In the light of the full moon, through one of the panoramic windows, Howard saw that the clock on the tower across the street said that it was twenty-five after three.
Eliot was rolling another joint.
I ought to call a cab and let you get some sleep, Howard said. It was good to talk to you.
Nick and Luke had left them alone nearly an hour ago when they disappeared into the bedroom.
They fell asleep in each other's arms feeling the heavy weight of exhaustion in their strong, young limbs.
No, Eliot said. It's late. You can stay over. I have quite a large bed.
Howard hesitated.
We don't have to do anything but sleep, Eliot said, holding the lighted joint out to him. We can share our spirit in complete chastity. He snickered, but it was not unfriendly.
I am tired, Howard conceded, taking a short drag from the joint. It's considerate of you to ask. You are sure?
Eliot exhaled smoke from his nose. I mean what I say. I say what I mean, he said. Come to bed.
Eliot took his arm and walked Howard into his bedroom.
Inside, he closed the door. He flipped the wall switch and a dim amber light went on over the bed.
Eliot pulled his black t-shirt off and showed a delicately sculpted chest.
Howard breathed with wonder. I can't match that, he said.
Who is asking you to? Eliot said, unbuttoning Howard's shirt, throwing it open and exposing his bare chest.
You're not so bad, Eliot said, not bad at all.
In fact, Howard was well-wrought. He was a man in his forties who knew how to take care of himself and he was guided by a large quantity of vanity. Eliot pressed his own chest to Howard's and drew his face near to kiss him.
But Howard retracted. I feel shy, he said.
You are holding back your desire, Eliot whispered.
Howard laughed.
If you only knew.
Tell me, Eliot said, his lips nearly touching Howard's.
But Howard was silent.
Come on, Eliot coaxed.
If I could I wouldn't be shy, Howard said.
Come on, Eliot said dismissing his sophism. You're not shy.
Howard looked at him, pointing his chin down and furrowing his brow, as if hurt at this expression of disbelief.
You project yourself, Eliot continued, regularly, to millions of people. You address huge audiences, and important ones, too. So don't tell me you're shy. After each word, he nipped Howard's lower lip, and the last time he really bit it.
Howard's belly tightened and he stiffened. He felt strong enough to take a beating without feeling a thing.
He kissed back but it was absently.
Eliot backed off and slowly shook his head.
My mind is somewhere else, Howard said apologetically.
Do you want to say where?
I want to be here, Howard said earnestly, evading the question.
Yes, Eliot smiled, but you aren't.
I guess not, Howard said apologetically.
Yeah, Eliot grunted. What do you want to do now?
I want to be here with you.
Eliot was in an inspired state. Howard was annoying him, not copping to something, wanting and not wanting, here, but not here, evasive, hiding something. All Eliot's force recoiled in upon himself. Then he understood.
Without thinking he struck Howard hard with a slap across his face that stunned and stung him and afterwards blazed with a red burn.
Without an interlude for thought, then, Eliot brought Howard's mouth to his with his long, implacable fingers and kissed him down to the depth of his throat.
Howard yielded and felt Eliot flood into him. He danced under him lost in the violence of desire.
Eliot gazed long into his eyes as he slowly broke every barrier of Howard's will and brought his every vibrating fiber and frightened wish into submission, immersing himself in him, drawing him into himself.
Afterwards, Howard wept. Eliot held him.
In his arms, holding Howard as his sobs subsided, Eliot fell asleep; but Howard lay desolate, despairing, as if he had been abandoned in a strange place he had never been before, lonely and homesick but no longer able to locate where home actually was. He seemed to hover restlessly over a simulacrum of sleep that kept him awake until he finally fell asleep despite himself.
He did not sleep long. A little after seven, he got out of bed quietly, quietly slipped into his clothes. Holding his shoes, he let himself out. Waiting for the elevator in the outer hallway, he put them on.
Although Howard thought him asleep, Eliot woke long enough to see Howard sneak out. He might have said something, but it did not seem worth breaking sleep's embrace for and he gave himself once again to its caresses.
He knows what he is doing. It is his to work out, Eliot thought as he tumbled through a cloudy realm of warm lethargy.
He fell under, once again, the waves of a sky-blue slumber and a wave of sleep carried him to the coast of the Aegean Sea, where beauty was born and yet survives.
The appearance of death inside a story can be grim, but grimmer is the story of someone dismantling himself and bit by bit throwing the parts of himself away until he no longer exists.
Robin's death, in this story, was sudden and unexpected. It was something that should not have happened. It cut short a story that was only beginning. These things happen.
The way Howard is disappearing is slowly. It is by the introduction of death's ethos into life. It does not cut his story short but gives him one.
Howard had a great capacity for separation. He could keep his focus on his work no matter what. His broadcasts were wildly successful. He had begun doing a weekly blog for The New Yorker. But he could not help but go all out of focus the rest of the time, when his mind was not driven by the delight of condemning the world's criminalities and making sensible proposals about how things ought to go. Off hours he cruised the streets, drawn to them no matter what, despite his strange and sometimes dangerous past experiences, looking for something particular in all that generality.
And then one night he saw Keith again, standing at the bar at Crazy Benny's, actually rather sweet looking with an untroubled complexion, one of the unfallen angels. What had happened?
Keith saw him, smiled, and came up to him. He extended his hand as he approached.
May I? he said. He was smiling a smile that also said he wanted to ask forgiveness.
Howard heard that, or thought that he heard that. He did not know which. He did not know which to believe, that he was actually hearing that, that that was what Keith was actually saying; or did he only think that was what Keith's behavior was indicating? Was it only what Howard was wishing for?
You haven't heard a word I said, said Keith letting go of the hand Howard mechanically, as if in a trance, let him shake.
I said, Will you forgive me. I behaved like a violent idiot. I apologize.
Then I did hear you, Howard said. I was not sure you were really saying what I was hearing or I was imagining what I wanted to hear.
With the hand that had been shaking his, Keith now embraced Howard and drew him near. At the same moment, with his free hand Keith touched Howard's cheek. His eyes repeated his apology and asserted his desire.
Howard was struck. He melted as he felt Keith's lithe frame press against him. It's my fault, he said. I am responsible, I am afraid. I shaped your actions.
What are you saying?
I projected something; you responded to it.
Keith looked at him trying to understand.
You felt it, somehow, that I wanted you to dominate me, Howard said as if mystified. I unconsciously set you up so you simultaneously satisfied this need and frustrated it. You gave me what I wanted and made sure I couldn't have it.
You're complicated, Keith said. But I think I understand. He shook his head as if he were realizing something. Come home with me? he said. I promise not to repeat last time. He giggled, and something honest and innocent shone right through him, despite last time.
Howard was lost. He put his faith where his desire had taken him. Yes, he said.
Again, there were candles and bitter sweet music, alternating tracks of Billie Holiday and Lotte Lenya, and some rolled joints were waiting.
Would you like to be my slave tonight? Keith said.
Yes, Howard whispered.
It was again as it had been, a feeling that he had never known before and that was entirely familiar.
It was not difficult for Keith to be dominant when it was demanded of him, but he often felt jealous of the men it repeatedly was his lot to dominate and he became resentful.
But no knives, Howard said.
Slaves don't dictate the terms of their captivity, Keith said with a grin.
It is a lesson I will have to absorb, Howard said.
Keith could not tell if he was ironic or serious.
But I don't want to want to be a slave, Howard continued.
We are not here to discuss that, Keith said, unable to resist being in control.
His tone had changed. Commanding authority had come into it. The ice in that voice activated something in Howard. He was unable not to listen. He wanted to break that ice, to penetrate a block he felt being set up against him.
I want you out of your clothes, Keith said.
Naked? Howard said.
I might prefer you in a harness or a posing strap, chained to the bed. But I want to see you unadorned first.
Howard froze momentarily beginning to feel dizzy.
Get those clothes off now.
Howard removed his trousers and unbuttoned his shirt and soon stood naked.
For inspection, Keith said.
He looked him over, and then began to feel his muscles, gauging his fitness. When he tweaked Howard's nipples Howard jumped.
Be still now, Keith said. I like the way you take care of yourself and I want you to continue to do so.
Howard was inflamed.
Say, Thank you, Sir. Yes, Sir, Keith said. You don't want me to have to punish you, do you?
Thank you, Sir. Yes, Sir, Howard said. No, Sir.
You realize there is no way out now, Keith said. I have transformed you from the man you thought you were into the man you really are, the man you want to be, my loyal bitch.
I don't like the sound of that, Howard said.
Bullshit! It's the only thing that actually seems right to you. Otherwise you wouldn't be here.
Howard did not move or say anything.
Stand at attention, Keith said.
Howard straightened and stretched himself and stood for inspection. He experienced the excitement he felt as anxiety. He was chewing on a worry he could not fully realize or abandon and then his mind became a lighted room where candles burned and incense was the flavor of the air he breathed. His thoughts had evaporated and the vapor had become wispy clouds floating high, unreachable, above the landscape of his consciousness.
He looked up and into Keith's eyes. He was delirious. Keith had bent him to his will. He was taking him relentlessly to the brink. He held him there on the never-ending verge of exploding. Howard felt joy like an exquisite danger. He could live in this moment forever. Now he knew why the Elizabethans called it dying.
Then everything was over. The door opened, Howard was under a cold shower feeling his skin tingle and contract.
Keith's body gleamed in the cold water and then glowed from the toweling he gave himself, and then he did Howard, too, rubbing him hard with a towel that had a slight scratch to it.
You would look good with your nipples pierced, Keith said.
Not really, Howard said.
Really, Keith said. You've got a good torso, a good chest, strong nipples. He winked and pressed his finger nails into Howard's hardened nipples.
Howard gasped.
Get used to it, Keith said. He leaned over and put his mouth to Howard's and Howard could not tell if he was kissing or biting.
There was snow in New York. The airports were shut. The streets were white and clear of moving cars. People walked in the roads that the snow had opened to them. Luke was walking with head bent against the snowy gusts, butting them, plowing through.
There was an old pot-bellied stove in one corner of Nick's loft, taking up the corner between two windows.
There, in front of it Nick and Eliot sprawled on the floor, a half empty bottle of champagne between them. They touched their refilled glasses and drank.
I spoke to him yesterday, Nick said. We had lunch together. He is leaner, but seems more muscular. He goes to the gym regularly and is in a relationship with a younger guy to whom he is submissive.
Submissive, Eliot said. I knew it.
They heard Luke enter and kick his boots against the baseboard in the hall.
When he came into the loft and towards them, he was beaming.
It's cold, he said.
Come to the stove, Nick said taking his hand and kissing him. Eliot stood and embraced him. A look passed between them. The embrace became a caress. Luke, his hand still in Nick's pulled Nick towards them and the passion he had built with Eliot spilled over and renewed itself and rose to encompass them all.
They brought their breaths together in kisses. They were magnetized by shared desire.
In the morning, naked before the blazing stove whose open door was swung to the side, the flaming fire contained within the firebox exposed, Luke and Eliot posed for a sculpture in marble that Nick was first modeling in clay, the encounter in battle of a Grecian and a Trojan warrior on the plains of Troy, only hours before both would see the mist of death drive the light from their eyes. Warriors they were, but their muscles gleaming and their phalli swollen, they might have been lovers intent on becoming one another. It was a small work, hardly a foot high, both figures anchored in the common clay they shared and on which they contended face to face, body against body, spirit at war with spirit.
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