I'm Your Man

by Timothy James Beck

  “Yeah, I guess.” He handed me one then went back to work. “Sorry,” I said. “It’s not like you’re hurting me or anything.”

  “It happens more often than you’d believe,” Gavin said. “Sometimes this is the first chance people have to be quiet and think about stuff that’s bothering them. Don’t worry about it.”

  In some ways, Gavin was right. My emotions about Daniel ran the gamut from anger to hurt, but I could usually block them out. Until I went to bed, when I’d replay the months before we broke up, trying to figure out how it happened. I’d thought we would be together forever.

  It was hard to know when the strain between us started. There wasn’t any one event; something easy to pinpoint like infidelity. Or the usual issues that broke people up, like money worries, incompatibility, a drinking problem, or family crap. Nor had the magic gone out of our relationship. Sometimes when we looked at each other, the entire world seemed to vanish, and he still made my heart race.

  There had been some tense moments because of friends, although we both got along great with Sheila, Josh, and Gretchen. Daniel was also originally from Eau Claire, and we had mutual friends there, including Adam Wilson, the computer genius that I’d recommended to Frank. Adam and I had become close friends, and I made a mental note to suggest that, in addition to helping us set up our systems at the new office, he take over Lillith Allure’s Web site from the company that presently handled many of Breslin Evans’ accounts.

  But Adam was part of a package deal. His boyfriend, Jeremy Caprellian, had been Daniel’s boyfriend only a few years before. They’d salvaged a friendship out of their bitter breakup; sometimes Daniel was a little too preoccupied by Jeremy to suit me. Still, once Jeremy moved to Wisconsin to be with Adam, he wasn’t always demanding Daniel’s time and attention the way he once had.

  It was Daniel’s other friends who caused problems. For several years, he’d performed as a female impersonator, becoming something of a Manhattan celebrity. Though he’d given up the job before I met him, many of the people from those days remained part of his family of friends.

  I felt as if someone was always asking Daniel for something. His time, his attention, his money. He never said no. Which was admirable, but it got tiring, especially the histrionics that accompanied breakups, cruel landlords, lost jobs, and traitorous friends—few of those whiners ever took the responsibility for their own misfortunes. I accepted that what Daniel did for them was his business, but it got annoying to live with a choir of poor-me victims singing in the background.

  Likewise, Daniel had issues with some of the people from my past. Although he understood my unwillingness to confront my parents with the truth about my sexuality, he didn’t always understand why I let it upset me so much. Nor did he like feeling that our relationship became invisible when we went to Eau Claire. But what he really didn’t like was the way I capitulated to Sydney. He could always sense when I’d heard from her. He didn’t ask for details about the money I gave her, but he found ways to silently communicate his disapproval.

  In retrospect, I supposed that it wasn’t what we fought about, but how we fought, that caused most of our problems. Daniel and I both tended to sit on our feelings until they exploded. By the time we got around to fighting, it was nastier than it needed to be. We could also both hold a grudge, so old issues tended to reappear during our fights, which didn’t help.

  In spite of that, we’d had no major problems until a few months after Daniel got his role as Angus Remington on Secret Splendor. I didn’t notice any changes at first. I’d always worked long hours, so most of our time together came on the weekends, whether we took trips upstate, enjoyed Manhattan nightlife, or just hung out at his place or mine. It gradually began to dawn on me that not only were Daniel and I no longer going out, but Daniel never went to Club Chaos, the nightclub where he’d once headlined as his alter ego, Princess 2Di4. Since his friends weren’t seeing him there, they tended to appear at his apartment at odd hours, often interrupting our dinners, videos, and more intimate moments.

  I complained, and the river of needy friends slowed to a trickle. When I finally realized that Daniel had seriously curtailed his social life, he confessed that a few of the people at his show’s network had advised him to keep what they called an LGP—Low Gay Profile. Apparently soap viewers had a tendency to overidentify actors with the roles they played. Angus Remington was written as a lady-killer, and although the executives hadn’t asked Daniel to step back into the closet from which he’d emerged well over a decade before, they did encourage his discretion.

  It didn’t really bother me. I’d never been one for trumpeting my sexual orientation to the world, especially since my family was clueless. So it was probably unattractive of me to enjoy taking an occasional shot at Daniel for his new discretion. I considered it payback for the times that he’d jokingly told people how he had to drag me kicking and screaming from the closet after Sydney and I separated. Maybe Daniel felt he had it coming, too, because he tolerated my verbal bullets.

  Looking back, I could see what a toll the situation must have taken on him. He’d always lived his life with an honesty that I admired, and he was struggling with his new boundaries. Us magazine gave him a cover, dubbing him “Soap’s Sexiest Snake,” and his fans were clamoring for information about him. The press was willing to play his game as long as they had something to hook their stories on. Sheila’s rising celebrity provided exactly that.

  It came to a head the night Sheila and I got back from our publicity junket in Europe. In spite of the excitement we’d felt about our trip, we’d both been homesick. She missed Josh, and I missed Daniel. It was the longest he and I had ever been separated. I’d wanted to make a celebration of our return, so I asked Daniel to hire a limo and meet us at the airport with champagne and Josh. What I didn’t know was that Lillith, delighted by the attention Sheila had garnered, wanted to keep the momentum going. She’d arranged for us to be met at the airport, too. By a team of reporters and photographers.

  I was used to stepping away from Sheila when the media focused on her. The only thing I wanted was to feel Daniel’s arms around me. But when I walked toward him, he took a step back and looked nervous. When I stopped, confused and hurt, Sheila spotted him and rushed to hug him. While the flashbulbs exploded, I met Josh’s eyes. He shrugged, as if to remind me that it was all part of the game. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel as resigned as he did.

  This incident added to the Maddie Awards caused bad feelings to simmer between Daniel and me for days. It might have been resolved eventually, and at least half forgotten, but it was still too fresh when I found out by accident that Mrs. Lazenby was dead. In fact, had been dead for several weeks.

  “Did that hurt?” Gavin asked, jolting me back to the present.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You made a noise. I thought I hurt you.”

  “No. It feels great. Sorry.”

  “I’m ready for you to turn over,” he said.

  I did, and he started working from my feet up into my quads, while I brooded about the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. I’d just stepped out of bodyWorks, my Chelsea gym, when I heard someone call my name. I turned and saw Daniel’s friend Martin Blount and our artist friend Blythe Mayfield walking down the sidewalk, their arms loaded with bags from Bed Bath & Beyond. I stopped to talk to them, awed that Blythe’s hair, usually magenta, was now brilliant purple with an occasional red streak. It took me a few minutes to comprehend what they were excited about.

  “. . . and it was Daniel who suggested it as the perfect solution,” Blythe was saying. “Now I’ve got light and heat and someone to make sure I’m still alive when I go off on one of my painting tangents and don’t surface for days.”

  “Like Mrs. Lazenby,” Martin said, and they laughed with guilty expressions.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “What are you talking about?”

  “If only I could speak with subtitles. Try to keep up this time, Bl
aine,” Martin said. He continued, using elaborate hand gestures. “Mrs. Lazenby died, so obviously she didn’t need the second floor of the town house. I wanted Blythe to move in, but she said the lighting sucked. Then the couple on the third floor agreed to switch apartments for a rent reduction, so now they’re on the second, and Blythe will be on the third, with new skylights installed courtesy of Daniel.”

  There was an angry humming in my ears, and I was certain I could not have heard him correctly. The town house he was talking about had been left to Daniel by an old friend, Ken Bruckner, who’d died from AIDS a couple of years before. I’d wanted to move there with Daniel, but he hadn’t wanted to displace Martin, who’d been Ken’s lover. Our compromise was Daniel’s assurance that if his second- or third-floor tenants ever left, we’d take the first available floor and move out of our separate Hell’s Kitchen apartments to set up housekeeping together.

  “This was Daniel’s idea?” I asked.

  “Isn’t it great?” Blythe asked.

  “It was a solution, yes,” I agreed. “I’m sorry; I have to run. I’m late for a meeting that’s long overdue.”

  I let myself into Daniel’s apartment, doing all the things I knew he’d love, including turning on the fountain and the lights of his patio garden and timing our meal of Thai lemon chicken just right so that when he walked in, I was lighting candles on the table.

  “What a nice surprise,” he said, wrapping his arms around me. “I skipped lunch today because that idiot Jane-Therese kept blowing our scene. Recovery. Ha. She recovered from rehab faster than anyone I’ve ever known. Mmmm, you smell great. You showered at the gym?”

  “Yep,” I said. “Just get comfortable and let me serve you.”

  “You don’t have to twist my arm,” Daniel said, grinning with his eyebrows raised. He sat at the table and watched while I poured wine. When he bit into the chicken, he made an appreciative noise and said, “This is perfect.”

  “Good,” I said, biting into my own chicken, which might as well have been shoe leather. “Now tell me about your day and the evil Jane-Therese.”

  I laughed in all the appropriate places during his story, refilling his glass from time to time. When the first candle sputtered, he seemed to realize that he’d been doing all the talking.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t even ask about your day.”

  “Oh, you know, the usual. I’m much more concerned about you.”

  “Concerned? Why?”

  “I heard the news, and I know how much it must have upset you. It’s always hard to lose a little piece of your history.”

  Daniel frowned, trying to figure out what I was talking about, but obviously enjoying the evening so much that he wasn’t sure he wanted to go wherever sad place I was leading him.

  “History?” he asked.

  “I heard about poor Mrs. Lazenby,” I said. “I know how much you and Ken thought of her, so the loss must be hitting you hard.” He shifted, but before he could say anything, I went on. “Please don’t worry. I’m not going to hound you about moving into her apartment together when you’re still reeling from the shock. Besides, I’m not sure I’m ready to do that.”

  “You’re not?” Daniel asked, trying to conceal his relief, which might have been amusing if I hadn’t wanted to fling my half-eaten chicken at his face.

  “No. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it wouldn’t work. I don’t want to live that close to Martin.”

  “You don’t?”

  “On the floor right above him? No. Can you imagine having to listen to Britney and Cher through our floor at all hours of the day and night?”

  “It would be annoying,” Daniel quickly agreed.

  “I have a much better idea. What if we could get that nice couple—what are their names? I never can remember. The couple on the third floor of the town house. What if we could get them to move to the second floor, then we made renovations to the third floor? I’ve always thought that kitchen needed to be modernized. And maybe we could have one of those whirlpool bathtubs installed. Wouldn’t that be romantic?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Since neither of us has to give up our apartments anytime soon, we could hire someone to take down that wall between the kitchen and dining room. Make it one big room, with terrazzo tile. If you’re really willing to splurge, we could have skylights put in. How great would that look?” Daniel was now on the edge of his chair. “More wine?” I asked, pouring him another glass before he could answer. “Don’t you think it would be fun to redesign the place any way we wanted to before we move in? Or . . .”

  “Or?” Daniel repeated faintly.

  “Or would it be too crowded for us with Blythe living there, too? She does have all those canvases. And I’d be worried about Dexter drinking turpentine.”

  “I can explain,” Daniel said and took a gulp of wine.

  “Can you? You can explain how it is that Mrs. Lazenby died weeks ago, but I never heard about it? Not from Adam, who I just talked to a couple of days ago. I’m sure Blythe or Martin told him. Not from Sheila, even though she always knows everything about you, and I see her all the time. And definitely not from you. No, I had to hear about it on the fucking street from Martin and Blythe, with Martin relishing every moment of the bomb he was dropping on me. You fucker.”

  “They’re evicting everyone from Blythe’s building to turn it into co-ops—”

  “If you and I had moved into the town house, we’d be leaving two empty apartments, either of which could have been sublet to Blythe.”

  “She can’t afford—”

  “And since we’d be living for practically nothing in a building you already own free and clear, I’d have been more than willing to help pay rent on whichever of our apartments Blythe wanted. Even though I’ve been led to understand that she not only has a rich father, but is actually solvent now that her paintings are selling.”

  “It isn’t just the money. You know how close Martin and Blythe are.”

  “Yeah. So close that you arranged for her to have everything you promised would be ours when it was available. Stop making excuses. You deliberately did all this behind my back because you knew damn well I’d be furious.”

  “You’re right,” Daniel said. “You were still so pissed about the Maddie Awards that I didn’t think we needed more problems.”

  “So deceiving me was better for our relationship than having an honest discussion about whether you were ready to live together? God, you’ve changed. You’re such a good liar now.”

  “I didn’t lie,” he said angrily, which let me know I’d struck a nerve.

  “First it was the little straight show you put on with Sheila for your job, and now this. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m the one who’s lying. To myself. About your level of commitment and your ability to have an adult relationship with anyone. Even worse, you’ve got my friends lying for you.”

  “Your friends? Most of them are my friends. You wouldn’t even know them if it wasn’t for me.”

  We were off and running for hours, rehashing every other argument we’d ever had about our friends, our living arrangements, our busy schedules, and our future. By the time I slammed out of his apartment, we both knew we’d said things we shouldn’t have, things that couldn’t be taken back.

  I didn’t care what he told our friends. Or his friends, as he’d pointed out to me, insisting that my life consisted of little more than my job, my business acquaintances, my gym, and my tendency to live through him. I resolved to keep my mouth shut, especially to Sheila. I was sick of performing the Blaine and Daniel Show for an audience. I’d always tried to have a real relationship with him, not some gay version of Secret Splendor, and I had no intention of turning it into a melodrama just because it was over.

  “Do you have any idea how much tension you’re holding in your jaw?” Gavin asked. “You obviously work out. Do you have a trainer? Because he—or she—could recommend some exercises or body work that would h
elp bring down your stress level.”

  “I don’t have a trainer,” I said.

  “Maybe you should. Where do you live?”

  “New York. Manhattan.”

  “Oh, God, I miss Manhattan. I know a couple of people I could recommend, if you’re interested in working with someone. You should take better care of yourself. What do you do?”

  “I’m in advertising.”

  “Really? Maybe you’ve heard of my old boss. Lowell Davenport.”

  “Of course. He was a Madison Avenue legend. You worked for him? What did you do?”

  “I started as his trainer,” Gavin said. “By the time he died, I guess I was just about everything to him. It was a big scandal that he had AIDS. A lot of his old friends and colleagues abandoned him. You’d think, as gay men, we’d be beyond that after two decades, but advertising’s a cutthroat world. No wonder you’re so tense.”

  Gavin’s gaydar was apparently more finely tuned than mine, since he assumed I was gay and I’d had no idea he was.

  “I never met Lowell,” I said, “but he was one of the people I studied. He reinvented advertising in the seventies. What kind of person was he?”

  “He was a class act. I adored him. I helped him as he deteriorated physically. Cooked for him. Took care of whatever needs he had. He jokingly called me his manservant, but we were really friends, especially at the end. He took care of me, too. His fortune was pretty well depleted, but he left me the money that helped me set up my practice. But I was so tired of people dying. Sometimes you just want to run away, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “My family is here. Outside Baltimore. So I came home. But now that time has passed, I find myself wishing I was back in Manhattan. It’s just so expensive to live there.”

  “You’re really good. I probably seemed to be a million miles away, but it’s because for the first time I felt relaxed enough to think about things I’ve been avoiding.”

  “You’re going to be sore, in spite of the fact that you’re in great shape. You released a lot of tension. Drink twice as much water as you usually do. Add fresh papaya and pineapple to your diet. And do think about working with a trainer.”