“But you didn’t tell me the truth.”
He rose from the bench and stood irresolutely. “I told you,” he said, looking toward the bar. “My life’s a lie.”
He made a move to go.
“Wait,” I said.
His look was disbelieving. “You want me to stay?”
“You asked me here to come out to me,” I said. “That couldn’t have been easy. I did a lot of harm to Jim by not listening to him. I don’t want to make the same mistake with you.” He sat down.
“So,” I continued, “you want to talk?”
He shook his head. “No, I want you to come home with me.”
I smiled. “You need a friend, Josh, not another trick.”
“It doesn’t have to mean anything to you to mean something to me.”
“That’s not the point.”
He touched my hand. “Are we really going to sit here and talk about this?
I looked up at him, saw my face reflected in his glasses and saw past my reflection into his eyes. A waiter came up and asked us if we wanted another drink.
“No,” I said. “We’re leaving.”
Josh lived in Hollywood on a decayed street lined alternately with boxy apartment buildings and little stucco houses whose front yards doubled as driveways. The squalor was softened by the big elm trees that lined the road and the wild rose bushes still putting forth their flowers four weeks before Christmas. I lowered my window as I followed his car down the street. Mariachi music blared from one of the houses where four men squatted on the front lawn guzzling beer. Lights were on in every house, though it was now near two in the morning.
Josh flicked his signal and turned into the carport of a twostory apartment building. I pulled up along the curb and got out of my car. He met me at the sidewalk. It was cold. Behind us, in the Hollywood Hills, the lights flickered like distant stars. The big emptiness of the night was like a stage as we stood in the grainy light of a streetlamp looking at each other. In the darkness, I smelled jasmine.
“This is it,” he said, nervously.
I put my arm around his shoulders, and felt the tension in his neck seep out as he leaned into me.
“You’re cold,” I observed, touching his face with the back of my hand.
“Let’s go upstairs.”
He led me around to a tall gate, through it, and up a concrete staircase to the second floor landing. “The place is kind of a mess,” he said, unlocking the door.
He held the door open for me. The room I found myself in was, in fact, quite tidy. There was a fake Oriental rug on a fake parquet floor. A shabby couch flanked by two sling armchairs, and a glass-topped coffee table furnished the place. One wall was taken up by wooden bookshelves crammed with books. A stereo and a small tv were set on a couple of orange crates filled with records.
Josh stood beside me. “Can I get you something to drink?” “No, thank you.”
“Excuse me, then,” he said, and went into a small kitchen.
The far wall was curtained. I went over and lifted the curtains, revealing a small patio behind a sliding glass door. I sat down on the couch. There was a fish bowl filled with change on the coffee table and next to it a photograph in a heavy bronze frame. The photograph showed a handsome middle-aged couple, two pretty girls, and a smiling Josh. He came back into the room holding a glass of milk.
“Your family?”
He nodded and sat down beside me. “My dad’s a CPA,” he said.
“Where do they live?”
“Sherman Oaks.” He set the glass down on the table. “Are you comfortable?”
I loosened my tie.
Smiling faintly, Josh asked, “Is that as relaxed as you get?” “It’s been a long time.”
“For me, too,” he said. “I don’t want you to think I spend all my time at bars or anything.”
“I know.”
“This feels like the first time for me,” he said, then smiled nervously. “That’s the wrong thing to say, isn’t it?”
I held him. “No,” I said. “My first time was almost twenty years ago. We thought we had invented love.”
He kissed me. His mouth tasted of milk and his skin beneath my fingers was smooth and firm. He drew back and unknotted my tie, sliding it from my collar, and unbuttoned my shirt. I removed my jacket and tossed it aside. Sinking into the couch, I pulled him against me.
“What happened to him?” Josh asked.
“To whom?”
“Your first time.”
“She got married.”
He lifted his head and looked at me. “It was a girl?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Were you gay?”
“I’ve always been gay, Josh. I just happened to be in love with a girl.” I kicked off my shoes and smiled at him. “You can’t always specialize.”
His dark eyes were unhappy. “Do you still go out with them?”
“Women? No,” I said. “She was the only one.”
He smiled. “That cuts down the competition.”
“Don’t worry about that. It’s a buyer’s market.”
“We’ll see,” he said with a lewd flicker in his eyes.
Sometime later we lay on the couch, facing each other, our clothes discarded, bodies touching.
I watched my face form in Josh’s eyes. “You called me the night Jim tried to kill himself,” I said.
He was surprised. “How did you know it was me?”
“Just a feeling. I wish you hadn’t hung up.”
“I lost my nerve,” he replied and smiled. “Are you tired?”
I pressed him against me. “In a minute.”
It was cold. I opened my eyes and found that Josh had rolled himself into the blankets and now slept contentedly at the edge of the narrow bed. A light shone from beneath the bathroom door. He had carefully arranged my suit on a chair, leaving his own clothes in a little pile beside it. I gently unwound the blankets from him and lay against his back, putting my arm across his chest. He smelled of sweat and soap and semen. I lowered my hand to his firm belly, cupped his genitals and laid my hand, finally, between his thighs. He moved his head a fraction and I knew he was awake. He pressed his rump against my groin. I raised my hand along his torso to his nipples and grazed them with my palm. He sighed and pushed harder.
“Do you want to?” he whispered.
I raised myself on my elbow and said, “Of course I do, but I haven’t carried rubbers with me since I was sixteen.”
“Just this once,” he said. “You could pull out before — you know.”
I squeezed his neck between my fingers. “No,” I said softly. “There’s AIDS, Josh. It’s not worth the risk.”
Abruptly he drew away to the edge of the bed and lay on his back, looking at the darkness.
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” I said.
“I know what you meant,” he said in a flat voice. “You’re right. It’s not worth it.”
He drew himself rigidly apart from me as if daring me to make a move across the channel of darkness between us.
“That’s not what I meant at all,” I said, reaching for him.
He jerked away. “I said it didn’t have to mean anything to you, Henry.”
I lay back in the bed. “You’ve been awfully rough on yourself tonight, Josh. I’d like to know why.”
