The Passionate Attention of an Interesting Man (20 page)

With that, Trent ripped the pajama top open and planted a thick angry kiss on C. J.’s lips.

“It’s all from this beauty contest they hold in South America somewhere,” Trent told C. J. “Private clubs. First it’s the boring part, where the girls sing Broadway hymns and want world peace. Then it’s the sex part. The judges taste the girls’ skin, to see if it’s just right. Up and down them, long as they please. They suck on the girls’ tits with the slow deep pull that
hottens them up. Catch on to it, Colin?”

Pausing in his report, Trent brushed C. J.’s hair off his forehead, then went on with “Yeah, they eat those girls up, and the juices run free as the crowd goes wild. They feel the girls’ tightness. What an extravaganza, huh? You won’t see this at any sports bar, son.”

Moving his hands to C. J.’s neck, Trent got so close to him their noses touched.

“Who’s your daddy?” he said. “Who’s your daddy, Colin boy?”

Pulling C. J. up, Trent flipped him onto his stomach, yanked the pajama bottoms off him, and worked C. J.’s arms and torso till the top was off as well. Then Trent pushed a finger into C. J., who now made his first attempt to escape. Trent gripped him, C. J. struggled, and Trent then threw his body weight onto the younger man, grabbing C. J.’s head with both hands to warn him, “Give me a reason to smash you up, you traitor, now!”

C. J. went still. Trent went back to task, taking his time loosening C. J. up till Trent could slip two fingers in and rub them against each other.

“They call that the cricket,” said Trent, “which you probably know all about it. Do you like my style, or do you think the boss does it better?”

After a few moments of that, Trent said, “I think you’re ready now.” Moving off C. J., Trent told him to get up, and C. J. turned over, staring at Trent without attempting to rise. Strangely enough, Trent now extended a hand to C. J., who hesitated till Trent said, “Take it. You’re going to do this voluntary.”

C. J. did what he was told to do, and Trent took him to his own room. Slamming the door, he turned to C. J. with a look of immense resolve. But C. J. had a plan now: he took a step toward Trent with his palms up, in non-aggressive mode.

“Trent, you’re right about everything,” C. J. quickly got out. “I screwed up, okay, but give me a chance and—”

“Stop being nice to me,” Trent told him, pushing C. J. to sprawl on the bed. C. J. leaped up again, but Trent grabbed him, shoved him back down, and made his preparations so hastily that he was on his way to the center of C. J. before either of them was ready for it. Licking C. J.’s ear, Trent whispered, “When did you know?” as he moved inside him, not roughly. “When did you know, Colin, huh?” And “Tell me or I’ll hurt you just exact the way you’re going to hurt me.”

“I can’t hurt you,” C. J. got out as Trent reared back, flipped C. J. over, and got inside him again with “Everybody likes you, huh?” Moving more rapidly now, Trent seized one of C. J.’s hands, pulled it up to touch Trent’s right cheek and then pressed it against Trent’s chest—his heart, really. “But who do you like, Colin? Do you like me like this?” Dredging kisses from C. J.’s mouth, Trent ordered him, “Hold on to me.” When C. J. hesitated, Trent barked, “Do it now!” just like the step-class teacher in C. J.’s Tuesday evening gym program. Grapevine,
kicksaw, do it now!

“Why do you have to be like that, Colin?” Trent suddenly cried, to which C. J. answered, “Is it because of my letter?”

Still partnering C. J., Trent stared down at him uncomprehendingly. Yet he had heard enough to gasp, “
What letter?
”

And just then C. J. gave off a wail of startled delight and began to let loose. Inspired by the sight and knowing that it happened only because the boy was entirely his now, Trent pulled out, tore off the rubber, and shot off himself, with a hoarse shout of “
Here goes nothing
!”

Now down to the stillness, the panting, and neither of them knows who has the next line in the scene. Having fallen back on the bed next to C. J., Trent managed to utter the words “I
gotta go home” while C. J. turned to look at him.

“Was it my letter, Trent?” he asked once more. “Did I say too much truth about love?”

“I gotta go home,” Trent repeated, feeling for C. J. with a stray hand: his wet hair, his waist. Trent let his hand rest on C. J.’s stomach, saying it one last time. I gotta go home.

After a very long time, then, Trent heaved himself up in a bound. “You stay right there,” he told C. J., as he started off toward his shelf space. But then Trent stopped, turned back to C. J., and said, “Don’t move, don’t go anywhere in the world.”

C. J. looked at Trent, then replied, “Okay.”

“You answer ‘Yes, sir’ to me.”

“Why should I, though?”

“Because I told you.”

C. J. now said, “Yes, sir” so ungrudgingly that Trent softened despite himself. Crossing to the shelves, he got a towel and went back to C. J. to dry his hair and skin. Then Trent wrapped the towel around his middle, pulled the blanket back to cover C. J., and went to the computer terminal to wake it up and read C. J.’s letter. Now and again, he turned to look at C. J., his expression unfathomable. When Trent had finished reading, he thought for a bit, reread the entire letter, then got up and got his bathrobe. At the bed, he pulled C. J. up and onto his feet and wrapped the robe around him. Then he brought C. J. to the desk and sat him in the chair as if showing him the email.

“I know about this already,” C. J. told him.

Without answering, Trent pulled up another chair, reversed it to sit with his chest against the back, and began:

“When I was in high school, we had an activity very popular with the oldest kids. Seniors only was the rule. An old tradition or some such, nobody ever told a grownup about it. We called it Scorning
. And what it was, you would pick out someone in the school. Juniors were the idea, but anyone. Maybe a few sophomores. And the deal was, for the whole year you would insult this guy all the time. Crush him down every chance, no rules. No limits to it. But only in public, see? If it was the two of you alone, you’d just be wasting it. Is that true?”

Trent paused, waiting for C. J. to respond.

“Yes, sir,” said C. J. at last.

“No, you say, ‘That is true.’”

“That is true.”

“Scorning. Right. Which I never knew why it was so popular, or why some victim didn’t go to the…well, not the principal, now. He just wants to shuffle papers and have committees. But somebody should have…Anyway. I never took part in Scorning, which you had to be pretty major to get away with that. See, if you didn’t choose your victim and scorn him, the whole everybody else would go after you. The whole
kaboodle of them, scorning
you
. Because if you get away with I won’t, then Jim will, and Marilee, and like that. One guy says no and gets away with it, the whole thing falls apart, doesn’t it? So the bad guys, which they never run out of no matter where you go…the bad guys have to po-
leece
the ranks, yes indeedy. Like the cowards who moused your desk. Am I right?”

“You are right.”

“But I’m a big talent in the place, it so happens, because of some nifty little quarterbacking on the football squad. Plus I am a big physical type, and your typical little bully is afraid of me, as you maybe noticed. It’s freedom insurance. Everyone leaves you alone to your pursuit of happiness. But there’s this thing I know, which I knew it from the day you joined up here—that if you and me were back in school like that one, then I would’ve picked you out for Scorning.”

“Why, Trent?”

“Because.”

Trent rose and dragged his chair up to C. J.’s so close that when he sat again C. J. could hear him breathing.

“But I don’t like Scorning,” Trent went on. “So it’s a puzzle to me, though I know I feel better when for instance like I make it hot and fearful for those junkheads who were hounding you. I took care of them, all right. But now this other thing. See, we…we held a meeting about the suite list today. And I fought against you, Colin. I undervalued your work and your character. I lied, is what. And that was because I had to stop you. I
have
to, Colin, because…’cause why did they put you in with me? If the boss knows everything…Yes, but…Like I could have told them about you being hounded. Let them draw the obvious conclusion and then no suite for Colin. But I didn’t tell them. I didn’t go there at all. You know why?”

“Because that would be Scorning.”

“Yes, Colin. That would be Scorning. And now…see…” Trent took C. J.’s hands and pressed them together inside his own, and Trent smiled. “Now I read this letter from you here. What’s it about, I wonder, with taken for granted and hidden resources?”

Trent rubbed C. J.’s hands a bit, then laid them carefully on the back of his chair, his hands resting upon them.

“And he is fond, our Colin. He would be a fond boy now, and lets me decide does he take the suite or not. Do you by any fucking chance know what it means to get a suite around here? And yet you would let me…Do you take my fact?”

“I take your fact.”

“Yes, and I said I’d’ve Scorned you. I didn’t today, but back then…No, delete that. I tell you to
turn down the suite
and you will
turn it down
?”

“Yes, sir.”

Silent, Trent stared at C. J. Then Trent asked, at once beguiled and disbelieving, “Why would you do that for me?”

C. J. replied, “That I cannot tell you.”

“Oh, Colin. I can make you tell me.”

“No, you can’t, Trent,” said C. J., gently. “That you can’t.”

He felt his face get hot and weepy—
damn
!—as Trent got up, turned his chair around, and sat back down.

“You’ll be staying here with me,” Trent told C. J. “The invite to suite will come in late tomorrow morning, and at lunch you’ll come back here and I’ll stand watching while you turn the suite down. Don’t tell them you can’t afford it, because they always raise you to equalize the rent hike. Just say ‘regretful personal reasons.’”

Reaching for C. J., Trent pulled him into his lap and whispered, “Remember, I’ll be inches away, Colin, my boy. And I’ll know what you do.”

C. J. lightly rubbed Trent’s left arm. “Okay,” C. J. said.

“‘Yes, sir,’” Trent corrected, but in an uninterested tone, heedless of whether or not C. J. would respond. Trent even repeated “Yes, sir” as if punctuating rather than expressing anything, and gripped C. J. possessively. He has the right.

“Yes, sir,” Trent said again, feeling the tears as they ran down C. J.’s cheek. “Boy, do I love it when they cry.”

THE FOOD OF LOVE

“Cruise alert. Man with white labs.”

“Too skinny.”

“Not skinny,” said Ken. “Slim and way romantic. Look at how his pooches rub against his legs to show their devotion.”

Davey-Boy snorted—ironically, I think—as Ken offered me a taste of his jam. He takes it neat, spooned up right out of the jar.

“Those dogs didn’t choose him, like at your gay bar,” said Davey-Boy. “Your Splash or G. They’re just being affectionate so he’ll upgrade them from kibble to spaghetti and meatballs.”

This is one of those summer afternoons in Central Park. We were scarfing up the last of a picnic on a bench near the southwest entrance that West Siders use by the flock, letting it all happen around us, as befits a slow and easy Sunday. As the time drifted by, we inspected and remarked on the talent, an
American Idol
based on looks. The man with the labs passed quite close to us as he headed for Central Park West, his animals cascading around him. Now they were sniffing, now alerting at the pigeons, now frantically trying to get to another canine, this one a collie padding along with great dignity behind a mother and a stroller.

I asked, “Why do dogs act as though the mere sight of another dog is the event of a lifetime? What are they so excited about?”

“Too skinny,” Davey-Boy repeated, as he watched the man and his labs pass out of the park.

Think of those fantasy tales in which the protagonist is granted the gift of invisibility. I felt like him, because when you pal around with Chelsea Boys no one knows you’re there. Ken, my cousin, is a maximum leader of Chelsea culture. But Davey-Boy, the greatest rejection machine in the chronicle of gay, is a big showoff to boot. Just now he was wearing Lederhosen with suspenders and no top.

“Twink alert,” Davey-Boy murmured, eying two of the genre, approaching from the north in warm conversation. Ken’s spoon rattled along the sides of the jam jar as he sought out the last bits.

“Aren’t you worried about antagonizing your waistline?” I asked him.

“I’ll just gym it off with extra program tomorrow.”

“‘And another thing,’” Davey-Boy put in, as he imagined the conversation of the two young men he had just indicated, using a Valley Girl accent and a tone of martyred righteousness. “‘I’ll thank you to
entirely
stop
making
, like, just a
total
mockery of Scott’s
eating habits
. Just because he’s a vegan—’”