The Man I Love (10 page)

“Qu’est-ce qui se passe?” Daisy whispered later. Her naked body curled up against his side, head on his chest. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.” His body was relaxed but his mind was tangled in knots. He turned the snarl over and over, unable to find an end to draw out.

“You keep looking out the window to your place. Is his car still there?” Her tone was teasing and Erik put the pillow over his face. She peeked under it. “You think they’re hooking up?”

“I don’t want to know.”

“But you can’t stop thinking about it.”

Erik took the pillow and bopped her lightly on the head. “Stop knowing me.”

She laughed. “I’m sort of fascinated with it myself. Am I a voyeur?”

“Go over and voyeur away. Feel free.”

“I kind of want to,” she said absently.

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“Two men having sex?”

“I mean, Lucky’s your best friend.”

Daisy pushed up on her elbow, her fingers in Erik’s chest hair. “She is. And in a manner of speaking, so is Will.”

“So what if Will is hooking up with James? Is it cheating?”

Her chin rose and fell. “In the strictest sense, I guess it is, yes.”

“Would you tell her?”

“I don’t know. Right now I have nothing to tell. And you don’t either.” Her hand caressed his face, her thumb moving along his eyebrows and trying to smooth the wrinkle of worry between them. “But I can tell it’s bothering you.”

“No, it’s not,” Erik said. And then, because he was bothered, and because ultimately he laid all his troubles at her feet, he sighed against her hand and said, “Yeah, it is.”

“It’s not like there’s never been speculation about Will being bisexual. David would put money on it.”

“But it’s old speculation. Since he’s been with Lucky, does anyone even say that anymore?”

“Not really, no. It’s a dated joke.”

“Well, it’s one thing to joke about it and another thing to see it happening.” He looked up at her. “And I don’t know why I care. I don’t know why it bothers me so much. Easy to say it’s because he’s cheating on Lucky. But that’s not it. Not entirely. I don’t know…”

She was quiet a moment, stroking his head. “He’s your friend,” she said.

“David’s my friend and I couldn’t care less who he sleeps with.”

“No, I mean Will is your closest friend. You don’t have a lot of close male friends, Erik. You cultivate those relationships carefully. Even cautiously.”

“Something, something. Psychology. Fathers?” he said, smiling.

“Paging Dr. Freud. Whatever the reason, it’s still true. You’ve grown this friendship with Will over the years. You’ve put time into it. You’re emotionally invested in it. You’re close with him. It’s not sexual but you’re tight. And along comes James and he’s able to dial into Will not only artistically but perhaps physically.”

“I can’t compete on that field.”

“Please, Will would go to bed with you in a heartbeat.”

“Stop,” he said, groaning. “I have enough bad visuals going on right now.”

“You’re not threatened by it,” she said, toying with his necklace. “I know you’re not.”

“No, just revolted.” He hated admitting it, but homosexuality still repelled him at some primal level. At the same time he was keenly aware of something which tasted a lot like…

“But I feel jealous,” he said, with a weak laugh. “It’s fucked up.”

“Come on,” Daisy said, “it sucks when you feel pushed out of a friendship. Sucks for anyone. But this won’t last long. Will’s having a fling. It’s nobody’s business but his and Lucky’s. And when she comes back—” Daisy raised up her hand and let it hang there. “I think a lot of things will go back to normal.”

Erik took her hand between his. “I don’t dislike the guy. He’s all right when he stops trying so hard and just chills.”

“He’s unpredictable,” she said. “And he’s making Will unpredictable. You don’t like that.”

“I don’t like that I don’t like it,” he said.

“Well, you only like when people act the way you expect them to.” She moved fully up and onto his body, her legs between his. With her forearms crossed on his chest and her chin on top, she was unbearably beautiful. Sometimes she looked at him a certain way and his heart reset itself, closed up coyly just for the pleasure of opening to her again.

“Stop knowing me,” he said, running his hand along her cheek and into her hair.

She smiled. In the glow of the Christmas tree lights, her eyes were like a Caribbean sea. They stared into his for a long time.

He sighed. “Fine, I’ll go back and get another condom.”

“One?”

“Lots.”

She moved off him. “What a nice boy you are.”

He stepped into his jeans and pulled sneakers onto his bare feet. Zipping his jacket over his bare chest he leaned and kissed her. “Don’t go away.”

“Nowhere I’d rather be.”

It was clear and cold outside. A bright full moon hung straight overhead, washing the backyards in silver. Erik let himself into his kitchen. The living room was dark except for one small table lamp. The couch was empty, but James’s jacket was still slung over the back. Two textbooks were on the coffee table.

A pair of jeans was on the floor.

Erik looked at them, open-mouthed. Then he looked away and exhaled abruptly.

Well, there you have it, folks,
he thought.

Like Hansel and Gretel he followed the trail upstairs: a sneaker on one step, its mate further up. Another pair of jeans on the landing. A sweater flung against the baseboard moldings. “Outstanding,” he whispered. He imagined this would be funny someday.

It might even be a little funny right now.

Behind him the bathroom door opened, then quickly closed again.
Fucking hilarious,
Erik thought. Shaking his head, he went into his room. He clicked on the bedside lamp and opened his side table drawer.

Empty.

“Not funny,” he said.

He turned off the lamp and went to stand in his doorway, leaning on the jamb, arms crossed. The bathroom door opened again. Will came out, a towel around his waist. He smiled. As if they had run into each other on the street.

“What’s up, asshole?”

“You cleaned out my rubbers, dude. That ain’t cool.”

“No,” Will said, inclining his head. “It ain’t.”

“I had nine in there. I believe. Were you planning to use all of them?”

“Just a minute.” Will walked down the hall, noiseless on his cushioned feet. His confidence was absolute. Not a shred of digested canary on this cool cat. After a moment he slipped back out his door and returned two of the three-packs.

“Thank you,” Erik said. He looked at Will. His friend gazed back, half-naked, poised and self-aware. Apologetic about the pilfered property but nothing else. “Goodnight, Will.”

“Be safe, Fish.”

Erik waved the hand holding the condoms.

His manner stayed calm as he walked back to Daisy’s. He waited to be upset. He should be upset. He, who didn’t mind homosexuality as long as it wasn’t in his face. Will and James were not only in his face but in his bedside table drawer. He should be disgusted. Appalled and confused. Betrayed. Or at least a little sad.

He felt weirdly fine.

“I worried you got locked out,” Daisy said, moving the covers aside.

“No.” He shed his clothes and got in with her. “Those two bitches stole all my Trojans. I had to shake them down.”

“What?”

“I wouldn’t mind so much but I buy the expensive kind. Ribbed for her pleasure. Are they ribbed for his pleasure, too, I wonder? How does that work?”

“Stop. You are joking.”

“You know, I think Will is physically incapable of blushing. He didn’t even break a sweat. He barely blinked, for fuck’s sake.”

“Are you serious?”

“Hand to God. A trail of clothes. My top drawer burgled. Will in a towel.”

“Quel queutard,” Daisy said, eyes wide, a half-smile around her incredulous mouth.

“Is that French for slut?”

“I don’t believe it.”

“I do. I had an epiphany walking back over here. Want to hear it?”

She nodded, still open-mouthed.

“James isn’t changing Will or making him act differently. James is just making Will act more like himself.”

Daisy looked at him a long moment. “And you’re all right with it?”

“I wasn’t all right when I didn’t know what was going on. Now I know something is unquestionably going on and I’m strangely all right with it. Furthermore, what I am with it doesn’t matter. Epiphany, part two.”

“So if he has sex with another guy it doesn’t count?”

“It counts. Sex is sex. It’s a betrayal on some level. Lucky trusts him to act a certain way when she’s not there.”

“But we don’t know which way it is. Maybe Lucky already knows what Will is about. Maybe they have an agreement while she’s away. Maybe they have an understanding even when she’s around.”

“Maybe.” He ran his finger over her forehead and down the bridge of her nose. She lay on her back, arms over her head and her temple tucked by an elbow. The light pooled under her high cheekbones and in the hollows of her collarbones. Moving the covers, Erik ran his hand down the length of her body. He knew how her breast curved to meet his palm. He knew where she was soft, where she was tight and where her bones pressed close to her skin. He knew this body. This woman. This love. His hand moved up, over her heart, feeling the beat of her life under his touch.

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head. “And everything.”

She moved up on her own elbow, mirroring him. Her teeth curled gently on his bottom lip as she slid her hand between their stomachs, closing him up in her fingers. Opening them. Closing them. Sliding. Stroking. Making him hard. He licked his thumb and ran it around her breast, her nipple rising up to meet his touch. Her scent through his nose, her tongue sweet. Desire rich in the back of his throat. She reached past him for one of the condoms and tore it open. He watched her roll it on him as she had done… How many times now? A thousand? Two thousand? Another month and they wouldn’t need them.

“Qu’est-ce qui se passe?” Her eyes found his and held still.

“I don’t want to sleep with anyone but you.” His finger traced her jaw as a strange vulnerability gripped him. “And I don’t want you to sleep with anyone but me,” he said.

She slid her hand along his, holding it against her face. “I only want you. No one could hold me in the dark the way you do.”

Then her hand glided over the top of his head, curved around the back of his neck and she pulled him to her. Her kiss opened all the way for him and he toppled, rolling onto and into her body.

Fingers in his hair, she ran her mouth up his neck. The secret skin behind her knee, like silk, as she hooked her calf in the small of his back and dragged him further down into her heat. “How many did they leave you?”

“Six,” he whispered.

“Oh,” she said, touching his mouth, then licking it. “It’ll be an early night then…”

When mid-semester grades came out, James’s GPA fell below the cutoff at 1.94. He had the opportunity to appeal but officially he was out of the fall concert. To make matters more complicated, his understudy was injured, which meant Marie now had to scramble her casting and find someone to partner Daisy in
No Blue Thing.

Daisy was ten scrambles ahead. No stupid girls were in ballet and she was not about to get saddled with a third-string cavalier. As she soaked in the claw foot tub, her eyes were hard and far away. Shaving at the sink, Erik looked at her through the mirror. He noticed when she was in her personal war room, all the green seemed to leach out of her irises, leaving them a flat, steely blue. The eyes told the truth. In any other situation, she might have more compassion. But when it came to dance, Daisy had no use for people who didn’t pull their weight. She had thrown all useless mouths overboard and was intent on sole survival.

“Two weeks until the concert,” she said. “This is going to be tight.”

Erik rinsed lather off the blade. “I take it Will can’t sub for James.”

“No. He needs to focus on
Powaqqatsi.”

“Did you talk to Marie yet?” he said, looking a little cross-eyed in the mirror, upper lip pulled taut over his teeth.

“Not yet, I’m too upset. I don’t want to go in screaming and crying like a diva. It’ll only make her more nervous and she’ll pair me up with… I can’t even think who she’d pick. I need to bring her a solution, not a problem.” Daisy drummed her fingernails on the rim of the tub. “I think I’m going to teach John Quillis the part. On my own.”

“Who’s he?”

“He’s a sophomore. I’ve had him in partnering class a few times and he’s decent. And smart. He’s like James—he picks up choreography fast and retains it.” She looked up at Erik then. A bit of green was back in her eyes, and her smile was mischievous. “And he’s just slightly crushy on me, so I think he’ll take direction well. You know?”

“I know nothing about being crushy on you or taking direction,” Erik said, toweling off his face. Looking up in the mirror he saw Daisy smiling at him. “What?” he said to her reflection.

“I love this,” she said. “I miss Lucky but I love having you here all the time. And it’s not just sleeping together every night. It’s little moments in the bathroom and the kitchen. Being a couple. And being able to talk to you about anything. I love it.”

This is my life,
Erik thought, gazing back at her.

Will and James were still carrying on, or whatever you wanted to call it. Erik had chosen the path of least resistance and simply removed his face from the affair. Now most of his clothes were in Daisy’s drawers and closet. His toothbrush was next to hers on the sink. They were together all the time. Not just making love at every opportunity but making a life. Entrenched in each other’s daily business: food shopping, clothes folding, dish washing, cracking the bathroom door and handing a roll of toilet paper in.

Last night in bed, she had given him his birthday present. It was a new charm to hang on his necklace: a tiny pair of gold scissors.

“Sax,” he said, remembering the Swedish word. “This is awesome.”

“Yeah?” She was chewing on her bottom lip, looking uncertain. “I wasn’t sure.”

“Why?” He put the scissors into her hand so he could unclasp the chain behind his neck.

“Because your necklace is such an heirloom. Your history. I felt kind of funny adding to it.”

“Why?” he said again, carefully threading the jump ring of the charm onto the chain.

“I’m not part of your history.”

He looked at her as he fastened the necklace again. “Aren’t you?”

She stared back.

He slid down to his elbow, hovering over her, holding her gaze in his. “You are,” he whispered.

She was his history. And his future. Looking at her now in the bathtub, he toyed with the notion they would have a place together someday. They would be home. Together in ordinary time.

* * *

Over the weekend, Daisy taught John Quillis James’s role in
No Blue Thing.
Will helped, generous with tips and tricks, skillfully coaching and guiding John to a higher plane of confidence. If they couldn’t find an empty studio, they practiced in the basement of John’s dorm. As Daisy had observed, he was quick and smart. And slightly smitten. Within four days, he was partnering with a solid competence which Daisy felt would only get stronger. She took her fait accompli to Marie, and John got the green light to dance.

In the meantime, James appealed to the dean and somehow he wangled a reprieve. He had to pass a couple of makeup exams and clock a certain amount of hours at the academic resource center, but he was back in the concert. And behaving himself. Marie made it clear John Quillis was more than ready to understudy if James blew it again. To press the point, she gave John the Sunday matinee performance.

“I gotta say I’m impressed with the kid,” Will said. “Keep practicing with him and you’ll have yourself a nice prince next year.” He ruffled the top of Daisy’s head and then his hand grew still. He looked down at her and his eyes misted.

“Oh no,” Daisy said, knocking his hand away. “Absolutely not, William, don’t you dare start bawling.”

“Just a little bawl?”

“No. I am too tired.”

She was exhausted. It came as no surprise to Erik when she said she wanted to go home for a weekend before technical rehearsals started.

“I need my mother,” she said, putting clothes and a toothbrush in a bag.

“Go get coddled. Sleep all day. Everything’s going to be all right.” He kissed her goodbye and watched her drive down Jay Street. No sooner had the car turned the corner when a cloud seemed to pass in front of the sun and the world was a slightly less pleasant place to be.

Erik walked through the backyards into his kitchen. Will was sitting at the small table, a mug between his hands and a cigarette burning in the ashtray.

“Water’s hot,” he said.

Erik made himself tea. He leaned back against the sink, blowing across the surface and watching Will stare out the window. This was not Will’s usual meditative staring, but a morose and troubled reflection.

“Qu’est-ce qui se passe?” Erik said.

Will glanced over. “Dig you with the French.”

“Two years hanging with you and Dais, I finally have some game. I can ask what’s up or for a blow job.”

“Just be careful whom you’re asking for what.”

Erik shrugged. “You’ll suck my cock eventually. I’m just playing hard to get.”

Will gave a chuckle and lowered his forehead into the heel of his hand, the smoke from the butt held in his fingers making a wreath around his head. Feeling he should stay present while still giving Will space, Erik hitched up and sat on the counter.

“Dude,” Will said. “I’ve gotten myself into a hell of a mess.”

“You know, I never asked you flat out about your persuasions.”

“It’s one of the things I love about you, Fish,” Will said. “You’re not oblivious to shit but you mind your business.”

“Do you need my help here? Or do you want me to sit, look cute and keep minding my business?”

“I don’t know what I need, Fish.” Will flicked his ashes and ran a hand through his hair. “Actually I do know. I need Lucky.”

“You miss her?”

“Like fucking crazy. I never set any boundaries on sex but when it came to my time and emotions and a long-term relationship, I always knew it would be a woman. And it’s Lucky.  She’s the whole deal. You know?”

“What about James?” Erik asked, lifting the tea bags out of his mug and leaning to drop them in the garbage.

Will didn’t answer for a long time. Emotions flickered in and out of his face as he smoked and thought. “I did it for fun,” he finally said. “I was curious and acting on impulse and it was…convenient. Makes me sound like an asshole but it’s the truth. Judge away.”

“I’m not judging you,” Erik said. “You’re the closest friend I have. And in a weird way, it took Lucky going and James coming to make me see it.”

Will smiled. “Your friendship is one of my havens, Fish.”

“You don’t seem the type to need a haven. You’re the most self-actualized person I know.”

“Am I? I guess I am.” He took a long drag and stubbed out his cigarette. “James is a good guy. In the beginning I dug him on a whole lot of levels. As a collaborator, he’s been key this semester. But damn, he’s a needy fuck.”

“He’s damaged.”

“I don’t do baggage. Everyone has a backpack or a carry-on bag, but James has steamer trunks. I told him from the beginning we had an expiration date. It’s temporary. And he acted fine but I can see now it’s not. I should’ve seen it before but I was in ‘fuck everything’ mode.” Will sighed, putting his forehead into his hand again. “And I think I’m going to have a really big problem on my hands when Lucky comes back, Fish.”

“Will you tell her?”

“We’ve always been honest with each other. Sometimes brutally, but it’s how we work. We didn’t make a vow of fidelity when she left this semester. I probably will tell her, yes. I think I’ll have to because James seems the type to use psychological warfare.”

“You mean he’ll threaten to tell her.”

“Absolutely. And I can put the kibosh on that kind of shit right away.”

“Well,” Erik said, sliding off the counter. “If there’s anything I can do.”

“I own this and I’ll handle it. But accept my apology in advance in case it gets kind of tense next semester.”

“Done.”

“And for the love of God, Fish, if you’re going to swing, do it outside your degree program.”

Erik set his cup in the sink. “Good to know.”

He walked out of the kitchen, but turned back after a few steps. “Listen, maybe this goes without saying but...” He shrugged off self-consciousness. “A lot of times the only things between Daisy and a ten-foot drop to the floor are your hands. And I trust your hands. I trust you. Implicitly. You always got her back. Which means you got mine.”

Will nodded, solemn as a soldier receiving orders. “I won’t drop either of you.”

Erik threw his arms wide. “And dude, I just listened to your boyfriend troubles. How hip was that?”

“You’ll be giving me fashion advice next,” Will muttered, tapping another cigarette from the pack.

“Just out of curiosity, this…” Erik gestured to himself. “Doesn’t do anything for you?”

Will made to get up out of his chair and Erik sprang backwards two feet, laughing. “No, no. Sit. Never mind. Nothing to see here.”

“One,” Will said, holding up a finger, “don’t start what you can’t finish. Two, walk away now so I can look at your ass.”

Erik ran away.

“Even better,” Will yelled after him. “When you run it gets all high and tight. Like a girl’s.”