Glances

Howard and Nelson exchanged a knowing glance that expressed their shared contempt.

How often is he going to keep making the same mistake? Nelson threw back his head, chuckled, and pointed at Danny.

Danny hated when they did this.

Suddenly, everything flipped. He was no longer there as far as they were concerned. He had disappeared. His presence had no more weight than the air around him.

Then music caught their ears. Take Five. It was coming from a loft with great open windows, two stories above the street.

Guys lounged by the window in leotards taking a break from their exercises.

Nelson minced.

Oh look, Howie, he said.

Very pretty, Howard said.

It stabbed Danny to the heart.

Which more?

The contempt in their mockery? Or that he despaired of being where he wished to be? Neither was he with them, nor was he with the dancers in the loft.

He watched himself in the mirror endeavoring to become an image.

He shaved his body and exercised and tended his skin till it shone like pale marble.

He became the statue of the god he wished to serve.

He dreamed of surrendering.

He walked at night through the streets, passing along the paths of his mind, reviewing his desires, singing to himself.

Suddenly a chill had come into the air. He was wearing a long leather coat.

The rain drove him into Benny's and he ordered a vodka and tonic.

The waiter was a pretty boy wearing skin-tight black pants and a similarly snug long-sleeve white cotton pullover. He had a good head of thick hair that was slicked back for work and combed in the front into a pompadour.

He smiled with a sweetness that was unfamiliar in such an environment.

Have we met? Danny asked stupidly.

Yes, said the waiter.

Danny looked puzzled. He had no memory.

Just now.

Danny laughed.

But the waiter was working and before Danny could make a move, the guy was gone.

Danny sipped at his drink through the straw in the glass. He saw the place get more and more crowded. He could not connect to it. Nothing electric shot off his skin or out of his eyes. He felt himself to be a burden upon himself he did not seem to be able to cast off.

When he left, he tried to find the waiter and catch his eye, without success.

Outside he buttoned his coat and slouched, hands pocketed.

The upshot was that he had not met anybody. He had only gotten hoodwinked by an impossible desire, seduced by a flirt. A flirt! Not by an offering but by a glance at what was not going to happen.

He was always being drawn to what was withheld.

There was a huge piece of canvass attached to the ceiling in the apartment he rented on Barrow Street.

Danny carried the ladder he unhooked from the back of the cellar door up the three narrow, twisting flights to his apartment, climbed up and ripped the canvass from the ceiling, which was a perfectly presentable oatmeal colored stucco. At night, when he turned on the overhead ceiling lights, in fact, it gave an amber tone to the room.

He often went out, several times in one evening, restless, unsettled, desperately wishing, frightened.

The streets propelled him along and pushed him beyond each moment. His mind turned round the images that slipped by him and the thoughts they evoked, thoughts that broke inside him like waves from a meaningless current breaking into refreshing froth at the sea's edge. He heard sounds he had never heard before. Buoyant, the waves of his thought until his thoughts turned repetitively on themselves, the way a needle catches in a groove and repeats the same snatch endlessly.

By then fatigue became more immediate than disappointment and he could go home despite the latter.

One night as he was returning to Barrow Street after fruitless cruising, he was distracted from his gloom by a small wooden table set out for the trash pick-up. After inspecting it, he determined it was in perfectly good condition.

It was not too big or too heavy to carry but almost, and it certainly was unwieldy. He carried it down Commerce and turned right on Bedford.

A guy was sitting on the stoop in front of his building and got up when Danny started up the steps with the table.

You think you can manage that?

I'm not sure, Danny said.

They set the table down in front of the door once they'd gotten it up the turning stairs, and Danny got out his keys. Unlocking the door he said.

You want to come in?

You have beautiful nipples, he said.

Danny blushed, and the guy pulled him nearer as the hot water of the shower massaged them.

Their skin touched and the guy touched his tongue to Danny's and Danny pressed the point of his tongue against the tip of the guy's and together they made a bridge for their breaths.

The guy touched Danny's nipples gently, and Danny touched his and turned them around under his fingers as he felt him doing the same thing to his nipples.

He nipped at Danny's tongue with his teeth and Danny fell to his knees and threw his head up and took his right nipple in his mouth and gently teethed the tit and slowly began to bite with greater ferocity and desire as Danny felt him pinching his tits as hard as he could and at surprising intervals digging his nails into them.

They carried themselves up to the edge of frenzy and remained in that explosive condition for an hour before Danny felt the guy's cock gun down his throat its crystal bullets.

He clamped his fist around Danny's cock just as Danny was about to explode.

No, he said smiling. Not this time.

Danny smiled mindlessly back at him and felt a sweep of desire rush inwards as he felt him lodged inside him, ruling him.

He kissed Danny lightly on the lips.

That's a good boy, he said.

When will I see you again?

When I call you.

Will you call me?

Wait and see, he said pulling on his jeans.

When after a week he did not call -- he had taken Danny's phone number but refused to give his own – Danny began to feel that it was painful to be alive.

Marc was a bottom; if any body was a bottom, Marc was a bottom. And it was obvious to anybody who knew anything about it. There was a softness in his eyes, the way they focused, or did not quite focus.

He looked at men and they saw the inviting fleshiness of his lips, full and soft, and a glint of passion in his eyes.

I like to let a man lead me, he told Danny as they sat in a booth at Benny's. I like it when they know where they are going and want to take me along with them.

I like when they know what they want and have no difficulty getting it.

He was a young beauty. Dusty blond hair swirled around his graceful head like a sexual halo inviting every hand to tousle it.

When he went home with Danny, he stripped for him slowly, feeling how awed Danny was by attention of that sort and by an intensity of attention he had never known before.

And when Danny was trembling and hard, Marc pressed his lips to his and whispered, I'd like it if you fucked me. I want to feel you inside me and know, even if only for that moment, that I belong to you. I want to make you want me.

I do want you, Danny said.

And he kissed him again, more deeply, this time, and as he did, slid his palm under Danny's shirt and touched his bare chest and traced lacy finger webs across his nipples.

Danny was transported by what was happening. He had finally found where the waking world and the realm of his dreams intersected.

He took Marc by the shoulders and drew him near and began to take the lead, dominating with his kisses, more forcefully the deeper he felt Marc surrendering.

Marc was pulsating and the pulsations of his body set similar pulsations throbbing in the air around them, and he drew Danny into him, slowly; their breaths became a living animal tearing at them.

The sky was threatening and Danny walked quickly, holding his overcoat to his chest.

You look good in leather.

Danny looked up. It was the guy, the one whose name he didn't know, the one who never called him, the one who broke his heart.

You never called me, he heard himself say.

No, I didn't, the guy said. But here I am anyway.

What would he tell Marc?

He would tell him the truth; he was promiscuous.

It's just a part of me, he said.

But I want all of you, Marc said.

There has to be that part I keep for myself.

So you can give it away to somebody else.

Danny's head ached. He ought to have said nothing.

I'm not going to let you alone, Marc said. I'm going to control you. Every time you betray me with somebody else, you'll tell me and not just accept that I will punish you, but you will ask me to punish you.

Danny had never before heard the force of independent will that he heard in Marc's tone now.

It would never enter his mind to break up with Marc. He did not want to do that.

And we'll start now.

What? Danny said.

But Marc ignored him.

Put out your hands, he said, instead.

As Danny put his hands out, without having the time to realize it was happening, metal handcuffs had been clamped upon his wrists.

Danny looked confused, until a sharp slap stiffened him.

That's better, Marc said as he pushed Danny backwards onto the couch and pulled off his jeans.

Just because I'm a bottom does not mean I'm a masochist, he said, pinching Danny's left nipple, or a slave, he added.

Giving Danny a penetrating look, he took hold of his cock. It was hard, and he settled himself upon it, and assaulted Danny, who was rigid, like a spike that Marc tore himself apart upon.

He bit into Danny and only let go once he had him consumed.

You can't leave me like this all night, Danny said afterwards still chained by each limb to one corner of the bed.

Longer, if I like, Marc said.

Danny had never been so confused. Marc was training him as a top. But if you're a top at the command of the bottom, you are not really a top and he is not really a bottom. He tops as a bottom and you bottom as a top.

Danny peered out the doorway. The rain had nearly stopped. So he put up his collar and walked out onto the street.

He had not gotten Marc's permission. He had not even told him.

Talbot was waiting for him at the corner of Christopher and Hudson. Talbot, that was his name.

Tal, Danny said, I can't live without you. I did it for three years, and it felt to me like I was not alive. Then life came back to me slowly, or at least I thought it did when I found Marc. But then I met you again and my body remembers something it doesn't have anymore.

But you do have it, Tal said taking Danny by the shoulders and pressing him to his irrefutable chest.

No, I don't, Danny said, and it's driving me crazy. I can't depend on you. If I leave Marc, I have no guarantee this time you'll stay. And it feels unfair to him to leave him anyway.

You think too much, Tal said.

Somebody has to. Only those who feel like they are where they want to be can afford not to think.

What the hell you talking about? Tal said and shook Danny by the shoulders as if to wake him up.

Danny looked around and it seemed safe enough to take Tal in his arms.

I'm sorry, he said, for saying that.

No need to be, Tal said. I am where I want to be.

But I feel very confused, torn, Danny said. Split between you and Marc.

I've become so involved in following this fantasy that I forgot to say what my characters do when they are not being my erotic pawns only.

Danny is a composer who has been writing music since he was four. Much of his music has been published and performed.

Marc is a filmmaker whose work has been featured at Tribeca and Cannes.

Talbot is a dancer.

Write a score for me and I will dance it and Marc will make it into a movie, Tal said.

Danny looked at him and smiled.

You think so? he said.

We'll see, Tal said with a shrug of unknowing.

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