The Penalty for Holding

by Georgette Gouveia

  Steve McQueen's fellow rescue Papillons—Alexander McQueen, Butterfly McQueen, and Steven McQueen—stood at attention, wearing huge periwinkle bows that were almost as big as the dogs. They had been bathed, clipped, brushed and otherwise made photo-shoot ready, seated as they were on their matching periwinkle beds. Elliott struggled to get their attention as they looked—longingly, Quinn thought—out the window. He knew the feeling.

  "Alexander, Steven, Butterfly, smile for Mommy," Vienne said as she instructed Elliott to snap a photo that would no doubt make it onto the editor's page of Rumours. Yet for all of her love of animals, the modern glasshouse was filled with antlers; stuffed birds; animal heads, throws and rugs; hunting prints; and Remington sculptures of horses.

  "'I use antlers in all of my decorating,'" Tam sang, coming up behind Quinn.

  "Don't make me laugh."

  "No, seriously, the minute I walked in that was all I could think of, that line from Beauty and the Beast. I mean, Jesus Christ."

  Tam turned to the three dogs, quivering in their beds.

  "High-five, Huey, Louie and Dewey or whatever your names are. Which one of you is the mini Cujo that terrorizes the photo shoots?"

  "He's in solitary in another part of the house," Quinn offered.

  "Oh, thank God. I was wondering why Vienne wasn't handing out Hazmat suits at the door."

  "Kind of ironic, don't you think?" Quinn asked. "I mean, she loves animals so much. And yet, she has all these animal heads and stuffed specimens everywhere."

  "Not a bit," Tam said. "Don't you see? It's all about control. Animals can be neutered, killed, beheaded, stuffed, mounted, and framed. You can't do that with people. Well, you could but there's probably a law against it," Tam added, grabbing a blonde Sangria from one of the circulating waiters.

  "Jesus Christ," exploded a familiar voice.

  "And speaking of people I'd love to stuff," Tam said.

  "Fuck," Mal said, holding up an injured finger that fortunately wasn't the middle one.

  "One of those crazy cats was clawing my leg, and I went to brush him off—gently, mind you—and the fucking thing bit me. I hope I don't die of rabies."

  "Ooh, baby," Tiffany said, all solicitousness behind him, "I'm sure Vienne has some antiseptic."

  "I don't need antiseptic, you idiot," Mal spat. "You don't treat rabies with antiseptic."

  "Geez, this isn't the last reel of Old Yeller, so stop the melodrama, will you?" Tam countered. "I'm sure, control freak that Vienne is, all her pets are up-to-date with their shots. Besides, most people in this country who contract rabies get it from bats. And I don't see any here."

  Just then, one of the housemaids passed by to take the empty glasses.

  "I wouldn't venture into the woods around here at night if I were you," she said, smiling.

  "Great," Tam said. "Just great."

  "Who the fuck cares?" Mal yelled. "What about my finger? I hope this doesn't affect my throwing motion."

  "Let's find Vienne," Tiffany said, trying to placate him. "Vienne, we have a crisis here."

  "Oh, my God," Vienne said, coming up to kiss everyone. "What have we here? Did Miu Miu do that? She can be a bit intense. Miu Miu, have you been a bad girl for Mommy? Brenna—"

  Brenna had just arrived, grabbing a mini chicken salad cup on the way in.

  "Brenna, put down that hors d'oeuvre," Vienne snapped. "With those hips, you don't need it. Help Tiffany and Mal. There are bandages and antiseptic in the powder room on the second floor."

  The advantage of Vienne's rainforest tribute was that you couldn't hear Mal complaining about his indisposed digit. Indeed, you couldn't hear much of anything. Between the waterfall and storm sounds, conversation was virtually impossible.

  "We're quarterbacks, damn it," said Tam, who was famous for his mellifluous audibles at the line of scrimmage. "We should be able to talk over this din."

  "Well, all I know is I'm a real Chatty Cathy," Brenna said. "If I can't talk over this, no one can."

  "What did you say?" Quinn asked.

  The jungle centerpieces didn't help. Trying to lip-read as guests bobbed and weaved around the towering topiary was hopeless. Finally, Quinn was able to motion to Tam and Brenna, who wandered with him into a conservatory that was one of the few serene spaces in the house.

  "At last," Brenna said, settling in, "some peace and quiet."

  But not for long. "Brenna Catherine," her mother barked as she poked her head into the solarium. "Stop flirting with men half your age and come listen to this fabulous freelance assignment Vienne has that only you can do."

  Brenna looked at Quinn and Tam. "Just kill me now," she said.

  When she left, Tam turned to Quinn and said, "Shall we?"

  The sliding doors of the conservatory opened onto a garden that was a world away from the Amazon, or Bedford for that matter, with cherry blossom and weeping cherry trees, winding paths and footbridges over a stream crusted with pink blossoms and studded by paper lanterns that guided you deeper into the night.

  "I could hold you in a place like this," Tam said. "I could hold you and kiss you in front of all these people and watch our carefully built world fall away and be perfectly content."

  "You know holding is illegal in football," Quinn said. "Besides, gardens aren't lucky for lovers, or at least that's what Adam and Eve discovered." He looked down, thrusting his hands deep into the pockets of his skinny black suit as he kicked a pebble down one of the stony paths with the tip of a polished black shoe.

  He and Tam remained apart, watching the brightly colored lanterns sail away. In the Far East, they carried the souls of the departed to the spirit world, Quinn thought. He wished they could transport the two of them to some parallel universe where they were husbands and this was their home, this their garden, and it was just the two of them, enjoying an evening alone. Where was that world? And how many strings into infinity would they have to follow to find it?

  Tam inched closer, and Quinn was caught between the impulse to turn and bury his face in his shoulder, inhaling his sandalwood scent, and fleeing back into the house where he would be safe from temptation.

  "There you are," Vienne announced in a voice that pierced the night and Quinn's reverie. "What are you two doing out here?"

  "Admiring your enchanting garden," Tam said.

  "Well, stop admiring it and come on in," Vienne said. "It's time for the entertainment."

  Vienne had hired Luis José Ortega, a flower reader of Peruvian Indian descent, with long, dark, wavy hair and a heavily lined poker face that looked older than the rocks deposited by the last ice age. He sat by a bouquet of flowers from which each guest picked a blossom and concentrated on it. Then the guest handed it to Luis, who offered insights into the person. He had heretofore been conducting private readings in a small anteroom. Now he was prepared—or rather, Vienne was prepared—for a public demonstration.

  "Luis has assured me of the utmost discretion," she said with a smirk. "No secrets will be revealed, despite my best efforts to persuade him to the contrary. Now let's have a volunteer. Quinn, what about you?"

  He thought Tam's alarmed look mirrored his own. Mal shifted uncomfortably, while Tiffany patted one of his sculpted thighs, smiling—fascinated and oblivious. Even Brenna, who normally greeted such pronouncements—especially Vienne's pronouncements—with an amused, quizzical expression, sat down on the arm of a chair occupied by her father.

  "Oh, come on, don't be shy," Vienne prodded. She was a scourge when she set her mind to something. "It's all in good fun. And you can trust Luis."

  Quinn sat down opposite Luis at a small table that had been set on a platform just for the occasion and picked out a stargazer lily that had been calling him from the moment he first spied the bouquet. He remembered how stargazers dotted the evergreens at the Shangri-La Hotel in Jakarta at Christmastime. How he loved them, loved their magenta and white starfish design, deeper fuchsia stipples, and intoxicating, powdery scent.

  He gazed
at the flower, then handed it to Luis, who stared at it before closing his eyes for what seemed a long time. Then he opened them. The room hushed.

  "You have come a long way," he said to Quinn.

  "Yes," Quinn replied, looking at him fearfully.

  "And you love two—"

  Here Quinn shot him a look that said don't go there.

  "Places," Luis continued.

  "Oh, for God's sake," Mal said. "You could've gotten that out of Sportin' Life magazine. Tell us something you couldn't have read."

  "All right," Luis said, giving him a hard look. He was a serene man, Quinn thought, but even the calm and centered could be roused to anger by a tormentor like Mal.

  "May I have a piece of paper and a pen?" Luis asked.

  He scribbled something, folded it and handed it to Quinn.

  "Well, I'll be damned," Quinn said. "It's the name of the dog I had when I was five—Rory. Now I know I've never told any reporters that. Let's give him a hand."

  And with that, Quinn held up the paper as the guests clapped, tearing it into tiny pieces and thrusting them deep into his pockets before Vienne could snatch any from him.

  It was interesting, Quinn thought, that neither Mal nor Tam clapped. Perhaps they intuited something for as they left, Tam said to Quinn, "So what did Luis really write?"

  Quinn smiled, suppressing a gurgle of panic. "What do you think?"

  He hated misleading Tam. But surely in a perfect world, Quinn thought, Luis would've written, "The one you love above all others is here in the room and wants to be with you forever," wouldn't he? And Quinn would've shared that with the room and sealed the revelation with a kiss as everyone applauded.

  But this wasn't a perfect world, and wishes weren't truth. Still, they could be, couldn't they?

  Tam seemed satisfied with the response to his question. Not everyone, however, was content.

  "You two seem awfully chummy," Mal said, coming up behind them with Tiffany as they waited for the valet to retrieve Mal’s Porsche.

  "And that concerns you why?" Tam asked, smiling a bit too brightly and tightly, Quinn thought.

  "It doesn't," Mal said with a shrug, "except that you two seem like, you know, co-conspirators or something. I mean, it's not like you belong in the same huddle."

  "And you and Quinn do?" Tam said.

  There was a pronounced silence as Quinn and Tiffany sensed two alpha males about to square off. Quinn was loath to step into the breach. Tiffany, however, was unafraid to go where angels feared to tread.

  "Look, Mal, it's late, and I have an early call tomorrow for a shoot," she said.

  "In a minute, babe, you go wait in the car."

  "Mal—"

  "I said in a minute. Go wait in the car."

  She left without another word, and Quinn wondered guiltily what her life was like with Mal. It was one thing for him to tussle with Quinn, who was only 10 pounds lighter. But Mal had to have a 120-pound advantage on Tiffany. At the moment, though, Quinn had other concerns.

  "What was in the note?" Mal asked, glancing around quickly to make sure the valets were out of earshot.

  "What's it to you?" Tam asked, smiling in turn.

  "Shall I tell him or will you?" Mal asked Quinn, ignoring a question with a question.

  As the three men stood whispering in the shadows, the floodlights occasionally catching their set expressions, it occurred to Quinn that there weren't three of them standing there but three sets of two—him and Mal, him and Tam and Mal and Tam. There was something between them, or at least there had been, something that went beyond athletic rivalry.

  "Tell him what was in the damn note," Mal commanded.

  "He doesn't have to," Tam said. "Quinn, you don't have to."

  "Why?" Mal countered.

  "Because I already know what it said," Tam replied.

  "And you can stand there with him?" Mal asked.

  "Why shouldn't I?" Tam asked in turn.

  "You can stand there, knowing I'm secretly fucking him?" Mal spat.

  The color drained from Tam's face. Quinn thought he had never looked more beautiful as he did there in the moonlight, like a lovely, lost ghost.

  "Quinnie?" was all Tam said. The look of hurt on his face was more than Quinn could bear.

  "Quinnie, what's with this Quinnie?" Mal said to Quinn. "Wait, is he fucking you, too?"

  Their faces mirrored each other's as they both finally realized what Luis had actually written to Quinn: "Your two lovers are in the room with you."

  Mal looked at Quinn triumphantly as he turned to go.

  "This isn't over—Quinnie—not by a long shot," he said. "In fact, for you, it's just beginning."

  Quinn turned to Tam as he headed to his rental.

  "Tam—"

  "Leave me alone,” Tam said, jumping into the car.

  "Tam, I met him before you,” Quinn offered as he leaned into it. “Surely, you must’ve thought I had dated. And I certainly thought there were others before you met me."

  "I never in a million years imagined it would be him," he hissed. And with that, he took off. But Quinn wasn't about to let him leave, not like this. He was afraid if he did, what they had would end right there right now forever. So he roared off after him in his roadster and nearly crashed into him as Tam stopped short at the bottom of the long drive.

  "Are you crazy? You must be crazy. It figures. I should've known. All my life it's been like this. First him, now you. I must be destined never to be happy in love."

  Quinn got into the seat beside him, gazing at him as Tam stared straight ahead.

  "For what it's worth," Quinn said softly, "I never loved him the way I love you."

  Tam turned to him. "And that great cliché is supposed to make me feel, what? Listen to me, Quinn, I love you. But I could never be with someone who would have the man who raped me."

  Now it was Quinn's turn to be struck by lightning.

  "Oh, my God, I’m so sorry. I didn't know. How could I? When? I mean, how?"

  "How?" Tam said, laughing. "How? I'll tell you how."

  He shut off the car and the lights and turned to him. The street lamps radiated weirdly amid the feathery trees. But even in the shadowy, leafy mystery of a spring night, Tam's fury was unmistakable.

  "We were high school rivals. We really hated each other. Until we didn't."

  Tam's tone softened at the memory. "He was different then. Or maybe he was the way he is now and I just chose not to see it. People don't change, do they? They become more of what they always were. Anyway, he was charming, funny even, and so fucking beautiful. That and his talent went a long way toward excusing a lot.

  "It started as a game really—arguing over who was better at football, fighting and then jerking off. We'd drive to the Jersey Shore in his dad's car with a case of Bud and fuck under a pier, the saltwater and seaweed washing over us. It was lovely—as long as I was the number two high school quarterback in Philly and he was number one.

  "And then my team beat him and his school for the city championship. Really, it could've gone either way. But I threw one of those once-in-a-lifetime passes down the line for a touchdown, and we won. What do you think is the difference between a winner and a loser, Quinn?"

  "I don't, I don't know."

  "Is it talent, hard work, desire, all three or is it really just dumb luck? I was so happy. And Mal seemed happy for me, too, more than I would've been had the situation been reversed.

  "He suggested we celebrate at the shore, but we were already pretty buzzed by the time we got there. Things started getting rough, and I told him to take it easy, because he was hurting me. But he wouldn't. He pushed me down into the water until I felt my lungs would burst. At the last minute, he brought me up gasping and shoved me against a pile, where he raped me. I begged him to stop. It hurt so much. You know what he said? ‘That's how you like it. And now you know who's really number one.'

  "I cried all the way home, but I never told a soul. Anyway, who was I going to tel
l—my conservative Catholic parents? Or maybe my new college roommate, or the coach, or the front office when I arrived at the Miners? Yeah, that would've been great."

  "Tam, I—"

  "Not your fault. It's just the way things went."

  Someone was honking behind them, and Quinn realized that their cars were still blocking the driveway’s exit. He got out of Tam’s, smiling and waving as he recognized one of Vienne’s confidantes and her husband. Whatever else, he mustn’t lose his cool now, he thought, even as his world was shattering.

  "Tam, come back to my place. We'll talk. We'll work it out."

  Tam shook his head.

  "Go on. I'll call you. I will."

  But the way he took off Quinn feared he'd never see him again.

  When he returned to his loft, Quinn's heart skipped a beat. There was Mal, sitting on the sofa.

  "You are so going to pay for this."

  "Get out. Get out right now. Or I'll call the police. I'll call the press. I'll step out on that balcony and shout it to the rooftops," Quinn yelled. "How could you? How could you do that to him? How could you rape him?"

  "Rape? Is that what he told you? Well, I'm not surprised. He was always a bit melodramatic.

  “Anyway, one man's rape is another's uncontrollable passion. We were kids then. We were drunk. Things got a little out of hand. No, that wasn't it. I loved him, only he was always such a goody-two-shoes. We mustn't. We mustn't do this, and we mustn't do that. 'We mustn't take your father's car without his permission, Mal. We mustn't drink and drive.' Only he went, didn't he?

  "In a way, he was then a lot like you are now—drawn to what he wanted but was afraid to do. I'll prove it to you. You tell me to get out. Fine, I'll go you one better: You go now. You go to the police. See how much they'll care about a supposed crime that happened a dozen years ago. Or better yet, go to your precious Brenna—who called us trog, trog, trog--"

  "Troglodytes."

  "Yeah, she had the nerve to call us that."