Mirrors of Narcissus (21 page)

“Happened,” I repeated foolishly. The word sounded silly. It had no meaning, it was a ridiculous word which could be applied to anything: matchsticks, curtain rails, toy locomotives. “Was tonight the first time? I mean, has it happened before?”

She looked at me with a helpless expression and raised her hands, shaking her head slightly, which could have meant anything—no, or her helplessness in the face of fate. “When you asked me to do it, you knew in your heart I could never betray you. So I was tortured by your asking me to do it. I didn’t think you really wanted it to happen; I was waiting for you to take it back, to apologize, to—I don’t know. It bothered me for a long, long time.”

“And Scott?” Even as I felt my whole world coming to pieces, I realized I was dying to find out what had happened in her room tonight. To my shame, I wanted to know all the dirty little details. “What was it like for him?”

The look on her face was bitter. “Guy….Scott is in love with me.”

“I know.”

“I mean, he really loves me. He had tears in his eyes. I felt as if I’d betrayed him, betrayed his love. Because I didn’t feel the same way about him as he felt about me.”

“How
did
you feel about him?”

“I was killing all my feelings. Can’t you understand?”

There was a long silence during which I felt with my skin that I’d done her a wrong, both her and Scott. And yet. She went on:

“No, it’s not true that I felt nothing for Scott. But I don’t want to go into that.”

I knew it was all over. Not just my relationship with Christine, and the happiness I’d felt, but a whole period of my life was ending. I had pushed into territory which should have been left unexplored, and there was no going back now. My whole present, just an instant ago, had turned into the past—a distant past which was receding from me now at the speed of light.

A sob broke from my throat.

“He’s a good guy, Christine. Maybe the best I’ve ever met.”

She was silent for a long time. Then: “Guy? You’re in love with Scott, aren’t you?”

I couldn’t say a thing.

“I should have guessed. For the longest time I thought it was just the feeling of friendship between two buddies, the usual male bonding thing which women aren’t allowed to understand. I had my suspicions, but kept them down, tried not to look the truth in the face. When you suggested the three-way thing, I knew that was a fantasy often indulged in by men who want to sleep with other men. But I guess I closed my eyes to it. I thought your feelings for me were genuine.”

“Oh they were, Christine. I loved you, Christine. I really did. But later I wasn’t so sure. I wasn’t so sure about a lot of things. But I know you well enough to know that you’d probably understand if I—”

“I still love you, Guy, that’s the most pathetic part of it. I love you, knowing you might be in love with Scott. So in a way, my sleeping with Scott was done out of love for you. Can you understand the paradoxical position I was in? Betraying you out of love. But my feelings for Scott are still too confused for me to figure out. The truth is, my feelings for him might be much deeper than I just admitted to you. I’ve been hiding it from you and that put a lot of pressure on me. I was going crazy from not knowing where I stood, with myself, with you, with Scott. And I was afraid of being found out, too. At least now it’s all out in the open. Which might be a good thing, in a way.”

“Now that you know how things really stand, do you think the three of us could continue on as we are? But in an open fashion, at least among us? Stranger things have happened.”

She shook her head. “There’s too much emotion involved. I love you, and I’m jealous of your love for Scott. Scott loves me and would be jealous of my love for you. While you love Scott who can never love you. The ultimate love triangle. Doesn’t it form an exquisitely perfect, and yet futile, mathematical equation?”

“I don’t know. I flunked chemistry, and I’m not so hot at math, either.” After a long pause, I said softly, “Christine, do you want to know where I was all night? I was at Professor Golden’s house, getting fucked by him, giving up my virginity to him. Who knows? I might have lost it at about the same time Scott lost his. How’s that for poetic justice?”

There was another long pause before she asked in a tired voice: “So what happens now?”

“I don’t know.” And then it hit me—I really didn’t know. Suddenly I wanted to laugh. It seemed so ridiculous that we were discussing everything so calmly, so reasonably. “In the movies, this is the part where someone starts ranting and raving.”

“I never saw a movie like this, Guy.”

“Neither have I. So I don’t know what happens next.”

“Will you be all right?”

“Sure. I’ll survive. I always do.”

“That’s good.” She looked at me with something like pity in her eyes.

I cleared my throat. “Maybe we should call it a night, huh?”

She nodded, but didn’t move.

“Okay, I’m going now.”

“Sure.”

I got up and left.

4

Outside, the sky had brightened into a clear, unclouded day. The wonderland I’d walked through on my way to Christine’s apartment had disappeared. Here and there early morning joggers in brightly colored sweat suits were gliding among the trees beside the bicycle path. Meeting them as they came onto the path, I felt somewhat like a late reveler confronting early-morning commuters.

In the clear morning air, what had just taken place in Christine’s apartment didn’t seem real anymore. It was impossible to accept that everything was over. In my heart, I just knew there was still a chance to save everything, to make it all go back to what it had been before. And to do that, I had to see Scott before he saw Christine again.

The dorm was still quiet; most of the guys were fast asleep. When I opened the door to my room, I heard the shower on. Scott was in. I went over to the shower room and opened its door, stepped inside. Beyond the translucent shower partition, I could make out his flesh-colored form. He was leaning his head back, letting the jets of water hit him straight in the face. I pushed open the partition and stuck my head in. As he turned around to face me, jets of warm water glanced off his shoulders, into my face.

“I’m back,” I said.

The shower stall was filled with steam and I could barely see a thing. He shut off the water and turned to face me. His hair was dripping wet; he ran his hand through it, pushing it straight back from his forehead. I made sure I was looking him straight in the face, but in my peripheral vision, I noted pearly drops of water quivering in his pubic bush.

“Wait,” he said. “I’ll be right out.”

I went out to his bed and sat down. In a moment he was coming out, wiping himself off, toweling his hair dry. I pretended to be uninterested in the sight of his nude body, and idly flipped through the pages of a literature textbook I’d found lying by his pillow. Wrapping the towel around his middle, he sat down on the bed. His chest and shoulders were dry, but still steaming from the hot shower. The mingled essences of soap, after-shave, and toothpaste came off him.

“Guy, where have you been? I called Christine last night when you still hadn’t come back by one. You never stay out that late without telling me first. What happened?”

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“Oh?” He looked at me hard, and in that look, I sensed that something had come between us. He wasn’t the Scott I’d known. He seemed so much more confident than I’d ever known him to be, and I realized it must be the effect of losing his virginity. That experience had profoundly changed him. He was someone else now, someone much stronger, more cunning. I’d changed the thing I’d loved, out of love for it. A part of me felt sadness, a sense of loss. Yet the bigger part of me felt delighted: I’d created this more confident Scott, this healthy, strong heterosexual boy. His new-found adulthood made him that much more desirable in my eyes.

“So what did you do when you found out I wasn’t with Christine?” I asked.

“I left a note here and went over to her place. We tried to think where you might be, and I went around to several places—Doggie Diner, Erewhon—but couldn’t find you. We couldn’t think where else you might be. We could only hope that you would come to her apartment, or back here. I came back here several times to check. Where were you, Guy?”

“I can’t tell you right now, Scott.”

“I have to tell you she thinks you were with another girl.”

“Yeah, I know. We had a little fight over that.”

He shook his head. “Guy, I’m worried about you. It’s not only last night. Lately you’re acting strange. Skipping classes, staying out at all hours. What’s the matter?”

I hesitated. My knowledge of what had happened between him and Christine gave me a reckless surge of power. I felt almost giddy at what I knew and he didn’t. What added spice to the mixture was his guilt—no matter how hard he tried to hide it, he had to feel some culpability for his betrayal. And I wanted to play upon that guilt. This might be my only chance to save everything.

I let out my breath. “You’re right. Something is bothering me. And has been for a long time.”

“About what?”

“It’s about Christine.”

“Christine?” His voice wavered.

“Yeah. Something’s eating her. We’ve had our fights before, and always made up. But this time it’s different.”

“How? What do you mean?”

I looked at him. “I’ll tell you, but you have to keep it a secret. You’re the only one I can trust with this.”

He looked grave.

I went on, trying to keep my voice steady. “You say she thinks I’m seeing another girl. Well, that’s not true at all. If anything, it’s the opposite.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s me who’s suspicious of her.”

“Suspicious?”

“Yes. I think she’s seeing another guy.”

I couldn’t see the expression on his face because I hadn’t been able to look in his eyes at the crucial moment. But I heard the pain in his voice as he asked weakly:

“What makes you say that?”

I dropped my voice almost to a whisper. “She acts different lately. It isn’t anything really noticeable, just little things. And she seems a little distracted about something. Believe me, I can tell something is up.”

“Do you have any evidence?”

“Nothing. Yet. But when I’m with her, I can feel another guy there, between us, like his ghost.”

I was finally able to look at his face, and what I saw there made everything worthwhile. He was trying to hide his alarm, while at the same time, was obviously wrestling with the possibility of confessing. What stopped him, evidently, was his concern about defending Christine’s role in the betrayal. It was thrilling to watch his perplexity. I savored his discomfort, and something mischievous inside me wanted to toy with his feelings some more. My love for him was making me want to hurt him, to see him suffer, as I had suffered. I knew he felt guilty—his guilt was palpable, like something I could almost touch, to caress in my hands and mold, shape in any way I wanted to. I felt god-like.

I went on, “Christine used to be so much fun. She’s changed recently. Become secretive. She’s not open and free like she was in the old days. And lately she’s been saying things like, ‘is it possible to love two guys at the same time?’”

His expression was hard to decipher. My head was reeling a little and I was actually afraid I might reveal everything. I had to tease the confession out of him slowly. To bring everything out into the open too quickly would have destroyed what I was trying so carefully to orchestrate.

“Scott, do you know anything about it?”

“No.”

I felt like an adult seeing through a child’s transparent lies. For all I knew, this was his very first lie. It was like witnessing the loss of a virginity—a virginity whose loss was even more delectable than his sexual one.

“Are you sure? She hasn’t said or done anything that might give you a clue?”

He looked uneasy. “Uh, I’ll try to find out more about it if you want me to.”

“Will you do that, Scott?”

He fell silent as if thinking deeply about something. And then I began to get scared—for suddenly I knew what he was thinking about.

“Guy….” He looked at me with eyes that were beginning to fill with tears. “I have something to say.”

This was what I’d been waiting for, had been goading him on to, yet a part of me wanted to stop him from speaking. I became afraid that what he was about to say would change my whole life, would forever put him out of my reach. I wanted to interrupt him but my lips wouldn’t respond. All I could do was helplessly look on.

“I’ve done something terrible, Guy.”

“What?” My voice responded without volition on my part.

“It’s about Christine.” He looked down, then away from me as he said, “Ever since I first met her…I’ve felt very strongly about her. And not just an infatuation, either.”

Even though I was expecting it, I was startled. His silence about it had given me my most potent weapon. My open knowledge of it now shattered the hold I’d had over him. To actually hear it from his lips made me feel slightly ill. It was as if in one instant, he’d been removed from me, and was now far, far away.

“I felt so guilty, Guy, because I knew she loved you and you loved her. And you were both my best friends. Even though I kept my feelings to myself, I felt like I was betraying your trust.”

“Well,” I said slowly, “it’s happened before. Guys fall in love with their best friend’s girl.” It was all I could do to keep from saying: I know, Scott, I know!

“But—it’s more than that.”

“What do you mean?”

He hung his head. “Guy. I slept with her.”

In the long silence which followed, I tried to assess the emotions which were agitating me. Slowly I became aware that it was happiness—a happiness so intense that it threatened to kill me. “You did what?”

His voice was a monotone. “It was just something that happened so naturally. Against my will, almost. I knew I shouldn’t have, but it was like it was out of my hands. Guy, can you understand? I love her, and though I knew I was hurting you…I just had to. She means so much to me. She’s the only one.”

I felt a thrill race through my heart. My love for him had never been stronger than it was at this very moment. His confession was like a drug which was charging me with a strange energy. With it I would be able to crush him, completely, and love it. For in the crazy logic of my ecstasy, I knew that my love could only culminate in his utter destruction.

“So it was you, Scott.” I felt drunkenly distant from all that was taking place. I heard myself mouthing the words of a cheap television melodrama: “I never guessed.”

He looked crushed. “I don’t know what to say.”

“It was you she was fucking—my best friend, behind my back.”

“Please don’t blame Christine for anything. It was me. It’s all my fault.”

“Yeah, take all the blame like a fucking hero.” I turned away and felt his hand on my shoulder.

“Guy, please. Can you forgive me? I know it’s abysmally insulting and presumptuous of me to say so, but I convinced myself that Christine was a little in love with me, too. There were all the signs….”

My heart felt full to overflowing. I knew I had already lost him—he was Christine’s now.

“I guess you hate me now, Guy. And you have every right to. If you were to punch me, I would understand. Whatever you do, I’ll understand.”

I felt a crazy singing inside me, my heart spiraling ever upwards, giddily out of control. Nothing but love. “I’m not going to punch you, Scott. I don’t want to hurt you. That’s the last thing I want to do.”

He looked at me, baffled, and his expression changed to alarm when I reached up and took his elbow in my hand. As I pulled him towards me, he made no effort to resist. With my finger I lifted his chin, and before he could say another word, I kissed him on the lips.

His lips were unresponsive, but I didn’t care. I was in a dream. Our lips were touching. In the middle of the kiss, as if he’d just realized what was happening, he pulled away. “What are you doing, Guy?”

I had shut my eyes just before kissing him, and now as I opened them, I saw his look of alarm.

“What’s going on, Guy?” he repeated.

“I….”

Suddenly he—we both—became acutely aware that he was still naked from the shower, with only the towel wrapped around his middle. He shook himself loose from my light clasp and retreated a few steps.

“I love you, Scott.”

“What?”

“I love you. I always have.”

He looked at me as if I’d suddenly begun speaking in a foreign language. He wanted it to be a joke and searched my face, his expression veering toward hopeful laughter, and then, when there was no response from me, fright, then questioning. I tried to smile.

He didn’t respond. It was as if the life had flowed out of him, leaving his body behind like a husk.

He looked at me closely. “Guy—this seems to be a silly thing to ask at this point, but…you
are
gay, right? I mean, not bisexual, not ‘sexually ambiguous,’ not ‘searching for yourself.’”

“I’m gay, Scott. And I’ve always been gay. All my life. I didn’t mean to deceive you or anything, but for a long time, I didn’t know it for sure myself. It’s a pretty hard thing to live with, you know.”

“You could have told me you were gay. Anytime. You know I would have accepted you.”

“I know. But it’s not an easy confession to make, even to your best friend. I tried it before and it didn’t work.”

“Did you try telling Christine?”

“Of course not. No matter how open-minded she is, we were lovers, after all.”

“But—can a gay man love a woman? I—I’m confused.”

“I know, Scott, I know. I loved Christine as much as I’m able to love any girl. Don’t get me wrong—I really did love her, at first. But I’ve begun to see that for me, she was just a cover-up. Not only for the world, but for me. I didn’t suspect the depth of my homosexual feelings until recently. Really, until I met you. Until then, I thought I was just playing around, having little adventures.”