Mirrors of Narcissus (19 page)

“You may be right.”

I paused and realized a decision had already been made in my heart. My throat felt raw and unused. I cleared it and spoke.

“Listen, Scott. Can you keep a secret? I mean, really keep a secret?”

“You know I can.” The expression on his face showed that he guessed the direction of my confession.

“I would never confess this if I didn’t trust you completely.”

He looked at me, his eyes glowing softly in the darkness. I went on:

“Scott, when I was in high school, I had sex with a guy once.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And you know what? It was my first sexual experience. Even before I screwed my first girl.”

“What did you think of it?”

“I don’t know. I felt guilty about it afterwards, and disgusted with myself. I never saw the guy again.”

He looked somewhat relieved. “So you do like girls, right?”

“Of course I like girls. But—” I looked down at the boards below my feet. “I think that because my first experience was with a guy, I might have been a little messed up for a while. You see, the first sexual experience is so important in forming you. Because my first experience was with a guy, my—I guess you could say I’m sexually ambiguous. If it had been with a girl—”

“What do you mean by that? Do you mean you’re gay?” He looked so worried that I decided to soften it. I didn’t want to scare him off.

“No. It’s true I’ve often thought, what if—? But I never acted on it. Scott, listen. When you have your first sexual experience, it should be with someone you love. Because you’ll remember it all your life. And you might be tortured by it if it isn’t exactly what you want. Yes, I like girls. But maybe not in the way most guys like them. You remember the meter I talked about? For me, the needle veers sometimes, wavering back and forth, first to one side, then the other. But that’s only feelings. As far as actual experiences go, I’m still boringly hetero, don’t worry.”

“But then—” He looked at me, trying to assemble his thoughts. There was an almost desperate look in his eyes, as if he wanted to keep up with me but I was pushing things far beyond what he was comfortable with. “What does Christine mean to you, Guy? What are your feelings for her?”

“She’s the most wonderful girl I’ve ever known. Until I met her, there was no one I could be completely open with. She’s the most open-minded person I’ve ever met. And she profoundly changed my life for the better.”

“But—do you…do you love her, though? That’s what I’m asking.”

I looked at him. It was so dark that I really couldn’t see his expression, but I thought I felt the bench under us shiver.

“Yes. I love her. But—” I thought of how I wanted to say it. “I don’t think I can love her in the way she deserves—as an all-around normal guy could. There’s certain things. Sometimes I think she’d be happier with another guy, a more normal one.”

“Is that what’s behind your troubles with her recently?”

“No. Well, maybe partly.”

He seemed to muse upon this for a while, and I ached to be able to read what was passing through his mind. Suddenly he was struck by a thought. “Does Christine know any of what you told me?”

“Yes.” I looked closely at him. “Like I said—she’s the only girl I’ve ever met who I felt I was able to tell. And you’re the first guy.”

He remained deep in thought. I was worried if I’d made a fatal mistake tonight—whether my instincts had betrayed me. He had fallen strangely silent.

“Scott. Can we still be friends after what you’ve just learned?”

He looked at me with eyes that seemed ready to cry. “Of course, Guy. I understand. As you say, a lot of other guys have probably done the same thing, only they don’t like to admit to it. Nothing will change our friendship.”

“I’m glad. You don’t know how good that makes me feel.”

“I feel flattered that you trusted me enough to tell me.”

It was starting to get cold sitting on the wooden bench, and I stood up.

“By the way—what you saw out here tonight—it’s a secret between me and you, right? Let’s not tell the others about it. They might be less understanding and decide to beat up on the fags. You know how most guys are. They’re scared of anyone who’s different from themselves. We wouldn’t want to see that happen, right?”

“Of course not.”

“I’ll bet there’s a lot of material there for your future books.”

“You still want to go get those hot dogs?”

“No. I lost my appetite. Let’s just go on back to the dorm.”

“Sure.” Without another word we began walking back towards the dorm.

2

Harry Golden lived in the hilly area north of the campus in an old two-story Victorian house, a ramshackle place with a spacious yard. He had called me at the dorm this afternoon saying he’d managed to borrow Peter’s painting of me as Narcissus, and would I be interested in seeing it. My answer had been unequivocal, though it was patently obvious that he was using the painting as bait to lure me.

He was wearing a caftan when he met me at the door. “Take off your shoes and socks, Guy. You won’t need them in here. I live in the Oriental style.”

My first impression upon entering his home was that I had entered a different world. A vague hint of incense (was it musk? sandalwood?) hung in the air, and there were drapes everywhere, with thick cushions on the floor. It was not so much effete (as I had, perhaps, half-expected) so much as scholarly.

On the walls were cases containing beautiful butterflies of all colors and sizes, and alongside them were exotic prints from Japan, India, China, Korea. Books were everywhere—lying open on the tables, neatly stacked side by side on the fully stocked shelves, piled up on the floor like unsteady towers. There must have been tens of thousands of volumes. Some of them looked like rare and expensive editions, bound in morocco or calf hide, as I would have expected to find in the sort of library I always pictured when I read novels about “gentlemen of exquisite taste.” But alongside these were worn and tattered paperbacks which looked as if they’d been picked out of a bargain bin or a garage sale.

I got the impression of a man who loved to study and would have been perfectly content to spend the rest of his life researching various arcana. This place was the ideal scholar’s retreat from the world, a genuine ivory tower. I had the feeling we were high above the world, among the clouds where none of the world’s laws applied; up here we were above it all, free.

The professor went to the kitchen to prepare the coffee while I browsed through the books on the shelves. But as soon as he brought the drinks in on a tray, I was eager to see Narcissus.

“Well? Where is it?” I asked.

“You sure don’t wait for the sand to cool under your heels,” he laughed. “Right this way.” He led me to his bedroom. When he switched on the light, I saw a large, bare room with a king-sized quilt mattress on the floor and a covered canvas at its head, leaning against the wall.

He walked over to it and without any ceremony, yanked off the cloth. “Well, what do you think?”

For a brief moment I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had the illusion that a window had been opened upon another world. In a secluded grove—lush, overgrown, with vividly real trees and bushes—was a clearing through which could be seen a serene pond, pure and deep. And leaning slightly over the water was a beautiful young boy, about eighteen years old, completely nude.

We never see ourselves as others see us, only faint reflections in glass, in photos. Sometimes when we see our photograph we are surprised; it doesn’t look like the face we know in the mirror. And yet other photos verify what we know to be true. That is why there are some pictures we like and others we hate. We only want a confirmation of the picture of ourselves we have in our own minds.

The Narcissus in the painting was the self I sometimes caught in photographs and mirrors, the stranger who bore a faint family resemblance to me. But the more I gazed at him, the more I realized how perfectly Peter had captured me. It was not only a portrait of my body, but of my soul.

I was looking down into the water, and reflected there in the water was my twin. We were gazing into each other’s eyes with amazement and wonder, as if just awakened from a dream. And in our eyes was a look of adoration, wonder, and—without any doubt—sexual desire. As if to underline the desire so obvious in our eyes, we both sported full erections, sleekly ripe, an unhideable confirmation of the physical nature of our longing. I had never gone erect before Peter, but with his imagination, he’d filled out the lack. And he’d gotten it beautifully right.

The sight was so erotic I felt dizzy. What made it so unbearably indecent was that the more I looked at Narcissus, the more he began to look like me, in every way. I, too, had gazed into the mirror exactly like this and fallen in love with my twin.

While I’d posed for Peter in his studio, I’d been stripped not only of my clothes, but of all the secrets I’d kept so well hidden from the rest of the world. Peter had seen through everything, to the very essence of me. Anyone could look at this canvas and see that the young boy leaning in to kiss his reflection was sexually excited. And if the “homo” in homosexual means “same” in Greek, the ultimate sameness was surely oneself. A homosexual like me would have to be a narcissist; I am aroused by the sight of a boy’s nude body, and the one I can most readily view is the one I see in the mirror.

“My God,” I said. “How can he get away with it? Will they exhibit it?”

“Oh,” he said, “this isn’t the one he’s going to exhibit. He’s made another copy in which a faint, gauzy piece of cloth covers their privates.
That
will be the public Narcissus. This is the private one, for his own delectation.”

I thought of the story of Pygmalion which Golden had told me, and could understand Peter’s obsession. I, too, wanted to view this picture at my leisure in private, and to masturbate to it. Did I love myself as much as Peter thought I did? For him, I must have indeed been a Narcissus who was cold and unloving, incapable of loving anyone but myself. Then what of Scott? Perhaps he, too, was nothing more than a reflection in the water, an image of my own self projected onto him. If I were to so much as touch him, he would shiver away and disappear into bits of color and light floating on shimmering ripples.

“It’s so vivid,” I said, “so alive, so real. I feel I could step right into that world and keep on going. All the trees in the background, the mountains…I’ve seen them before, in my dreams, in a Greece where I probably lived in previous incarnations.”

My portrait was more beautiful, more perfect than me. I should have been flattered, but I wasn’t: I was jealous. And what a strange jealousy it was, to know that the painting of me would never change, though I myself would get older, age with the years. But no matter how much time passed, the Narcissus before me would still be as young and beautiful as ever, as I now saw him. Years from now, some boy would fall in love with him, be aroused by him. Even when I was dead and gone, this Narcissus would remain, enticing, seductive, beautiful. Forever.

“You make a wonderful mythical being,” said Golden. I turned to look at him, and his eyes were travelling slowly up and down my body; I felt as if I were being licked by them. I was reminded of his boastful words about playing a boy’s body like a musical instrument. At this moment it didn’t sound quite as ridiculous as it had then.

His eyes came to rest on my groin. He could plainly see that I was sexually aroused by the painting…just as he’d calculated, no doubt. The sight of the painting had left me feeling light-headed and expansive. A trembling started up inside me, but strangely enough, it presaged a recklessness; I felt a boldness creep into me, strengthening my sudden resolve.

“Why make do with a mere painting when you can see the real thing?” I said. Then, with a dream-like calm, I began undoing the buttons of my shirt, took it off, wriggled out of my T-shirt, dropped it to the floor, then pulled down my jeans. The white cotton briefs I was wearing were distended by my erection. Calmly, I slid them down my thighs, stepped out of them and stood before him. He had a stunned look on his face.

“How does the real thing compare to the illusion?” I asked. The audacity of my own words barely startled me.

I dropped down onto the mattress at my feet, stretching lazily out to await the outcome of my move. Though I’d feigned casualness, my heart was hammering madly now and my palms were wet with sweat. When Golden snapped off the light, I was glad of the darkness.

I shut my eyes and heard the rustle of his caftan being pulled over his head, dropped to the floor. The mattress sighed softly as it received his weight, and I trembled, wondering where the first touch would come. But nothing happened. We just lay there with only the sound of our breathing. Then I heard the click of his glasses being set on the floor, followed by the stealthy rustle of the bedspread. I opened my eyes and saw his face next to mine, so close that his breath was faintly redolent of the cigarettes he smoked. His eyes gleamed in the dark.

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” he whispered.

I was too nervous to speak, afraid my voice would be a croak.

I felt his hand on my shoulder, then the prickly brush of his beard against my chin, and finally the soft, delicate pressure of his lips on mine. After my initial surprise, I responded to the kiss. I was particularly excited by the strange juxtaposition of the prickly, scratchy beard with the soft, wonderfully mobile lips. I opened my mouth to let his nudging tongue slip in. It was warm, and tasted of tobacco.

I let my hands explore his body, feeling a flabby softness everywhere and, to my dismay, tufts of hard, bristly hairs surrounding his nipples and covering his shoulder blades. It was quite a change from Christine’s smooth, resilient flesh.

The kiss pulled away from my mouth only to alight on my cheek. From there it moved slowly toward my ear—alive with scratchy bristles, but with an unbelievably silky softness at its center—leaving a wake of tingly goose-bumps. His lips tugged gently at my earlobe, making his breaths sound loud and close. As his tongue probed my ear, the muffled lapping sounded liquid and underwater. Then I felt a light scrape of teeth against the side of my neck, so gentle that it sent warm flushes all down my back.

He pushed my arm up against my head, exposing the wispy bush in my armpit. I giggled as his tongue began rooting around and searching out the salty nectar deposited there. After a pause, he moved away again, and suddenly when a moist softness closed delicately around my nipple, it was as though I’d been galvanized by pure sensation. The nerve endings there tingled rawly from the touch of his tongue.

Naturally, I’d kissed girls’ nipples before, and knew the pleasure it gave, but I had never thought of having it done to me. I arched my back and squirmed to escape the waves of pleasure stirred up by his tongue. I’d never felt this exquisite tickle before; my throat was taut from the effort to keep from crying out; my eyes blurred with tears. His firm hand pressed my shoulder down, pinning me to the mattress as his tongue continued its sweet torture. I finally managed to push his head back with both hands.

I lay gasping, trying to catch my breath, surprised at the intensity of my reaction to this unknown pleasure. When I saw him bend down once again, I tensed up, but he only planted a soft kiss along the inside of my ribcage. Then, in a transition so smooth as to be undetectable, his lips were replaced by the gently brushing tip of his beard—and that, in turn, by the feeblest flicker of eyelashes. The eyelash kiss made its way to my nipple, and so delicate was its caress that this time I could endure it. It felt like the batting of butterfly wings which sent tiny waves of warmth (they could hardly be called pleasure) spreading across my chest. I lay still, absorbing this new delight until it pulled away. After a short moment of rest, his tongue descended again, this time onto my stomach, where it drew tacky arabesques all around my navel before nuzzling into its shallow crater, licking it, kissing it.

I was quite ready for the logical culmination of all this preliminary teasing—and the anticipation was driving me crazy. I felt his beard descend in a tingly dance until it merged and meshed with my own pubic beard. But with the briefest, skirmishing lick at my dick, his mouth moved away again. I felt his tongue line a narrow moistness along the transverse crease of my groin, and this time I couldn’t suppress a soft groan. My powers of resistance were rapidly melting away, and I began to give free vent to my feelings.

His mouth moved back toward my genitals, but again bypassed my dick, working its way down to nestle and suckle among my balls. He knew that the short hairs on my balls were like hair triggers of pure pleasure. He tugged and stroked them with his lips, evoking soft cries from me. Then, with the crook of a finger he gently lifted my balls up out of the way to expose my perineum. I felt his warm breath against it, then a delicate lick. His tongue traced a line along the seam of my perineum, then darted in maddening ellipses along the rim of my butthole, making me writhe in response to its provocative dance. There was a brief moment of suspense before—I gasped—I felt it shoot up inside me. As it began to thrust in and out, I lifted my hips off the bed the better to direct the movements of his tongue to my own satisfaction. His hands cupped me under each buttock.

Cocking one ankle, then the other, behind his back, I closed my eyes and let out a long sigh. But just as I was settling down to an exquisite tongue-fuck, his tongue danced coquettishly away again, denying me this pleasure. I felt myself lowered gently to the mattress as he shifted around.

He bent over my thighs and with his mouth began exploring the sensitive hollow down the inside of my thigh. Because I jerked so much in response, he had to hold my leg down. At each kiss, I tried to twist away from the sweet torture.

I felt I was learning about my own body for the first time, from a teacher who used the most exquisite of pointers. These were things Christine could never do for me, for she didn’t know my body as intimately as Golden did. Being a man himself, he understood it as no woman ever could. My body was his own, and my pleasures were his; he was in familiar territory. With Christine, no matter how intimate we became, my body would always remain alien; our otherness was biological. We were separated by a river which could never be bridged. Only another man could cherish my body like this and tap its treasures so expertly.