Bryce had been curious to see how Paul lived, but it wasn't only the neighborhood that made him nervous. On the grimy second-floor landing outside Paul's door, he felt himself shrinking and wondered why he had agreed to come. Long after he had given Paul keys to his penthouse and invited him to live there, Bryce would recall standing next to Paul on the landing before this first visit to his apartment.
Did he feel in retrospect that he ought to have turned back? From alternate viewpoints in the future, Bryce, surveying his past, would be left with confused thoughts, ideas that contradicted one another, conflicting interpretations that called into question his purpose, his reason, even his sense of self. These he would then strive to recover. He saw moments when he might have departed, opportunities for refusals, but the short interlude with Paul on his landing was not one of these.
As if Paul were a sun—he seemed that bright—or a vision of the future, Bryce would remember with peculiar clarity Paul's vibrancy in the gloomy hall just outside his apartment. He saw Paul's face outlined, its sharp planes carved perhaps too insistently for beauty. His thought settled on Paul's body now close to him. He sensed Paul's potential for intensity; he appreciated him, but he did not yet truly desire him.
Only in hindsight would Bryce recognize the uniqueness of that moment when Paul stood beside him engrossed, shining, still unrevealed. Along with his expectant sense of that moment, verging on this entrance, he perceived it also as a stasis wherein Paul appeared fixed, in a frozen, absolute clarity, wholly unconnected with Bryce. It was a vision that grew vivid in Bryce's memory after he lost it in life, a conviction of Paul defined, finished, complete, that he could not recapture though they grew intimate. It was strange how the sensation, though not insignificant at the time, only impressed Bryce in retrospect, when he would feel for it the kind of wonder reserved for ancien regimes after they topple, or of times that are only called innocent long after they have ended.
At that time Bryce did not receive any sign of a destiny preparing itself outside Paul's door, nor did he anticipate the atmosphere that would envelop him once he was behind it. He was interested in clues that Paul's apartment might provide to his habits. Bryce knew about the poverty of dancers in small New York companies and had wondered more than once how Paul lived. So far the places where they had met to eat had been moderately priced. Paul's clothes were casual and sometimes flamboyant. While Bryce thought Paul's fashions suited him, they were clearly—he could tell—low-budget. If so far he hadn't invited Paul to his apartment, it was not only because he didn't feel ready to entertain him, but also because he wasn't yet prepared to confront Paul's inevitable perception that he, Bryce, was undeniably the more affluent.
Bryce was as sensitive to his advantages as he was to his afflictions. By the time he invited Paul to his home, he was already involved with him to the extent that his initial scruples no longer mattered. And yet, as perspicacious as Bryce thought he was, he was to discover he was mistaken in some early convictions about Paul.
But he felt all his ideas fleeing him as he stepped inside Paul's door into darkness and stood waiting for him to turn on a light. He heard the door close abruptly behind him and felt Paul brush invisibly past him. When he next could see, Paul was across the room, standing by a tall lamp, which cast a mild glow muted further by a fringed shawl draped over the shade. By a trick of height, Paul's body came within its circle of soft, rosy light, but his face did not.
This made of his form a strange apparition at some distance from Bryce. The room was submerged in fantastic shadows cast by the lamplight through the shawl's long fringe and by the sparser light which came in through the bare window. The view was of an alley shared by rows of other apartments, with just a patch of sky. To Bryce the night glare outside seemed glazed, dull, almost opaque, and he momentarily had an illusion that they were under water, and that the window was a porthole in a boat looking across to other portholes in other boats. Then he realized that the denseness of the atmosphere was within also, that it was inside the room.
Yet the room was sparsely furnished, indeed almost bare, except for a rug, the lamp, a couch with a carved wooden back, and a table and chairs. Even in the dim light Bryce recognized in the rug and couch a dilapidated elegance, a threadbare gentility.
"Won't you sit down?" Paul urged.
The upholstery of the couch sank under Bryce's weight. Paul, passing behind, patted him on the shoulder and then left the room. He came back with two tiny glasses, each half filled with an amber liqueur.
Paul handed one glass to Bryce and lifted his own. "To night," he said. He sat down on a chair opposite Bryce, his legs neatly crossed at the knee. They were about ten feet apart as the sweet liquid melted on Bryce's tongue, but he felt again in memory the light impress of Paul's fingers on his shoulder.
It was as if Paul's mild touch had a deeper effect on Bryce after it ended, an effect that was amplified by Paul's consequent, careful distance. The space between them allowed for animating influences which seemed to come from the atmosphere, permeating them as they sat and sipped and talked. Sitting apart from Paul in a darkened room, Bryce's guard was down, and still he felt somewhat threatened, because he was moved by what seemed so slight.
Paul did not touch Bryce again. Their conversation was their catalyst. Paul drew Bryce out, and Bryce found himself willing to speak of things which he was used to keeping silent about. He felt Paul's concern like the faint glow of the lamp, the warmth in the liqueur's taste: it was nothing that would sustain him. Yet he opened his vulnerable heart to this man. From their first coffee klatsch scant months ago, Bryce had felt in Paul's presence that he might say virtually anything, and now, reclining in the ramshackle ease of Paul's apartment, Bryce began to feel that he might one day want to.
It seemed to him that Paul lived his life with an amazing lack of forethought, for so many of Paul's arrangements, like this apartment, were temporary. Bryce had taught himself to manage his assets, to try to make wise decisions, to plan for himself. Paul, it appeared, did not do any of these things, and yet he always seemed to be riding the crest of a wave. This pleased Bryce, for he would have liked to have been more impulsive himself could he have survived it. Later, when he came to love Paul, his feelings for him stayed colored by his perception of Paul's brilliance against this impoverished backdrop, and by what Bryce saw as Paul's insouciance.
In contrast, he believed himself more subject to hesitation and doubt, and more naive. In this regard, Paul appeared to him as courageous, even while he admitted to himself that this seemed a curious adjective to describe such a self-proclaimed pleasure seeker. It was the qualities Bryce didn't have that he had noticed first in Paul: the physical grace of a dancer, his light head tall in the crowd, his implicit assurance of his effect. Bryce thought this was why Paul seemed willing to expose himself, as he was not. Yet, already, Paul had loosened Bryce's tongue.
He suddenly wondered if he had said too much. While he had been talking, Paul had leaned back his head and closed his eyes. It was obvious to Bryce that Paul was fond of striking poses. His gesture was dramatic and effacing at the same time. Outside the window, Bryce could see both dark windows and lit-up ones, and he thought of city dwellers' lives, close yet unconnected. In the shadows, the very space of the room seemed shifting, equivocal, undefined.
At last he had drained his glass, but Paul did not refill it. Paul opened his eyes and looked at Bryce, smiling very sweetly, with closed, curving lips. Bryce wondered what he was thinking. Unlike Paul, he had not asked for difficult confidences. That evening, he had felt more receptive than inquisitive. He had allowed himself to grow complacent. Now, realizing it, he became vaguely anxious and on edge.
Alone with Paul but not physically near to him, he sensed more strongly their kinship of loneliness. He could not say for sure how he had discovered this. In their previous meetings, he had listened to Paul holding forth. In the stories Paul told, the world was beguiling, and he was always succumbing to its various charms. Yet Bryce tho
ught he had sometimes heard a hollowness behind Paul's bravado. Tonight, in Paul's apartment, he had begun to feel that at the heart of Paul's energy there was lethargy.
That evening Paul did not display his gift of narrative. His questions ceased, and he fell silent. Then he asked Bryce if he wanted to stay.
Bryce declined instantly, dropping his eyes. He couldn't help being afraid of the feelings aroused in him. He didn't think that Paul seemed afraid.
Paul said mildly, "Well, it's getting late. I didn't know how you felt about going home."
"I'll take a cab."
As he spoke, Bryce made an effort to be cautious; already, as soon as Paul's question slipped out, he half thought he'd imagined what sort of question it was. Just when he was growing more and more sensitive to the shifting, subtle sensations between them, the abruptness of Paul's question had caught him off-guard and upset him. Ever since Bryce had first glimpsed Paul, he hadn't been able to forget him, and in his own careful way he was seeking to understand why. Where the understanding led, he was willing to follow, but he wasn't yet prepared to face a proposition. Nevertheless, in all of his being he acknowledged changes, if still obscure, that were part of this encounter between them under a veiled light where even the room's sparse, graceful, threadbare furnishings appeared mysterious, voluptuous.
He wasn't quite ready to leave, but he couldn't linger long after he'd said he wouldn't. In the wake of his refusal, heading uptown in a taxi, Bryce felt numbed by the suddenness of his departure. He was being borne home with the questions born of Paul's question still in him, overlaid by a temporary shock. Having seen Paul's apartment, Bryce thought he understood both the profligacy and the penury of Paul's life. That room was lonely, yet at night, it had cast its spell. He pictured Paul wandering through his room in the morning, lost like a ghost in the daylight, and he was glad that he hadn't stayed the night. The next morning, brewing coffee in his quiet, familiar kitchen, Bryce could momentarily believe that his sensations of the evening before were an illusion wrought by the unusual circumstances.
But in the days that followed, desire ambushed him, sneaking up on him when he was unaware. He couldn't keep thoughts of Paul from his mind. He kept remembering slight gestures and comments, studying them for their suggestions. In his imagination, he heard Paul's question again, and he changed his mind and said yes. His desire was mixed with fear. He knew he was obsessed with Paul.
Paul called within the week. Bryce suggested a movie, naming a revival showing at an Upper West Side theater. They agreed to meet the following evening. Bryce thought that Paul sounded relieved.
The next morning it rained and then cleared. In the afternoon the weather grew cold and overcast. By the time Bryce left for the theater, it had begun to snow. He arrived first and bought the tickets, waiting for Paul just inside the entrance, watching the street and the passers-by. He was habitually punctual, and tardiness in others usually irritated him, but tonight he minded less, probably because he'd seen the movie before, and because the snow was falling in large, wet flakes, and the entire city appeared to have slowed down.
He thought of trying to leave Paul's ticket for him, but the arrangement seemed too complicated. How would Paul know? The show time came and passed. Bryce listened to the muffled sounds of the coming attractions through the closed doors and then the feature beginning. He began to feel annoyed. He thought of trying to sell back Paul's ticket, but decided to wait. A quarter of an hour later, Paul appeared in front of his eyes through the falling snow, holding a black umbrella just like Bryce's.
For a moment he was the stranger that Bryce had seen on a rainy day with his head bare. Then he saw Bryce through the glass and tried to come into the theater, but the door was barred to him. Bryce had his ticket.
Bryce went out into the cold and wet night to meet him. "I'd just about given up on you," Bryce heard himself saying. "We've missed the beginning. Do you want to stay?"
Faced with Bryce's reprimand, Paul apologized and asked Bryce why he hadn't gone in anyway. Shrugging, Bryce said he'd seen the film before, and Paul admitted he had, too. They spent a few moments wondering why neither of them had mentioned this to the other, but because it was cold and wet and dark, with large snowflakes that fell seemingly out of nowhere and melted on the street, they decided to remain for the rest of the film after all. Bryce gave Paul his ticket, and they both went in.
The audience was sparse, scattered in the rows of seats. Paul chose the center, towards the front, and Bryce followed. He was thinking of the other theater, crowded and lively, with a play in progress, where he'd first noticed Paul. They sat down together, laying their coats over an empty seat. The film was Italian, shot in black-and-white in the nineteen-fifties, a story of the war. It had been many years since Bryce had seen it. At first he was lost, but the scenes began to grow more familiar, though he didn't remember the story. Next to him, Paul slouched in his seat, his elbow on the armrest between them, staring ahead, apparently engrossed. Casually, comfortably, his body seemed to invite Bryce, and very naturally their shoulders came together, and they touched.
Bryce scarcely knew how to account for the happiness he felt then. He dared not stir for fear that Paul might move away. Paul's arm rested motionlessly against his, a solid weight, and remained for what seemed a long time until Paul burrowed deeper in his seat, shifting his arm to his lap. They sat apart for the rest of the movie, but Bryce's attention often wandered from the screen. As long as the movie lasted, he felt safe sitting in the dark next to Paul, even though their silence still had too many questions in it to be entirely companionable. At the end, they sat silently through the credits.
"Do you want to stay for the beginning?" asked Bryce.
"No, do you?"
"No."
Outside, on the street, Bryce observed their reflections in a mirror set in the theater's facade. He saw himself standing next to Paul, a few inches shorter, each with his identical black umbrella. Paul opened his and raised it high over their heads, against the falling snow, which was slushier than it had been. The air seemed less cold and practically windless. Soundlessly, the wet snow slipped down the umbrella's ribs to the street. The two men stood next to each other, their heads close. It was Bryce who lifted his face first, who offered his lips, and it was Paul who met them, but this Bryce did not see. His eyes were closed. He felt a stranger's mouth, a stranger's kiss—it was both light and searching, and it ended before it opened.
Paul's kiss felt like a prelude to Bryce, yet Paul then stepped back, as if he were about to bid goodbye. Bryce saw the snow falling around him, but, as Paul held his umbrella aloft, it didn't touch him. Bryce felt his will inclining towards Paul, wanting him to speak, though in reality he didn't stir. Then Paul asked him very gently if he was tired.
It was actually Paul who felt the fatigue. If he could not say which of them had begun their kiss, Paul knew it was he who had ended it. He stared back at Bryce from his slight perspective, Bryce's handsome face rapt, his eyes bright, framed by dark hair. At that instant, Bryce looked young to Paul—though for all Paul knew, Bryce was older than he—young in his eagerness because it was so uncustomary in him; it made him seem vulnerable. In contrast, Paul felt jaded and old.
And still it was a kiss that remained to be transformed, a kiss that had begun as Paul's parted lips slowly, softly searched the contours of Bryce's mouth in outline, and then paused and withdrew. The response was in both men, yet unexpressed. Paul beheld Bryce as if he were a rare and fragile object that he hesitated to touch. Yet Bryce was radiant at that moment, and, surely, Paul thought, pain was far from him.
"No, not tired," said Bryce, "only cold."
"We could have a drink," Paul said. "We could go out somewhere here, or I could give you one at home."
The question lay lightly between them, another puddle in the snow. At first Paul believed Bryce had not heard him since he didn't answer, but then Bryce's mouth twitched, and a teasing, mischievous look came on his face. "We'll ge
t a cab," he said, and glanced up the street.
Thus it was that, during the night, little flickers of the will would be expressed first by one, then the other. Bryce flung up his arm, and a taxi stopped. He opened the door and held it for Paul. As Paul bent to ease himself into its accommodations, Bryce noticed a tightening around Paul's eyes, and he felt the brief pressure of Paul's fingers on his wrist as he passed before Bryce and then drew him in.
Love, though never simple, might seem so for a while in a cab in a city made remote by snow. It was Bryce who said, "Let's go around the park and then decide." Their driver was an obliging kid who did not mind a stately promenade full circle after he perceived there was a good tip in it for him. Paul rolled down his window halfway, and the cold air entered the cab. In their slow passage through the park, they glimpsed incidents of loveliness: V's of snow collecting high up in the crooks of trees and the pools of light cast by wrought-iron lamps at intervals on the fallen snow's thin accumulations.
Weeks of winter still lay before them; they were settling into it. Under the layer of cold blowing over their heads, each inhaled the other's breath. Every least movement, every tremor between them was a suggestion of the potential that was now inclining their bodies. The wait between them was prolonged, attenuated—a slight strain that felt so natural that neither man was thinking at all as their lips met in a second kiss. In Bryce a certainty was growing that with Paul he would not falter. Could one behave so well, he wondered, as to be loved for it? It was not only that he imagined himself different with Paul; he believed that he was different. Broaching Paul's mouth, he felt pleasure and a growing wonder. But he wasn't urgent—not yet—and Paul was still less so.
For a while it seemed that their ride might go on forever. Past the trees was the lake, and, across the drive, the garish lights of the restaurant. They rounded a curve, and another, and headed north. They were backtracking, making the revolution they had asked for in spite of its cost, because they weren't in a hurry to get anywhere. Each knew before either spoke that they had just one destination that night.
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