Michael Nava - Goldenboy

Josh stood beside me. “Can I get you something to drink?” “No, thank you.”

“Excuse me, then,” he said, and went into a small kitchen.

The far wall was curtained. I went over and lifted the curtains, revealing a small patio behind a sliding glass door. I sat down on the couch. There was a fish bowl filled with change on the coffee table and next to it a photograph in a heavy bronze frame. The photograph showed a handsome middle-aged couple, two pretty girls, and a smiling Josh. He came back into the room holding a glass of milk.

“Your family?”

He nodded and sat down beside me. “My dad’s a CPA,” he said.

“Where do they live?”

“Sherman Oaks.” He set the glass down on the table. “Are you comfortable?”

I loosened my tie.

Smiling faintly, Josh asked, “Is that as relaxed as you get?” “It’s been a long time.”

“For me, too,” he said. “I don’t want you to think I spend all my time at bars or anything.”

“I know.”

“This feels like the first time for me,” he said, then smiled nervously. “That’s the wrong thing to say, isn’t it?”

I held him. “No,” I said. “My first time was almost twenty years ago. We thought we had invented love.”

He kissed me. His mouth tasted of milk and his skin beneath my fingers was smooth and firm. He drew back and unknotted my tie, sliding it from my collar, and unbuttoned my shirt. I removed my jacket and tossed it aside. Sinking into the couch, I pulled him against me.

“What happened to him?” Josh asked.

“To whom?”

“Your first time.”

“She got married.”

He lifted his head and looked at me. “It was a girl?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Were you gay?”

“I’ve always been gay, Josh. I just happened to be in love with a girl.” I kicked off my shoes and smiled at him. “You can’t always specialize.”

His dark eyes were unhappy. “Do you still go out with them?”

“Women? No,” I said. “She was the only one.”

He smiled. “That cuts down the competition.”

“Don’t worry about that. It’s a buyer’s market.”

“We’ll see,” he said with a lewd flicker in his eyes.

Sometime later we lay on the couch, facing each other, our clothes discarded, bodies touching.

I watched my face form in Josh’s eyes. “You called me the night Jim tried to kill himself,” I said.

He was surprised. “How did you know it was me?”

“Just a feeling. I wish you hadn’t hung up.”

“I lost my nerve,” he replied and smiled. “Are you tired?”

I pressed him against me. “In a minute.”

It was cold. I opened my eyes and found that Josh had rolled himself into the blankets and now slept contentedly at the edge of the narrow bed. A light shone from beneath the bathroom door. He had carefully arranged my suit on a chair, leaving his own clothes in a little pile beside it. I gently unwound the blankets from him and lay against his back, putting my arm across his chest. He smelled of sweat and soap and semen. I lowered my hand to his firm belly, cupped his genitals and laid my hand, finally, between his thighs. He moved his head a fraction and I knew he was awake. He pressed his rump against my groin. I raised my hand along his torso to his nipples and grazed them with my palm. He sighed and pushed harder.

“Do you want to?” he whispered.

I raised myself on my elbow and said, “Of course I do, but I haven’t carried rubbers with me since I was sixteen.”

“Just this once,” he said. “You could pull out before — you know.”

I squeezed his neck between my fingers. “No,” I said softly. “There’s AIDS, Josh. It’s not worth the risk.”

Abruptly he drew away to the edge of the bed and lay on his back, looking at the darkness.

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” I said.

“I know what you meant,” he said in a flat voice. “You’re right. It’s not worth it.”

He drew himself rigidly apart from me as if daring me to make a move across the channel of darkness between us.

“That’s not what I meant at all,” I said, reaching for him.

He jerked away. “I said it didn’t have to mean anything to you, Henry.”

I lay back in the bed. “You’ve been awfully rough on yourself tonight, Josh. I’d like to know why.”

“Does it really matter to you?” he asked, more in pain than defiance.

But I had long ago stopped issuing blank checks on my emotions and I waited a moment too long to answer.

“That’s what I thought,” he said.

“What’s this about, Josh?”

Instead of answering, he turned away and quietly began to weep.

When he stopped crying, I asked, “Does this have anything to do with Jim?”

“Please hold me,” Josh said. I moved myself against him and took him in my arms, feeling the dull thud of his heart against my ribs. “I don’t want to talk now.”

I opened my mouth to speak but thought better of it. After a few minutes, Josh slipped into sleep. A long time later, I did, too.

When I woke Josh was standing beside me, dressed in jeans and a UCLA sweatshirt. He squinted at me through his glasses. It was plain that he was seeing a stranger.

“I’ll make you some breakfast,” he said, politely.

“Coffee will be fine.”

He nodded and left. I stretched my neck, shaking off the little aches that seemed to accumulate there as I got older, wiping the sleep from my eyes. The bathroom was steamy and smelled of Josh. A thin, suspicious face formed in the mirror. Deepening lines and graying hair foretold the coming of middle- age, what the French called — ironically, in my case — the age of discretion. I rinsed my mouth, showered, put on the clothes I had worn the night before, and followed the smell of coffee into the kitchen.

Josh stood at the stove scrambling eggs. He looked at me and said, “You should eat something.”

“Whatever you’re having.” I poured coffee into a mug from Disneyland and leaned against the counter, watching him.

“Do you ever stop thinking?” he asked.

“I did last night,” I replied. He stirred the eggs savagely.

“Lowered your standards, you mean.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He shut off the flame beneath the skillet and faced me.

“What were you going to tell me last night?”

“Nothing.”

I set my cup on the counter. “We shouldn’t start out by lying to each other.”

He jammed his hands into his pockets. “Sometimes I don’t think there is any love, just a kind of envy.” He looked at me. “I want to be who you are. What do you want from me, to be twenty-two again?”

“I think I’d better be on my way,” I said.

He started to say something but then simply nodded. I let myself out. I told myself I didn’t want to buy into his troubles, but I felt heavier going down the steps than I had coming up.

There was a black Mercedes parked in front of Larry’s house. The plate read gldnboy. I pulled into the driveway and went into the house. Tom Zane, Irene Gentry, and Sandy Blenheim were sitting in the big front room with Larry. The coffee table was littered with papers, coffee cups, and empty glasses. A half- empty bottle of Old Bushmill’s sat near an ashtray filled with cigarette butts.

“Excuse me,” I said.

Larry gave me a look that made me acutely aware that I was in the same clothes I had worn the night before. “I think you know everyone,” he said.

“Looks like someone got lucky last night,” Zane said.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” I said, and headed up the stairs without looking back. I changed clothes and called Freeman Vidor. He was surprised to hear from me.