Our Young Man

by Edmund White

  They were always leaving a baguette on Guy’s doorstep or a cherry cheesecake, once she’d discovered that was Kevin’s favorite. With the coldhearted discipline of a farmer drowning kittens, Guy systematically sprayed the baked goods with detergent so they’d be inedible. “You’re incredibly sweet, Dorothy,” Guy overheard Kevin say on the landing, “but we’re models and we can’t indulge,” he wailed. Guy would never have said anything: He didn’t want people to think of them as Martians.

  Pierre-Georges came by and treated Kevin frostily. He kept speaking to Guy in French, using the most difficult argot (pieu for “bed” and tignasse for “hair”) just in case Kevin had picked up ordinary French in school.

  “Speak in English,” Guy said.

  “Honestly, I don’t mind, you guys can knock yourselves out with your French. Honestly. I’ll just read a magazine.”

  Guy knew that Pierre-Georges would take Kevin’s politeness as a form of wimpiness (mièverie). Pierre-Georges had been warned not to say anything that would give away Guy’s real age.

  That night in bed Kevin confessed that when he was twelve he’d gotten his hands on a copy of Blueboy. And he’d jerked off to a guy named Ralph. “And he looked just like you, but of course he couldn’t have been, because that was seven years ago. But I swear he looked just like you! It’s weird! Same little jug ears, same eyes exactly the same shape, same small hands, same …”—here he lowered his voice—“dick.”

  Oh, no, Guy thought, of all the pictures that might have surfaced and imprinted him, it had to be mine, the one that sneaky American photographer talked me into and swore never to show anyone.

  “But it looks just the way you do now,” and Kevin sheepishly brought out from under the mattress a dog-eared copy of Blueboy, the pages limp from use and stiff with semen. “Doesn’t it?” And he held the picture up and thrust it into Guy’s face. “Or am I crazy or what?”

  “There is a resemblance.”

  “If you only knew how much cum that photo cost me! Gallons and gallons.”

  Kevin blushed, not one of his deep, cranberry blushes, but a hawthorn-pink one. “I used to fantasize I’d call up the Blueboy offices in Miami and I’d ask for the art director, his name is printed here, Gabriel Sanchez, and I’d say I was calling on behalf of Ralph’s mother who was dying, and I had to have Ralph’s telephone number immediately. But then I thought that probably wasn’t even his real name. And maybe Blueboy didn’t even deal with him directly. The photo is credited to Big One Studio. They probably just sold it to Blueboy.”

  Kevin lay back on the pillow and closed his eyes. In the slanting evening light coming through the window and against the crisp white pillowcase he looked even more tanned. Suddenly his eyes snapped open. “And go figure, now I have a Ralph all of my own, my very own Ralph.”

  Guy smiled. “You make me sound like a Ralph Doll.”

  Kevin laughed. “You’re my little Ralph Doll.” He unbuttoned Guy’s shirt. “And I can dress you in any outfit I like or undress you completely.” His small fingers undid the buttons of Guy’s 501s and he tugged his jeans down. “And I can bend my Ralph Doll in any position I like.” He rolled Guy over onto his side, folded the upper knee up, and straightened the lower leg, pushed his upper shoulder to the mattress, and then wriggled out of his own underpants, releasing his hard cock. A moment later he was fucking Guy, holding him by the sharp pelvis bones and pulling him back onto his dick. “Do you like that, Ralph?”

  “Yes. I. Do,” Guy said in a robot voice. “Very. Much,” he said in staccato bursts.

  “This is too weird, but I like it,” Kevin said. The heat of the afternoon made him sweat, which matted his hair down on his forehead, as Guy noticed when he looked back. Guy wondered if he could tell Kevin to thrust a bit more, but no, that would sap his confidence. Better show him how it was done when it was Guy’s turn. The boy just rocked like a Roto-Rooter and came with a terrible war whoop.

  “My little Ralph,” Kevin whispered into Guy’s ear. It was the first time he was amorous after he came, and Guy took that as progress. Nor did Kevin go, “Ew-w,” when he pulled his penis out and it was brown and smelly, and that, too, Guy considered a rite de passage.

  Guy invited Kevin to the Spanish restaurant on the corner. The baron was there with a big muscular German named Hans whose head was shaved and who had a silver stud through his right eyebrow. He was wearing black Doc Martens and skinny jeans and a bicycle chain instead of a belt. “I thought I might see you here, Guy, in our old neighborhood. What a lovely companion you have—Kevin? So honored to meet you. This is Hans—he’s East German, so his English isn’t very good. But he’s good at lots of other things.”

  Guy felt intensely uncomfortable standing there. He thought, If I shouted “Fire!” and pulled Kevin away, I might save the day, but that won’t happen. Guy felt he was walking toward a fatal accident.

  “I hear our old friend died and left you yet another house.” He looked at Guy from head to toe. “How do you do it? You don’t look a day older than you did all those years ago. Gene therapy? The sperm of infant lads?” (And his glance took in Kevin.) “And don’t tell me you got rid of that virile Colombian.”

  “He’s in prison—for forgery.”

  “Poor thing.” Édouard didn’t want to know any more about what was unpleasant. Once more a complete survey of Guy’s person. “They really should exhibit you at the Smithsonian as one of the wonders of the age. How many years ago did I meet you?”

  “I rarely think about the past,” Guy said coldly.

  “Quite right, too, when you have such a promising present,” and this with another head-to-toe look at Kevin. “Guy, you look just as fresh as the day I met you.”

  “Thank you,” Guy said. Guy was looking at Hans’s big, lumpy crotch; everything about him—his wide stance, his direct stare, his bald, missile-shaped head—spelled Big Cock.

  “And how is our house? Comfortable?”

  “Yes. As always. You and Hans must come by someday for drinks.”

  “Definitely,” piped Kevin politely. “You’re always welcome.”

  “What a dear child,” the baron said with a mocking smile, and he actually patted Kevin on the cheek with his gem-studded, age-spotted hand. “Don’t let him lead you astray, my child. He’s such a wicked man, woof!” and the baron pretended to shiver with delight.

  After they sat down they both studied their menus, and finally Guy said, “You don’t even want to know.”

  “I feel I don’t know you at all.”

  “Don’t you think what we have is real and solid?”

  Kevin looked at him with tears in his eyes. “I want to believe that. Jesus, I want to. But how can I trust you? I don’t know what to think now.”

  This was the first time Guy had heard Kevin say “Jesus” and the way he said it sounded like a genuine cry from the heart. Guy thought that if he lost Kevin, at least he’d have had one perfect month from him, and what did you ever have with another person anyway? Certainly not much more. And breaking up with him would simplify his life. He wouldn’t have to lie anymore to Andrés.

  But he’d miss the little guy, his sweetness, his good humor, his devotion to his silly music, his warm perfect body, his amateur lovemaking, the sperm of an infant lad.

  “Do you think it’s worth it, working through all this mess?” Guy asked.

  Kevin looked startled. “What! You’re breaking up with me? I love you, Guy. You’re my sweetheart. I’d marry you if I could. You don’t doubt that?”

  Guy reached across the table and squeezed Kevin’s hand, which felt feverish.

  “First of all,” Kevin said, “who was that man?”

  “He’s a Belgian baron. He’s called Édouard and he’s the one who gave me the house.”

  “So there was no aunt, no black GI?”

  “No.”

  “Were you the baron’s lover?”

  “I slept with him once. He was in love with me.”

  “How old ar
e you really?”

  “Going on forty. That photo of Ralph you have—that’s me when I was twenty.”

  “Really? It is? How do you do it?”

  “I don’t do anything.”

  “Seriously, how do you stay so young? You look the same as Ralph did. You haven’t changed at all.”

  “I have. I have hair now in my ears. The flesh around my fingers is loose, wobbly—see, yours fits tight, like a good glove, mine is creased and shiny and baggy. And my elbows are dry and scaly. My nose is too big—a nose keeps growing with the years. Luckily I was born with small ears. You are just a bit shorter than me but weigh twenty pounds less without looking cadaverous. Only real young people can do that. You have duvet—fuzz—on your cheeks that lights up in the cross light.”

  “So you’re really Ralph?”

  Guy told him the whole story of how the American photographer back in Paris had tricked him into posing nude and then sold the picture to Blueboy.

  “And so you’re a much bigger supermodel than you let on? And not an aristocrat?”

  Guy gave him a rundown on his entire career, from meeting Pierre-Georges at the Café Flore to doing runway work for Pierre Cardin to coming to the States and meeting Bruce Weber in 1980 (“He changed my life”) and eventually posing for Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch.

  “And who is the virile Colombian he mentioned?”

  Guy said, “He’s called Andrés and he’s in prison.” Guy explained that he’d been arrested for forgery.

  “Do you mean that if he weren’t in prison you’d still be with him and not with me? Am I his temporary replacement?”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Guy said. “Don’t even think like that.”

  “And who was that man who died that the baron mentioned? Where is the house he gave you?”

  “His name was Fred. He died of AIDS. He left me his house on Fire Island.”

  “Did you lie about that, too? Are you infected by AIDS? And me? Am I going to get it and die?”

  “No, no,” Guy said, and he explained that he had just tested negative and he could show Kevin the results. “There’s no reason for you to believe me, I know. My word is worthless. But I do have the document. If you’re really as inexperienced as you say, then there’s no reason to worry.”

  “I’ve always told you the truth,” Kevin blurted out. A second later they both realized what a heavy condemnation lay in those spontaneous words.

  “Unlike me,” Guy said. “I’m a terrible person.” He expected Kevin to contradict him, but when he didn’t, Guy sank another foot into the mud.

  It must have been eight-thirty on a July night but it was still light out, warm and windless. Neither of them was hungry, so they stirred their green paella around on their plates, paid, and left. On the way out Guy nodded to the baron.

  As if by a prearranged agreement, they sat on the stoop to their building and looked out on the uninteresting street. At last Kevin said, as if responding to a question, “Were you ever going to come clean with me?”

  “About what?” Guy wasn’t sure what “come clean” meant.

  “About how you came to own this house, about how you have a Latin lover, about your unemployed father, about how you’re fifteen years older than you said—oh, forget it.”

  “I don’t know,” Guy said, “I don’t know when I would have told you. I was afraid of losing you.”

  A moment went by, and a mother and her preteen daughter walked past. When they were out of earshot Kevin said, “At least that sounded honest.”

  That night they made love for a long time and for the first time Guy fucked Kevin. Guy spent a long time rimming him and then put a lubricated finger up there.

  “I’ve wanted this for such a long time,” Kevin said.

  “Me, too.”

  “I’m not sure it’s clean.”

  “So what?” Guy asked. “You must tell me if it hurts. I don’t have to use a condom, do I?”

  “Of course not,” Kevin murmured, and perhaps thought better of it. Could he trust Guy? “No,” he said. “We’re married. We’re faithful.”

  Kevin’s words were like a vote of confidence. Guy inched his way into the boy’s ass while studying his face (pain as pleasure). It was the most wonderful feeling, muscular velvet, an intimacy only a virgin could grant, or so he said to himself for the moment, just to make it all the more exciting. He was taking Kevin’s cherry! The words made him harder and made him feel privileged, masterful, married. He thought how many men would pay unlimited amounts to have this inaugurating experience with this boy. He didn’t want to feel like a middle-aged pedophile, he didn’t even want to think all this would make a good porn film. He wanted every thrust, every second, to be laden with tenderness, a salute from him to Kevin, a deep recognition. He wanted Kevin to like what was being done to him, to push back for another joyous millimeter of penetration. He didn’t want him to label it Guy’s First Fuck or Kevin’s First Time. He didn’t want the idea and the label to crowd out the sensation or to sharpen it; he wanted it to be pure sex, undramatized.

  Guy took a long time. He thought that way Kevin would get used to it, stop fearing it, realize how pleasurable it was. Guy reached around and stroked his hard cock: Good, he was still erect. He’d lose his erection if he was in pain, wouldn’t he? Guy whispered in his ear, “I love you.” How many times he’d wanted to say that. The words thrilled both of them and Kevin trembled all over as he had the very first time they’d kissed, and again Guy thought of him as a skittish colt. He strummed his ribs as if he were playing a harp. “Am I hurting you?” Guy asked.

  “It feels really neat!” Kevin said, which prompted Guy to lie on top of him, pull out, balance his weight on his outstretched hands, then plunge deeper and faster into him. Kevin seemed to give in to him, to stop acting and to start uttering a high-pitched little call Guy had never heard before. Kevin experimented with spreading his legs, pulling his buttocks wider open, nibbling Guy’s hands, clenching his rectum. “Just lie still,” Guy murmured, and Kevin did. Guy felt the last locks opening. He couldn’t resist glancing up at their reflection in the mirror. They looked good. Now the light coming through the windows was rich and grainy with shadow and discretion. Their individuality had been airbrushed out and they were just two charcoal smudges, one covering the other. Suddenly nothing in the world seemed to Guy more glamorous than homosexuality, as romantic as heady white gardenias nested in polished green leaves. “Can I come in you?”

  “What?” Kevin asked, arching his back and looking over his nacreous shoulder.

  “Can I come in you?”

  “God, yes!” and Guy pressed his whole body into Kevin and shuddered.

  Kevin was breathing heavily. When his breath evened out, Guy pulled out and wiped himself with a tissue from a box on the night table.

  Kevin propped himself up on one elbow and looked at Guy intently, seriously, with those dark circles of weariness under his eyes, so touching in a kid. He started to cry and Guy kissed away his tears. At last Kevin said, “That’s dangerous, fucking me. Are you ready for me to fall in love with you forevermore?”

  A little fatuously, Guy said, “So you liked that?” and Kevin nodded solemnly, which sobered Guy enough to say, “Yes, I’m ready for your love. Give me all you’ve got.”

  They kissed each other languorously again and, suddenly rousing himself, Guy slapped him on the ass and said, “Okay, okay. Your turn.”

  For a second bewildered, Kevin said, “You want me to fuck you?”

  “Yes, dummy.”

  Kevin lubricated Guy with a sticky finger, then entered him; they were both lying on their sides. Guy advanced his upper knee and crooked it and rotated it upward, the Ralph position. Kevin had learned through imitation how to thrust; he already knew that Guy’s G-spots were his ears and nipples, though he’d been warned to go easy on the nipples lest they become enlarged. Guy liked the idea that Kevin’s ass was full of his come and that tribal physics would make it seep t
hrough his loins and spurt through his little cock.

  Afterward, Kevin balanced his head on his open hand, lying on his side, and beamed into Guy’s face, smiled and smiled, wondering. Guy could feel and smell his warm breath, smelling like coffee, a fine stream of air on his cheek.

  “What am I going to do with you?” Kevin said, shaking his head. “My little Ralph.”

  Bright and early the next day, Fred’s lawyer, Marty, phoned. He said that Fred’s sons, the attorney and the podiatrist, had been driving him crazy. (Guy noticed that lawyers called each other “attorneys,” just as doctors referred to each other as “physicians,” as if the normal word weren’t sufficiently reverential.) “So, those little schnorrers are indignant their dad gave you the house, the lion’s share of the estate, and they want to contest it in court. I told them they’d lose the fifty thousand Fred willed them if they contested—and they might get nothing. I told them they didn’t have a very strong case, that I’d been there and could testify they hadn’t bothered to visit their father more than once, that they’d taken Ceil’s side in the divorce, that they’d treated their father’s new lifestyle with contempt, that you’d been there every day. Of course, they started howling that you’d infected Fred and killed him.”

  “I had the test last week,” Guy said, “and I was negative.”

  “That’s great news! Would you be willing to show that report in court, if it came to that?”

  “Why not?”

  “Could you xerox it and send me a copy?”

  “Sure.”

  “I told them I was their father’s oldest friend from Brooklyn days, grade school days, good ol’ Theodore Herschl days, and that I knew Fred was fed up with Ceil and the boys and that he’d known real happiness with you, and I’d say as much to the presiding magistrate, who’s another ol’ Herschl boy. Now, if I have a copy of your health report, their whole case will fall apart, though that Howie is an underemployed lawyer and could keep this thing going on for years. I hate to think of that house on Fire Island sitting empty and you missing out on those big summer rentals. The bastards … you better be prepared for a long, drawn-out fight we may lose. The courts have been favoring the relatives over the lovers, the gay lovers, the fegalas. You might as well be going out there to use the house yourself. Sort of establish a presence. And enjoy!”