How Long Has This Been Going On (3 page)

Unless, of course, you're no more than a night's lay in a Hollywood mansion. Grr, whirr, thank you, sir.

Well, we'll see about that. I'll just have to be too memorable to be forgotten.

The car docked in a circular driveway before an ornately designed but surprisingly compact house.

Size isn't everything, the Kid told himself, as the chauffeur held the door for him and the Kid got his first good look at the guy.

"Why didn't you tell me you were so tall?" the Kid asked. "What else have you got?"

The chauffeur said nothing, didn't move. Behind them, a ray of light broke along the stonework of the drive; the Kid turned, and there, in the open doorway, stood Derek Archer in a dressing gown and, apparently, nothing else.

"Mr. Nougat, I presume?" said the Kid, flirting with danger despite the starlet's warning about No irony. "Hard on the outside and soft in the center?"

"Come in and shut up," Archer replied, drawing the Kid into the house with a hand on his collar as the car hummed off to the garage. "Quickly, now. No stalling."

The Kid wants the adventure, but he does not like being ordered around, and he balks. He's not angry; he just stops moving.

Suddenly, Archer changes his tone. "Please," he says. "I'm sorry I was so abrupt, really. But I have to move fast. Don't fight me."

"Okay, Mr. Nougat, sir. Or can I call you 'Candy'?"

"And please don't joke. Not till it's over."

The Kid bowed.

"Come."

Archer led the Kid upstairs to a bedroom. "Take a shower first," he said. Gesturing toward the bathroom, he added, "Everything you need is there. Use it all. Take your time. Spoil yourself."

He smiled at the Kid for the first time, a flash of the movies' Derek Archer, the endearingly fumbly good guy, well-intentioned but unsavvy. An American type.

"Okay, now? Don't feel hurried or under any pressure. When you're finished, go through that door there. It connects to another room. I'll be waiting for you."

Archer went to a closet and pulled out a blue-and-green tartan bathrobe of the kind worn mainly by adolescents in Pasadena.

"It's so me," said the Kid.

"Don't... joke.
Please? Don't say anything at all. Take your time in the water, get all nice and clean, and come visit me in your robe. Make sure you wash your hair, too—and don't dry it. I like to see a young boy all fresh and sloppy at night, getting ready for bed."

Fifty gleeful spoofs occurred in the Kid's head, but he kept his face straight and simply nodded.

"Good," Derek Archer said, and he stood there, smiling again and gazing contentedly at the Kid for a bit. "I'll see you soon," he added, leaving through the connecting door.

Huh, thought the Kid, with a double Huh for the bathroom, a boutique's worth of unnecessary accoutrements from "bath champagne" to "facial gel." Is this what keeps a young boy fresh and sloppy?, the Kid thought, stepping out of his clothes and exploring. Soap stamped out in cunning animal shapes? Cologne in bottles so elaborate they look like Sinbad's hookah? Nobody uses this stuff, so why is somebody manufacturing it?, he wondered. How would anybody even know where to buy it?

Soaping up in the spray, the Kid started to put it together. Apparently, Derek Archer, America's up-and-coming romantic hero, has a thing for the teenage boy-next-door type. And he likes the picture of a raw kid blundering around in a faggy bathroom; it tells him how unspoiled I am. Yeah. Well, maybe I'm not too far off the type, he thought, getting a load of Kid in the biggest mirror he had ever seen in a private home, running along three sides of the room. Boy next door. Well, I look the part; I just don't want the insides. Can't use them.

Dry and robed, the Kid took a last look, mussed up his hair, and walked into the next room, where he found Archer sitting at a table, smoking. Something caught the Kid's eye, and he turned to find the starlet in bed.

Archer stubbed out a cigarette. "Let's have a look at you, young fellow," he said, rising. "Johnny's your name, right?"

On his guard, the Kid nodded slightly.

Archer clamped him by the shoulders. ''
Johnny.
Well. Let's see what sort of fine young boy we have here. A little confused and unsure about things. Out of his element." Opening the robe and gently pushing it back on the shoulders. "Spent the afternoon playing... what? Football's in season, isn't it? Fine young fellow here," tracing the pec line. "Trim and... manageable," teasing the nipples. "Turn slightly to the... yes," as he guides the boy. "That's very Johnny." Taking the robe off him and tossing it onto the floor. Kneading his neck and sides. Shaping the cheeks of his butt. "Beautiful fan. A very
winning
boy, wouldn't you say so?" he asked the starlet.

The Kid exchanged a look with her; his grinned and hers reminded him
no.

Archer tore open his own robe and held the Kid close. "Tight around me, young man," he directed. "Let me feel the warmth of you. Tight and tight and now and tight. Yes. Yes, harder." Keeping his hands on the Kid's shoulders, Archer gently disengaged from the embrace and looked at the Kid for a while, stroking his hair now and again in an absentminded way. One month short of eighteen—so now we know—and at the height of his sexual majesty, the Kid had been hard for some time; but Archer had pointedly been gazing at his eyes all the while, as if... well, dismissing the rest of the Kid. Only now did Archer take in the whole of the boy, as he set him faceup on the bed, knelt before him, and launched what was by far the most splendidly coaxing and teasing slurp operation the Kid had enjoyed in his life. To be fair, most of the Kid's partners heretofore had been frenzied amateurs or opportunistic dilettantes, while Derek Archer was clearly a cultist. Still, it says something that even as the Kid went with it, passive and deep into delight, he was trying to memorize Archer's technique for his own use in the future.

However, Archer abruptly abandoned the Kid and, throwing his robe to the floor, walked around the bed to the starlet, mounted her, and, gasping and shouting, moved his ass off. He came much earlier than the Kid thought respectable, and immediately leaped up, staggering back against the wall and holding himself and nodding over and over while staring at the Kid. Panting, he held up the flat of his hand—Silence?
Ave?
Cut? He smiled at the Kid. And then Derek Archer left the room, spent, his eyes vacant, as the Kid and the starlet shared another look. It was over, that fast. Her look said,
C'est la vie,
and the Kid's look agreed.

The starlet waved at the Kid as an oblivious butler helped the Kid back to the shower and into his clothes, then through the house to the kitchen, where the chauffeur was waiting for him. The butler gave the Kid an envelope—cash, you could see right through it—and the chauffeur led him out to the car.

Some plush, the Kid thought. Some exposure. This is breaking in? He opened the envelope and counted—two hundred bucks. Well, Archer may not bring you off, but at least he's no mean cheese with the tip. Stuffing the envelope into his pocket, the Kid leaned forward and took a look at the chauffeur. The chauffeur ignored him.

"How about if I hop in the front seat with you?" the Kid asked. "It's so lonely in the back here."

The chauffeur said nothing and the Kid jumped up front. He stared at the chauffeur for a bit, then: "First you're real tall, then you've got a beautiful nose. I really notice noses on men, you know? There are cute noses, and arrogant noses, and stupid noses. I like a nose that's not too small, very straight, and perched in the middle of a really handsome face, like yours."

The chauffeur waited two counts, turned to look at the Kid, then returned to his driving.

"Boy, you're some top number. I don't mean to pry, but are you planning to fuck me inside out tonight? I think I have a right to know."

Alone in the sitting room next to the bedroom, Derek Archer was listening to music. The long-playing 33⅓ discs had been introduced a year ago, but Archer prized his many volumes of 78s, ten-inchers, the spines carefully labeled, because Archer's a careful man. There were volumes on "Russ Columbo," "Fats Waller," "Hollywood Medleys," "Ballroom Smooth," "Kern-Gershwin," "Artie Shaw," and one labeled "Special," with Archer's particular favorites—Buddy Clark's "It's a Big, Wide, Wonderful World," Hildegarde's "I Worship You," Russ Case's "If This Isn't Love," and the disc he was playing now, the Merrymakers' "Jukebox Romance," another of the many close-harmony, tamed-bop numbers that came out of nowhere, conquered, and then vanished in the years after the war:

The record started playing,

The song urged, "Take a chance!"

Our eyes began to fox-trot

In a love-enchanted trance.

We made the introductions;

I asked you for a dance

And a one-night jukebox romance.

As the car pulled up at the Kid's boardinghouse, the Kid made a shh finger at the chauffeur. "My landlady thinks I go to U.C.L.A.—You Can't Learn Anything.' And U.S.C. is You Still Can't.' Anyway, we have to be prudent. Because I'm not supposed to have guests, especially late at night, when anything can happen and might interfere with my studies. So, easy on the shoes, Ivanhoe."

Being careful in the Derek Archer way means, for instance, hiring an all-gay staff to preclude the possibility of blackmail: because then they're vulnerable, too. Careful means staying out of the Y.M.C.A., which Archer dreams about, it sometimes seems, from moment to moment, because that's where all the Johnnys are, showering and wandering around saying "Yes, sir" in that incredibly
innocent
way. Careful means following the studio line on cover dates and conniving at the absurd "sweethearts" flashes in the columns and, eventually, marrying. If Robert Taylor can, he can.

What a swingtime!

What joy!

What a night for a girl and a boy!

What heaven for two!

What a dream that may almost come true!

Sometimes I wonder if there might be two people inside me—the man I am and the man I'm chasing. Because I know him so well. I could play him, in the right movie. I could be my own lover.

The melody surrounds us,

The crooner hums and chants.

The couples sway around us,

We don't give them a glance.

We'll sit the next set out, dear,

But save the last dance

For our brand-new jukebox romance.

The Kid was leaning against the bed, the chauffeur nested up to the hilt in his ass. The visitor started slowly, then increasingly picked up the tempo till he was roughing the Kid, and the Kid was loving it. He came first, but the chauffeur wasn't far behind. Pulling out, he grabbed a towel, dried off, and got back into his uniform, available but unconnected.

"Next time," said the Kid, "let's do it on skates."

Frank Hubbard didn't get into law enforcement to get stuck on the Vice Squad, trapping hookers and homos when the city was full of real crooks. Frank hated Vice, hated arresting people after making nice to them, and most of all he hated his partner, Jack Cleery. Well, maybe he didn't hate Jack, exactly. Jack wasn't the most compassionate or well-intentioned guy on the force, but he wasn't vile, either. It's just that everything that came out of his mouth was stupid or, at best, irrelevant. Now, the thing is, when you're a cop the most important thing in life is your grasp of procedure, staying alert and doing it by the numbers. And the most stimulating thing in life is the thought that, every day, you can do at least something to improve the world. But the most constant thing in life is your partner's conversation, and Jack's talk was one fucking problem. Frank couldn't figure which was worse, the idiotic content of the words themselves or the all-the-way
seriousness
with which Jack uttered them. It was like Winston Churchill reading the lines of Goofy. He'd repeat things, too—eighteen, nineteen times, each time with this gruesome, self-discovering wonder, as if he hadn't already battered you to death with "If I had to choose between Betty Grable and Esther Williams, you know who it would be?" or "My dad had a lousy war."

"A real lousy war, you know?" he's going. "I mean, from Pearl Harbor to V-J Day, one big aggravation. Like—"

"Listen, okay?" Frank puts in. "
Everybody
had a lousy war."

Jack looked stung; he could do this even in the dark. "So what are you so jumpy about? I'm just telling you what he told me."

"A quartermaster in a little port outside New York City has a lousy war, huh? How about all the guys in the
infantry
getting shot up while we took Italy and Berlin, okay? If you're talking lousy wars—"

"Fort Totten happens to be one of the significant, the major—"

"Jesus, who cares about your fucking father and his fucking war, already? What are you
talking
to me, Jack?"

Jack clammed up, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Good, let him sulk and we'll have some peace. It was late in the watch, maybe an hour to go, in the old-faithful fishing ground of Griffith Park. Vice did a lively business there, a never-miss commerce in the taking of souls. No one's armed. Everyone's scared. So fucking easy. That's why you joined the force, right? To arrest frightened faggots in a park. You and Jack Cleery. What a team. And that's your contribution to the public good.

"Time to hit the trail," said Jack, breaking the silence. He never stayed hurt long. You couldn't listen to him, you couldn't correct him, and you couldn't offend him. He was indestructible.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," said Frank, not moving even after Jack had opened the door and put his feet on the ground.

"What's with you?"

Frank didn't answer for a bit. Then: "Why do I always have to be the lure? How about you do it for once here?"

"I told you that already, boy. It's because you're the looker. No one's going to follow me down any magic pathway to ecstasy, are they?"

Frank flung the door open and leaped out. "Yeah, right, let's get out there and
move
those fruiters, huh? Let's find one guy who wants to fuck around in the woods with another guy, and let's destroy his life, okay?"