Edmund White - Our Young Man

They showered — the water came out at first in dirty cold bursts but then ran clear and hot — and put on shorts and T’s and sneakers and pulled a red wagon to the grocery. On the way everyone said hello, and one group of five stopped in their tracks and watched Guy and Kevin go by. Kevin looked back, but Guy sauntered on, pulling his noisy wagon over the bumpy boards. Kevin could hear the words “models” and “stuck-up” and he was pleased they had said “models” plural.

“Is everyone always so friendly and in such a good mood?” Kevin asked. He felt strange being so pale, but he’d dutifully applied sunscreen all over.

“They’re drunk now,” Guy said, “and optimistic, but they will soon be squabbling over household expenses and hoping they’ll find love later in the Meat Rack. They’ll be arguing. ‘Why did you buy that expensive leg of lamb?’ And they become especially cross at the beginning of September when they realize the season is over and they’ve danced their tushes off and fucked a lot in the bushes, but, hey, they haven’t bagged a beau for the winter and they’ve maxed out their credit cards.”

Kevin laughed and put an arm around Guy and said, “I didn’t know you knew all those words.”

“Out here I’ve heard them often enough,” Guy said. Because of oncoming traffic on the boardwalk, Kevin had to fall back and follow Guy, which allowed him to take a long look at Guy’s ass pistoning away inside his clinging Speedo. Kevin felt his dick getting hard and he looked away, embarrassed.

They encountered a sunburned man of fifty in cargo shorts, with a red belly and hairless torso and Play-Doh features, thick lips and a bulbous nose and one eye permanently half closed. He was with three sleek youngsters, each more muscular and handsome than the next.

“Hey, Jim,” Guy said, stopping to kiss the man on just one cheek as they did out here. “Jim, Kevin,” he said, and the man shook Kevin’s hand and introduced his “bravos,” as Kevin thought of them because he saw them as a Renaissance escort of tough guys.

“Guy,” Jim said. “You and — Kevin, is it? — should come to dinner tonight.”

Guy looked at Kevin, who nodded. “Great,” Guy said. “What time?”

“Oh, anytime. Nine? Ten? You remember where the house is? And Guy, I was so sorry to hear about Fred. This AIDS, it’s not funny anymore. Fred was such a sweetheart!” And they all went their separate ways, but one dark bravo, who must have been French, murmured to Guy, “ À ce soir .”

A moment later Jim had doubled back and said, “You’re not vegetarians, are you?”

Guy laughed and said, “No, we’re French.” And Kevin liked that and said in his best Minnesota accent, “Yeah, we’re French as hell.” And they all three laughed.

“Are all these guys out here hustlers or porn stars?” Kevin asked. “They’re so gorgeous.”

“No, they only look that way. They’re all lawyers or surgeons but as beautiful as gigolos.”

Kevin swept out the house and washed down the counters, then went nude for a late afternoon swim in the pool. They walked to the Botel for tea dance and Kevin was amazed there were so many men dancing in swimsuits, “all gorgeous,” he said. They drank big blue cocktails called Blue Whales. “What makes them blue?” Kevin asked. “Are my questions too dumb?”

“Not at all, sweetheart. Blue curaçao, whatever that is.”

All eyes were on them as they leaned against the railing around the deck or danced nonchalantly to the deafening music — or rather, everyone looked away the instant Kevin glanced at them, but if he caught their eye by surprise they were staring at them as if they were movie stars or royalty. Guy’s cheekbones were more prominent than everyone else’s, his hair more expertly cut, his muscles more compact and defined, his waist more dramatically sinewy, his toenails more beautifully buffed; if you studied the others, they had leathery tans or coarse features or they had bulked up grotesquely from the waist up but their legs were skinny or their smiles were tarnished or their torsos were thick. Only Guy was perfect, Kevin thought. Only he looked both masculine and refined.

Jim’s house was eccentrically modern. As they walked up to it at nine-thirty that night, it looked like an old-fashioned view camera — just one small window, the lens, in the center of the facade framed by receding slatted squares, the bellows. Inside, it was all two steps up, one step down, track lighting, Memphis modular furniture, a small outdoor pool lit from within like a sapphire, big, gaudy, unframed abstractions on the wall, all seemingly by the same hand. Or were they just silk-screened batik fabric posing as paintings? The rooms flowed into one another. The guys had drinks on an orange molded plastic couch and pink beanbag chairs, then went to the long, narrow dining room table, with its tall black crystal helix candlesticks, glazed turquoise plates, and twelve matching chairs that looked made out of plasticized cobwebs or molded lace. The food was exotic but light, a salad of kiwis, orange sections, and fresh thyme, and two giant sea bass cooked in salt shells, served with black pasta made from squid ink. A few raspberries and crystallized mint leaves for dessert. Lots of cheap wine, both colors. Fat joints were passed and everyone spoke at once in strangulated voices. They were laughing uproariously at nothing. The handsome Frenchman felt, under the table, Guy’s knee bared by the navy blue perfectly tailored linen shorts, and even tried to wedge a hand up his pant leg toward his crotch, though Guy discreetly lifted the man’s hand and put it back in his lap, but patted it to be polite. They talked about Madonna, whom the others were bored with but whom Kevin hotly defended, though he worried he was talking too much.

When they got home Guy was so stoned he didn’t even stop to think what Kevin might want but just pulled off his trousers and raped him, assuming he’d like that, and he was right, by some miracle, Kevin did like it. They didn’t even shower afterward, but fell asleep in each other’s arms, smelling of sex — or like horses, Kevin thought, smiling into the dark.

The next day in the afternoon a uniformed chauffeur, for an event organized by Pierre-Georges, carried Guy’s luggage to a waiting speedboat, which conveyed him to a waiting limousine, which took him to the airport, where he boarded a waiting plane bound for Milan and runway shows for Versace and Armani. Kevin was at loose ends and already missed Guy, though he’d be back in a week. On the ferryboat to Sayville, Kevin looked at all these hung-over men in their bright pastel patterned clothes. Several of them had expensive-looking dogs and most of them looked much older and lined in the cold light of day than before. They weren’t all so young and intimidating as he’d thought, but they were tanned. One of the men from dinner last night sat beside him and asked how long he and Guy had been dating. Kevin was proud to be half of a couple, though he knew he shouldn’t trust Guy, such a liar. He could still feel his cock in his ass and took comfort in that. He and his twin had burritos together that evening, took a long walk, and had a thorough debriefing. He told Chris all about Fire Island, Guy’s beach house, all the spaceship houses on stilts, and how you couldn’t tell the brokers from the houseboys, how friendly everyone was, and how they all said hi just like the folks back in Ely. Kevin had already filled Chris in on all Guy’s lies, how he was really almost forty and had a crooked lover in the clink and how rich old men kept giving him houses, but Kevin didn’t like it that Chris was bringing this up now. That night, he jerked off twice in their bed and whispered, “Guy,” and molded his phantom back with his free hand. He sprayed himself with Guy’s toilet water and slept with his perfumed hand next to his nose.