An Idol for Others (59 page)

“We’re getting at things. I certainly know I can’t go back to what I tried to be before. When I was trying to convince myself I had to leave, I honest to God wasn’t thinking of Clara.”

“I’m glad, darling. I want us to know that we’ve gotten into something so dangerous that we can’t stop thinking of each other and watching out for each other for a second. There’s nothing to fall back on. If we think there is, we’re done for.”

“Can we make it, Tommy? Are we strong enough or good enough or whatever it takes? Will we cleave?”

“Yes,” Tom said. “I’ve hurt you, or you wouldn’t have to ask. I know you’ll forgive me, because you love me; but that isn’t good enough for me. I’ve got to prove to you that you can trust me.”

Walter looked into the depths of love in the deep-set eyes. Straight, true, dedicated. How could he have doubted him? He moved his hands over Tom’s arms and shoulders and touched the long hair on the back of his neck. “I trust you, Tommy. Still. Again. No. Still–and always. I haven’t quite got over being frightened of loving you so much. Are you really going to make that coffee?”

“Poor darling. Can I put the bag away?”

“I wish you would. I don’t want to see it again.”

They kissed gently and gave each other a little hug, and Tom rose and moved around the room. “I’ll change the bed later. We’ve got to start all over again in virginal sheets. OK, darling. One coffee coming up, with a beer chaser. That’ll fix our hangovers.”

They went out to the newly enclosed kitchen, and Tom put on the espresso pot. Walter sat at the little table they sometimes used for breakfast. “You think I should call Jerry?” he asked.

“You’ve got to, darling. He said he was going right home.”

He went out to the living room and did so and apologized for his fit of morning bad temper. They promised to see each other soon.

Tom brought the coffee to him. “I’m obviously not going to get any work done today,” he said. “You know what I want to do? I want to take you for a sail.”

Walter looked up, startled. “You mean in that thing out there that’s painted on the water? I don’t believe it’s real.”

Tom laughed. “I’ll explain about it so you know how silly I can be. Being with Johnnie made me feel that I should keep some things for mine. I’ve been out in it a couple of times when you were in the city. I’ve hurt myself by being alone so I’d know how wonderful it is being with you. All that sort of thing is over since last night.”

“Last night seems to have had its effect.”

“It has. I think we’ll be feeling it for the rest of our lives. Do you know about sailing?”

“Sure. I’ve done a lot of it in the south of France.”

“Aren’t we stylish! As a matter of fact, so have I. Let’s have some beer, and I’ll fix some sandwiches. There’s enough breeze.”

Walter sat back and looked at him and felt depths of surrender in himself that even Tom hadn’t hitherto revealed to him. It imposed a suspension of reason. Tom summoned him to an adventure that would test all of his capacity for daring and survival. He proclaimed the impossibility while urging them on. He had let Walter witness his physical passions as a demonstration of what they could find in themselves for each other. He had carried them beyond any possibility of withdrawal. One didn’t withdraw from life.

Tom was smiling happily as he turned and headed back to the kitchen. Walter was immediately on his feet to follow him, feeling better than he had for months. They drank beer and made sandwiches and went back to the bedroom to dress in shorts and sneakers and T-shirts. Tom put on a windbreaker and handed Walter a sweater. “You’ll need that. It gets chilly out there.”

They collected their provisions, including a bottle of wine, and went down to the jetty and jumped onto the little boat. Less than 20 feet long, with an open cockpit, it rocked wildly in the water. Tom pulled sails out of a locker, and they put them on together. When everything was in order, Tom cast off. It was a simple rig, and Walter knew enough so that he could have been helpful, but Tom was so evidently and delightedly in charge that he sat out of the way on the narrow deck and let his adoring eyes revel in the beauty of Tom in action. He got the sails up, main and jib, and Walter watched the spring of his long legs as he ran back to the tiller. He watched the assured reach of his arms as his long fingers gathered in lines and secured them expertly for immediate release. The sails took the wind, and the little boat tilted and nosed down into the water, and he saw an exultant look light up Tom’s face. The cords of his neck swelled as he tilted his head back to adjust his course to the dictates of the sails.

In a few minutes, the city appeared before them, rising startingly out of the water. Great rolls of fog crowded in under the vast span of the Golden Gate Bridge. Many sails were dotted about the wide bay; some in packs suggested that races were in progress. They began to gather speed as they moved away from land and picked up a fresher breeze. The little boat heeled and kicked up some spray. Walter moved back along the deck and sat close to Tom.

The latter put his free arm around Walter’s shoulders and hugged him. “Isn’t this marvelous? We’re together, darling, completely and forever. I feel it even more out here. I may never take you back to shore.”

“I’m with you, skipper.” They were both exhilarated by the rush of water and the dazzle of sun and the clean air that filled their lungs and whipped their hair around their heads. Sky and water seemed immense once they lost the shelter of land. It added a special poignance to their dependence on each other, so that for a moment tears gathered behind Walter’s eyes. Tom put the boat through its paces, beating into the wind, easing the sheets to take it on the beam while they ate their sandwiches and drank wine from the bottle. In time, he jibed and headed in almost dead before the wind. He dropped down into the cockpit and settled himself comfortably, with the tiller against his neck.

“Is it all right for me to come down there with you?” Walter asked.

“Of course, darling. I’m going in closer to home. I don’t like to go too far in case the wind drops.”

Walter sat beside him and smoothed his hair with a possessive hand. “It feels marvelous long. I can’t wait for it to get even longer. Can anybody see us?”

“If anybody has their glasses on us, they’ll see the idiot bliss of my face. It’s not the way a potentially distinguished man of letters is supposed to look, but I don’t care. Isn’t the
Eaglet
a honey?”

“Like her captain–swift and lean and alert. Her captain has something I want to look at in the clear light of day.” He unzipped Tom’s shorts and drew out his cock. It grew only partially rigid as he did so.

Tom chuckled. “You’re diverting my attention from my pure, sexless love for the
Eaglet
. I think you’ll succeed if you want to.”

“In that case …” Walter slipped his hand under Tom’s balls and lifted them out, then worked his way down in the cockpit and lowered his head and played with them with his tongue. Tom giggled, and his cock gave a sudden leap. Walter drew it into his mouth and felt it growing and hardening. Tom made contented sounds in his throat. Tom’s cock suddenly surged up and escaped Walter’s mouth. Walter lifted himself on an elbow to look at it.

“That’s what’s known as a cock,” Tom said. “You may not have noticed, but it’s been there all along.”

“I’ve noticed it more than you realize. I’ve loved it right from the start. It’s such a fine, manly thing.”

“It’s big enough to sustain my ego, but just barely. Now that it’s received Jerry’s seal of approval, I may start being cautiously proud of it. Not everybody can be built like you. Let me for a minute, darling.” He curled his fingers around it, taking over from Walter’s hand, and began to stroke it slowly. “Yeah. I remember. That’s why I wanted to jerk off for you. There was a bunch of us one summer that used to do this together. Mine was the biggest. The others must’ve been dwarfs. I guess I wanted to feel like that again, sort of showing off for you.” He removed his hand. “It’s all yours, darling. I’m glad you like it.”

“I love it. I’m going to be as good a cocksucker as you are.”

“You have quite a lot of practice to make up for. Hey, do you suppose that’s why this is called a cockpit? It never occurred to me.”

They shook with laughter. Little spurts of laughter continued to erupt from Walter while he applied himself to perfecting his technique until they were both seized with the excitement of Tom’s approaching climax, and they cried out together as he exploded into Walter’s mouth.

They returned to the house in an almost ungovernable flood of love and physical well-being.

“How marvelous,” Tom said when they had changed their clothes and fixed themselves drinks. “That’s everything, darling. We’ve been sailing together. Now you know all of me and have all of me. Isn’t it fabulous to know that everything from now on will be happening to both of us? There won’t be any old private secrets that we have to go back to and dig up.”

They got the fire going and sat in front of it with their arms thrown loosely around each other.

“Tommy,” Walter said incredulously. “I’ve just realized there isn’t a corner of me that isn’t full of love for you. I wonder where I’ve kept it all these years. I feel it in my heels and elbows. I’m ready to believe that nobody except you could do that to me, but you’d suppose some of it would’ve spilled out sooner. I guess maybe it did a bit for Mark. What a waste. I’m absolutely saturated with love and never knew it. I’m jealous of Mark for having found you 20 years ago and jealous of Johnnie for having had you for 15, but mostly I can’t help feeling a bit sorry for myself for never having felt like this. When I asked you to save me that first day, I didn’t really know what I was talking about I do now. Thank you, Tommy.”

“Jesus.” Tom’s eyes searched Walter’s. When he spoke, his voice was husky. “Walter. Darling. Darling gay Walter.” He closed his eyes and suddenly gathered himself together and sat up, bursting with vitality. “We’re going to have so much damn fun,” he exclaimed. “I need only about five more days for the novel. Then we’ll be together all day and all night, like it was in the beginning, only better. I can’t wait to see you at work. I don’t care if we fight a lot. It’s so marvelous making up. You’re going to have to start casting soon, aren’t you?”

They were immediately engrossed in details of the production. Walter accompanied Tom to the kitchen; they continued talking while Tom cooked dinner. The realization that they were about to become creative partners took hold and created an electric excitement between them. Their imaginations opened and fed on each other. They were joined, mind, heart, body, in a union as real to them as existence itself.

The hot spell broke the next day. Walter completed his financial arrangements for the production. Tom put away the finished first draft of the novel. Walter ordered actor’s sides of the play prepared, and they began auditioning actors at Artie Solvering’s theater.

Walter’s methods were his own. He had candidates walk around the stage. He had them improvise some simple incident like entering a crowded room or phoning a lover to cancel a date. He rarely had them read a line from Tom’s script. In almost every case, he chose an actor that Tom didn’t like. Tom was ready to accept his judgment, but it puzzled him.

“I’ve always known what I can do with actors,” Walter explained. “It’s the thing I trust most in myself. If a movement or the intonation of a voice scores with me, I know I’ve got the right person. We’ve got some good ones, Tommy. I’m going to make this the best production I’ve done since before I went to Hollywood.”

“I trust you, darling. God, just the fact that you’re doing it is enough. I fall in love with you all over again every day just watching you work. The more you’re you, the more I worship you.”

“That’s the funny thing about us.”

They were so enthralled by each other that they didn’t bother to wait to have such conversations in private. They spoke to each other when they had to, and Artie or their friends or casual passersby were welcome to listen. Walter decided reluctantly–he had grown accustomed to working at home–that he had to have an office in the city, so he leased a couple of rooms that reminded him of David’s uncle’s office way back at the beginning and hired a full-time secretary. He sent an announcement of the production to the local papers, and the world rediscovered him. San Francisco’s acquisition of Walter Makin was big news in artistic circles. The fact that he was doing a first play of a controversial nature by the novelist Thomas Jennings was also news. Magazines and the features editors of newspapers besieged Walter for interviews, with interest also shown in Tom.

They agreed that they preferred to respond to these requests together. They were friendly and relaxed with the press and said things to and about each other that left journalists gaping. They lunched daily in the city’s smarter restaurants and frequently dined out too. The cooler weather permitted Walter to deck himself out in the finery that had been sent from New York. They were conspicuous wherever they went, always intent on what they were saying to each other, touching when the need arose, two men openly and triumphantly in love with each other. They made the transition from being private people to public personages with no effort. They did nothing for effect. It never occurred to them that they shouldn’t behave exactly as they felt.

They were scheduled to go into rehearsal in less than a week when Walter nicked the mole on his neck with his razor. It bled a lot, and he noticed that it felt a bit odd while he was trying to staunch the flow, slightly lumpy and sensitive. The next day he carelessly nicked it again, and again it took some time to stop the bleeding. He examined it more closely and saw that it looked angry, possibly infected, like a small boil. He put some tape on it and hid it with a colorful scarf.

“That damn mole is getting to be a bore,” he told Tom. “I probably should get something to clear it up. Do you know a doctor who might work me in today?”

“I wish you’d stop hacking at it. I like that mole.”

“I have to shave. You wouldn’t like it if I have a great tuft of whiskers growing out of my neck.”