by Jerry Cole
Simon showered briskly, barely allowing the water to heat up before standing under the jets. He remembered a stack of invoices and tax forms on his desk at the bathhouse that needed his attention. They were his lifeline. His ticket away from the thing that scared him the most. Abandonment.
Pulling on the first sweater his hand landed on, Simon grabbed his keys and wallet and rode the elevator down to the lobby.
“Hey, you’re up early,” Sparkle’s cheerful voice broke through the red haze that consumed Simon’s brain.
“Hey…where did you go?”
“Home to pick up a few things. Are you okay?” Sparkle said, cupping Simon’s face and looking him in the eye.
“Yeah, I…” Simon eyed the large trunk Sparkle dragged behind him.
“Did you have a bad dream?”
“No, I had a great dream.” Simon’s voice wavered slightly as he spoke.
“Let's go have some breakfast,” Sparkle instructed, trying to sound cheerful. Simon’s slightly pale face and panicked expression didn’t begin to ease back into something normal until they were safely behind closed doors.
Sparkle threw open his trunk, pulling out pieces of art wrapped in blankets and clothing that Sparkle never wore in public.
“What’s all this?”
“This, my love, is my gift to you!” Sparkle handed him a bronze phallic wind chime with a smile. “It’s the god of sex and fertility. I don’t think you and I will ever be able to conceive a child, but you are welcome to keep trying.”
Simon swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to smile back.
“You can’t fool me, you know. You have one hell of a poker face, but you’re a crap actor. Sometimes when people die it’s easy to forget. You wake up the next day and have to remind yourself all over again that they are gone.” Sparkle climbed into Simon’s lap, stroking his face and hugging him tight against his chest.
Simon felt guilty for not grieving his mother’s passing at that moment. He didn’t have the balls to admit that it had been the thought of losing Sparkle that had shaken him up so badly. Instead, he sat quiet and allowed Sparkle to console him.
“Why don’t you decide where you want to put these things, and I’ll make breakfast?”
Sparkle slithered out of his embrace and kissed Simon’s brow, treating him like a schoolboy who just suffered a terrible fright. Sparkle’s misdirected sympathies lanced Simon’s body with guilt.
“Poor baby,” Sparkle muttered, walking back into the kitchen. His sincere concern only twisted the knife in Simon’s gut.
Simon looked down at the array of artifacts that Sparkle had collected. They were all interesting and well-crafted, but nothing like the types of art that Simon would buy. Besides the bronze cock wind chime, there were sculptured suggestively but not overtly sexual, a few Afrocentric pieces and a collage of Sparkle’s best work. Simon’s eye lingered on a playbill with Sparkles on the cover, his sultry eyes full of the kind of innocence you can only have when you’re new to the city.
“How old were you when this was taken?” Simon pointed to the picture in the corner
“That one? Oh, nineteen, maybe. I was so young then! Time flies.”
“Hmm,” Simon grunted. Damon loved that play. It was one of the few things that they could do as a couple. In the theater, when the lights went down, they could hold hands in the darkness. They could sit too close and whisper obscene things in each other’s ears. That was decades ago. Too long ago.
“I have to go into the office at the bathhouse. There’s a ton of work.” Simon stood up, looking dazed and unsure of what to do with his hands.
“I’ll go with you. I could use a day at the spa,” Sparkle volunteered, snagging a muffin from the fridge and grabbing his keys.
“Why?”
“Because as long as I’m sleeping with the boss, it’s free.”
“No I mean, why are you going with me?”
“Because I promised your mother, God rest her soul, that I wouldn’t leave you alone after she passed. I figure if she was gracious enough to give her beloved gay son to me, despite the fact that I was a Negro,” Sparkle paused for effect, “then I could hold up my end of the bargain and stick like glue, even though she was a confused old lady.”
Simon’s smile was genuine this time, though it still didn’t feel right to be smiling when his mother’s grave was still fresh. She was the last person in the world who he could say had his best interest at heart. It seemed wrong to be enjoying life after hers was over.
“Dying yourself won’t bring her back,” Sparkle interrupted his thoughts.
“How did you—”
“Women’s intuition!” Sparkle rolled his eyes as if the question itself was the dumbest thing he’d heard all day.
“But you’re not a woman.”
“And yet…” Sparkle wiggled his eyebrows as he disappeared through the front door.
Simon followed Sparkle, smiling despite himself. How the hell can one person have such a profound effect on his mood? Simon’s sense of wonder at Sparkle’s soothing effervescence faded as he began to piece together the events of the last twenty-four hours. It felt like he was coming out of a fog and finally getting a good look at his reality. From the moment he received the call that his mother was dead, Sparkle had not left his side. Victoria had already taken care of most of her funeral arrangements, so there wasn’t much left for Simon to do except inform the family. During that whole process, Sparkle had held his hand, often literally, and faced the difficulty of that moment with him. And the night of the funeral?
“I love you.” Simon cringed inwardly at the memory. Had he said it? He was out of his mind. During the entire car ride, he kept analyzing his next move. Did he love Sparkle? If he did, did he want Sparkle to know? It obviously hadn’t chased the other man away. In fact, Sparkle’s new found sense of domesticity and ownership was almost reassuring.
Deciding that silence was the best option when it came to that subject, Simon escorted Sparkle into the bathhouse through the employee entrance.
“This is weird. It’s like being backstage at the Broadway adaptation of a Disney film. I can see where all the magic and wonder comes to life. It ruins it a little,” Sparkle twittered as he followed Simon up the side staircase to the offices.
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Simon was truly in his element in the bathhouse. The uncertainties that tempered his ego in the real world disappeared behind these walls. He was the king. There was nothing he couldn’t have and nobody who dared to deny him. Sparkle sat quietly watching Simon go through reports and make phone calls. He was almost terrifyingly calm, moving money and glad-handing vendors like an old-school Don from classic mafia movies.
“You can get your massage now. The masseuse should be in. He should just be setting up downstairs. You can be his first rub of the day,” Simon said to Sparkle, catching him yawning in the corner.
Sparkle stretched like a lazy cat and then left the office without saying a word. Simon watched Sparkle sashay across the atrium towards the locker room. Despite the size of the space, Sparkle seemed to fill it up with his energy. Even if it was packed, Sparkle was the only person Simon could see.
“I’ve got it bad,” he said to himself, as Sparkle left his field of vision. Preferring to dive back into the backlog of work on his desk rather than ponder his way too deep and way too intense feelings for a lover who was turning out to be way too perfect, another forty minutes passed before the door of the office opened. Sparkle walked in, a white fluffy towel wrapped haphazardly around his hips, dragging a collapsible massage table and a caddy full of oils and creams.
“What is all this for?”
“You. I felt bad being the only one getting pampered, so I decided to share the wealth,” Sparkle smiled brightly. Simon’s sardonic smirk crushed Sparkle’s attempt at levity.
“Philip got fresh with you, huh?”
“And how!” Sparkle turned and locked the door behind himself.
“But I figured, now was as good a time as ever to do something nice for you.”
Truthfully, the work was complete. But, like any good entrepreneur, Simon was reviewing the day to day dealings at the bathhouse, looking for ways to improve service and ensure the viability of this place. It did pretty brisk business and was financially solvent, but Simon had been in the financial sector long enough to know that things could change any day. The companies that stayed relevant were the ones that didn’t get caught behind the times. More importantly, this place was his baby. It was his contribution to the community—a safe space where nobody, not even him, had to pretend to be anything that they weren’t.
Sparkle shook a glass bottle of amber oil and beckoned Simon over with a strange hula dance. Simon had no choice but to give in.
“One day soon you’re going to get tired of taking care of me,” Simon complained as he peeled off his shirt.
“One day,” Sparkle agreed. “Then you can take care of me. That was the original deal anyway.”
“Ah, are we still making deals?”
“If it makes you feel better,” Sparkle picked up Simon’s discarded clothes and folded them over his desk chair.
“And what are you offering me today?” Simon stretched out on the massage table and let Sparkle run his strong, warm hands all over his body. Despite his conditioning, Simon’s body was still sore from the previous night’s lovemaking.
“Well…you could tell me a story.”
“What story? Lower…” Sparkle’s hands were like magic, and Simon wasn’t sure what was diffused in the amber colored oil, but it left a warm tingling sensation in its wake.
“You could tell me about Damon.”
“What?” Simon’s blood ran cold just hearing that name in Sparkle’s lips.
“In the last week, that name has come up three times, and every time it does, your face looks like you’ve seen a ghost. I figure he must have been your ex or something, but there has to be a story behind it all. You don’t seem like the type to get hung up on somebody so deeply that you can’t move on. So, what’s the story?”
Simon sat up and looked at Sparkle’s deep, brown eyes.
“You really know how to disarm me, you know that?”
Sparkle smiled shyly, adding cute to the list of adjectives Simon could use to describe the man. Simon let his eyes roam all over Sparkle’s soulful face, toying with an errant shock of hair as he considered Sparkle’s request.
“Tell me!” Sparkle pouted.
“Damon was my lover and the man who very nearly killed me. He died right in front of me. The official term for it back then was ‘complications related to HIV’.”
Chapter Fifteen
Sparkle’s hands stilled for a moment before he took a deep breath and continued. He knew for a fact that they were both HIV negative. Simon had insisted that they both get tested by his family doctor. It seemed like a prudent move at the time, but Sparkle was discovering that Simon was more like Batman than Superman.
He was a by-product of his traumas, the survivor of his nightmares. Everything in his life had a back story, from the meticulous way he combed his hair to the brutal way he made love. Standing still beside this man was like walking through a minefield. There were no “safe” topics. Everything was dangerous. Was this the kind of love he wanted?
“So are you going to tell me or what?”
“Will you let me hold you?”
“I insist on it.” Sparkle leaned against Simon’s chest and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, allowing himself to be cradled, even though he was not the one in need of comfort.
“Back then, we didn’t know what it was. We had an idea, but nothing sure. Nothing concrete. I don’t think you can truly understand what it was like to be a gay man then. There was so much fear and stigma attached to being gay and HIV. Jesus, you must have been a kid then. I was already out and sowing my oats.”
“Whore.”
“Absolutely. Never the same hole twice, that was my motto.”
Sparkle frowned at the crassness of his comment. It seemed twice as foul coming from Simon’s naked, oily self.
“And?”
“And then there was Damon. I honestly don’t remember who pursued who. I can barely remember how we met. Somehow, we were just together all the time. We never officially called ourselves a couple. We never went out on a real date. He was just there, all the time, and I didn’t mind.”
“Shocking!” Sparkle feigned surprise.
“And he was gorgeous. Not like you. Not in the way you are gorgeous. He was blonde and played rugby and made all the girls swoon.”
“Seriously? Swoon? You are SO old!” Sparkle chuckled.
“Yes, a full swoon. The girls swooned, and so did some of the boys, myself included.”
“And he chose you to hang around all the time. That must have been amazing.”
“It was terrifying and wonderful. I had never had a lover; nobody that was just mine. I just dove right in. I was all his. It never occurred to me that there could ever be anybody else for either of us because we were together every day.” Sadness made the lines in Simon’s face deeper as he continued to speak.
“But he found the time?”
“I gave him plenty of it. I went away for three months for work. It was probably my fault. I never said anything. I just assumed he knew how I felt about him. I never said ‘I love you’ or ‘let's go steady’ or anything. I just assumed that he knew and he would be waiting for me when I got back.”
“Wasn’t he?”
“Not really. He was there when I got back, and so was my substitute.”
“Oh.”
“Oh.” Neither of them spoke for a few moments, letting the painful memory of that moment recede before moving forward.
“So I didn’t hear from him for a while. Maybe two years. He seemed to disappear. I heard he moved overseas. I don’t know if that was ever true, but that was all I heard. Then one day I was walking down the street, and I was shit faced. I was so drunk. But I got the impression that I was being followed.”
“Damon?”
“He was so high, so sick, so pathetic.”
“Did you know he was on drugs?”
“He wasn’t when I knew him. I know that sounds naïve, but I would have noticed. Hell, I might have indulged with him if he had been using at the time. But, I think the drugs and the new guy and the disease all came at the same time.”
“While you were away.”
Simon tightened his grip around Sparkle and rocked him gently.
“Do you blame yourself?”
“I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to help at first. But, then he threatened to blackmail me. He wasn’t the person he used to be.”
“How did he die?”
“He tried to make good on his threat. He showed up at my family’s home during one of my mother’s evening parties. The security caught him trying to storm the gate. He was so sick; he looked like a plague victim. You could see his heartbeat—he was so skinny. I came down to the gate to try and settle things, but he was…I couldn’t do anything. Then he just fell over. His eyes were still open when his heart stopped. He died right there, on the ground at the end of my mother’s driveway, with his eyes open.”
“And then you had to go back inside and pretend that it was nothing.”
“It was one thing to be gay. As long as you were discrete nobody cared. But this was something else. As soon as he died, everybody would know that AIDS was the cause. Being associated with AIDS in any way was the kiss of death. Even doctors who worked in men’s health clinics got the stink eye for treating HIV-positive patients. There was still a lot of fear and ignorance.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“I do. I need you to know. I want you to understand that—”
“Do you love me?” Sparkle interrupted Simon.
“Yes.”
“So there it is. I know, and even if we break up I will know that you love
d me once.”
“Do you love me?”
“I think I can,” Sparkle whispered.
“You can?”
“Love is not just a feeling. It’s all of the decisions you make every day whether you feel it or not. I think I can love you, every day, even when I don’t feel like it. I think I can.”
Sparkle pressed his full lips against Simon’s, siphoning out some of the pain and loneliness from the memories that he dug up.
“That was a good story. A little sad, but still good.”
“You are a good listener.”
“Except for the part where I stole the mic like a drunk rapper at an awards show!”
Simon laughed a loud barking sound that let Sparkle know that he wasn’t caught in the sadness of the past any longer. Though Simon was managing it well, Sparkle was still struggling with the images his story evoked. He was right about one thing. Sparkle had been a kid during the darkest days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He was only vaguely aware of what was happening around the country, as that public health crisis raged.
But, what he did remember, was the images of the dead and dying. The gaunt emaciated look of those who were in the last stages of the disease’s progression. They scared him then, and they haunted him now.
The bodies that were often buried looked nothing like the men and women they had once been. As a small boy, what he understood was that there was a killer called AIDS and that was what it did to its victims. To have to look into the eyes of a person you once loved, reduced to that state, and watch them die, seemed like an unimaginable hell.
To be sure, Sparkle knew plenty of people who were living with the disease. But they were living. They were dating, and working, and living their lives. As long as they were managing their health, it hardly seemed like an issue. No more than diabetes or heart disease.
Sparkle smiled sweetly and seductively and packed up his bag of tricks, trying to keep Simon from realizing how deeply his story had shaken him. It was the first time that Sparkle truly understood the chasm between them. It was full of so many things—class, race, age, but tragedy…tragedy made all of those things irrelevant. As long as they could share their tragedies, they would be okay.