The Quirk (29 page)

“Doesn’t he remind you of Alain?”

“A bit, I suppose.” Long ago he and a boy named Alain had attempted to conduct a secret love affair. When Gérard had found them out, he had debauched them both so thoroughly in each other’s presence that they had quickly despised each other. The memory helped him to collect himself.

“As you can easily see, there’s one quite spectacular difference–one of the most spectacular that even you and I have come across. Are you still in a great hurry?”

“I don’t–” he tried helplessly to direct his attention away from the gaudy wrapping. He wanted to shout obscenities at the room in general and get away. “About the exhibition–I’d like to know you’re planning to go through with it,” he managed to say calmly.

“As I told you, when you wish to have your way with me, you usually succeed. I think we can say that you can count on it, now that I see we have your full attention.” Gérard reached for the robe and gave it a little jerk, and the club was finally unveiled. It slowly lifted from the thigh where it had been resting and stood upright, no longer a club but a majestic scepter. Patrice felt all his face going numb, and he ran the tip of his tongue along his lips while his eyes adjusted to its magnitude. It was an enormous phallic assertion.

The youth rose with a breathtaking unfolding of his body and let the robe slide down his arms. The phenomenal phallus seemed to lift free of the body, growing in stature and majesty. Patrice remembered a few others like it, but he had never seen a body so suited to carrying this glory. He watched the phallus advance toward him, not swinging now but solidly immobile in imperious extension.

“Isn’t it fantastic?” Georges said excitedly. “Every time I see it, I almost faint.”

“Didn’t you hear him, my little one?” Christian asked. “He wants us to persuade him to stay. Take your clothes off.”

Patrice’s eyes were fixed within reach while he determinedly obliterated everything outside it, everything that was precious to him, everything in him that was dedicated to Rod. A shudder of dread and desire passed through him as he prepared to resume his duties as master of the revels.

Patrice hurried through darkening streets. Winter had returned with the setting sun, and he was pursued by demons. Laughter and cries of ecstasy, accompanied by Gérard’s sinister voice, rang in his ears. The feel of young bodies tumbling about with his was still in him. After the months of cautiously giving only what was wanted of him, of holding back, of disciplining his natural responses so as not to offend, all of him had been used again for pleasure and passion and young lust. He had enjoyed it.

It was a fact he couldn’t get around, and it plunged him into a howling prison of despair. Everything good and clean and decent that he thought he had discovered in himself was a sham. He had plunged headlong back into the vicious world that Gérard had taught him was the only real one.

He had done it for Rod. He had thought he could stand outside it and engage in acts that no longer meant anything to him, but the corruption that had been planted in him had proved a sturdy growth and had lost him his love. He could never belong to Rod again. He had enjoyed it.

He would go on serving Rod in every way he knew how, but even if his friend did not notice a change, the corruption in himself would eventually destroy it all. That was the lesson the afternoon had taught him. He had attempted an act of dedication that was beyond his powers. He tried to drive away the afternoon’s memories and felt as if he were beating his head against prison walls. He was trapped in his old obsessions. He longed for Rod to perform some miracle that would make him his again. He was flooded with unshed tears for his loss.

He became aware that his rapid pace was carrying him toward home. He veered off into another street. It was too soon. He couldn’t face his lost love yet. He would waste an hour at work and try to recover some outer semblance of peace of mind. He had to make sure he had his story straight. There would be no secret about his having seen Gérard. He had gone to convince him that Rod’s version of their life together was the truth and had succeeded. Gérard was prepared to go ahead with whatever arrangements could be worked out with Germaine as soon as he saw one of Rod’s pictures. To make it all up, he would have to drop in a word about seeing Gérard again from time to time as evidence of their reconciliation. Rod wouldn’t like it, but he could hardly object to cordial relations with the man who was going to give him a show. A show. Rod was going to have a full-scale show in Paris. It was almost too good to believe. If he concentrated on what he had accomplished for Rod, his guilt might seem somewhat mitigated.

Rod paced his working area impatiently. It was time for Patrice to get home. He had wasted the day, but at least he had come to an important decision, and he had things to discuss that he could discuss only with Patrice. He hoped he was planning to have dinner at home.

The minute he heard the key in the lock, he ran to meet Patrice and threw his arms around him and gave him an affectionate kiss. He was surprised to feel his boy resisting it, and he let him go with slightly hurt reluctance. He was pleased to see bundles in his string shopping bag. “I’ve been waiting for you. Are we going to have dinner together?”

“Of course, if you wish it.” Patrice wondered if he had only imagined that Rod’s greeting was more loving than it had ever been. It was a greater punishment than if he had turned from him with disgust. How could he have
enjoyed
the things he had done? It required an agonized effort to face the undeserved love in his loved one’s eyes without shrinking from him with shame. “I bought some things.”

“Good. I’ve got a thousand things to tell you.” He removed Patrice’s cape and beret and gave a few touches to his hair to arrange it the way Patrice liked it to look, then took the string bag. He put an arm around him and started for the living room. He still felt what he interpreted as resistance in his boy. He gave him a hug and a little shake. “What’s the matter, baby? I somehow have the feeling you’re not all that glad to see me. Did that girl finally get you?”

“It was written in the stars. We spent an afternoon of mad passion. I never wish to touch a boy again.” It helped to talk nonsense that had some trace of truth in it. He was going to have to employ all the ruses at his command to keep everything going in a routine cheerful way. Rod’s eyes were sharp.

Rod laughed. “I should’ve known it. Just when I’m turning into a great lover. We’d better have a drink.”

Patrice filled their glasses while Rod dropped the bag in the kitchen. Rod put his arm around his boy again as they went to their accustomed places. “Now listen. I’ve made some decisions. First, I’m not going to fuck around with Thillier and Germaine and all that What I need is money, and my work shouldn’t have anything–” A small sound escaped Patrice. Rod stopped and looked at him questioningly. Patrice shook his head and lifted his glass to his lips. Rod went on. “Anyway, I went by the Flore and left word for your friend François to meet me there at noon tomorrow. I’m going to find out what it’s all about If I’ve got to get some money, I’m going to get it in ways that don’t affect my work. Last night Today. I can’t take anymore of it.”

Patrice somehow managed to swallow a sip of his drink. He didn’t think he could speak. “It’s all arranged,” he choked out in a dead voice. “Your show. He’s going to do it. He realizes it was crazy to think I’m your lover when you have a girl. All you have to do is show him a picture and tell Madame Powers to arrange everything with him.”

Rod reacted with hilarity. “Oh, baby. Wait until I tell you. I’ve screwed that up but good.” He told Patrice about his lunch and ended with more, rather shamefaced laughter.

“But you can apologize,” Patrice persisted, still forcing his words out. “She sounds as if she would put up with anything from you.”

“Maybe, but I don’t want any more of it. That’s final. I’ve tried whoring and I’m no good at it. It might be difficult if my work didn’t get mixed up in it. We’ll have to find me a rich lady who’s never heard of painting. What’s the matter, baby?”

Patrice hadn’t known that misery could cut so deep. He had done it for nothing. He no longer had even the small recompense of thinking that he’d accomplished something for Rod. He struggled to keep from looking as if he felt like dying. “Nothing’s the matter. It’s just that–well, I didn’t like seeing Gérard very much. I wish I’d known. I need not have bothered. At least after this afternoon, I don’t think he’ll worry about you anymore.”

“I’m sorry, baby. Everything just sort of happened at once, and I couldn’t take anymore of it. You’ll come see François with me tomorrow, won’t you? I arranged it for your lunch hour especially.”

“Very well,” he agreed listlessly, not really taking in what they were talking about, “but I don’t like to see him very much either.”

“At least there won’t be anything personal about it. He can do something with my money or the hell with it. Don’t you understand? I don’t like whoring, not just for Nicole’s sake but for you. I guess what’s happening
is
pretty crazy, but at least we know it means something to all of us in various ways. With Germaine it was just sex and wanting something in return. I hated it.”

Patrice took another swallow of his drink. A knife was being turned in the wound. If he could tell himself truthfully that he had hated it, perhaps he could confess and get back to Rod somehow, across Christian, across Georges. He had hated it, but it had also satisfied a need. “Just sex. Isn’t what you do with me just sex? I mean for you.” He realized he was trying to exonerate himself with some vague accusation against Rod and hated himself even more.

“It isn’t sex at all. You know that, baby. It’s you and me. I’ve tried for sex because I know how much it means to you. You love me, and that’s the way it works for you. When people love each other, all sorts of things can happen that wouldn’t ordinarily. I love you more every day. There’s a line somewhere that I feel I’m getting awfully close to crossing. God knows what’ll happen if I do.”

Patrice sprang up and took a few steps toward him. Then he turned abruptly and drifted toward the kitchen.

“Hey, wait a minute. There
is
something wrong. What is it, baby?”

Patrice stopped but didn’t turn. “Nothing. Honestly. Seeing Gérard upset me. You know what he does to me.”

“I told you not to bother with him. We can manage very well without him.”

“Of course. I’d better do something about dinner.” He continued on his way.

Rod rose and followed him. Only something seriously wrong could dim his monkey’s high spirits. He stayed with him while he prepared the simple meal he had brought home. The recent changes in the pattern of their lives had caused a falling off of the cuisine, and Rod was ready to get back to the old routine now that he would be again on a once-a-week basis with Nicole. He wooed and cajoled his favorite cook and had the impression that he was making him forget whatever was bothering him.

Patrice served them in the living room, and they discussed their day’s encounters in greater detail. Patrice filled out the dialogue he was supposed to have had with Gérard, eliminating the two witnesses to it.

“He more or less expects to start seeing me again, for me to be part of the household as I used to be. He even talked about giving me my job back.”

“Well, that’s out. I mean, you said it had a lot to do with taking boys to him. Forget him.”

“Yes, but it’s difficult. Once I’d convinced him that he was wrong about us, there seemed no reason for things not to be as they were. I agreed so that there wouldn’t be any difficulties about your show.”

“All the more reason not to have anything to do with Thillier and his lousy gallery. I’m really sorry I let you get sucked into it again, even for an afternoon.”

“There are things I suppose you shouldn’t do even for the person you love most in the world. It was a mistake.” Rod’s sweet loving solicitude was beginning to break through Patrice’s misery. Was there still something to hope for? He could think of only one thing that might save him, an impossibility, but everything that they had shared had seemed impossible until it had happened.

They changed the subject, but Rod felt that contact between them remained slightly out of focus. At moments when their eyes met, he sensed something calculating in Patrice’s, something almost flirtatious, which puzzled him. There had never been anything overtly sexual in his boy’s manner toward him. If there had been, he would’ve probably taken to his heels right at the start. It was another wrench to the familiar shape of their relationship, and he wondered if his boy was about to spring one of his surprises.

They had a few glasses of wine after dinner in front of the empty fireplace. It was still early when Patrice stood and stretched. “I’m going to have a bath and wash the day away. I must be new and fresh to welcome you back to your bed.”

Again Rod caught a flirtatious look as he turned away. Something to do with this morning’s incident? He expected repercussions, but he hoped to avoid more emotional strain. After the day’s strange disturbances in his mind, the weird shifts of perspectives, he was looking forward to his return to the comfortable bed and to a good night’s sleep. He finished his wine and rose and puttered about in his studio area getting things ready for the next day’s work. He’d be interrupted at noon, but that shouldn’t take long. It would be wonderful to work again without a thought of shows and galleries.

After he had studied the unfinished canvas on the easel and lined up colors and brushes, he went to the kitchen door and called to Patrice. “Can I brush my teeth? I’ve bathed enough for today.”