Where The Boys Are (47 page)

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Authors: William J. Mann

BOOK: Where The Boys Are
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“You’ll do what you have to do,” I tell her.
She just stands there, defying me to walk away from her. There’s nothing more that can be accomplished here, so I do. I turn and make my way back across the breakwater. It’s not until I get to the end that I turn back around. She’s nowhere in sight. My first thought is that she’s thrown herself into the water. But I’d have heard a splash.
Wouldn’t I?
The Last Weekend of November, Miami, the White Party
Henry
“W
ho are you calling now?” Shane asks, all annoyed.
I punch the quick-dial digits into my cell phone. “
Lloyd
,” I tell him.
Shane rolls his eyes. “
Again?
”
I give him a face. “He’s
worried
about something, Shane. I want to
be there
for him.”
But I get his voice mail. “Hey, it’s me,” I say. “I’m just checking in. Just wanted to let you know that I’m thinking about you. Hope everything’s okay. Call me if anything happens. I don’t care what time it is. If you need me, call.”
Shane and I are out on the beach, heading back into the party. I’m wearing baggy jeans and no shirt; Shane, some white Lycra wrestling singlet he’d bought from International Male. He’s done a couple of bumps of X but I’m completely straight, wanting to be clearheaded if Lloyd needs me.
I don’t even really want to be here at all, despite the fact that I had a good time last year. But a year ago I was a far different person than I am now. All I really want to be doing is sitting with Lloyd in the living room of Nirvana, sharing a bottle of wine and talking about our souls’ journeys.
Okay. So I’m coming across rather pompous and a bit too earnest. I don’t mean to be. But in truth, Shane’s just aggravating me no end, pawing me and kissing me and constantly dragging me out to the dance floor. The only reason I’m here at all is because he coerced me, having bought the passes and secured the airfare ages ago. “If you don’t come, I’m out a
lot
of money,” he bitched when I suggested that maybe I’d stay home. “The White Party is the
Crown Jewel
of the circuit. Passes aren’t easily obtained.”
“So you can make a profit scalping them.”
“Henry, come
on
. Please? It’s been so long since we’ve been out dancing. I
miss
you.”
My heart melted. “Okay, buddy,” I promised him. But ever since we arrived, he’s been so manic, chattering away nonstop at every single party we attended: “This is what we’ll do tonight,” and “Here’s our agenda for tomorrow,” and “Look over there, it’s Oscar and Eliot and—hey, boys! Yoo-hoo! Over here!”
“Shane,” I scolded. “No talking on the dance floor.”
I have to admit, however, the Miami White Party deserves its fabulous reputation. Sunday’s big bash, pulsing to the sweeping trance and vocal anthems courtesy of the amazing David Knapp, was held amid lush Victorian gardens with a spectacular view of Biscayne Bay. No other circuit party can match this one for sheer beauty. And the men certainly complement their surroundings, as much wonders of nature themselves as the flowers and the sea.
I look around at all of them as Shane and I slide back onto the dance floor. How many of them are like Brent? I wonder. How many of those fabulous shells mask what’s really going on inside their bodies? How many even
know
they’re carrying the virus? And how many of those muscles are actually the result of the steroids they take to fight their HIV?
And why does no one talk about it? Lloyd compared the silence to the experience of Holocaust survivors, who for many of the years following the concentration camps never spoke of what had happened. To speak it, they somehow felt, could bring it back. I think of my grandfather, who’d lost an uncle and three cousins in Auschwitz. I never remember hearing him talk about it. I’d never have even known it had happened at all if it weren’t for my mother. I was a generation removed from the Holocaust, just as I felt removed from AIDS.
Except the analogy stops there. The camps can’t reach across the intervening years and grab me by the throat the way the plague still has the power to do. Even though I’d only been tested three months before, I went again for another test just last week. Maybe I’m being overly cautious, as I’ve been relatively risk-free: handjobs and massages weren’t exactly high on the list of unsafe behavior. But I did it anyway. For Brent in some ways as much as myself.
“Was that my cell phone?” I suddenly ask, yanking it from my pocket.
“Calm down, sweetheart.” Shane makes a face. “It’s just the DJ.”
I check just to be sure. No call. I slip the phone back into my pocket.
“What’s got you such a nervous Nell?” Shane asks. “What’s Lloyd so worried about that you have to call him every hour on the hour?”
“I shouldn’t say.”
Shane licks my face. “I’ll keep doing that until you do.”
I grimace. “It’s Eva. She—she hasn’t shown up since threatening to kill herself a week ago. Apparently, her girlfriend dumped her and she was very distraught. He’s planning on reporting her missing today.”
. “Such drama.” Shane shivers. “Look, I
adore
Eva. But she’s no dyke. Fag hags often go through such stages, thinking they’re lesbians because they just want so much to be queer. They don’t realize they already
are.”
“Well, regardless, Lloyd’s worried about her. She didn’t even show up for Thanksgiving this week, and they had a whole house full of guests.”
Shane smirks. “Poor li‘l Lloyd must’ve run his li’l self ragged.”
“Well,” I concede, wishing it had been me, “Jeff went down to help.”
“Ohoho!” Shane loves that, I can tell, and he milks it for all it’s worth. “So our happy twosome spent the holiday together while you were down here with fifteen thousand men under the Florida sun. Maybe they built a fire and gave thanks in front of it.”
“You’re a brat, Shane. A total brat.” I put my shoulder to him, my eyes suddenly meeting those of a hunky, sweaty guy with Mark McGrath highlights in his hair. “I’m sure they were far too busy with all their guests to be giving any thanks.”
Okay, so I admit I’m a little jealous that Jeff and Lloyd spent Thanksgiving together. But I’m not going to let Lloyd know that. And I sure as hell am not going to admit it to Shane.
“Hey,” Mark McGrath says. “Sup?”
“Sup with
you?
” I ask.
“Uh, Henry.” Shane taps me on the shoulder. “I wasn’t aware we had finished our conversation.”
I turn back to face him. “Why don’t you try dancing instead of talking, Shane? This is called the
dance
floor, after all.”
“I just thought you might be interested in knowing who’s staying at my apartment while I’m here.”
I look up at him. “Who?”
“Eva,” he tells me. “Sweetie, she’s
fine
. She called me and said she needed to get away. I figured since I was coming here and my apartment would be empty . . .”
I’m stunned. “I can’t believe you!”
He makes a face as if he doesn’t get my outrage. “
What
?”
I stalk off the dance floor.
Shane follows. “Henry! Why are you so pissed?”
We’re outside on the deck, where clusters of boys have gathered to talk and cruise each other. I spin on Shane. “I’m pissed because here’s Lloyd all tied up in knots worrying about her—just as she wants him to be—and you’re complicit in her scheme!”
“She just needed a place to get away! To clear her head!”
“
Your
head’s the one that needs clearing.” I’m pressing numbers again on my phone.
Damn. Lloyd’s voice mail again. Maybe he and Jeff are off giving thanks.
“Hey, it’s me again. Eva’s fine. Shane just told me she’s at his place. Appears she just needed to get away and think. Call me.”
I glare up at him.
Shane raises his eyebrows and crosses his arms over his chest. “So
you’ve
gone and changed your opinion of her, too. You used to think she was great.
Everybody’s
against her. First Jeff, who turned Lloyd against her. Now Lloyd’s turned
you
against her, too.”
“Shut up, Shane.”
He grabs my arm. It hurts. “Hey!” I protest.
“Don’t you
ever
tell me to shut up!” he shouts. “Take it back.”
“You are acting so childishly.”
He pouts. “I don’t know you anymore, Henry.”
I sigh. I pull a deck chair over and sit down, patting the seat beside me for Shane to follow.
He reluctantly obliges.
“I’m sorry, Shane,” I tell him.
He looks as if he might cry. “I was really hoping this would be a fun trip.”
“It
is
,” I assure him. “I think I’m just getting a little tired of all this crisscrossing the country. You can’t sustain it forever. Everybody drops out eventually.”
Shane just shrugs.
“Don’t you want something
more
, Shane? Ever since Brent’s death, I’ve become very focused on what I want in my life. Next year I’ll be
thirty
. I want a
relationship
, Shane. I want to love someone who loves me back. Brent
died
wanting that. I don’t want to end up that way, too.”
Shane looks at me evenly. “You don’t think I understand, Henry? You don’t think it’s what
I
want, too?”
“Of course you want it. Everyone does. All these guys here with their drugs and their parties and their I-don’t-care attitudes ...” I try to smile genuinely. “You say you don’t know me anymore, Shane. And do you know why you don’t? Because I’ve
changed.
Changed for the
better.
You’re the one who got me started escorting, but I was going about it all
wrong.
At first all I did was
take.
Now I’m getting very good at giving, and it’s just as fulfilling. Even more so.”
“Good for you,” Shane says.
“It is good. Because I’m learning about
connection.
I never got the concept before. Which I’m sure is why I never found a lasting relationship. I’m only now learning how relationships
work.
The give and the take.”
He looks a little perturbed. “I think you already knew how relationships worked, Henry.”
“No, I didn’t. You were
right
about Jeff and me, Shane. I was trapped in a one-way situation. It was all about
me
giving to
him.
So when you came along and showed me how I could get paid for actually
taking
from other people, being on the
receiving end
for a change, naturally I jumped right for it. But now I’m trying to integrate those two experiences, Shane. And it was
Lloyd
who helped me see how to do that.”
“Uh-huh.”
I smile, wanting to trust him, to take Shane into my confidence. I need a good friend, someone with whom I can talk about all this, who will really listen to what I have to say. I need a ...
sister.
“Shane,” I say, taking his hands, “I think Lloyd and I are falling in love with each other. I think . . . we’re going to make a relationship together.”
“I think you’re fucked,” Shane says, shaking off my hands and standing up.
I follow him to my feet.
“What?”
He lowers his face right into mine. “You’d really do that to Jeff, wouldn’t you? Without the slightest qualm?” He snorts. “And you say
he
was the one insensitive to
you!”
“Of
course
I feel qualms about it,” I insist. “Of
course
I don’t want us to hurt Jeff.”
“Bullshit, Henry. You want to drive that stake right through Jeff’s heart.” He laughs derisively at me. “And you’re even more fucked up if you think Lloyd’s in love with you. You’ve said it to me a million times: Jeff and Lloyd are joined at the hip.”
I stiffen. “That was before what happened between me and Lloyd.”
“Well, bully for you, Bella Donna. But let me tell you something. I’m so pleased that you’ve finally figured out how to make a relationship work. I’m so thrilled that Lloyd taught you all you needed to know. But maybe you ought to try opening your eyes and looking around. Sometimes there are relationships going on right under your own nose that you don’t even see.”
I know he means himself. Him and me. Us. I let out a long sigh. “Shane, of course I value our friendship—”
“Listen, Henry,” he says, cutting me off. “I need to apologize to you. Because I broke a promise we made to each other. That very first day, remember? In Grand Central Station in New York. We said we’d never lie to each other. That we’d always speak the truth. Remember?”
I say nothing, just look up into his big, wide blue eyes. He’s crying.
“Well, I haven’t always told you the truth,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. “I’ve pretended it didn’t hurt when you’d spend all night trying to find a husband and then settle for me when nobody else showed up. Nobody
better.
I’ve made believe that I didn’t care when you’d make plans with me only to ditch them so you could spend time with Jeff, or your clients, or now Lloyd. I’ve tried to tell myself that I didn’t need anything in return from you except your occasional presence, even after it was
me
who was there, night after night, when you were alone, or depressed about Brent, about your job, about the escorting. I tried to tell myself that so long as I was
aware
of the realities of the situation, so long as I knew what was going on, I’d be all right. That I wouldn’t want
more.
”

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