The Men from the Boys (21 page)

Eduardo doesn't see the allure either. “I can't wait to go back to Boston,” he says, sitting up on his towel and resting his chin on the arm of my deck chair. “Once I'm in school, I'm never coming back here.”

I kiss the top of his head. “I'm glad you'll be in Boston this fall.”

He looks up at me, as if he doesn't trust me when I say things like that. I'm not sure I trust myself, either, but Eduardo has lasted longer than any of the others.

“Hey,” I tell him, “your dick looks great in that bathing suit.”

Even in the sun I can tell he's blushing. He's wearing a cock ring—his first ever, and I taught him how to put it on. “You need to leave it on all day, to get used to it,” I told him. It's forcing his dick up and out. I reach down and grab it through the Lycra.

“Jeff, stop—” he says.

Javitz waltzes out with a pitcher of iced tea. “French maid at your service,” he chirps.

“You are so sweet,” Eduardo says, accepting a glass gratefully, then quickly sitting up to shield his stiffening prick.

“If you'd only find out,” Javitz says. “You don't like boys,” I remind him.

Eduardo frowns. “Stop calling me a boy.”

“That's true,” I admit. “He's wearing his first cock ring.”

“Jeff!” he scolds.

Of course Javitz makes him stand up and model. Eduardo is glaring at me, but I can tell he loves the attention.

“He's right, you know,” Javitz says. “You need to wear it, leave it on for as long as you can, so you can get used to it.”

Eduardo sits back down, pulls a magazine over his crotch. “It does keep you pretty horny,” he admits.

“Oh, let me tell you,” Javitz says. “I used to wear one when I was teaching. If those students only knew that my dick was hard the whole time I was teaching them about Alexander the Great. Once I tried to get through the day with a butt plug stuck up me. I must concede that only lasted until after lunch.”

Eduardo is shaking his head, giggling. “You guys are too much.”

“What about that older generation, huh?” I tease. “Just look at the things we can teach you.”

He smiles. “I must say that I never knew sex could be so funny.”

Earlier today, we had both laughed our way through his cock ring initiation. He has a great cock, incongruously big and thick for such a thin body. And with the cock ring wrapped around his shaft and his balls it looked even bigger—except we were too busy giggling to really pay much attention.

“Ow, ow,” he whimpered. “You snagged a hair.”

“Eduardo, you're going to have to accept the fact that a few hairs are going to get pulled in the course of things.”

“Careful,” he urged.

I snapped the final clasp into place. “There.” I burst out laughing.

“What?” he asked, hurt.

“Nothing. It's beautiful. I just can't picture you yet as a leather man. But your dick looks great.” I kissed the head. Then I sucked him for a while, just to get him going. “Now keep it on all day,” I instructed, pulling on his bathing suit. “More of that later.”

Now he's saying to Javitz: “I
would
like to have dinner with you. Just the two of us.”

“Well!” I say.

“Don't worry, darling,” Javitz says, eying me, “I'm sure the topic of discussion won't be the fall of the Roman Empire.”

No, I imagine it will be me: Eduardo will want to know just how deeply he should get involved with me. He'll ask how secure I am in my relationship with Lloyd. It's happened before.
Raphael
took Javitz to lunch, too, but by that time I'd grown weary of him, so his questions were pointless. Eduardo, however, is different. I want him in my life, somehow. So I'm glad he's connecting with Javitz.

“I'm sure my ears will be ringing,” I say.

Eduardo looks over at me. “Don't you be so cocky, buckaroo.” He calls me this, as if I were the young whippersnapper, not him.

“What are you going to do with him?” Javitz asks, as Eduardo goes inside to use the bathroom.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he's falling in love with you.”

I look at him. “And you, Javitz, would be the first to say that's a wonderful thing, that we should be able to have many lovers in our lives, define relationships as we see fit.” I pause. “Lloyd's tricks fall in love with
him.
That's never been a problem.”

“Except when they try to call him at home,” Javitz says, pointedly. “Let's see, who has a fit about
that?”

“Well, maybe I'm learning a lesson,” I say, closing my eyes and facing the sun again. “Maybe I'm putting all my pontificating about a brave new queer world to the test.”

“Maybe,” Javitz says. “Just be careful you don't get hurt.”

“Me?” I ask. “I'm not the one at risk here.”

He gives me a pained look, as if I'm his most ignorant student, the one he'd like to pass but who just can't seem to get a grade higher than a 55. Then Eduardo calls from the kitchen: “Javitz, how about this Thursday?”

Javitz is still looking at me. “Go ahead,” I tell him. “Make a date with him. He's the one who needs watching over. Maybe I've changed, maybe I haven't. But it's good you'll be there for him, in either case.”

“Thanks for the assignment,” he sneers at me, standing up to walk inside. “Thursday sounds great,” he calls out to Eduardo.

My ears are already ringing.

Boston, February 1995

“Hi,” I say.

Tommy stands between us. “Hi,” Eduardo says in return. We don't shake hands.

Tommy is smiling. “When I mentioned your name a couple of weeks ago, Eddie told me he knew you from last summer.”

“Imagine my surprise,” Tommy says.

I look at him but can't find my focus. I fumble for an opening, for something to say. “How's school going?” I ask finally. My heart is in my ears and my mouth has gone very dry.

“Very well,” Eduardo—
Eddie
—says. “I just got an internship at a newspaper doing layout and production this summer.”

“That's great,” I say, or at least I think I say it.

Tommy puts an arm around Eduardo's waist. “We should get together sometime, the four of us, you and Lloyd and Eddie and I.”

I try to find something—anything—in Eduardo's eyes. But there's nothing: no sadness, no hurt, no recrimination, no anger. It's as if I hadn't mattered at all, as if I'd been no more than—a trick.

Then Lloyd is there to say hello, and Eduardo smiles. “Hello, Lloyd. It's good to see you again.” Chanel takes him by the arm and introduces him to Kathryn (“Wendy and I broke up,” I hear her whisper). And then he approaches Javitz, who alone gets a hug.

“You okay, Cat?” Lloyd asks.

“Sure,” I say. “I'm just a little surprised. I mean—
Tommy?”

“Don't be mean,” Lloyd says.

How much does Tommy know? Did Eduardo—Eddie—really only say he “knew me” from last summer? Did he not tell Tommy that we had been lovers? Does Tommy not know how his darling Eddie broke my heart, made me love him against all tradition? Does he not know about the sex—that night, that night of passion when I fucked Eduardo, fucked him without—

“Oh, Jesus,” I say to myself.

What had been the result of Eduardo's HIV test? Tommy had said the guy he was seeing wanted the test. That must mean Eduardo was tested, too—could he be positive? My boy, my sweet, sweet boy. And what had he told Tommy about us? Tommy's accusing eyes and voice come back to me now. Did he think I-?

“Cat, let's get going,” Lloyd is saying. “I've got to drop Naomi off and then I need to do some paperwork that I brought home.”

“Yeah, sure,” I say, but I don't take my eyes off Eduardo. He's deep in conversation with Javitz. I hear Javitz ask, “You happy?” but I block out Eduardo's reply.

Tommy notices us getting ready to leave. “Going so soon?” he asks. “Why, this little party has just begun.”

Suddenly all the compassion I'd felt for him earlier evaporates like a witch under water. He dances over to kiss us good-bye. When he gets to me he says, with an attempt at genuineness that I find repellent: “You all right, Jeff? You look pale.”

“Fuck you, Tommy.”

He seems taken aback. “What? What's the matter?”

I just glare at him, then turn to the rest of the group. “See you all later.”

There's a chorus of good-byes, from Chanel and Kathryn and Javitz. And from Eduardo, too, a friendly “Bye, Jeff,” as if I never mattered at all.

We don't say much in the car on the way back. It's a gray sky overhead now, the clouds moving in. “Looks like snow,” Naomi observes. She's in the front seat with Lloyd; I'm stretched out in back. I close my eyes and see Eduardo, and it's raining, and we're standing under an awning, caught in the midst of the storm, our umbrellas turned inside out, and then we kiss, just as the lightning flashes and a new curtain of water rushes down the street. I open my eyes and I'm not in the car anymore. I'm out on Long Point, and it's September, the end of the season, and I'm watching Eduardo run away from me, back across the breakwater towards town. His untucked flannel shirt flaps in the wind and his hair—his thick, beautiful hair—blows back, revealing the sharp, pained contours of his face. It's the last image I'd have of him, until he walked through that door today.

“Jeff,” Lloyd says.

“Yeah.”

“You going to get out of the car?”

I sit up. “Where's Naomi?”

“I already dropped her off.”

We're parked on Dartmouth Street. It's started to snow lightly. “Guess I must have fallen asleep,” I say.

We trudge up the sidewalk, without words. Actually, I should be surprised that I haven't run into Eduardo before this. He lives in Somerville—what the boys of the South End dismissively call “Slummerville”—but Boston gay boys, wherever they are, have a way of crossing paths with alarming frequency. The truth is, I haven't been going out much this winter, have hardly tricked at all. Javitz was sick, plus there's been this stuff with Lloyd. Still, it was inevitable that I'd see Eduardo eventually. I should just be glad it's over with.

But Tommy?
We should get together sometime, the four of us, you and Lloyd and Eddie and I.

Fuck
you,
Tommy.

What could Eduardo—Eddie—possibly see in Tommy? Oh, Jeff, I scold myself, stop being such a shithead. Tommy has beautiful eyes and a good heart. Eduardo sees the same things I've always seen in Tommy: his loyalty, his reliability, his devotion.

My anger evaporates. It's not as if I didn't deserve the comeuppance. Tommy must have anticipated it gleefully. Who can blame him, in a way? Might I have done something similar? Right now all I can think about is the terror and the rage that must be overpowering him. We were once compatriots, comrades in arms, and I suppose that bond can never be broken. How long ago it seems now. I feel for him, feel for his pain, his disillusionment.

And what if Eduardo is positive too?
It scares the shit out of me. That's why I could never, ever, fuck without a condom. Maybe
two. That poor, frightened child. I want to hold him, protect him. Could he possibly think it was me who infected him? It couldn't be—even though I always say I have no idea whether I'm infected or not. But I can't be positive; I won't entertain the thought.

But what stings the most out of everything is the complete lack of emotion I saw in Eduardo's eyes. These are the eyes that when last I saw them flashed red with anger and tears. Had I been that simple to get over, that easy to forget? Had it not been painful for him to see me again? Had he not wanted to touch me, caress my face, the way I had wanted to touch him? Surely he could see the anguish in
my
eyes.

Stop playing Susan Hayward, I tell myself. But I can't push Eduardo's friendly, full-of-nothing eyes out of my head, that untroubled “Bye, Jeff” from my ears.

At least, not until I see Drake standing on our front step, ringing our bell.

“Hey,” Lloyd calls.

Drake gives us a big wave. Great. Just what I need.

“Hi, guys,” Drake says, warmly shaking my hand. He appears excited, agitated.

“What's up?” Lloyd asks.

“I just had to come over.” He's beaming. His face is flushed, red from excitement as much as the cold air. “I did it, Lloyd. I did it.”

“You
did?”
Lloyd gushes.

“I
did!”
He lets out a whoop, as Lloyd lunges at him, embracing him roundly. Drake picks him up and swings him through the air.

“Excuse me?” I ask.

“Congratulations!” Lloyd laughs when Drake sets him down. “That's so great!”

“Thanks,” Drake says, and for a moment it seems as if he might cry. “It is great. It's a great day. I have been thanking the universe all the way over here.”

I smile, make a little wave as if to say: Remember me?

“Oh, Cat, sorry,” Lloyd says. “Drake just quit his job.”

I don't get it, and they can tell.

“I've hated it, really hated it,” Drake explains. “Lloyd has been so wonderful”—and he looks at Lloyd now with profound gratitude and surely more than that—“encouraging me to break free from the hospital. It's a big change. I'm walking away from a lot of money. But as we've learned at our meditation group, the universe takes care of those who leap into the dark.”