome, too. I had him come visit my folks, and my sister-in-law Maxine fell in love with him. She threw her arms around him and said, ‘Oh, you’re so handsome and you can cook. I think I’ll get divorced and marry you.’”
“They still don’t know you’re gay, do they?” Nevis asked.
“No,” I said. “My folks do. They have to be figuring something out with me showing up all the time with good-looking guys.”
“So where’s Linton?” Nevis wanted to know.
“He’s back in Chicago where he has a job as a real estate agent. I just couldn’t move back there. He said, ‘You love a city more than you do me.’ I don’t know if it was really that. I know I didn’t love him more that my life here in France,” I said.
“He could have moved to Paris. If he really loved you he could have given it a try,” Nevis said.
“You would have, wouldn’t you?” I said.
“You know the answer to that,” Nevis said.
~29~
Nevis Finishes the Talk
When Radomir came down for the weekend to the country we had one of those long talks, about him of course, after dinner on Saturday night. He’s been through quite a few people since we last discussed his private life. His most recent was a very hot and heavy affair with an ex-priest from Chicago. Very handsome. He had some pictures, and in fact this man was handsome. Sometimes Radomir finds men fetching whose appeal goes over my head. And his taste in women I find very elusive.
I’m never sure but what these conversations don’t border on voyeurism, but in addition to my really wanting to know what’s going on in his interior world, there is definitely a desire on Radomir’s part to tell me all about these adventures. But I don’t ask all the questions I could.
What I really wanted to know was how their love affair began. Did they fall into each other’s arms in a car? Did the minister invite Radomir to his apartment for dinner? Did they begin to neck on the couch and then tear off their clothes and fall into bed? Did they go to a nearby motel and calmly remove all their clothes and get into bed before they had so much as kissed? Did Radomir enter him only, or did he submit to being entered also? Did they make love face to face, or did one lie face down for the other? These are all the things I wanted to know, things that if I had ever been Radomir’s lover I would know. What he liked and how he did it. These are the mysteries that are so much more complex and so much more revelatory when two men are in love than a man and a woman. Men and women are traditionally in the missionary position in bed. So much ground work is already established and for many couples more intriguing possibilities perhaps never come up. I thought of Jackie who lay flat on her back wondering why it wasn’t more fun.
It was the failure of his romance with the ex-minister that led Radomir to get in contact with the woman who had broken his heart in California before he left for Europe. He had called her. She was living with another man, but seemed to feel her life was not coming to very much. And she regretted having broken off with Radomir. Radomir said, “I had wanted very much to marry her at that time.” Remembering how they had once been in love, they started to correspond again. And there was an opportunity for the woman to come to London to do some advanced studies. She had prepared her application, but when Radomir called her to ask if she had heard anything, she told him that the last day of the deadline she just hadn’t been able to get up and submit it. She’d been too tired. Radomir was crushed again. He had been imagining going to London to see her. Their old affinities coming to life again. The woman who had once meant so much to him becoming again his great love. And she hadn’t even been able to get out of bed to submit an application.
I could easily imagine her in the doldrums of a boring relationship thinking of dropping everything to go to London. Thinking of seeing again an old lover who had done so much more with his life than the dreary man she had chosen, and deciding she still didn’t have the nerve to leave the known for the unknown. She would not have many more chances, and soon boredom, routine, and age would place change beyond her boundaries.
In the dim light of the kitchen beside the fireplaces Radomir finished telling me all this. I found it a little hard to imagine that all these romances had been compressed into the space of the year we’d been separated. And I also wondered why I wanted to hear all this.
When I looked at Radomir he seemed tired and lined. The shadows were harsh on his face and I could see how he would look when he was older: the lines of his cheeks deep; his eyes sunken, his mouth tight. It was only the illusion of light for the moment and perhaps when he got older he wouldn’t look harsh in this way. The fear of sickness and death that now hung over me when I thought of him only led me to hope that I would live to see him old, however changed he was. If I lived into my early nineties I could hope to see him something close to my own age now. My greatest hope would be for his face to be the last face I saw. His hand to be the last hand I touched.
The last day that we were in the country we sp
oke more of ourselves. As I came downstairs in the morning he was standing at the sink. I put my arms about him from behind and kissed his neck. His body felt harder and more ridged and rugged than I remembered it. His swimming was toughening him up more than his weight lifting had done. He stiffened slightly in my arms. He had probably been fearing all weekend that I would be embarrassingly romantic at some point.
We talked about how unhappy he’d been working for me at the advertising agency. About how dictatorial I’d been with him. He had mentioned this before, but I have no memory of this. Cool perhaps. But maybe I was and have suppressed it.
He told me that in the large room he shared with others on the creative staff they would talk about him in French, assuming he didn’t understand. One woman talking at length with her husband on the telephone about how unfair it was that they had to have his untalented person around when they really should have a French person in his place.
But he said he had once been corrected by a Dutch girl whom I had helped. She had come to the agency as a receptionist through my help and then I later helped her to get a permanent position in an account group. She was now living with the Frenchman who was the father of her baby, and while Radomir was visiting them and telling her lover about what a terrible person I was she stopped him and said, “You and I both owe our careers to him.” And her lover had said, “I used to hang around Le Drugstore myself picking up men to make a little extra money. I got my first real job through one of the men I picked up there.” The Dutch girl said, “You never told me that.” And Radomir probably felt he’d made a good choice by living in France, where no one is surprised or shocked that a young man had made himself attractive to an older man in order to get a foothold in life.
The Millionaire of Love Page 17