by Clive Barker
“Right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure.”
“Because I am. I’m about as happy as I think I’ve ever been. And I’ve got a long memory,” he laughed. “I can remember seeing you for the very first time.”
“No, you can’t.”
Drew looked up, his expression sweetly defiant. “Oh yes I can,” he said. “It was at Lewis’s place. He had a brunch, and I came along with Timothy. You remember Timothy?”
“Vaguely.”
“He was a big ol’ drag queen who’d taken me under his wing. He’d brought me along—little Drew Travis from Buttfuck, Colorado—I guess to show me off. And I was so damn nervous, ’cause there were all these circuit queens there who knew everybody—”
“Or said they knew everybody.”
“Right. They were dropping names so fast it was like a fucking hailstorm, and once in a while one of them would look at me and check me out like I was a piece of meat. You were late, I remember.”
“Oh,” said Will. “So you get it from me.”
“I got everything from you. Everything I wanted. You lavished attention on me, as if nothing else mattered. Up till then, I wasn’t sure I was going to stay. I was thinking: This isn’t for me.
I don’t belong here with these people. I was plotting to get on me next plane home and propose to Melissa Mitchell, who would have married me in a heartbeat and let me do what the fuck I liked behind her back. That was my plan, if being here didn’t work out. But you changed my mind.”
Gently, Will stroked Drew’s face. “No,” he said.
“Yes,” Drew replied. “You might not remember it that way, but you weren’t in my head. That’s exactly what happened. We didn’t even sleep together right away. Timothy got very sniffy and said you weren’t good people.”
“Did he indeed?”
“He said, oh, I don’t know, you were crazy, you were English, you were uptight, you were pretentious.”
“I was not uptight. The rest, probably.”
“Anyway, you didn’t call me, and I was afraid to call you in case Timothy got mad. I was kinda dependent on him. He’d paid for me to fly out; I was living in his apartment. Then you did call.”
“And the rest’s history.”
“Don’t knock it. We had some fine times together.”
“Those I remember.”
“And of course by the time we broke up, there was no going back to Colorado for me. I was hooked.”
“What happened to Melissa?”
“Ha. You’ll like this. She married this guy I used to jerk off with in high school.”
“So, she had a thing for fags,” Will said, moving behind Drew and letting him lean back against his body.
“I guess maybe she did. I still see her once in a while when I go home. Her kids go to the same school as my brother’s kids, so I meet her when I go to pick them up. She still looks pretty good. So,” he leaned his head back and kissed Will’s chin, “that’s the story of my life.”
Will hugged him close. “What happened to Timothy?” Will said. “We owe him.”
“Oh, he’s been dead seven, maybe eight years. I guess his lover walked out on him when he got sick, and he pretty much died without anyone. I heard about it just after Christmas and he’d died on Thanksgiving. He’s buried in Monterey. I go down there once in a while. Put some flowers on the grave. Tell him I still think of him.”
“That’s good. You’re a good man, you know that?”
“Is that important?”
“Yeah. I’m beginning to think it is.”
They made love then. Not the hectic, no-holds-barred mating of their first romance, eighteen years before, nor the tentative, faintly fearful encounter of a few nights ago. This time they met not as conquests or tricks, but as lovers. They took their sensual time with their detections, passing kisses and touches back and forth with a lazy ease, but by degrees becoming more agitated, each in their way demanding, each in their way conceding. In waves then, they played, pressing steadily toward a destination they had debated and planned. Will had not fucked anyone in four years, and Drew, though he had been a glutton for it earlier in his life, had sworn off the act with so much risk attached.
It had never been, even in simpler days, a natural act, despite tales of Midwestern farmhands, spit and a little lust. It was a conscious act of desire, especially in the heart of the plague, when the condom and the lubricant had to be at, hand, and there had to be, along with the erections, a gentle overcoming of anxiety. Tenderly then, in the nest of pillows, they coupled, to the pleasure of both.
When they finished, Drew went to shower. Mr. Clean, Will called him. This wasn’t a new preoccupation; he’d always needed to wash off the sex immediately after he’d come. It was the church boy in him, he explained, to which Will replied, “You just had an Englishman in you. How many people have you got in there?”
Laughing. Drew went into the bathroom and closed the door. Will listened to the muted sound of the shower being turned on—the slap of the water on the tiles, then the change of timbre as the water broke against Drew’s back and shoulders and butt. He shouted something, but Will didn’t catch it. He stretched in the double luxury of fatigue and satiety, his consciousness drifting. I should shower too, he thought; I’m greasy and sweaty and rank. Drew won’t crawl into bed beside me unless I wash. So he held on to consciousness, though it was hard work. Twice he fell into the shallows of sleep. Woke the first time with the shower now turned off, and Drew singing tunelessly as he toweled himself dry. Woke the second time to hear Drew thundering downstairs. “I’m just getting some water,” he yelled. “You want anything?” Woozily, Will sat up. He yawned and gazed down at the felon between his legs. “Busy night?” he said, flipping his cock back and forth. Then he swung his legs over the side of the bed, knocking over one of the candles. “Fuck,” he muttered, bending down to right it again, the smell of the extinguished wick sharp in his nostrils. As he stood up, the room pulsed. Thinking he’d risen too quickly, he closed his eyes. White patches throbbed behind his lids. He felt suddenly sick. He stood swaying at the end of the bed for a few moments, waiting for the feeling to pass, but instead it intensified, waves of nausea rising from his belly.
He opened his eyes again and started toward the hallway, determined not to end the evening puking in the very room where they’d made such fine love. He got no more than a yard from the bed, then the ache in his belly doubled him up. He dropped to his knees, surrounded by the leavings of their feast, his senses horribly susceptible. He could smell the spoiling of fruit that had been fresh three hours before, of cheese and cream that had been sweet and were now curdling, as though the heat of the room, of the deeds performed in the room, was hastening everything to rot. The stench of it was too much. He began to puke, his belly cramping, the white particles flaring in his head, washing out the room—
And in the midst of the blaze, images from the adventures of the day: a sky, a wall, Bethlynn; Drew clothed, Drew naked; the cat, the flowers, the bridge, all unreeling like a fragment of film! Tossed into the fire in his head, the throbbing white fire that lay at the end of everything.
God help me, he tried to say, no longer afraid of being found in this state by Drew, only wanting him there to extinguish the blaze—
He raised his head, and squinted through the light toward the door. There was no sign of Drew. He started to crawl toward the landing, knocking over two of the three remaining candles as he did so. The conflagration in his head continued unchecked, the memories still flickering before they were consumed, like moth’s wings, fluttering and fluttering—
The water’s of the bay, whipped by the wind; the flowers on Bethlynn Reichle’s windowsill; Drew’s face, sweating in ecstasy—and then, suddenly, the blaze was gone, extinguished in a heartbeat. He was kneeling three or four yards from the door, the darkness gray, the light gray, the food in which he knelt drained of color, his hands and legs and dick and belly all drained, all gray.
It was strangely pleasurable after the assault and the sickness, to be thrown into this cool cell, detached from sensuality. His mind, he assumed, had simply decided enough was enough, and pulled the plug on all but the barest minimum of stimulation. He was no longer overpowered by the stench of rot and curdle, even the glutinous textures of the food around him had been tamed.
The nausea had also receded, but he didn’t want to risk any motion until he was certain it had passed completely, so he stayed where he’d found himself when the episode had passed, kneeling by the light of a single candle flame. Drew would come up the stairs very soon, he thought. He’d look at Will and take pity: come to him, soothe him, cradle him. All he had to do was be patient. He knew how to be patient. He could sit in the same position for hours. It wasn’t hard. Just breathe evenly and empty the mind of useless thoughts. Sweat them away, then wait.
And look! His waiting was already over. There was a shadow on the wall. Drew was climbing the stairs right now. Thirty seconds and he’d be on the landing, and the moment after he’d be coming to help Will back to sanity. There he was, with a glass of water in his hand, his trousers barely hanging on his hips, his body piebald with the marks Will had left on him. The flesh around his nipples flushed. The teeth marks on his neck and shoulders neat as a tailor’s stitch. His face mottled. He raised his head, oh so slowly (in this gray world nothing had urgency), and a puzzled look came over his face as he stared toward the bedroom door. It seemed he couldn’t make out Will’s face in the murk or, if he could, failed to make sense of what he saw. He smelled the vomit, however, that much was plain. A look of disgust disfigured his face, the ugliness of his expression troubling to Will. He didn’t want to see that look on his savior’s face. He wanted compassion, tenderness.
Drew had hesitated now and was staring through the open door. His disgust had turned into fearfulness. His breath had quickened, and when he spoke—“Will?” he said—the word was barely audible.
Damn you, Will thought, don’t stay out there. Come on in.
There’s nothing to be afraid of, for God’s sake. Come on in.
But Drew didn’t move. Frustrated now, Will put his hand down into the muck in front of him and raised himself up. He tried to say Drew’s name, but for some reason his throat loosed a vile din, more like a bark than a name.
Drew dropped the glass of water. It smashed at his feet.
“Jesus!” he yelled, and started to back away toward the stairs. What nonsense was this? Will thought. He needed help and the man was moving away?
He lurched toward the bedroom door, trying to call out a second time, but his throat again betrayed him. All he could do was to stagger out onto the landing, into the light, where Drew could see him. His legs were no more reliable than his larynx however. He stumbled at the door and would have fallen amongst the broken glass had he not caught hold of the jamb. He swung around, realizing in this ungainly moment that for some reason his witless dick was hard again, slapping against his stomach as he lurched out onto the landing.
And now, by the light thrown up the stairwell from the hallway below, Drew saw his pursuer.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, the fear on his face becoming disbelief. “Will?” he breathed.
This time, Will managed a word. “Yes,” he said.
Drew shook his head. “What are you playing at?” he said.
“You’re freaking me out.”
Will’s bare feet trod the glass, but he didn’t care. He had to stop Drew abandoning him. He caught hold of the banister and started to haul himself along the landing to the top of the stairs.
His body felt utterly alien to him, as though his muscles were in the business of reorienting themselves. He wanted to drop back down on his knees to ease their motion; wanted to move sleekly in pursuit of the animal in front of him. He’d been patient, hadn’t he? He’d waited in the gray until the quarry showed itself.
Now it was time to give chase—
Stop this, Will,” Drew was saying. “For God’s sake! I mean it!” Fear had made him shrill. He sounded comical, and Will laughed. Short and sharp. A yelp of a laugh.
The din was too much for Drew. What little courage he’d had broke, and he stumbled backward down the stairs, hollering at Will as he went—something incoherent—and snatching up his jacket at the bottom of the flight. He was barechested and barefoot, but he didn’t care. He wanted to be out of the house, whatever the discomfort. Will was at the top of the stairs now and began his descent. The slivers of his glass in his soles were agonizing, however, and after two steps—knowing he was in no condition to catch up with his quarry—he sank down onto one of the stairs and watched Drew while he struggled to unlock the door. Only when it was open, and Drew had sight of the street, did he look back and yell— “Fuck you, Will Rabjohns!” Then he was gone, out into the night and away.
Will sat on the stairs for several minutes enjoying the cold gusts that came through the open door. His goose-flesh did nothing to dissuade his erection. It ticked on between his legs, reminding him that for many the pleasures of the night were only just beginning. And if for others, why not for him?
XIV
i
There was a club on Folsom called the Penitent. At the height of its notoriety in the midseventies, it had been called the Serpent’s Tooth and had been to San Francisco what the Mineshaft had been to New York: A club where nothing was verboten if it got you hard. On the wild nights, moving down the streets of the Castro, the serious leather crowd had counted off their pleasuredomes on the knuckles of one well-greased fist and the Tooth had always been one of the five. Chuck and Jean-Pierre, the owners of the club, had long since gone, dying within three weeks of one another in the early years of the plague, and for a time the site had remained untaken, as though in deference to the men who’d played there and passed away. But in 1987 the Sons of Priapus, a group of onanists who’d restored masturbation to the status of a respectable handicraft, had occupied the building for their Monday night circle-jerks. The ghosts of the building had smiled on them, it seemed, because word of the atmosphere there soon swelled the number of the Sons. They organized a second weekly gathering, on Thursdays, and then when that became overcrowded, a third. Almost overnight the building had become a paean to the democracy of the palm. An element of the fetishistic gradually crept into the Thursday and Friday assemblies (Monday remained vanilla) and before long the leaders of the Sons had turned into businessmen; they leased the building and now ran the most successful sex club in San Francisco. Chuck and Jean-Pierre would have been proud. The Penitent had been born.
ii
The club wasn’t particularly busy. Tuesdays were usually slow, and tonight was no exception. But for the thirty or so individuals who were wandering the Penitent’s bare-brick halls or chatting around the juice-bar (unlike the backroom, this was an alcohol-free party) or idling in the television lounge, watching porno of strictly historical interest, there would be reason to remember tonight.
Just before eleven-thirty, a man appeared in the hallway, whose identity would be described variously by people who later talked about the evening’s events. Good-looking, certainly, in a man-who’d-seen-the-world kind of way. Hair slicked back or receding, depending on who was telling you the story. Eyes dark and deep-set, or invisible behind sunglasses, depending, again, on who was recounting the tale. Nobody really remembered what he was wearing in any detail. He wasn’t naked, as a few of the more exhibitionist patrons were, that was agreed. Nor was he dressed for casting in any specific scenario. He wasn’t a biker or a cowboy or a hardhat or a cop. He didn’t carry a paddle or a whip. Hearing this, a certain kind of listener would inevitably ask, “Well what the hell was he into?” to which the storytellers universally replied: Sex. Well, not universally. The more pretentious may have said the pleasures of the flesh, and the cruder said meat, but it amounted to the same thing. This man—who within the space of an hour and a half had created a stir so potent it would become local myth inside a day�
��was an embodiment of the spirit of the Penitent: a creature of pure sensation, ready to take on any partner heated enough to match the fierceness of his desires. In this brave brotherhood, there were only three or four members equal to the challenge, and—not coincidentally—they were the only celebrants that night who said nothing about the experience afterward. They kept their silence and their fantasies intact, leaving the rest to chatter on what they’d seen and heard.
In truth, no more than a half-dozen people remained purely witnesses. As had happened often in the long-ago, but infrequently now, the presence of one unfettered imagination in the crowd had been the signal for general license. Men who had only ever come to the Penitent to watch dared a touch, and more, tonight.
Two love affairs began there, and both prospered; four people caught crabs; and one traced his gonorrhea to his loss of control on the stained sofa of the television lounge.
As for the man who’d initiated this orgy, he came several times, and went, leaving the couplings to continue until closing time. Several people claimed he spoke to them, though he said nothing. One claimed they knew him to be a sometime porn star who’d retired from the business and moved to Oregon. He’d returned to his old hunting grounds, this account went, for sentimental reasons, only to vanish again into the wilderness that always claims the sexual professional.
One part of this was certainly true. The man vanished and did not return, though every one of the thirty patrons that night came back, crabs and gonorrhea notwithstanding, within the next few days (most of them the next night) in the hope of seeing him again. When he did not appear, a few then made it their private mission to discover him in some other watering hole, but a man seen by the yellowing light of a dim lamp in a secret place is not easily identified elsewhere. The more they thought about him and talked about him, the less clear the memory of him became, so that a week after the event, no two witnesses could have readily agreed on any of his personal details.