Monkey Suits

by Jim Provenzano

  “Now I’d like to take the opportunity to thank our major donators, the Andrew Bellman Foundation.” A burst of applause. “And our co-chairs for this evening’s benefit, Evelyn Carlson and Trish Fuller.” He gestured to the front row.

  A spotlight shifted to the standing women. Evelyn and Trish shared glances, then persuaded their husbands to stand as well. Applause rose to a polite roar as Winston Fuller stood with Evelyn’s husband. A young man in a tuxedo handed a bouquet of roses to Trish Fuller, who beamed with a wide grin to the equally bouqueted Evelyn Carlson.

  Winston Fuller gave a small wave and mumbled some joke to the man seated beside him, Richard Kirben, the Chairman of the Board for Lincoln Center, who was instrumental in arranging the entire benefit. Kirben, an old Harvard chum of Fuller, had been his fraternity roommate in college.

  “Do me a favor, dear,” Trish Fuller whispered to her husband as they returned to their seats and the fashion show continued.

  “Yes, love?” Winston said, his eyes on the stage and the young women on it.

  Trish clutched her bouquet of flowers, the plastic making crinkling noises under the music. “Don’t get too drunk tonight, please?”

  Winston gave his wife a small glare, unnoticeable to their friends seated around them, but noticeable enough to further the gap between what was thought to be one of the happiest society couples in Manhattan.

  “Certainly, dear,” he said, her request only leaving him even more thirsty for a Tom Collins.

  There had been a time when they were the toast of Manhattan. Winston’s editorials were quoted in all the daily newspapers and syndicated in dozens more. His regularity on the political talk show circuit ensured even higher book sales and popularity, and a constant feast of cocktail conversation.

  Of course, that wasn’t his goal, but merely part of the perks of being an official opinion of current events on New York’s various crises and the nation’s well-being. Trish’s stature as a socially conscious society woman had been secured through her years of charity work. They’d become trusted sources and valuable allies.

  But despite their support of the conquering Republican era, and the endless invitations and parties, Winston had begun to tire of it all. He’d wanted to spend more time traveling, getting away from the society crowd that helped him and Trish rise. He’d too often heard his own voice, tiresomely quoting himself over a table for eight in a posh Park Avenue dining room, once again postulating on what to do with “them;” the homeless, the poor, the unfortunate, and the homosexuals, now besieged by a plague which he believed was entirely self-imposed.

  But his opinions had become unpopular in some circles. For the rest of his friends and associates, it was better to blather in patronizing platitudes, throw money, and ignore them. Yet he repeatedly took hit after hit from leftist columnists and gay rights bureaucrats who practically cringed at his comments as if he had assaulted them with his own hand.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t have sympathy, or that Trish hadn’t opened him up to a better understanding, what with all her contacts with gay florists and caterers. His outward contempt had a particular bias that rose from very personal experience.

  Certainly, they maintained a sense of romance from time to time. That was only natural, after all they’d been through together. But the children were grown, with children, careers, and families of their own. Thank God they’d been spared any hint of scandal, unlike the Clays, whose son had died so tragically, or the Marsdens, whose daughter’s drinking problem and three divorces were juicy fodder for the tabloids. No, at least they’d been spared such pain.

  What drew Trish and Winston apart to the point of being close friends and emotional sparring partners haunted Winston daily. He’d been able to put it aside for most of his life, with only a few minor indiscretions down the years. Trish was understanding, and the two maintained a code of silence in the matter.

  But what started in his college days as a mere crush on a school chum had now returned as a more negotiable vice, one that was entirely familiar to a young man in the theater, two tiers up, with his pants around his ankles.

  24 “Of course, you realize you’re going to have to share me with my

  other men,” Mai Ling stated as she strolled the banks of Central Park’s 72nd Street duck pond with Ritchie. Her black hair occasionally blew in front of her face. April’s warmth brought forth clusters of flowering blossoms in the trees surrounding the pond.

  Ritchie struggled with the confession he was about to make; not that he’d never dated more than three times without sleeping with a woman. That seemed like a sign of maturity.

  “Other men?” Ritchie asked.

  “Mmm,” she said sternly. “Franz, Ludwig, Frederick, Johann ...” Her serious frown broke into a smile.

  “You’re too much.” He shook his head. “You forgot one.”

  “Who?”

  “Charlie.”

  “Ives?”

  “Daniels. Greatest country western fiddle composer of this century.”

  “Well, I don’t think I could make a living expecting folks to pay to see a five-foot-two Chinese woman play hoe down music.”

  “I guess not,” Ritchie agreed.

  “I play Copeland. Is that close enough?”

  Ritchie scowled playfully. “I guess it’ll have to do.” They walked on a few more yards, finished with the jokes. In the brief silence, Ritchie decided to confess.

  “Listen, before we go to dinner, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.” He stuttered and looked down at his feet. “I’m ... I’m not who you think I am.”

  Mai Ling smiled. “Oh? And who might you be? James Bond?”

  Ritchie attempted a grin “Uh, no, uh ... what I mean is, I’m not at all like I said.”

  “You’re not gay, are you?”

  “No!” he said a bit too defensively.

  “So many handsome men in New York sleep with other men, especially in the arts. It’s very surprising ...”

  “Mai Ling?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m not famous and I’m not rich.”

  “So?”

  “I wasn’t ... that first time we met at the Met ...”

  “Met at the Met? Sounds like a musical number.”

  “Please.”

  “Sorry.”

  “When we met ... I wasn’t even a guest.”

  “Party crasher?”

  “No.” He shoved his hands in his coat pockets. “Party waiter.”

  Mai Ling was silent a moment as they walked. A duck plopped itself into the pond. She was having difficulty holding back a wide grin. “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Guess I didn’t really pull it off, did I?”

  “No, you pulled it off just fine. You were very handsome and charming and you had me fooled. But when you disappeared, I had to find out who my Cinderella guy was. So I asked a certain Belgian for the guest list. But when I mentioned your name ...”

  “Philipe?”

  “I’ve had a few parties arranged by my record company and, well, it’s a very small world we live in up here.”

  Ritchie stopped walking. “You knew all along?”

  “Most of the time.”

  “And you let me make a total fool of myself?”

  “You are still very charming and you look good in a tux, no matter what you do for a living.”

  “You little ...”

  “It wasn’t very long ago that my father and mother both worked two jobs to pay for my little tour through Juilliard plucking catgut,” She shrugged. “Some people work their way up the ladder. It does happen.”

  “So you don’t mind dating a waiter?” he asked.

  “A sculptor who caters,” she corrected as she put her arm in his.

  “Sounds better,” he leaned in and walked with her.

  “Much better. And just as soon as we get you properly groomed, perhaps I’ll allow myself to be seen at an actual social event
with you.”

  “What?”

  “Psych!” She grinned again. It took Ritchie a few moments to realize she was kidding. At least he thought she was kidding.

  They walked on through the park’s brisk spring thaw, admiring the almost phosphorescent dusk glow of the green buds in the trees.

  25 “But why not?”

  “I just think we ought to slow down.”

  Ed and Brian lay in bed, both staring up at the ceiling. Despite having already enjoyed a last fumble with Marcos only days earlier, Brian had wanted to make love, and Ed was refusing in his quiet way.

  “It doesn’t matter if you’re positive or not,” Brian argued. “Not if we’re together. I’m not gonna make you sick, and I’ve probably already got anything I’m gonna get from you.”

  “It doesn’t work that way,” Ed pleaded.

  “Do you think I gave it to you?”

  “I’m not going to put blame on anybody. It happened. Probably before we even met.”

  “So, we’ll be safe. I got some new rubbers.” Brian reached for Ed’s penis, giving it a warm grab. It remained soft.

  “Bri, I’m just not emotionally up to it tonight. You have to understand what I need, and the main thing is that stress can really mess me up.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve been so ...”

  “What?”

  “Fragile. I feel like I can’t be myself around you.”

  “Yes, you can. You might want to focus on the other ninety percent of my body. You just have to realize that the world doesn’t revolve around your dick.”

  “I could make you revolve around my dick.” They both groaned at his joke.

  Ed sat up and kissed him lightly several times. “Look, I love you and care for you and I think you’re learning how to do the same. One thing you have to learn is to put what you need along with what I need. And right now, I need sleep. So let’s just sleep, okay?”

  “Okay.” They lay back down and held on close, Ed’s smooth back against Brian. He nestled his lips against the back of Ed’s neck, rubbing his hand slowly over Ed’s belly. They didn’t move for a long while, their bodies relaxing into sleep.

  Their softened breathing moved in and out of synch, accompanied by an occasional stomach gurgle. It was quiet and they were calm until Brian’s libido took over. His cock, cozy in the warmth near Ed’s butt, grew thicker. He nudged against Ed’s backside a few times, waking Ed. “No,” he whispered. Brian relented, then reached around to Ed’s cock, which was also stiff. But Ed pushed his hand away.

  Finally Brian pulled away in frustration, got out of bed and padded out to the kitchen, got a glass of juice and walked out to the loft. He sat on the sofa, lit a cigarette and tried very hard not to feel like a complete weasel just because of a poorly timed, but at least faithfully aimed, boner.

  26 At first he was afraid to clutch her thin body. He was especially worried about her hands. What if she sprained a finger?

  Instead, she reassured him, showing her strength by holding him firmly, showing her admiration as he grew harder, thicker in her hands. He gasped and moaned, but felt inspired to take control, to show her how beautiful he thought she was. With his tongue trailing across her small pale torso and down between her legs, he brought her to tingling shudders as each of his palms lightly caressed her breasts.

  Once inside her, he took his time, careful, as if he might break her pelvis. He wanted this to last, and she didn’t seem to mind his slow pace. She craned her neck up to lick and kiss his tensed shoulder muscles. Her fingers grazed his back while her legs, shifting as they wrapped around him, rubbed tenderly against his thighs.

  Their bodies became almost liquid, sliding together, easing, slowing if they too soon approached the inevitable end. When he came, the seed seemed to gush out of him and into the rubber. She clutched the taut, glistening muscles in his back and watched as the face above her grimaced in his joyous agony. As he withdrew, he kissed both her hands again and again.

  Morning light streamed through the ten-foot windows of Mai Ling’s bedroom, a sublet in the East Sixties. The shadows of tree branches dappled the windows. Ritchie lay in bed, relaxed and almost in love, yet somewhat uncomfortable with the beauty of the large apartment that he was in, combined with the incredible talent of the woman whose bed he lay in.

  They’d fixed a small breakfast tray of coffee and croissants, which sat half-eaten at the foot of the bed.

  “We won’t be able to do this very often,” Mai Ling said, wrapping a sheet about her waist demurely as she stirred her coffee.

  “Why?” Ritchie turned to her, resting his head in his arm. She grazed her fingers over his bare chest.

  “My manager Yi Li lives here with me and my parents visit quite a lot.”

  “Where’s Yi Li now?”

  “In Queens with her sisters. They all came over together from China years ago.”

  “Well, you could move in with me,” Ritchie suggested.

  “Move in with you?” Mai Ling gasped. “Where would I put my Steinway?”

  “Good question,” Ritchie considered the carefully apportioned quadrants of the loft space he’d described to her.

  “We’ll put it right in the middle of the room.”

  “Then where will your friend Ed do his exercises?”

  “We’ll move it to the side and you can accompany him.”

  “Me? A dance accompanist? I think not. Demi plie, one, and twooo ...”

  “Great! You’re hired.”

  The two laughed a moment, then embraced again, rolling a few times on the bed until Ritchie lay naked above the sheets. Mai Ling patted his bare butt. “You must go.”

  “It’s only nine o’clock.”

  “I must pack. I leave on tour in a few days.”

  Ritchie sat up in the bed. “So I’m just a quick thing for you? A little fun before your glamorous trip?”

  “Not at all, silly. How often do you think someone like me gets to meet a real man to date? Huh? Now let me get on with my life.”

  Ritchie was quite stunned to see such conviction in Mai Ling. His expectations of a delicate sensitive flower were partially fulfilled in their night of lovemaking. But when it came to her career, she was a different creature altogether.

  “But when are you coming back?”

  “Two months.”

  “Two months? What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

  “Well, I have a PBS special airing in two weeks, and until then, every night before bed, you can just play those bootlegs I gave you.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think plugging you into my ears will be quite the same.”

  “I should hope not,” she said as she threw a pillow at him.

  Ritchie crept around the edge of the bed for his shorts, but Mai Ling said, “No, be naked. It’s not often I get a handsome fellow showing off his bod.”

  Ritchie relented, and stayed naked while Mai Ling moved from room to room.

  “A farewell concert,” she said as she removed her violin from its case and played a little Scarlatti in her kitchen after making Ritchie wash the dishes. She had begun to play as a joke, but Ritchie ended up not at all laughing, he was so touched. He watched, leaning at the sink, her violin gleaming in the morning spill of light as she played for him and no one else.

  By the time he got home, Ritchie noticed the door to Brian and Ed’s room was closed. They were still asleep, he assumed, so he went into his room, stripped down to his boxers and walked out into the loft space to do some pre-biking stretches, something he only did when he was alone. Glancing at his map of Manhattan, he surveyed the yellow highlighted patches, wanting very much to add an extra bright mark to the spot at Mai Ling’s apartment. He could have gone to bed, but thinking about Mai Ling kept him awake. His thoughts brought him to a new arousal.

  He strode out to the loft couch and discovered Brian lying in the morning sun under a tangled mess of sheet and pillows. The sheet jutted from Brian’s legs. Ritchie smirked, stepped closer, and
waited. Brian awoke to find Ritchie’s hand wrapped around his cock.

  “Good morning.” Ritchie grinned wide.

  “Ah, my secret love, you have returned.” Brian stretched catlike, thrusting his erection up to meet Ritchie’s hand. “Watch the teeth this time, okay?” he joked.

  Ritchie pulled his hand away and stood over him. Brian made no effort to hide his nakedness as he sat up.

  “When did you get in?” Brian asked.

  “Half an hour ago.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Who?”

  “The girl you ravished. It is a girl, I take it?”

  “I’m not telling you.”

  “Okay, okay, jus’ tryin’ to chat, man to man, as it were. Just glad you finally got laid after all these months.” Brian made a grab for Ritchie’s shorts, but Ritchie pulled back.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “How’s about you make us some coffee?”

  “What are you doing out here?”

  Brain rubbed his belly. “Domestic squabble.”

  “Wanna talk?”

  “Well, he’s still holding back, scared about being a member of the Virus Club.”

  “Well, you need to be sensitive to what he needs. He’s goin’ through a rough time.”

  “Thanks, Ann Landers,” Brian snapped. “Now, seeing as I’m lacking in some nookie,” Brian sat back in the sofa and clutched his cock. “Why don’t you come here and sit on me and let me bust that pretty little virgin butt?”

  Ritchie mock-glared down at Brian. “How’s about I bust that pretty little face?”

  “Ooh, rough stuff,” Brian grinned, grabbing Ritchie in a tackle, knocking him to the floor.

  Ritchie resisted at first, but figured he could get a few well-deserved sucker punches into Brian. The two rolled around on the floor, grappling on the small carpet below the sofa. Brian grabbed Ritchie’s thigh, forcing his way between his legs, where he teasingly lunged his mouth down on Ritchie’s shorts. Ritchie pulled away, grabbing at Brian’s butt, giving it a few loud slaps.

  “Ow! Hey!” Brian slapped Ritchie’s back, twisting his legs around for a scissor lock. The two fumbled around, knocking over a table.