Edmund White - Our Young Man

The next morning he slept in, and then around eleven-thirty the doorbell rang. It was the baron and Hans. Kevin was in just his underpants but immediately put on a long white dress shirt that belonged to Guy, far too big for him.

“Oh, forgive us,” the baron said. “You were sleeping. You sleep a lot — like a dog when his master is away. I know it’s unforgivable in New York to just drop in, but we were walking by and I wanted Hans to see the house because we’re looking at one like it.”

“Not at all,” Kevin said, which was something Guy said. “Guy’s in Milan.”

“Still at it, is he, even at his age?” the baron said. “Though he looks the same.”

“Come in,” Kevin said, worried about how you received a baron. “Please sit down. Would you like a glass of orange juice?”

“Orange juice at noon? But go ahead, pour yourself one, you’re obviously longing for one,” and Kevin wondered how the baron knew.

Hans perched on the edge of the couch, his hands hanging down between his spread legs. He had on a tight green short-sleeved shirt with its golden Brooks Brothers sheep insignia, incongruous, really, for such a tough guy, though it did flatter his biceps. The baron sat beside him and put a possessive hand on Hans’s knee.

“Glass of water? Or I can make some coffee,” Kevin piped.

“You’re most gracious,” the baron said. “We’ll be gone in a second, we’ll fly like the Dutchman so you can finish your toilette.” And Kevin ran a hand through his hair, wondering if it was sticking up. He realized his legs with their fine hair like glints of gold looked good under the voluminous shirt, as did his small shapely feet, which he’d drawn up under his body to one side as if he were the White Rock girl. He was very aware of Hans’s eyes scanning him, assessing him; Hans was probably wondering what he could do to him.

The baron turned to Hans and said in a professional, consulting voice, as if they were alone, “Notice the high ceilings and the moldings and the fireplace and the harmonious proportions. And all the sunlight. I’m sure our place is the same, these houses were all built at the same time.”

Hans was too masculine, too imposing and sadistic for these domestic details, and it was beneath his dignity to do anything but nod curtly. His woodenness suited the baron just fine, who smiled contentedly.

Since Hans didn’t want to engage in talking real estate, the baron turned malicious out of ennui and addressed Kevin. “Perhaps I shouldn’t ask, but do you and Guy indulge in sadomasochism? I ask because he liked to inflict pain on me, however ineptly. I introduced him to these exquisite pleasures, but I wondered if the seeds I’d planted had sprouted. I’m sort of the Johnny Appleseed of pain. Has he hurt you?”

“I’m not sure I want to talk about my private life,” Kevin said; then, realizing that sounded feminine and middle-class, and feeling reckless, he added, “No, but I like to hurt him.”

Suddenly Hans looked up now, thoroughly interested and appraising Kevin with an insider’s eye. “Oh-hoh!” the baron crowed. “I see. No wonder Guy is so attached to you. Nothing is more attachant than sadism,” and the baron smiled with courteous complicity at Hans and then, generously, took in little Kevin as an honorary sadist. Smiling back, Kevin felt stupid and on the wrong foot. After his surprise guests left, Kevin called his twin. He told him everything, how the baron really was a decadent European noble and how he, Kevin, had lied and pretended to be a sort of mini-sadist because he disliked the baron’s assumption that he was the passive one. For the first time he felt uneasy about confiding so much in Chris. He’d thought there never would be a day when he’d want to keep a secret from Chris.

Talking long-distance to Italy the next day at noon, Kevin told Guy about the baron’s and Hans’s visit. “Are you really a sadist?” Kevin asked.

“That’s just his sick fantasy,” Guy said. “He hires skinny, balding guys with big dicks to beat him up.” Guy told Kevin of his unforgivable faux pas in asking Édouard, “ Ça va, Monsieur le Baron ?” And how that had terminated their relationship. “I guess the antique dealer has already been replaced.”

“So what are you doing over there?” Kevin asked, introducing a less controversial topic.

“For work? I guess they think I could be Italian, so I’ve been doing a commercial for pasta, but of course my dialogue has to be dubbed, though I mouth the words. But people like working with me, why not? I’m a friendly guy,” he said with a laugh. “On the runway I’ve had to model these really tacky clothes, all black lace and gold lamé and thigh-high boots, they look so cheap, but Versace likes me and next year he wants an exclusive, that means I don’t work for anyone else but he pays me five, no, six times my current rate. He had me open the show and close it. You’d think I’d be indifferent, but it gave me a huge adrenaline rush. Coming out, all those people looking up at you, all those cameras flashing, knowing that the whole world will be watching. It all seemed like a dream. It must be like being in war, you don’t remember what you did or how you did it. You’re all alone on the runway, then backstage, three or four people are pulling at you getting you dressed in your next ensemble. Then I’ve done some print work where I’m just atmosphere.”

“Atmosphere?”

“That’s what we call it when you’re just the guy in the background, helping the girl out of the car or pouring her wine, one of the crowd, soft-focus.”

“And you still get paid a lot for that?”

“I do, because my agent over here is Élite, not a lot, but I work every day, I’m not complaining.”

“Are you partying every night?”

“No, that’s where I feel my age, and I don’t have fun if I don’t do some coke. If I do coke I’m depressed the next day.” Guy thought it was such a relief now to be able to talk with Kevin about his age.

“Daddy no do blow,” Kevin said in baby talk, and they both laughed. Thousands of miles apart, and Kevin started to get hard. Maybe it was the word “daddy,” even tossed off as a joke, or maybe it was just imagining laughing in his arms. Kevin had a perfectly nice father back in Minnesota who’d always been affectionate enough, but still Kevin liked fucking Daddy-Guy, how perverted was that?

“Hope you’re not fucking too many cute guys,” Kevin said, then added, “Daddy,” to indicate he was just playacting and not really jealous.

“No, I’m just thinking of my baby boy,” Guy said, and now Kevin really did have an erection. Kevin had heard of men who kept their boys in diapers and playpens and showed them cartoons all day and fed them Gerber’s — but that was sick, he didn’t want to go that far, yet it was exciting, maybe just the thought of regressing or giving up or being held in Daddy’s arms.

Guy flew in early, since the client had paid for a ticket on the Concorde. (You could get a deal for a first-class seat on a jet going over and a Concorde seat coming back.) When he let himself in at nine in the morning, he did so silently and discovered Kevin and Chris asleep. They were together, entwined, those two identical faces, both of them in matching Jockey shorts and nothing else, identical small erections, morning wood, their hands and feet so small, elegant, matching, their blond Norwegian heads pressed together, both of them with open mouths and ruby lips.

Kevin was the first to wake up. “You’re back early. Concorde?”

“Yes. You two look so great together.” Guy felt torn between lust and jealousy.

“We went out last night dancing at the Roxy and didn’t get home till dawn. If I’d known you were flying the Concorde …”