Downward Dog

by Edward Vilga

  “I broke things off with Synove yesterday,” he says. “I had to. I couldn’t go through with the engagement any more. It was killing me. And besides, there’s someone else. Someone I have feelings for.”

  There’s a heavy pause, and I wait. It goes on a beat too long until … suddenly I begin to wonder, is Janek talking about me? While I’ve been dancing my little tango of feelings for Phoebe and all my other comely students, have I totally missed that someone else has had the same yearnings for me, cultivated and expanded during our times together, through all the tactile contact—Oh, Jesus. This is something I totally hadn’t factored into the mix.

  Janek takes another hit of vodka, screwing up his courage, no doubt, to confess the depths of his feelings for me. “Anyway,” he begins, “I was wondering—”

  I cut him off. “Look, dude, I’m totally flattered. Really, I am. But I just don’t swing that way. But you know if I did, I can totally, totally see it.”

  He looks wounded for a second, then bursts out laughing. “You think … Oh no … I can see why, but no. No, I’m not into you.”

  “Really?” I’m a little taken aback.

  “Don’t look so hurt.”

  “I’m not. I just. Oh, forget it. Who the hell is it?”

  “Hutch,” he confesses.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Hutch?”

  “Yup.”

  “Why the fuck Hutch and not me?” I blurt out, my insane Alpha-male competitiveness clearly on autopilot. I’m competing with my wingman for a liaison that’s not even in our playing field. Janek laughs heartily, and after two seconds, I join him.

  “Okay. Okay. I couldn’t resist. I’m sorry, but neither of you two bad boys is the object of my affection,” Janek smirks.

  “Well, that makes it simpler. But there is someone, though, right? Someone gay, I hope.”

  “Yeah. His name is Jeffrey Alston. The lighting designer. I think you met him at my party and that art opening. He redid our showroom, and he was brilliant. And cute. And sweet. And … Oh I don’t know what the hell I’m saying …”

  “But you know he’s definitely gay, right?”

  “Totally out.”

  “So, what’s the problem?”

  “It’s funny,” Janek continues, “I’ve pursued all these women, dated all these models, had all these beautiful girlfriends. But when it comes to this guy, it feels like I’m a train wreck.”

  “Don’t be, man. Unless this Jeffrey dude is totally deaf, dumb, and blind, he’s totally gonna want to hook up with you. Gay or straight, you’re totally Alpha, man. And that’s something I’ll drink to.”

  I top off our glasses one more time. I’m going to feel like shit when I have to teach in the morning, but what the hell? How often do I get to be gay godfather?

  “Man, it’s totally cool you’re here. But I still have to ask you, though. Why me? Why did you pick me to come out to?”

  “… Honestly?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, when I hauled myself out into the rain tonight, down through the squalor of Chinatown, I was sort of wondering that myself.”

  “And …”

  “It wasn’t anything you said, so much. Not that you ever go overboard with all the spiritual stuff when we work together. That’s part of what I like about it, actually. I mean, I love the poses, and the breathing, and the challenge, and how open you feel afterward. So, that was part of it. That openness. That freedom. The release of tension in the body. I associate all that with you. And I suppose I just wanted to do that to my mind.”

  “That’s cool,” I reply.

  “But it wasn’t just that,” he continues. “It was that, well, you’re not faking anything. You’re … sincere.”

  I try to take this in, but “sincere” … Me?

  “Are you shitting me? I don’t know anyone who’d say that sincerity is my strong suit,” I counter.

  “Well, sincerity, maybe that’s the wrong word. ‘Authentic,’ I guess,” Janek goes on. “I always felt that when you were with me you were just yourself. You weren’t trying to be some fake spiritual guy. You kept it totally real with me … and still, it was spiritual without even trying. It’s just that—no offense, but you’re pretty much the least likely guy in the world I would ever think would be teaching anyone anything even remotely spiritual. I mean, you’re out all the time, constantly hitting on a million different women.”

  “I hear you.”

  “And all the drinking and carousing. Totally superficial. Shallow. All the posing and posturing. Just interested in screwing around and a quick good time, without any emotional connections or—”

  “Trust me, Janek. You’ve made your point.”

  He smiles, silenced. “And yet, the yoga was totally real for you. The poses. The breathing. Even the stillness. All of it. You just made it work for you. You didn’t try to make yourself seem like what everyone must think a yoga teacher should be like.” Janek downs his shot. “And, I guess, when you talked about stopping struggling with a shape and you said that maybe things that seemed impossible could become possible … well, saying that—and you just being your very, very flawed self—made me feel that maybe I could, too. That I could start trying to be who I really was, instead of forcing myself to be someone that I’m not.”

  I’m entirely drawn into his explanation and, more interestingly, shocked that it actually makes sense that somehow my behavior, what I said—things that came from me, a dude totally obsessed with his own immediate gratification—could actually be a positive inspiration for someone else’s growth. That somehow my litany of selfish vices has served as a springboard toward a good end—even possibly being the turning point for Janek’s life—is, well, rather mind-blowing. My student with whom I was most honestly myself—and what a highly flawed, not necessarily spiritual, self that is—focusing almost entirely on the joys of the physical practice, has mysteriously become the student I have affected most deeply and genuinely. Bizarre, right?

  “So, what you’re saying is, if an asshole like me can somehow get away with calling himself a yoga teacher, what’s the big deal about being gay?”

  “More or less,” he laughs.

  “Thanks … I think.” But I’m smiling, and I know he means all this as a compliment. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be here. This teaching business is a funny thing, indeed.

  Janek and I more or less talk the night away. Post-confessional chilling with Janek is just as easy and effortless as our physical practice has been, maybe even more so since I’m no longer on the clock and concentrating on teaching him. We’re just hanging out. Somewhere around 4 a.m., we doze off, until my alarm wakes us both. In my first week of teaching, I went out and bought the loudest alarm clock I could find, one that I religiously remember to set each night before going out so that—no matter what disorienting adventures I find myself on—I’m brutally awake and on time in the morning. And this morning, I’ve got to get to Brooke’s to teach.

  In a way, having Janek crash here feels oddly natural, even though he has, amazingly, now topped even Andrew in terms of impassioned, shared confidences. Now I feel even closer to him, like Hutch, or another brother.

  Wearing my old, grubby sweats, he gathers up his still-soaking Prada suit and I put it in a Duane Reade plastic bag.

  “We’re on for Monday’s lesson, right?” he asks.

  “Totally.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “So, see you.”

  Impulsively, at the doorway, Janek grabs me and hugs me, deeply and without reservation. It’s miles away from the usual male backslap moments. I can completely feel his gratitude and relief. The emotion in him wells up as I hug him back. I let him decide when it’s time to pull away. After a few solid moments, he seems complete and draws back from me. He initiates our usual basketball court, secret-handshake gesture, not bothering to disguise his moist eyes. He starts out the door and
then turns back.

  Janek—whose soul I’ve touched, whose life I have forever altered by virtue of my example; Janek, to whom I am actually a legitimate guru—before heading off into the dawn, has these parting words: “You know, your apartment really sucks.”

  He says it smiling, bounding down the five flights of concrete steps, down to the street.

  “Fuck you, pretty boy!” I call after him.

  He doesn’t turn around but continues springing down the steps, waving one hand up to say good-bye. It’s cool. I don’t need to look at his face to know he’s smiling.

  I return from teaching Brooke—another session of abdominal overdrive which, thankfully, I can do on autopilot—and decide that forty winks are in order. I’m happy to have helped Janek, but that vodka heart-to-heart really broke my curfew, and I figure I can get an hour or two of sleep before heading to Diwali to make up for it. Thirty minutes into my nap, however, there’s a frantic buzzing of my doorbell.

  I ignore it, knowing I have no deliveries scheduled or friends who’d be dropping by now. All the scenarios I can think of in which someone might want to reach me are one-night-stands- turned-stalkers and creditors disgruntled with the court system, and there’s no need to welcome those possibilities back into my life at 11:30 in the morning.

  The stalker keeps buzzing, so knowing my nap is going to be trashed completely unless I deal with whoever it is, I march to the intercom, totally pissed off.

  “What!” I bark.

  “Delivery,” the disembodied voice answers.

  “I fuckin’ haven’t ordered anything!”

  “Slip says it’s paid for. Maybe it’s a gift.”

  “What is?”

  “Look, we’re double-parked and we ain’t gettin’ any younger out here. Ya gotta just buzz us in.”

  I comply. Whatever this is, there’s a note of authenticity in the pissed-off quality in the delivery guy’s voice. I slip on sweats and open the door to my apartment, expecting … I don’t know what. A tasteful fruit basket—maybe stuffed with a rattlesnake? Instead, three burly movers heave a huge blob of something wrapped in brown paper up the stairs, straight to my door. The delivery dudes are unfriendly, thug-like, and straight to the point. “Where do you want it?”

  “What the hell is it?” I demand.

  “A loveseat.”

  “What?”

  And then I see the logo on the packing slip: Zilinikov. This is from Janek.

  “Over there, I guess.”

  Another three guys make their way up the stairs with a smaller item as the crew in my apartment unwraps a gorgeous chocolate brown leather loveseat. These guys are thugs, but they know how to move furniture like nobody’s business. Before I know it, a matching leather chair is being unveiled before me.

  “How many are there?” I ask.

  “We have eighteen pieces. Two armchairs, a coffee table, two floor lamps, two bookcases, two area rugs—you want I should keep reading?” the guy holding a clipboard answers.

  I’m speechless.

  “Oh, and the packing slip says we should take away the old stuff at the same time,” the delivery guy adds.

  “Sure, I guess.” “Never Look Back” has always been my philosophy, especially regarding my casual flings, and now towards beat-up, secondhand furniture. This shit has got to go.

  I scramble for my cell to get Janek on the phone. His secretary puts me directly through.

  “How do you like the chocolate brown? I thought better than your basic black,” Janek launches in with what I know must be a smirk.

  “Dude, what the fuck are you doing?”

  “Classing up your joint, player. How you ever managed to get laid with a pad like that is beyond me.”

  “You’re out of the closet for ten hours and you’re already Queer-Eyeing me?”

  Janek laughs.

  “Seriously, I appreciate the thought, Janek, but this is way, way, way too much.”

  “I owe you, man.”

  “No, you don’t. I didn’t do anything.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “Still, this is way too generous in the extreme.”

  “Nah. We’ve got warehouses of this shit. Besides, this stuff is just a combo of floor samples and discontinued series, anyway. You got lucky because this week we’re changing the floor displays. Anyway, I put everything together this morning from cast-off stuff. There are a few scratches and scuff marks—nothing too trashed, though, but not merchandise I can sell at full price. It would just have gone to waste.”

  I don’t know if I fully believe him or not, but as my ratty old furniture gets cleared, and Janek’s absolutely excellent pieces (floor samples or not) replace them, I don’t care. I feel as grateful as a game show winner—although I’m trying not to act as giddy.

  Interestingly, even though the movers seem like total thugs, the foreman is a genius, intuitive decorator. The crew doesn’t just dump stuff and run. The foreman directs them where to place everything, and it works perfectly. I’ve misjudged these guys by their burliness and outer-borough accents. Rugs are unfurled, sofas and armchairs perfectly angled with artistic precision. Somehow, even during his confessional breakdown, Janek managed to calculate and envision the perfect scale and style for redecorating my apartment. Well, at least this cliché of gayness works for me.

  “I’m glad you like it. Listen, I gotta hop. I’m late for a meeting with In Style,” Janek explains.

  “Go for it.”

  “See you Monday morning, right?”

  “Definitely.”

  And, more or less, we’re back to normal. Nothing has changed. Except, of course, that thanks to Janek, my apartment, instead of looking like shit, actually looks like a million Zilinikov bucks.

  Oh, yeah, and one other little thing—for the first time in his life, Janek can really be himself.

  Chapter 25

  It’s Monique’s last night back in town before Round Two of her Asia Brand Expansion Tour, so she and I have dinner at Platinum, another Becker joint. Not only is it totally excellent, Monique also manages to expense the entire feast. Afterward, we walk a bit together.

  “Listen …” Monique begins as we stroll.

  Already, I can tell something is different. This is a tone I’ve never heard her take before. There’s an element of—could it be?—seriousness in her voice. Damn it! We’re going to have the relationship talk, the one she’s promised we’d never have.

  “It’s not like we didn’t know this day would come,” she continues.

  Monique is an incredibly attractive woman. Plus, she’s amazing in bed. And I doubt that there is another woman of her level of hotness who would offer the purely physical exchange we have going. All this, coupled with her instrumental spearheading of my career, makes her an unbelievable find. With her, I have hit the emotionless fuck-buddy jackpot—and now she wants to talk relationship.

  “Maybe it’s that we’ve been working together—and extraordinarily well, I might add—but …” She takes a deep breath. “But honestly, I’m ready to move on.”

  “Excuse me?” This is a major conversational U-turn.

  “Well, of course, under any other circumstances, I wouldn’t bother with this conversation. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s those moments with a man where one has to ‘define’ things. So endlessly tedious.”

  “You mean you’re officially breaking up our non-relationship?”

  “I guess you might put it that way,” Monique smiles. “We’re so close to completion, and of course I will be 110 percent on top of all those details.”

  “Okay, but I’m confused. Why exactly?”

  She pauses, then her face becomes a blank canvas as she says simply, “It’s not you, it’s me.” A moment of silence.

  Then suddenly, she cackles wickedly. “God, how I’ve always wanted to say that.” Recovering, she continues, “Our situation’s a little tricky in that I can’t do what I
usually do—stop returning calls and emails, I’m sure you know all those moves—until they take the not-too- subtle hint that it’s Capital O Over. But with our little business venture going along swimmingly, I need to keep things clear on all fronts. I just feel that the shelf life on our hooking up has pretty much expired.”

  “You’re bored? Is that it?”

  “Awww, don’t look so wounded, Sport. It doesn’t suit you,” she continues, purring. “I have my own set of rules about these things—and no, I’m not going to share them—but I’ve already frolicked with you far longer than I ever thought I would.”

  “I see. Okay, I guess.” And the funny thing is, the reverse is also true—this has lasted far longer and gone infinitely further than I thought a New Year’s Eve one-night stand ever would. Nonetheless, I guess my face reveals my perplexed state.

  “Wow, you really aren’t used to being on the other side of this,” Monique smirks with perhaps just a hint of compassion. She even tries for a joke: “Anyway, it’s sort of like that Kenny Rogers song. You know … ‘you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.’”

  She kisses me thoroughly, and since this is presumably for the last time, I feel an odd sense of finality.

  “Suddenly you’re quoting country music?”

  She shrugs. “Seems a fitting exit line for a sweet girl from Georgia.”

  “I didn’t know you were from the South.”

  Monique hails a cab.

  “Sweetheart, we were fuck buddies,” she says. “You barely know the tip of the iceberg.”

  And with that, she gets into her taxi, starts furiously text-messaging on her Blackberry, and without once looking back, departs.

  Chapter 25

  Monday morning, bright and early, Janek and I are back on schedule.