Monkey Suits (4 page)

They’d met working part-time at Christopher’s, a dark clammy restaurant and bar in the West Village. Brian said he had worked for a catering company during the year, but that things were always slower in the summer, what with most of the rich guests leaving the country. They had both endured the smoking cloistered den of tourists and quiet male couples. The two months working together, sleeping together and eating together became intense, nerve-wracking, and deliciously passionate.

As July became August, Brian had stopped coming over, saying he’d met someone who had moved in with him.

“What’s his name?”

“Ed.”

“You love him, or is he just more convenient?”

“Stop.”

“I just did.” They didn’t speak for days, but his feelings welled up in his new silence.

Finally, Lee couldn’t stand to be near Brian and have him ignore him so. Brian hushed Lee at the mention of sleeping over. He never wanted to go out and see movies, introduce him to his friends. He separated parts of his life like the fussy diners they’d served who separate their portions, fearing indigestion. Brian seemed embarrassed to have ever dated Lee, who cajoled, flirted and, one night, begged Brian to come over. He’d been reduced to that in a mere two months.

So he quit one day, for a combination of reasons. His primary excuse was that the chef was insane, but all chefs in New York were insane, brandishing knives if he served an entree too late or messed up the garnish. But the root of it was Brian’s presence.

After explaining it over a long dinner that, to Lee’s disappointment, did not end in sex, Brian offered to get Lee an interview at Fabulous Food. “You’ve got the looks and the training, just pick up a tux.”

Now he was once again working with this ex-boyfriend, if he could be permitted to use that term with such an enigma as Brian, and serving food, although to a society crowd. What a career boost. At least they didn’t pat his ass.

Not that he didn’t still want sex. It just didn’t seem complete anymore without the final taste of another man’s sperm, something he gave up the day he moved to New York. Lee’s main sensory organ during sex was his tongue. He liked to lick in the taste of a man, breathe in the air. If he couldn’t slurp a man in all the special places, it never seemed complete.
I like you but I don’t trust you so get your dick away from me when you shoot.
He’d felt it, the backing away, as if sperm were an alien acid that might burn through flesh, bed, and floor to the apartment below.

Brian had been different there too, almost swirling their bodies in it, commingling after coming, dipping his finger in his own and licking it like a cheesy porn star, or dabbing playfully at Lee’s spurts. Most others seemed so scared.

“Get over yourself,” Lee said aloud. Finally succumbing to the flashing light, Lee listened to messages from his mother, a recording from a magazine subscription telesales automaton, a call from Alex the booker at Fabulous hiring him for another job, a message in Spanish from someone looking for a plumber; and Marcos.

“Details, girl! Details! I’ve been wantin’ him for months! You bitch! How did you manage? Call me or die!” Click. After their first failed night of romance resulted in giggles, the two had bonded to instant sisterhood. Marcos had become his mother confessor.

He called Marcos, who was in a mad rush to get to an ABC dinner at the Burden Mansion. Lee heard a loud clunk.

“Sorry, dear,” Marcos apologized. “I’m ironing my shirt and my lines got tangled. So, tell me, is Peter as hot as he looks?”

“I hate that word. Hot.”

“Ooh, did you have a bad time?’

“No. He was nice.”

“Sexually nice?”

“Perfunctory.”

“Oh. That happens when they go to the gym too much.” They laughed. “So, are you gonna see him again?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, you’re still hung on the creature.”

“Who?”

“You know, miss ex-slut now happily married in Brooklyn.”

Was that what Brian was doing? What did Ed have that Lee couldn’t offer, or was it just what Brian said, a chemical thing. “Ed calms me down,” Brian had said. “You get me all excited. I have to quit.” How were they living together? Did Brian still sprawl over the bed, cuddling until morning? And why did Marcos always seem to know more about Brian than he did?

“I am not stuck on him.”

“Oh, yes you are, I can tell, and I suggest you get yourself a detox lover to wash that man right outta your bed sheets.”

“Can’t say I’m not shopping,” Lee said.

“But you’re looking in canned goods, darling. Try the produce section. Gotta run. Peter Jennings is expecting me.”

Lee lay back again, knowing he should call Fabulous. He needed the money, but hesitated. The work had become a blurry dream of rushed trains, re-ironed white shirts, and lost bow ties.

Serving food wasn’t the problem. He’d worked in restaurants for years, since that first awful job at a Burger Chef in Bloomington. What made him hesitate was the odd flashes he’d get, wondering what would truly happen if he suddenly pretended to suffer a spasm in his elbow, causing a tray of peach sorbet to cascade over the shoulders of Al D’Amato. What would happen if his serving fork were suddenly flung at Liz Smith, only to land, prongs up, in her cleavage? And would he ever be able to stop laughing?

6
Doing Good by Having a Good Time

All New York was aglitter last night at the Annual Gala for Life Benefit at the World Financial Center, which raised over $100,000 for the New York Memorial Care Giving Fund.
Christie Brinkley, Joan Didion, Robert DiNiro & Tookie Smith, Harry Hurt & Susan Forrester, Itzhak & Toby Perlman, Elinor Guggenheimer, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Jay McInerney & Marla Hansen, Alan C. Greenberg, Carolyne Roehm, Milton Petrie, Oscar de la Renta, Blaine Trump, Bernadette Peters, Adam & Katherine Rothschild, Tina Brown, Glenn Bernbaum, Nan Kempner, Anne Slater & Jerry Zipkin
and other guests enjoyed the salmon and chicken breast dinner by who else? Fabulous Food.

Ed Seabrook tossed the newspaper onto a pile of old Sunday
Times
sections and dog-eared
Village Voice
s. “They didn’t mention a thing about how drunk that Board President was,” he said, while he finished his avocado and sprout sandwich.

“What?” Brian called out from their bedroom.

“Nothing. Ritchie, are you working tonight?”

No response. They were late, as usual. Ed walked to the bedroom to see Brian frenetically grabbing clothes. Ed had picked up his fresh laundry that morning, finished lunch, and was already packed. He watched as Brian wreaked havoc upon their bedroom like a small brush fire.

“C’mon, we’re late,” Ed said. Brian looked at him, then brushed past him through the door to the refrigerator, where he gulped juice from a carton and grabbed a few slices of bread.

“You didn’t eat yet?”

“I’ll get some at work.”

Ed sighed and crossed his arms, then turned back out to the loft/living room area. “Ritchie!” he called out.

“He’s not working tonight,” Brian said.

“He’s not paid his part of the rent, either,” Ed scolded as he walked out to the large open section of their communal living space.

Ritchie Hurst stood in his corner, his hands coated in mud. He devoted his attention to a small swirling funnel on a spinning table. He wore his sculpting jeans, which he rarely washed, and a clay-smeared denim apron over his bare chest.

“Didn’t you get booked for the party tonight?” Ed asked, distracting Ritchie.

“Yeah, but I called off.” He glanced up briefly, then back to the rotating clay his hands worked to smooth into a pot.

“Do you have a rent check? We’re a week late.” Although Ritchie’s name was on the lease, the responsibility of payment usually fell to Ed, the most efficient of the three.

“Sure, I’ll get it to you tonight.”

“Fine. See you later.” Ed returned to the kitchen, but Brian was gone. He heard running water and found him bent over the bathroom sink, brushing his teeth. Sometimes he felt like a mother, managing this thrown-together household.

“C’mon. Let’s leave Miss Noguchi to her work.”

“Mfmms,” Brian mumbled, toothpaste spilling from his mouth like minty fresh hydrophobia.

After the door slammed behind them, Ritchie washed his hands and made a few phone calls. No, Magna Gallery was not accepting slides now, but he could make an appointment with the curator. No, she wasn’t in. He got more of the same runaround from a few other upscale SoHo galleries. He knew this wasn’t the way to do it. He’d seen the manipulators, the publicity-hungry artists and slick conversationalists at openings, gesturing smoothly with one hand, a glass of Chablis in the other. He wasn’t up for that game, at least not yet.

Too restless to resume working, he walked over to his ten-speed bike, which hung from a few one-by-three boards nailed to the wall. He checked the tires for air. His usual means of transportation was also his main form of exercise. Gym workouts had begun to feel inane as well as annoying, what with all the cruising going on between gay men, who mistook him for one. It seemed so much more useful to get somewhere while seated. Peddling over the Brooklyn Bridge on late evenings after parties, he would peek over his shoulder as New York’s skyline shrank away, a glowing dark hive.

He glanced at a map of New York City he’d tacked to the wall next to his bike. He’d methodically dabbed each spot in Manhattan where he’d worked a party with a yellow highlighter. The now familiar grid was dotted with little glowing spots.

Ritchie Hurst considered himself a sculptor with a special hobby in catering. He was ninety-five per cent straight. The bisexual parts were located between his legs.

He didn’t mind the constant company of gay men. They were always good for a compliment and a bit of harmless flirtation. Living with Brian and Ed was better than any situation with straight men or women of either disposition, he believed. Ed cooked occasionally and Brian was always good for a few games of hoop at the nearby playground. They were butch enough not to care about an occasional mess, but gay enough to eventually clean it up if he didn’t.

The friendship with Brian, begun a year ago during Ritchie’s early Fabulous days, had gone over the line on occasion. He’d twice allowed a drunken Brian to blow him, despite his beliefs that it was a betrayal to Ed. Even if Brian and Ed were both men, they were sort of married, weren’t they?

“It’s simple,” Brian had explained to him late that August night as they downed a six-pack of Rolling Rocks. Brian spilled admissions about a few of his indiscretions. “Ed’s monogamous and I’m not.” Ed was in Boston for the weekend with his parents. Brian was horny. Ritchie was drunk.

With a slow back massage and some convincing words, Brian finally managed to coax Ritchie’s sizable serpent out, up to attention, and toward a gush of release into his mouth. To Ritchie, it was embarrassing and quick. Brian had thanked Ritchie profusely, buttoned his fly for him. The two made a pact to keep it all a secret and never do it again.

At least they kept the secret.

In this three-person household, sex or not, constant games of two against one prevailed, with Brian the apex of any argument. Brian was comfortable in this position, having been raised with two older brothers. But here he had Ed to manipulate like the patient lover he was, and Ritchie to threaten with what he secretly called his “blow job glare.”

In addition to their tenuous roommate relationship, each had their share of “serious career management problems.” Brian had unlimited potential, if only he could figure out what to do with his beauty. Ed was improving with his body work technique, a combination of Pilates, Shiatsu, Swedish massage and general ego building. He was slowly building a clientele willing to be worked over by a non-certified masseur. Most of his clients were poor and exhausted dancers, offering complimentary tickets to their latest multimedia beach performance in lieu of payment.