At noon, Linda came into Daniel's office, made an entrance, actually, hoping he would notice her -- he always looked at her and saw her, but he neverm she felt, noticed her -- and reminded him that they had an appointment for lunch.
O, yes, he sighed, Wentworth.
I want you to meet him. He's important.
I know, he said, resigned to the way things were.
Linda frowned, pained, as so frequently she was by that listless lack of enthusiasm with which he always greeted anything she offered.
Come on, she said, rallying him and herself.
Right, he said with a smile, here I am. He pushed the page proofs back on his desk and rose, aware in the recesses of consciousness that he was withholding himself. Perhaps that was the wrong way to put it. As much as he fought it, he was being withheld. There was something gripping him he wanted to shake off but couldn't shake off.
His head ached, he complained.
It's probably because you're hungry, she said. Hurry up.
The Café de Montmartre was crowded, but Linda had reserved their table that morning, and the four sat under a mirrored ceiling drinking vodka martinis in a gaudy enclosure amid gold leaf deities, plush velvet draperies, marble columns, and bronze pineapples.
He had never met Ephraim Wentworth before but he read his art reviews in The Times every Sunday. In person, he was exactly what he appeared to be in print, a bitchy queen with a Wildean pretension and just enough wit, taste, and linguistic dexterity to pull it off. He was slightly portly, thin-skinned, and pale. Despite his size, in fact, he gave the appearance of being quite delicate, fragile even. Daniel felt, nevertheless, a great sense of power emanating from him, a power which indeed, given his position and influence, he actually did have.
And then there was the young man with him, an exquisite specimen, a mix of beauty, grace, breeding, and intelligence.
My new discovery, Wentworth had said presenting him as they arrived at the table a few minutes after Linda and Daniel. Jean-Pierre, only he insists now that he is staying in New York that it be John-Peter. I've tried to argue him out of it, but he insists.
The young man smiled most winningly as they all shook hands.
No kissing on the cheeks? Linda said feigning disappointment, and John-Peter leaned in and kissed her on first one cheek and then the other.
He and Daniel shook. A spark shot through Daniel as they too kissed on the cheeks. It unnerved him. A memory of something he could not remember raced through him and was gone. Thre was a faint smell of Eau Sauvage.
Well, drinks first, no? said Wentworth. I never enter anything without lubrication.
What exactly are we entering? Daniel said with an uneasy smile after a sip of his drink and a tip of his glass in Wentworth's direction.
Now that really depends, said Wentworth, winking at him.
Danny, Linda said sensing there was a slight gathering of tension that needed to be dispersed, what did you think of the Brunder exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo when you were in Paris last month?
But before he could answer, John-Peter looked at him with melting eyes.
You were in Paris last month?
Yes, Daniel said. I was scouting the museums and galleries.
And did you pick up anything?
Or anyone? Wentworth interrupted, cocking an eyebrow suggestively.
Daniel almost scowled.
Perhaps we ought to get down to business, Linda interrupted them, laughing, as the waiter brought their lunches.
What better business than picking someone up? cried Wentworth.
What is this all about? Daniel said with a half smile, like a child who does not know something that all the grown-ups do. What business?
Eh, said Wentworth, if you insist, although I always find sparring with a dexterous partner so invigorating. It's a bequest of a certain art collection that I have been writing about recently. I think you'd know which one I mean. I am, as it were, the conduit.
De Kooning, Daniel said. A bequest?
To the museum.
The entire collection?
The entire collection. You haven't been told?
No, said Daniel, even though I'll have to catalogue it. But that will, indeed, be a labor of love, Daniel said, raising his glass, and everyone else did, too.
Linda walked back to the museum with him. Something was troubling him.
Were you jealous of him?
What?
Because of John-Peter?
John-Peter?
He's a very pretty boy, you must admit.
So?
So were you jealous?
Of what?
Of whom, Danny, of whom. Of Wentworth.
What for?
For John-Peter.
Linda, he said with a scowl.
It was useless. She was getting nothing out of him. It was always ultimately that way. It wouldn't be so bad if he'd just be frank with her. Hard to believe but, perhaps, he wasn't even being frank with himself. She really was wasting her time. She promised herself just to give it up and accept her losses. Move on. But working one office down from his made it hard for her to get her distance.
Daniel's heart reproached him -- for he understood what Linda desired of him, and because of that desire, what she offered him -- but he could not reciprocate.
Oh, it was strange. He tried to offer himself to her in return. But his actions looked dutiful, which they were; and there was no life in them.
That was not reciprocation. He could not accept her offer of herself because he really did not want her. Even when he tried -- why did he try? -- he could not respond as she wished. Had he been able to offer himself to her as she offered herself to him, that would have been reciprocation. But he couldn't and it didn't work. In bed he went slack. In conversation, his mind or his gaze or both wandered.
It bothered him that it stood this way, and he fought with himself to make an effort that it should be otherwise.
But every effort failed. Lightness turned heavy. Ease became difficult. Always there came a time when they were together that a bitter tension that felt to him like hatred grew between them and all he wished to do was flee. But when he was alone, ease was not restored. His thoughts were ruled by bitter and objectless recrimination. Why could she not leave him alone?
The man sitting across the way from him in the nearly empty railroad car as he rode back from the warehouse where the paintings were stored kept staring at Daniel. It made him uneasy, but he was reluctant -- actually unable -- to get up and change his seat. It would be acknowledging the man's presence, admitting it made him feel uneasy, admitting that the man had some kind of power over him -- which was ridiculous, because, of course he didn't. He was a complete stranger.
Daniel didn't know him, and he had no desire to know him. He didn't even want to look at him, and he tried to rivet his eyes to his book, "Vases of the Ming Dynasty," but he kept looking up, ostensibly to see if the man was still looking at him, but really impelled by a perverse fascination.
The man wore riding boots and camel hair jodhpurs, a four button rust-colored velvet jacket with brass buttons over a sort of loose-fitting white shirt with a ruffled lace collar. He had a black pencil thin mustache descending from each nostril to the corner of his lips but broken in the middle where the angel had pressed, where it was clean-shaven, like the rest of his face. His eyes were silver gray and had a glaring intensity. His dark hair was slicked back and had a high side part. On his lips was the faint trace of an all-knowing smile. He carried a riding crop.
Was he a madman, one of the sort of men whose madness endows them with a peculiar sixth sense able to penetrate the surface layers of other mortals and know their depths with uncanny precision?
Don't look away, the stranger said as Daniel darted his eyes up from his book one more time.
What? Daniel said.
The stranger smiled a little deeper, a little more knowingly.
Don't look away. You know you can't take your eyes off me. So stop trying. I won't bite you.
I, I, Daniel stammered.
You don't have to say anything, the stranger said. I know all about you already.
This was downright creepy. But the worst of it was that Daniel believed what the stranger said was true, even as he knew it was impossible. He felt entirely exposed.
You know^Å
^Åall about you already, the stranger intoned softly, and despite the rolling noise of the railroad car racing through the tunnel on its tracks into the city, Daniel heard him clearly.
What do you know? Daniel said unwillingly in a voice that mixed defiance and fear.
Everything, said the stranger. Even things you don't want me to know. Even things you don't even know yourself.
Ok, ok, Daniel said, and rose for the train was pulling into the Pennsylvania Station. It's been nice talking to you. I^Åget off here.
Not so fast, the stranger said, pleasantly. No hurry. So do I. So we all do, you know. But I'm not finished. He rose. They stepped out of the train onto the platform and the man, following behind Daniel, put his arm around Daniel's shoulder and accompanied him along the platform towards the exit staircase.
This was odd, Daniel thought, but he did not resist. There was something reassuring about the stranger's grip.
They came out into the fresh night air at the corner of 34th Street and Seventh Avenue, and then together got into a taxi and rode over to the Bowery and went into a newly renovated old factory building, whose lofts had been redesigned for living. Daniel allowed the stranger to guide him into the elevator and rode up to the top floor. There, he stood several paces behind him as he unlocked the door and then followed him inside and stood quietly as the man bolted the door.
The man lifted a small brass mallet from the bed of plush velvet upon which it lay inside a marble box on the teak side table in the dim hallway they had entered. He struck it once against the small bronze gong which hung suspended by thin brass chains from the horns of its marble stand. The refulgence of sound rang deeply.
A young man with pierced nipples and wearing only a silver thong and a leather collar immediately was present and bowed to the stranger and then kneeled before him, touched the ground with his forehead and remained like that until the man gently touched the tip of his head with the toe of his boot and said, Rise.
All the while Daniel stood as if mesmerized hearing only the slow-rolling song of the gong continuing to ring in his ears, commanding all his attention.
You will take charge of the new one, the man said, indicating Daniel with his riding crop.
Yes, Master, the slave standing at attention before him said and bowed.
The master snapped his fingers. Two other slaves appeared, bowed and waited for instructions.
My bath, he said to one, who bowed and disappeared.
Follow me, he said to the other, who held the large French door with mirrored panes open for him and followed after.
In the morning, Daniel woke in his own bed, in his own room in his own apartment on the Upper West Side with an indistinct memory of last night, unable to be sure if he had dreamed something or if it had actually happened. Trying to sort things out just made it worse. Dreams, after all, actually happen.
No matter. It really was morning. There was daylight even if it was a rainy gray light pressing against his window. He had to get going.
It was strange that he did not notice anything, but despite the fact that his morning routine involved a considerable amount of looking at his reflection in the mirror -- as he shaved, as he brushed his teeth, as he combed his hair, as he sprayed on cologne -- he did not notice anything.
Except, except as he lifted his arms to comb his hair before he put on his shirt and tie his eyes locked on his own nipples. He dropped the comb which fell into the empty basin and slowly lowered his arms and began gently to stimulate his nipples, playing with the tiny silver bars which were inserted through the piercings at their tips, falling into a sort of trance as he did so. His eyes grew vacant and he spaced out until he came back to himself, noticed the comb in the bowl, picked it up and finished combing his hair.
He looked at his watch. It was ten minutes later than it ought to have been. He was momentarily puzzled, but unfazed and quickly selected a rose-beige shirt and a burgundy tie with tiny golden flecks and finished dressing.
He walked across the park. The rain had stopped. He sat at his desk in his office at the museum reviewing page proofs and selecting prints to be included in the brochure and in the catalogue for the October DeKooning exhibition.
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