Faggots (24 page)

Lance administered a final tidy slash with his favorite whip, thousands of tiny strands of elephant hair, not a soft hair goodness knows, no maybe goodness doesn’t know, bound in a handsome handle of South African ebony, the elephant hairs reputed to have come from land adjoining William Holden’s Kenya ranch. All of them whooshed against that long and lean perfection, which Fred had for so long worshipped and for so long found so difficult to forget. Lance seemed most annoyed at that beauty, as if he could see within it Feffer’s goodness and intelligence and morality (or as if he could see within it a reminder of that Dildough, still at large, vengeance unachieved), and, as he’d wanted all of this within him punished, Feffer quivered in pain and joy.

“Ancora,”
he mumbled, uncertain where he was.

Lance and Louie nodded to each other. This one would do perfectly for tonight’s big scene. Let him live this post meridiem.

Fred awakened in mid-afternoon, the sun opening his eyes, and reached over to find not Dinky but a note: He had some plantings to attend to, make himself at home, there were juice, eggs, and instant coffee in the kitchen, and he’d see him at The Toilet Bowl tonight.

So, wearing a pair of Dinky’s red-satin Champion boxer shorts, and feeling young and good and butch and wanted, Fred wandered around his would-be lover’s space. “We’ll work on developing our relationship, our romance,” wandered around with him. Yes, Fred would be patient, he must learn how to live Stages 2 through 9, when he’d always been so anxiously impatient to jump from 1 to 10. This would be his experiment.

As he ate his two eggs soft and over crumbled Triscuits, sitting at Dinky’s desk, Fred noticed to coffee-cup-left ten copies of a snapshot of his inamorato all in leather. Another hassle reported in from the Lemish interior.

So, since he’d never been alone here, Fred commenced what he felt he must now commence to do. He began a thorough search of Dinky’s apartment. If Dinky hadn’t told him much, then he’d Sherlock Holmes out what he could, on-the-job research, the Writer/Loverin-Action, and use whatever information he would find to subtly force-feed their true and destined if reluctantly blooming love.

In a wicker trunk under the bookcase by Dodger’s alcove he found a black leather outfit, pants and epauletted shirt and officer’s cap and face mask and cock sacks and a short whip. and a weight to hang from the balls and long gloves and thick chains with handcuffs and feet restrainers. (Were these Dinky’s?!)

In a wicker hamper on the top shelf in Dinky’s bedroom, along with many assorted foreign and domestic letters filled with requests for meetings from photographs of men dressed in much of the above (the wicker hamper book-ended by those many assorted volumes of knowledge Fred had found so helpful and had then so helpfully gifted Dinky, need we list them here?), he found a thick membership directory to Inter-Chain, a world-wide organization of leather and slavery and bondage and Master-Slave with its information under Adams, D., that he was interested only in supervising bondage and light whipping and punishment and Master-only rites, together with twenty further copies of that photograph, his Dinky standing tall, cold, immobile, the whipping Master just waiting to be summoned to command, all in those leather items. (They were Dinky’s.)

In a wicker hamper on the shelf below, Fred found his own earlier long letter of love and commitment, written after their douche date and Dinky’s disappearance. Under this was a pledge of love from Irving Slough. In descending layers under this were similar billets-doux from a Tony, an Olive, a Piero, a Chipper in California, a very young-sounding Paulie at the Club Baths in Miami, plus a curling ancient letter to Frigger (was it ever sent?): “We have so much in common, couldn’t we try and work it out?,” then a photograph of someone, not particularly attractive, standing on a Hassler balcony overlooking the beautiful Borghese Gardens Fred recognized from his own Feffered fevers in that fine town, and identified on the back as “Me and Ike Bulb in Rome.” And finally, at the bottom, there were pictures of Laveme, and Dinky with Laverne, when they lived in that Southampton house beside the canal and looked happy.

And then, oh was it not ever thus!, in the wicker wastebasket by the desk, Fred found a crumpled draft of a letter dated just the other day to he-doesn’t-mean-anything-to-me George:

Our Hero welcomed Death.

Timmy, who was released unto the recognizance of R. Allan Pooker, obviously much experienced in handling such tricky matters, had just completed his part of the afternoon’s shooting, with his co-star, Paulie, of what had appeared an innocent-enough vehicle for their bodies in the woods of Central Park.

R. Allan had video-taped him only from the front. The back part was evidently Paulie’s. Timmy’s own was still most sore, he couldn’t remember quite how or why, he’d been so drugged, people in this city just seemed to appear from nowhere, popping them, selling them, even the cop in the jail had slipped him a nightcap for breakfast, yes, his yesterday’s journeyings had been a drug sundae indeed. He wouldn’t mind some more because he presently felt so down.

He ran to the nearest phone booth and directory to begin his search. In his blind hopefulness he’d expected to discover the name “Winston Man” listed there and to dial the proper numbers and rush into those safe arms and all would be heaven thereafter.

Of course it wasn’t to be. No help from Ma Bell. So he ran from the Zoo and over to an elegant Fifth Avenue doorman.

“Does the Winston Man live here?”

“No, young fellow, I’m happy to say he don’t.”

“Where is the nicest, fanciest, neighborhood in this entire city where if you were rich and famous you would live?”

“Why, right around here,” the doorman answered, further explaining that Best extended from Fifth to the East River and from 57th to 90th and that unless he had a name, it might prove rather difficult locating a cigarette model, no matter how famous the face.

Not knowing that the object of his stubborn adoration, his only salvation after his detours with that nasty Dildough—make me a Star indeed! he ran away and left me hanging!—was at present performing, as must all famous models after such a night, Sleeping Beauty, having Dedrominixed himself to bed at dawn, his skin and loveliness rejuvenating, until this very evening, when he’d put in his Toilet Bowl appearance, Timmy took a deep breath and plunged right in.

He knew he hadn’t much time, he had to get to the Bowl himself, to watch his film debut and, more important, perhaps to find his Winnie there. But, just in case, for now, he started here with Fifth, headed east, hit all the buildings, looked at all the mailbox names, asked the doormen, studied all the faces in the lobbies, on the streets, hoping against hope he’d find his man, his face, his beloved, not knowing when he visited the brownstone, 66th off Madison, that up above, right up there, the name is Heinz, sleeping, so continuing, next next next, ignoring cruises from many a resident, many a dog walker, 73rd Street finished, Fifth to Park only, crisscrossing the area like a darned sock, still no clues, no leads to Winnie, persevering, he’d find his man,
Yes I will!,
the little boy lost and needful, crying
I want my Winnie!,
Winnie, why can’t you hear him?, why can’t you hear when love is calling, screaming, yelling, bawling out for you? Turn on your antenna, fine tune the reception, picking up no static, only the clear sign of Tim Purvis, lover, looking. Not finding.

Irving Slough was not at the Sutton Place hearthside he shared with his mother. Nor was he in his various offices on the 54-55-56-57th floors of a Lexington Avenue skyscraper. He was in that small
pied-à-terre
he kept in Tudor City, the hideaway love nest he kept just like his two straight married partners, Heiserdiener and Thalberg. And here he waited all afternoon for Dinky to come and fuck him, as a call from him earlier had indicated he might do, if he had time, and had Irving remembered to send the check for the monthly terrace maintenance and new plantings?

This morning Irving had gone to the Village and to the Marquis de Suede and there he had picked up the special order he’d placed in a moment of miff after Dinky’s lam out of town on the conclusion of their shotgun wedding. He didn’t think he’d use it, but he thought he’d pick it up now anyway, and if Dinky was a good boy, then he’d use it on someone else instead.

Irving was not at heart a nasty man. He thought this as he strutted in his leather gear before his mirror. The boots with three-inch heels and cross-over bucklings at the ankle. The chaps tight around his thighs and hips and holding in his stomach firmly while revealing his still not too generous cheeks. The shirt with stringed crosshatchings to display his hairy chest but disguise his sagging tits. But, for all his studies at the Universities of Niesdorf, Glantcha, the Isle of Wight, he could never fully, completely, understand the subliminalities of his attraction to leather. For let his cock touch leather and it instantly staticized, erected unto magnitudes unknown in tweed or cotton, and brought to his already forceful personality a surging, throbbing stature that oozed around him like a contagion he thought could render victims to his feet in droves. Such an authoritarian fabric, leather! Perhaps this was enough to know. Not think of it as gift wrapping for the s-m package, that replacement box for the parental authority I wanted as a child, and
wo war mien
Pops? Was it not better to wear it, do it, live it, than suppress it? That only leads, on an international scale of course, to war. And he did get such wonderful sensations in his schlang when men chose to grovel neath his leathered self.

Dinky had yet to grovel. Would Dinky grovel? Or would Irving do the bending? Yes, Irving was also considering for the first time in his life that he might like to get down on his hands and knees and allow a dog’s collar to be put around his neck and to be led around on all fours. This morning he’d even bought the collar. Interesting.

What was Dinky doing to him? Should he wear his gear tonight, in public, for Dinky to see him? A shining black knight, a fantasy man for Dinky’s dreams, to spirit him away? Was this how he could get Dinky? Yes, time was running out. I am open to intimacy, I understand all human problems, I have a strong sense of myself. So why am I still so unsatisfied, so alone?

Why is that child so ungiving and withdrawn! True, as a youngster Dinky had said he was a “Pretty Boy,” a role that he had hated. Everyone wanted to fuck him. So he grew his beard and muscles so no one would fuck him anymore. Yes, he could then humiliate everyone, as I am sure his parents humiliated him. Humiliation is so essential to Catholics. And to faggots! So many of my fantasies in sex are of vengeance and retributions and humiliation and anger, against men!, and…why cannot I admit my hope of finding security in the warmth and love of another man is vanishing?…

Yes, he’d go out like this tonight and surprise his Dinky. I shall overcome all fears that my partners will find out or see me. Enough of Adriana as beard. I want to shave. Just as I encourage all in our therapeutic sessions to so do.

Then he worried that tonight might not be so good. Tonight was an opening that would be covered by
Women’s Wear
and filled with slummers and celebrities and socialites, now that gaydom in this city is so chic. They will probably disappear after an initial look-see, but one never knew, one could not take chances, there might be that one person hiding in a shadow later when more heavy scenes transpired—a patient, a partner, a client, a client’s perverted wife. No, best wait till Sunday, Fire Island, my party, The Meat Rack, I’ll show my leather to my Dinky there.

So he plopped down on the large fuck bed with its rawhide spread to wait for Dinky’s call and to contemplate a photograph in the
Times,
of a young man from Oxford in tweed hunting jacket and holding furled brolly, with that long blond hair and those high cheeks and the fine skin and patrician nose, all bespeaking Class and In-ness, neither of which Irving felt close to possessing, not even after dining with The President or making as much money as The Queen.

Yes, the strong sense of myself is built on a bed of quicksand and never never will I have what I want! Irving knew all this and still he thought of Dinky, fantasies of Dinky’s dangling cock and Dinky’s white tight tush, and still he gazed at Master Oxford gazing back at me, might you just not come across the sea and whisk me off into a wild romance, played against the drama and background of tropical nights and sunny sandy beaches and much lovemaking tempestuously on floors, wickedly rampant in bathtubs, closets, naked under moon and stars (no, maybe not naked, a diet first,
no,
Oxford will take me as I am!, and love me)…but wait, Oxford would not like me in leather, and anyway it’s time to change, so off come military hat and boots and jerkin and chaps and jockstrap and cock ring, back into the closet they go, try not to look at fat chubby in the mirror as it changes back into Egyptian cotton and lisle and Countess Mara and vertical stripes and wing tips and a more respectable form of drag, oh he was sick of hiding, sick of Tudor City, sick of time running through the hourglass of sadness, sick of not being able to hold hands with someone in public, and kiss in the presence of partners, and say; “Hi, honey,” “Hi, sweetheart,” “Hi, pumpkin,” “Hi, Love,” oh, where now were Tad or Bart or Whynn or Chauncy or Gaston?, all gone, why do I go through them all so quickly?, Whynn, the last before Dinky, summarily dismissed along with a few thousand and a ticket to London when he threatened revelations, he wished him momentarily back for old fuck’s sake, that fine body, that fine if unformed mind, why were they always unformed?, why did he always wish to form them?, why did his heart always go out to all the Dinkys?, let me teach you, let me give you, let me treat you as I would have been treated, he wondered if that Fred Lemish suffered the same curse, he obviously did, for Dinky had showed him Fred’s seventeen-page letter of love, his “Ode to Possibility and Potential,” just you wait, Fred Lemish!, when you come to this, he thought momentarily of touchtoning One Touch of Penis, have them send that cute Paulie over, no, Dinky still might come or call, the hours of waiting for those promised: “I’ll call you later”s, ah Penis, should I?, shouldn’t I?, we could do it quickly, it isn’t Acapulco but it is a floor, no, he’d save his all for Dinky, and continue waiting, Dinky-less, going to a Toilet Bowl, swathed in vertical navy pin stripes from Scrill, Naw & Derdip of Old Bond Street, vertical helps fatties, what is wrong with me today?, I need a new lover in my life, the old ones leave me wanting, is this what old age brings?, I need something like tutti-frutti used to taste when I was ten, where will I go on lonely nights now that the Everhard’s burned?, and then, looking once again at
The New York Times
and Master Oxford, Irving Slough tried fervently to wish the image from the page and into his arms, the two of them on the Royal Road to Romance, take your choice, Master Oxford, immissio penis in anum or in os?, as he zipped open his Scrill, Naw & Derdip and jerked off.