Best Gay Romance 2009, page 11
I was so taken by Will, by his young, faunlike beauty, so ecstatic about our physical communion, even more by the affectional bond, that I pressed close to him as we kissed, near to the point of crushing each other. Will pulled his face away for a moment and stroked my chest.
“There’s something I’ve got to tell you, Vic.”
“What?”
“I’ve always wanted someone who comes close and kisses once we’ve come, who understands how important that moment is.”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“No, most men I’ve known have their squirt, then say ‘Thank you’ and turn over.”
I was moved. “Not us. No, not us.” We pressed together again, kissed tenderly for a while, and fell asleep, our semen-soaked bodies folded together.
That morning I awoke before the alarm. I lay gazing at Will as he slept, his face inches from mine. He was so trusting and innocent. I had not known any man as beautiful, or so well. When it was time, I moved forward and kissed him gently on the lips to wake him. In his sleep, his lips opened and admitted me, responding fully to the thrusts of my tongue, and we embraced closely. In all our years together, I cannot remember Will ever not being ready for, or open to my affection. Or I to his.
LIEBESTOD: LOVE/DEATH FINAL ARIA WITH IMAGINARY MUSIC
Robert M. Dewey
Tom, the old man’s lover for forty years, had died. The old man, having outlived the things of his life, found that he was now a stranger and alone. Unable to bear so much reality, he filled his house with memories.
There were baskets of stones Tom and he had collected—agate, quartz, obsidian, river rocks with mysterious patterns and shapes, even a bottle of gallstones from his doctor; baskets of seashells found on beaches; vases of feathers gathered on long walks—swan, goose, seagull, crow, and the down from some unknown thing, small and soft; stoppered bottles of dried rose petals, lavender, mint, and some more exotic, ma-huang, wolfs-bane, and sleep-inducing valerian root, which the ancient Greeks called Phu, because it stinks. There were books everywhere. And everywhere else an astonishing incongruity of objects—bright-colored Tibetan masks, bones, pottery, tiny carved ivory figures the Japanese call Netsuke, weavings they had made together, the sharp-beaked skull of a starling Tom had spaded up one fall, a gigantic tortoise shell turned to show its mottled bottom, dried leaves, and gods, so many gods. There was a piano, a penny whistle, many puzzles, a crockery jug holding recorders—altos, sopranos, and a sopranino. Covering the walls, pictures—a framed page of an illuminated manuscript, sketches, paintings, prints.
High on the wall dominating his collections hung a huge painting, in the manner of the nineteenth-century Pre-Raphaelites, depicting an old man sitting in a boat with his fishing line in the placid waters of a lake. He was garbed and hooded in dark medieval robes; a crown sat on the seat next to him. His wounded left thigh bled. On a farther shore a mounted knight holding a golden cup waited for the old king. A brass plaque affixed to the frame read: SIR PERCIVAL BEARING THE HOLY GRAIL TO THE FISHER KING.
Late night in the study, a recording of “Clair de Lune” played softly. “Clair de Lune,” the light of the moon rippling over the waters, softly. On a daybed, the old man lay with a black plastic bag enclosing his head, cinched at the neck. He hummed quietly to the music. His hand tapped the rhythm slowly on his chest. Soon he began gasping for air. The tapping hand reached up, loosened the necktie holding the plastic bag, and pulled it off. The old man blinked, sat up, and for a few minutes did nothing but try to catch his breath. Finally he slipped his feet into a pair of slippers and shuffled across the room. Sitting at his desk, he opened his journal. Under the last entry, Number 12, he wrote the time, “Clair de Lune,” and gave up at 3 min. 24 sec., not engrossing enough.
He scanned the cases of CDs and cassettes. Muttering. Muttering. Here in all this music there must be something so enchanting that I’ll stay under too long. Forget to save myself. La Mer, Bruch’s Violin Concerto, La Boheme, Cher and Nicholas Cage were fabulous in Moonstruck…o god, o god, I’ve got it. Tristan and Isolde!…it goes on and on and on. Good old Wagner.
He punched the CD player to the last number on the disk, and Kirsten Flagstad’s smoky soprano voice began Isolde’s death aria at the end of the opera. Liebes. Tod. Love. Death. He sat at his desk humming along, Duuum Deeee Daaaah Duuuh. Duuum Dee Daaaaah! Tristan dead, Isolde’s voice floats over the oceanic undulations of the orchestra. Endless flowing like the sea. Love. Death. Ocean. Eternity…This is fabulous. Daaaaam Deeee Daaaah Duuuuuuuh….
Out of a basket of seashells on the desk, he plucked a piece of dog’s jawbone lying incongruously among cowries, scallops, clams. Tom had found that broken jawbone on the beach near Pescadero one summer…Duuuumh Deeee Daaaah Duuuuuh, the old man hummed And remembered: It seemed an eternity we sat on the beach in the shimmering air, drinking daiquiris from a canteen, watching the tide breaking hissing, breaking hissing, breaking hissing against the shore. Tom singing, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, singing. Heigh Ho Kafuzalem, The Harlot of Jeruzalem….da da duh, duh dah da duh, and daughter of the Baaa Baaaaa! God, he could make me laugh. Out of the old man’s memory, out of the undertow of Isolde’s aria, a voice reciting something once known: O lost…ghost, come back again… How does that go? It’s got to be Thomas Wolfe. You Can’t Go Home Again? No, Look Homeward, Angel. Where’d I put that?
He switched off the CD and shuffled to a bookshelf in the next room. He smiled faintly as he read (Tom had put it there) the framed sign tacked to the bookshelf:
THIS SHOP IS HAUNTED BY THE GHOSTS
OF GREAT WRITERS WHO ARE HERE IN HOSTS;
WE SELL NO FAKES OR TRASHES.
LOVERS OF BOOKS ARE WELCOME HERE,
NO CLERK WILL BABBLE IN YOUR EAR,
PLEASE SMOKE BUT DON’T DROP ASHES.
Good old Christopher Morley…The Haunted Bookshop. Tom used to love that book. Absolute drivel. He scanned the dog-eared paperbacks lining the shelves and found Look Homeward, Angel. He opened to the epigraph.
Which of us has looked into his father’s heart?
Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent?
Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?
…O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.
He shuffled back to his desk. O lost, and by the wind grieved, he wrote down, ghost, come back again…
The old man reached over and turned Isolde’s death aria on again. The endless waves of the ocean, endless and unceasing. Sea Sing. Sea Sing. Un Sea Sing. Love. Death. Eternity. Daaaam Deeeeee Daaaah Duuuuuh.
Tom had such beautiful shoulders. Leather and scented geraniums. Through the basket of shells the old man moved his finger sensuously as if through a pool of water, and the shells clinked and tinkled like bells. He listened to the shells clinking and tinkling. Like bells. Ding-dong. Ding-dong bell. Full fathom five thy father lies. Those are pearls that were his eyes. Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell. Ding-dong, Ding-dong, bell. Daaaam Deeee Daaaaah Duuuuuuuh. And as he listened, memories surfaced: Daddy gave me this conch shell when he came back from Hawaii. And a bottle of white sand. So many things. I can remember where each shell in this basket came from. The cowry with the carvings on it, a gift from Hernan when he came back from Bogota. The clamshells from a bouillabaisse at the Gold Coast in San Francisco. The little shell with wormholes, Tom and I found years ago, cruising on the Mississippi River flats.
The old man looked around the room. Things. Each one a memory. Ghosts. Ghosts. These things live only because I remember their lives. I live only because they keep whispering to me. Parasites clinging to each other for life. Drowning…
The CD of Kirsten Flagstad singing “Liebestod” grew louder. DAAAH DEEE…God, why doesn’t she just kill herself and get it over with? One can hardly breathe in here. Told George to take the storm windows off two weeks ago. Only do gardens. Only do gardens. Damned hothouse. DAAAAAM DEEEEE DAAAAAAH…Why do prima donnas have to go on and on? Get on with it. The old man reached over his desk and snapped the music off.
Calm down…breathe…breathe deeply, quietly…breathe… breathe. It’s near sunrise. I should walk down to the lake…The dawn comes. The dawn comes through the incense-burning mist…and o’er the lake hangs the moon, a white Eucharist… Breathe….
The old man leaned back in his chair and looked up at the painting of the King fishing in the lake, a stained cloth draped over his bloody thigh…bandage…old wounds never die, they just bleed away…Gone Fishin’ Gone Fishin’…only place to ease the pain. Then one day Sir Percival bears to him the Holy Grail—Percival, Parzifal, My Sweet Party Fool Tom (so it declines). One cup of wine, a kiss, and I was healed. Holy holy wholly healed. The land blooms mixing memory and desire. And we lived happily ever after…that was my story…thought that would be my story…and then the son of a bitch died…and left me waiting…waiting…for what? Another Prince? The understudy? Someday my Prince will come again, knock at the door again, put his boots under my bed again. I’ll be whole again, whole again, jiggidy jig. Breaking news—Prodigal Son Returns to Diddle Father, Son, and Holy Goat.
If you’re coming, you’d better get your fanny over here—I haven’t got all day…I thought you’d be my story…my story… You’re so vain…I bet you think this song is about you… The old man sang the phrases over and over again, louder and louder.
When he heard that he was shouting, the old man stopped dead still. Breathe slowly…breathe deeply…just let things be… no more talk…just breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
The old man clicked on the CD player and heard the opening bars of Isolde’s aria yet again. Third time’s a charm. He shuffled over to the daybed. Took up the black plastic bag and the necktie (stupid salmon pink knitted necktie—ugly, ugly—but the knot didn’t slip) placed the necktie noose over his head, pulled it wide around his neck. Then, he raised the black plastic bag, pulled it down, tucked the ends under the noose, and cinched it up.
He had always loved taking naps on the daybed. Just a little nap. That’s all. If I can just hold out this time. Breathe. Breathe slowly. Daaam Deeeeee Daaaaah Duuuuh. Duuuum Deeeeee Daaaaaaah. Float on the waves…inexorable tide…washing over, pulling back. Love. Death. The undulating orchestra, the voice floating over the water, yearning, yearning, but never quite attaining, O lost, and by the wind grieved…Wagner. That sly old fox. The yearning is just a musical conjuring trick, sleight of sound. Makes his chords progress toward resolution, but never lets them reach it, instead they turn into another phrase—reaching, almost reaching—over and over always almost there, but never quite, not yet, not yet…Unbearable yearning. Love. Death. Pulls at the viscera…Breaking and hissing….
When the ocean waves finally reached our feet, Tom put his arm across my chest and dared me to stay…I’ll stay as long as you do. And we lay holding each other’s hands as the waves rode up our legs higher and higher. When they finally reached my thighs, I jumped up to go, but he grabbed my foot and pulled me down and we rolled on the sand and tumbled in the waves and flailed like schoolboys until I no longer struggled. Then he straddled me and put my arms over my head and held them down and at each wave he kissed me and teased me until all I could want was more. And when the tumbling waves finally reached my waist, we held each other and kissed. And the great mothering ocean rolled over us pouring and hissing, trying to pull us into herself, pouring and hissing, pouring and hissing, and I whispered into his ear, o god, never let this end….
THE TERROR OF KNOWING WHAT THIS WORLD IS ABOUT
Thomas Kearnes
There aren’t enough words for all the kinds of wanting in the world.
—Richard Lange
Pete was at the age where anything could be turned into a gun. A week ago, he was running through the house, a wrapped piece of beef jerky in his hand, pretending to shoot at aliens. Earlier today, his stepfather, James, bought him an airplane made of balsa wood and Styrofoam. The boy immediately held the plane by one wing and aimed the other at the poor man, chanting a single phrase. Pow-pow! It was now past his bedtime on a Saturday, and the boy held Topher at point-blank with a crude instrument made of Tinker Toys.
The boy’s mother laughed as she put out her cigarette. “Petey, stop that.” Candice grinned at James. then turned to Topher. “I really don’t understand it.”
Topher laughed and crossed his legs. He looked at Pete, an amused gleam in his eye, and hoped this masked his stark discomfort with the child. Indeed, all children, once they acquired the ability to speak and ambulate, struck within him a deep unease. Topher paused to admire the grace with which James and Candice had managed to compartmentalize their lives to accommodate her son—well, as it stood now, their son.
James sat beside his wife on the lumpy sofa. He bent over the coffee table in concentration, separating stems and seeds from the half-ounce of weed he had bought a couple of hours before, while Candice made dinner. “We try to keep him away from all that shit on TV,” he said, glancing at Topher. “You know, all those cartoons now are basically about fucked-up space creatures and freaky-looking animals beating the shit out of each other.”
“James,” Candice cried and slapped his shoulder, smiling.
“Sorry, but that’s what they are.”
Pete still stood in front of Topher, his makeshift gun drawn. Pow-pow! Suddenly through with his assault, he held the gun in his open palm for Topher to inspect. “See how I made it?” The gun was a construct of thin colored sticks jammed into small solid wooden wheels. Topher remembered the pidgin architectures he had built when he was the boy’s age. He always followed the instructions in the booklet that came with the toys.
“Did you build that all by yourself?” He didn’t know what else to say. He felt like a domestic failure. He couldn’t wait to get high.
Pete nodded and bared his teeth. Pow-pow! Topher laughed, but inside his head it sounded hollow, the same nagging falseness he felt whenever another man bought him a drink and initiated a line of questioning that would ultimately reveal the two had nothing in common but that drink.
“Petey, I said stop that,” Candice said, her tone serious now. Pete cocked his head at her and laughed. “I’m not joking around, little man.”
James lifted his head from his work and fixed his stepson with a hard gaze. “If you can’t stop shooting at Mommy and Daddy’s friend, I’ll have to take that away from you. Do you want that?”
Pete shook his head, earnestly.
“Now apologize to Toph.”
Topher gave the whole room a dismissive wave. “He doesn’t have to.”
“No,” he said, “this is important.”
The boy’s head bobbed up and down as if his neck were elastic. All the juvenile confidence he had shown as a marksman was gone. “Sorry,” he said.
Topher made a gun with his thumb and index finger and fired at Pete. “It’s okay.”
“Now go to your room and play,” James said. Topher looked over at the coffee table and saw that James was rolling a joint. His long, thick fingers twisted the white paper around the pudgy line of weed. James and Candice always made sure to send Pete from the room before they smoked with Topher. He assumed they followed the same protocol when no one was visiting. This realization filled him with a strange sadness.
Pete disappeared from the room, his homemade pistol forgotten in his hand. James and Candice exchanged a brief smile, and Topher in that moment felt the tight bond between them. He imagined himself driving home the next morning to Longview, where he lived alone in an apartment that was at once too large and too small.
“You ready for this?” James asked, handing the completed joint to Topher. He took it and ran it underneath his nose, inhaling deeply.
“We’re getting it from a new guy,” Candice volunteered.
“What happened to your last one?”
“You know,” James said, “sometimes people just stop answering their phone.”
“It’s such a hassle,” Candice added, “finding someone new.”
Topher agreed, but not aloud. James never returned the sporadic messages Topher left on his voice mail. His only opportunity to contact his friend came when he saw him online, an infrequent occurrence. Indeed, ever since their first meeting, James’s habit of disappearing forced Topher to view the other man’s life as a time-lapse photograph: March, they’re lovers. May, he’s with Bernard. November, an awkward evening filled with James’s ebullience and Bernard’s hostile stares. April, he’s kicked Bernard out of the house. August, he’s with Candice. And finally, another November, they’re married. That was two years ago, with James springing from the void once every few months, a woeful clown popping out of a colored box.
As Topher took a toke, Candice asked him about school, and if he was seeing anyone. He answered her with small shakes of the head. He liked Candice. She was slim and pretty, her long pale blonde hair forever bunched behind her head with a banana clip. Her cheeks were round, full and slightly flushed as if she had just stepped in from a brisk run in the snow. She often erupted into a torrent of giggles at whatever sight gag or wisecrack came across the television.
“Sweetie,” she said, “it’s your turn to put the music on.”
James took the joint from Topher. He grunted his agreement then took a hit.
“What music?” Topher asked.
Candice smiled and shook her head. “I don’t know how it got started,” she said. “Actually,” she added, punching her husband in the arm, “I know exactly how it got started.”
“Don’t look at me,” James said. “You’re the one who likes Queen.”
“Anyway, Petey must’ve heard them at some point and decided he just couldn’t live without them because now he won’t go to sleep unless we put their CD on.”
