Best Gay Erotica 2001, page 4
When I wake, his words are brittle and stuck to the hairs of my chest. I look into the shadows, into the light for him. He’s gone…
Until tonight, I pray.
Forgive me, mon seigneur. I did not know how impossible last night’s oath would be to keep. Please, Michel, come soon.
I’m sorry, my beloved brain, but now I only love you more.
from Onyx
Felice Picano
As he entered D’Agostino’s, Ray had to trace a detour. At the second of the two glass doors leading into the supermarket, a five-foot wooden stepladder had been splayed open. Someone was astride its scaffold, reaching up to the automated device connecting the doors to a ceiling-mounted geared mechanism. Ray couldn’t see the fellow’s face, only his thick, matte-black curly hair. But the repairman’s body—clad in a heavy rugby shirt, knee-length wide-wale corduroy shorts, off-white woolen socks, and clunky, heavily stained ankle-length work boots—was tight and muscular. His buttocks and thighs (exactly at eye level) and his calves (slightly lower) were so well modeled, so evenly tanned, that they implied a kind of perfection throughout. Ray had learned over years of man-watching exactly what might correctly be inferred from a fragment: a hand and wrist held outside a car window, a shoulder blade and neck muscle glimpsed in a department store dressing room just as a V-neck was pulled on. Possessed of who knew what unsuspected brass, Ray whistled sexily and crooned à la Streisand “He-llo, gorgeous!” adding as he passed, “Don’t fall!”
The guy looked down, bulky, yellow plastic-lensed goggles framing and partly obscuring his cute, squarish, masculine face. “I won’t,” he said, sounding amused.
Surprised by his own daring, Ray snatched up a shopping basket and sped into the protective anonymity of the produce aisle. There, he managed to find his grocery list and attempted to concentrate.
Brooklyn Heights was littered with fetching workmen of all ages and races, especially during the day. Ray would race out of his home office in the morning carrying a trash basket he’d failed to put out the night before, only to be greeted by the glowering face of a sanitation worker, a young Botticelli, who menaced, “Next time have it out! Or I’ll leave it!” Or he’d be wedging into a parking spot and some Verrochio archangel with rolled-up sleeves and a Marlboro dangling off his lower lip would lean out the window of a pickup Ray had beaten out and yell obscenities, suggesting Ray learn how to drive—sonomabitch! The studly Puerto Rican adolescents who delivered pizza and Chinese at lunchtime wore skin-tight shirts and jeans and flirted brazenly. The African-American son of the newsstand owner on Joralemon Street wore the least amount of clothing legal as he helped out during the summer: iridescent basketball tees and one memorable, shimmering, lilac-hued Speedo lubricious against his bittersweet-chocolate skin. The beauty and abundance of the men had been a standing joke between Ray and Jesse since they’d moved there, along with the understanding that these fellows were heterosexual and thus unobtainable. Besides which, even if you did fulfill the fantasy and have sex with one, what could you possibly talk about afterward? The latest Sondheim musical? The newest dance-club drug? So Ray concentrated on his food shopping and forgot the young repairman.
The stepladder was still there but vacant when Ray paid for his groceries ten minutes later. He sighed. But right outside the supermarket, he was surprised to see the workman loitering against the back doors of his paint-splattered van, parked not ten feet away in the adjacent alley. He was clearly waiting for Ray, because as soon as he espied him, he turned, opened the doors, and climbed in.
Nervous yet undeniably intrigued, Ray stopped at the van’s back door, shifting his grocery bags in case he needed an excuse for his halt. The mechanic was faced away, rifling through storage shelves built into the inner sides of the truck, doing so in a way that more than hinted he was showing off his body. When he glanced at Ray, Ray responded with a smile and what his Mom called a great big Midwestern “Hello.”
“Hello, yourself,” the workman said. Slight outer-boroughs accent. “You know,” he added, “you go around saying things like you said to me in there, you could get into trouble.”
Ray shrugged. “I never do that. I just couldn’t help myself.”
A pause to assess the implied compliment.
“Not that I’m personally offended. But some guys…” The repairman trailed off. He swiveled around, holding powerful-looking snub-nosed pliers in one hand. Ray couldn’t help feeling he was flirting, giving Ray front and back views. Uncertain yet emboldened he said, “So, what time do you get off work?” Oldest pickup line in the book.
“Coupla hours. I got one more stop in Caroll Gardens. Why?”
It’s now or never, Ray thought. “I live nearby. Thought you might want to stop by for a beer.”
The workman lifted the massive goggles off his face and used them to brush back the thick shock of hair. The eyes disclosed were glorious: the palest green, lashes like an old film starlet’s, set in high cheekbones. He leaned on one booted foot, which provocatively canted his lower torso forward. “I can get a beer anywhere.”
With the revelation of those eyes, Ray’s heart had thudded in his chest, a double whammy, given the erection he already had. Say it, he thought, panic-stricken lest he never see those eyes again. “How about I throw in a blow job?” Ray hoped he sounded cool and measured.
No change on the young face—he looked to be about 22, 23. And now Ray noticed that besides his solid physique and electrifying eyes, he also possessed a good complexion, evenly tanned, natural crimson to signify health, no marks or blemishes. “Well,” the workman temporized, “I’m not sure when I’ll be done here. Or the other place. Gotta be home by…”
Ray dropped the grocery bags and took out his wallet. In it, his card for KlavierStuecke Records. “My address and phone number.” Handing over the card, he noted the square-tipped, stubby fingers covered with crosscuts—some old, a few fresh—that took hold of the card. “I live two blocks down, around the corner.” Ray was casual as before. “Park in the garageway. No one’ll ticket you.” He wondered if he was coming on too aggressive, if he seemed too needy.
The repairman glanced at the card. “Like I said, I’m not sure when I’ll be done.” His voice hadn’t fluctuated since they’d begun to speak, so Ray wasn’t able to assess what might be at play behind the inexpressive face. But then Ray had also kept his voice to a masculine monotone. The workman didn’t return the card, perhaps a good sign. Instead he slid it into one of the pockets in his shorts—a better sign—and turned to look for another tool.
Ray couldn’t help feeling a bit dismissed. “Hope you find the time,” he said brightly. “Bye!”
Half a block later, stopped at the traffic light at Montague Street, Ray thought, well, I was close, but somehow I screwed it up. His nerve in talking to the guy, never mind trying to pick him up, amazed him. He’d never done anything like that in his life. Certainly not with anyone whose sexuality he wasn’t sure of. Hardly even with men he was certain were gay. In fact, Jesse used to tease that if he’d not repeatedly pursued Ray over a period of months, they’d have never slept together, not to mention ended up together.
Nerve. Chutzpah, J. K. would call it: J. K. Callaway, Ray’s best friend. J. K. had been in New York City more than two decades and used Yiddish words as though he were a member of Temple Beth-El and not an occasional attendee at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church. Ray decided to call him the minute he got home. J. K. had more chutzpah than Bette Midler. He’d be shocked.
As for the young workman, he was sexy, and those eyes, my God, those eyes! He had definitely flirted with Ray, but almost casually, as though he flirted all the time and it meant nothing. Maybe that was true. Someone that cute! He must get hit on ten times a day. All of which suggested that it was unlikely Ray would hear from him. Probably for the best, Ray concluded. Struck as he was, excited as he’d been, he still felt queasy with the idea of touching anyone but Jesse, no matter how much his quite ill and thus celibate lover insisted it would merely be hygienically sound for someone as sex-starved as Ray to do so. Anyway, Ray had plenty to keep him busy that afternoon.
Otto was lying in wait and tested edging past Ray’s legs at the office door. Ray’s hands were busy, and the little Persian slid inside with a triumphant meow, speeding out of reach under the desk. Ray would pry him out later. He trooped upstairs to put the groceries away, popped a beer, took the rest of the six-pack down to the office’s half fridge. He tapped the speed dial that would bring him J. K.’s voice.
Who did not pick up the phone. Who was instead, disgustingly, talking to someone else. Ray hit play on the answering machine and listened to a message from a college bookstore customer he’d been playing phone-tag with. He phoned that number and got the record department buyer. He’d barely hung up that call—with a substantial order to invoice and pack—when another customer phoned, needing more stock of the Horowitz CD.
He checked the small reserve area and found sufficient copies of all the required items. That meant he need not go to the storage area his little company rented several blocks away in a local warehouse. He counted the CDs into stacks on the big old work table, all the while sparring with Otto, who’d taken a defensive position atop a mass of flattened-out cardboard boxes and who seemed determined to make up for his exile with a vigorous defense of the spot. The phone rang: the second customer, adding another title. Then, since he was on the phone, Ray speed-dialed Jesse’s work number and spoke to his lover’s secretary, Tasha, who reported that Jesse was at lunch with some colleagues, but that he’d arrived at 11:30 that morning in a good mood. Ray didn’t know what that meant. Jesse was always in a good mood, no matter how he felt, no matter how good or terrible the news involved.
He filled and sealed two boxes, then toyed with Otto until the cat extended its claws and hissed. They reconciled and Ray went to the front office computer to input information and generate invoices, bills of lading, and mailing labels. He taped up the orders and set the boxes by the office door for UPS. He sipped at his beer and hit J. K.’s number again.
This time he answered. “This had better be crucial. I’m stepping out the door this very moment.”
“It is crucial,” Ray assured him.
“Meaning the topic is…” J. K. clarified. “A, sex. B, money. C, me.”
“Sex.”
“No! You did not have sex!” J. K. protested into the receiver.
“I almost had sex.”
“Bor-ring! Almost doesn’t count.”
“With a very cute repairman. At D’Agostino’s,” Ray added. “He was fixing the automatic doors when I walked in. He was waiting for me outside and we talked and I offered to do him and gave him my phone number.”
There was an intake of breath from the other end of the phone. Then: “Raymond Henriques, I know now why I keep you as my friend. You have completely made my afternoon. You have restored my faith in the sexual appetite of the American working man, not to mention the inexorable action of human bodily fluids. I am sitting down again,” J. K. declared. “I am taking off my jacket. I expect to hear every detail. Gloss any item at your peril.”
A half-hour of details, it turned out. A great many more than Ray thought were needed. J. K.’s own romantic and sexual life must be pretty sparse for this level of obsession with a single, merely potential, occurrence in Ray’s life. But what were friends for? J. K. had come to Ray’s aid on more than one occasion, and as for the situation with Jesse’s health, J. K. was possibly the most knowledgeable man in New York, had the best instincts in the world, and could be counted on without question. So Ray humored him, even if it meant having to invent details and repeat, “It was a flirtation. Nothing will come of it.”
“Nothing will come of it because your hard-up, horny working mensch perceived you were…unserious!” J. K. replied, his most severe put-down. “Some far less attractive, far less worthy, far less ambivalent queen shall shortly reap the rewards of your petit dalliance, believe you me.”
Ray did believe J. K. So much so that when he heard a tap on the office door to the street, Ray remained on the phone listening to J. K. go on about his “moral cowardice” while he got up to see who it was, and when he looked out and saw first the paint-splattered van parked across the concrete driveway, then the curly dark head of the repairman, Ray almost didn’t believe it.
“Someone’s at the door,” he said to J. K. in a hushed voice.
“It’s not him, is it? Mr. Sexy Repairman?”
Seeing the fellow moving back toward the van’s door, Ray unlocked the door. “UPS,” he lied. “Gotta go.”
“Call back the second he’s gone!” J. K. demanded. “We’re not done discussing this encounter or its ramifications.”
“Right. Sure,” Ray agreed. Then, door finally open, he called, “I was on the phone.” Seeing the dark head turn and those amazing eyes, visible through gray sunglass lenses, he added, “You made it! Great! “
“The other job was canceled. I had free time,” the repairman said. “Am I parked OK? I’m blocking the sidewalk.”
“Anything bigger than a bike will block it. I’ve got a parking decal you can put in the window that says you’re here on business.”
Ray left the door open and located the decal, then brought it to the workman peering down Joralemon Street at a police car.
“I can’t get another ticket. My boss’ll go ballistic.”
“Hang this from the mirror in your window. If you get a ticket, I’ll pay.”
Back inside, the phone rang. Ray hoped it wasn’t J. K. It wasn’t. It was, however, the second customer he’d spoken to earlier, asking if he could modify his order yet again. Ray said sure and entered the revision directly onto the computer screen, still scrolled to “billing.” He’d have to exchange the outer label, reopen and repack the box. Hell!
When he turned around, the office door was closed and the repairman was inside, staring out the window at the street. Ray still couldn’t believe he was there.
Ray joined him at the window, just in time to see the police car stop and a heavyset female cop get out, check the van, then get back into the patrol car and move on. “What’d I tell you,” Ray said.
The repairman filled the office with his presence, his smell, a complex fragrance Ray couldn’t quite figure out, a mixture, he theorized, of machine oil, after-shave, maybe natural musk. Ray wanted to touch the younger man, only inches away, so badly that he was actually trembling.
“I just can’t get another ticket,” the workman apologized, facing Ray. “Three this year already. It comes out of my pay.”
“I understand. No problem.”
The visitor looked around at the office with its metal-framed Music Festivals of Europe posters on the walls, the cabinets of CD albums. “This is, what, a German record company? Blue Danube Waltz? Ooom-pah-pah bands?”
Ray laughed. “No, keyboard music. Piano, some organ and guitar. Mostly classical stuff. Klavierstuecke means keyboard pieces. How about that beer?” Ray turned to the half fridge and the mechanic was there, palms out.
He presented his soiled, square hands, with their stubby fingers and mangled fingernails, skin all cut up. A few of the incisions looked fresh. “I’m all greasy. Better wash up.”
“I’ll show you the john.”
Ray led him out of the office, past the storage area, where Otto stretched and ostentatiously yawned as they passed by, into the master suite. Ray blushed as they entered the large room. He pointed out the lavatory. As the repairman entered, Ray said, “You want Mercurochrome or bandages on those cuts? They look pretty raw. “
“Sure. Alcohol, peroxide, whatever.” He ran the tap.
Ray had to graze him to reach the medicine cabinet.
The repairman held his hands over the sink. Ray poured alcohol over them, dabbed them dry with a facecloth, carefully wrapped Band-Aids across the two newest-looking gashes. From this proximity, the repairman was the same height as Ray: eyes level. Less prepossessing now. Even younger. More vulnerable. Ray felt less apprehensive, less unsure. He still didn’t know what would happen, but it didn’t trouble him. He was simply pleased by the man’s presence—so close, so easygoing, so unassuming.
“Now how about that beer?”
Ray thought the fellow looked longingly at the bed as they passed out of the bedroom and back into the office. Or was Ray deceiving himself? The beers were waiting on the desk, and as there was only one chair, they leaned against cabinets, a few feet apart as they snapped open and chugged down the brews.
“So you, what? Work and live here too?”
Ray explained the setup.
“How did you get into this line? It’s pretty unusual, right?”
Ray explained that he’d been an A & R man at EMI/Capitol Records. He mentioned popular artists the guy might have heard of. “GiGi Gertz!” The workman was duly impressed. “You don’t mind not working with pop stars any more?”
“I had no choice if I wanted to stay in the city. How’s that brew? Need another?” During the discussion they’d become more equal in Ray’s mind. The power had even shifted in his favor.
“Don’t want to drink and drive. Maybe I should be taking off. Gotta get back to the Island. It’ll be an hour with the traffic and all.”
Ray knew he would have to act immediately, or what J. K. had predicted—him doing all the work and someone else reaping the rewards—would come to pass. He was no longer unsettled by the man’s good looks, nor by the thought that what he intended was disloyal to Jesse. His focus had shifted to how to get the young man undressed easily, gracefully, not too aggressively. Ray extended a hand and brushed the front of the guy’s shorts, then said in a calm and measured voice, “I’m not being a very good host, am I? I did promise more than beer.”
