The moon was full. It lay, a broad, dancing, phosphorescent stripe, like a glittering snake, writhing on the broad back of the river.
The windows of the buildings in Jersey across the width of the river glowed with a muted golden amber light.
Luke was alone, leaning against the railing. His back was to the Hudson. All those distant lights penetrating the midnight blue of the night were a backdrop behind him. His neck was craned. He was looking after a boy who had passed and who was worth looking after. In that instant he saw Nick and Howard coming towards him. He was unaware if they had recognized him yet. He did not know what to do: To look away? To stare fixedly as he was now and seem not to recognize them? To say hello?
I feel very uneasy doing this, Howard said, taking an uncharacteristic drag on a cigarette.
Seeing the way he looked at it burning between his second and third fingers afterwards, a stranger might have thought he meant he felt uncomfortable with a lighted cigarette after some five years of not smoking.
But that was not what he meant. He was looking at the cigarette because he could not look at Nick. He could not say why, but it was so. He needed him too much.
Concentrating on the cigarette focused his attention and allowed him to speak.
He was not wearing a suit. He was in Levis and a leather jacket. It was hanging open over a white t shirt. Howard was in good shape. You could guess it when you saw him in a suit. Now it was obvious. He took care of himself. He went to the gym daily and worked out moderately and swam.
It's different from going to dinner at Robin's, he was saying. That's business, and I bring my daughter with me. But being like this...exposed...
It excited him and it frightened him.
Nick started to speak, but then interrupted himself.
There's Lucas, he said.
Panic stabbed Howard in the heart. He'd missed his moment. His moment had passed as he had cringed from it. His heart sank.
It is, he said.
He's avoiding me, Nick said.
How do you know that? Howard asked.
I know he saw us, but he's pretending he didn't.
Nick laughed.
Why are you laughing? Howard said.
I was thinking about all the craziness that comes from being in the closet.
Luke's out. I thought...
It seems that was only provisional and rescindable.
When they passed in front of Luke, Nick said, Hey, the way a gentleman a hundred years ago would smile, nod, and lift his hat in Hyde Park or on the Champs Elysses. But Luke snubbed him.
It did not seem to faze Nick and he kept walking with Howard beside him.
Are you going to Washington on Tuesday? Nick asked him.
No, Chicago, Howard said.
Chicago?
They changed the location.
You'll actually be asking questions?
Oh, yes, Howard said.
Something had loosened in his heart once they had passed Luke.
Are you ok? he asked Nick.
If Nick was ok, he was. It was a close call, and Howard wanted to make sure he'd gotten through it.
Why shouldn't I be? Nick laughed.
Luke?
I'm sorry he's so fucked up.
That's all?
That's a lot.
You still care for him.
You say the darnest things, Howard, Nick said and leaned over and blew a gentle warm breath up the side of his neck and into his ear.
I'm tired, he whispered. Let's go get a coffee.
Luke's heart was racing. Then everything subsided. He was immobilized. He stood there, his back to the river, staring at a streetlight half hidden by spring foliage.
He snapped open his cell phone and thumbed a number. Cynthia answered.
Why aren't you here yet? she said.
I'm tired, Luke said. I'm going to turn in early tonight.
Where are you now? she said.
I'm out, he said, and when she said nothing and the silence bothered him, he said, by the river.
Come over, she said.
No, he said.
What's wrong? she said.
I'll call you tomorrow, Luke said.
But he didn't.
He walked up Christopher Street. At Sheridan Square he took a cab to Wooster. When Nick and Howard arrived a half hour later, he was waiting for them on the stoop.
Howard was overwhelmed by disappointment to see him sitting there. He had not known what to expect once he got to the loft with Nick. But he was excited to be with him again. He did not know what it would be, but he felt they would... He could not say what, but he anticipated it.
But with Lucas back in the picture, he felt like there was no room for him.
Perhaps I ought to go home, he said.
I'm not here to get in your way, Luke said.
There was momentary silence.
I'm sorry about before.
Luke was not being entirely honest. He felt a physical need for Nick, a craving of the flesh that spread inside him, gave him no peace. He had to be near him. He wanted to feel him, body to body, breath to breath, bone pressing bone.
As he sat there he was trembling with anticipation, sensitive to the importance of what was happening now.
Nick touched his shoulder and felt him trembling.
He took them both upstairs and made Chamomile tea.
You want to put us to sleep? Howard said.
I want us all to calm down, Nick said.
I don't know what I want, Lucas broke out as a spontaneous wave of sobs and tears rushed through him.
They sat the three of them silently at the table drinking tea.
Nick opened the drawer in the center of the kitchen table and took out a small glass bottle filled three quarters with cleaned grass. He rolled a joint, lit it, and passed it around. Lucas took a hit. Howard looked at it nonplussed. Nick nodded his head as if to say Go ahead, and Harold did and then handed the joint back to Nick. Nick offered it again and scrapped the butt against an ashtray after the second turn.
He put a hand on each of theirs.
Enough with all this melodrama. Let's go to bed.
Here? Howard said.
Luke remained silent, staring at Nick.
Here, yes, Nick said.
The three of us?
Yes, the three of us. Come, he said extending his hand. You, too, Luke.
What if they had made love, the three of them, that night, moving kisses from one mouth to another, taking hold of each other's hardness, gazing at each other with admiration and entering each other, lost in the frenzy of an ancient dance, would it have made things different? They might have found something they never could have imagined. But Howard snapped when Nick closed the bedroom door.
I don't feel like I'm here.
Nick thought that if this were fiction, if it happened in a story, he would have been given something to say, something gently penetrating that would have had transformational power. He would command a translucent wisdom. He would say or do something that would cause Howard to become like a snake slipping out of its old skin, renewed, and full of erotic vitality.
But it was not like that. In fact, Howard irritated him. He was like a whining child; he did not draw the person he longed for nearer but only exasperated him.
Nick wanted to hit him. He held himself back.
Howard could not get free from the demon that had taken him into its grasp. He collapsed under its strength. He felt dullness coursing through him. It was not excitement. It was deadness on the skin. It was sand in the blood.
The memory of the other night when they had come back from Benny's and they had lain in each other's embrace and felt the thrill of electric caresses was a grey web of lost possibilities now.
You kill everything, Howard, and then you lament that it's dead, Nick said, splintering his reverie.
Howard pressed his lips together, stood up and hardly moving them, said. I know my way around; I can let myself out.
I'm sorry, Luke said.
No you're not, Howard said slowly.
Really, I am. I know what you feel like.
And better me than you?
That's mean.
The truth hurts.
Oh come on.
Howard will be alright, Nick said, when he heard the elevator gate bang. He maintains his own equilibrium. You, on the other hand, I could worry about.
What is that supposed to mean?
It means you're the kind of idiot that would throw away love to protect himself from panic. Actually, you're just like Howard, Nick said.
Can you forgive me?
No, because I don't hold it against you in the first place. I don't hold it against him either, but he does get me angry with his never-ending self-involvement. You can't hold it against the sun for not shining or the rain for not raining, he continued philosophically. I still feel the way I told you I felt when you left. I would enjoy spending the night with you.
Is that all? Luke said, with a sulk as if cheated.
What is it missing?
How do I know...
What?
How do I know if you... How do I know if I... How do I know if I'm really feeling what I'm feeling? How do I know if you really love me? Luke said.
You just feel what you feel.
Nick laughed and shrugged.
Luke came close to him.
May I?
Yes.
Debra was already asleep when Howard took his place in their Imperial bed and felt his anger and frustration drain out of him and into the mattress. At this point in his life Debra's snoring no longer bothered him. He hardly noticed it. Now it had all but abated. She was in the true calm sleep of herself, the place where he felt he knew her and where she loved him as he was.
But that was not the place she always came from.
How can I trust you? she demanded fixing him in her steady gaze when her temper changed and she became impervious to that something in him that allowed them to join. She was this way and she was that way. So was he, but in him it was a sin, whereas for her it was one of the ineradicable givens of her nature.
Thoughts drifted through Howard's head and made it heavier until all the words that he focused upon made one great circumlocution and he was asleep.
An hour later, Luke woke from sleep in Nick's bed because the beating of his heart became so strong it took on the sound of pounding at the door of the room. He sat up, bolt upright.
Nick stirred.
Luke, he said, sleepily, are you alright?
No, Luke said. I'm scared.
Of what? Nick said.
I don't know, he said, lost in his own puzzlement.
Come here, Nick said, opening his arms. Lie next to me.
Luke complied and Nick took him in his arms and held him close.
Don't talk, he said, and kissed his lips and touched his tongue to them. His lips parted.
They touched each other within and their breaths became one.
They pressed their chests together, and their thighs. They filled with electricity and their skin magnetized and pulled like a tidal current.
Talbot Donaldson? Nick said.
Talbot Donaldson, Eliot repeated.
That's a ridiculous name.
Don't tell him that if you want the commission, Eliot said.
How did you meet him?
Howard introduced us over drinks after his program. Donaldson is the producer.
He wasn't as bad as his name. He was hardly in his thirties, young, good looking, and he had just returned from three weeks in Ibiza, suntanned.
You make him sound attractive.
He is. And he's rich. And as you have found out, rich men are very useful to artists, they have always been. Sometimes they are called patrons, sometimes angels, sometimes good fairies.
Donaldson looked anything but ethereal as he stood up and came out from behind his grand oak desk to greet them. He was six feet tall, and each foot just incredible. His smile glowed and revealed beautiful teeth. He made you feel like he shared a secret with you that brought you both ever so close. His handshake was firm, warm. It felt like a caress to the bicep.
I am glad you could come. I've seen your work. I'm honored to meet you. He shook hands with Nick and took his breath away.
He invited them to sit.
He told them about the house. It was just finished, not furnished.
Raw you might say, he said, smiling at Nick, and I want you to see it and to furnish it.
Ned will be here in five minutes.
He had married Ned. Ned's father was a banker. He had escaped the last days of the Bush government unscathed, one of the few. Ned was a dancer at the New York City Ballet.
His father is a surprisingly sensible man, Talbot said. He has been very generous and supportive in blessing our commitment and in other very palpable ways.
They had dinner in East Hampton at Harry's. It is a good French restaurant. You get a good onion soup, lemony-garlicky haricot-verts, velvety, buttered Chartlottes, and succulent, tender, hardly-cooked lamb. They had a bottle of Bollinger before the meal, a 1999 St. Emilion with it, and lemon ices with vodka afterwards. No coffee.
Stay with us the night, Talbot said, swirling cognac in his glass. We've got a suite at an inn and there's another bed in the room, he said and winked. Otherwise I'll get you a limousine back to the city. But I'd prefer you stay and we'll all drive home in the morning.
Right? he said turning to Ned.
For sure, Ned answered.
The French windows opened on to a terrace that overlooked a garden that sloped down to a pond. Talbot had his arm around Ned's waist and leaned his head on his shoulder.
Nick looked at Eliot who was staring at the sky. He put his arm around him.
You're something special, you know. You turn me on so much.
Eliot looked at him and smiled, laced the fingers of his left hand through Nick's thick, wheat brown hair and drew him close. The kiss compelled them and they surrendered.
Dalton began with spidery fingers to unbutton the buttons of Ned's shirt.
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