The Quirk (30 page)

“Of course,
chéri.
Come in.” He gave a final touch to his hair, and his heart sprang up. If he could lead Rod to uninhibited sexual union, his dream of ideal platonic love might be replaced by the satisfaction of his body’s passion. All the monumental cocks in the world would be no danger then. He would be trespassing on territory he had conceded to Nicole, but he could no longer pretend that he was capable of monkish self-sacrifice. He had been trained as a whore; it was all he had to fall back on. He felt Rod approaching, and it affected him in the way it always did, in the way he wanted it to.

Rod stopped halfway across the kitchen. Patrice was standing in front of the mirror over the sink. His hair was loosely combed in soft androgynous waves. His charming boy-girl back glowed with cleanliness. Clean smells filled the room. As Rod watched, Patrice turned with a sensual shifting of his balance and displayed himself without reluctance or reticence.

Rod wondered why Patrice looked so different before he realized that the robe was gone. He gazed, for the first time in its entirety, at an aroused naked male body. His eyes widened. Was it possible that a boy, all exquisite balance and clean spare line, was more aesthetically satisfying than a girl? Sex had blinded him to the question. Patrice was an entrancing priapic youth from a pagan vase painting. For a moment Rod wanted to be naked too and have him on the kitchen floor. He wanted to make love to him. The realization came so easily that he was scarcely aware that all his feelings had altered. Having grown to love Patrice, he found it quite natural to want his glowing young body.

Their eyes met, and they exchanged secret little smiles as they moved to each other. Neither spoke. The silence became taut with unspoken questions. Rod reached for the slim erection and let his fingers stray over infinitely smooth skin. He felt it swell, and Patrice swayed his hips to encourage the caress. Rod’s eyes registered one of the strange shifts in his mind’s perspective. He was confronted with a shamelessly inviting stranger, a Patrice he could place now in the fragmentary scenes he had sometimes conjured up when his boy referred to his past, lurid sketches whose details he had never wanted to fill in, perverse, obscene, secret. He was the central figure in the unimaginable–wanton and unnervingly desirable but beyond the known range of Rod’s desires. His scalp prickled, and he turned quickly away and bent over the sink. He felt as totally at odds with himself as he had this morning when he had fled from Patrice to the toilet.

What was expected of him now? Events had crowded him, imposing loss after loss, until even his boy seemed to be slipping from him. He had been odd all evening, first withdrawn, then provoking him sexually in a way he never had. Was it possible to make love to a boy in the way he made love to a girl? Patrice seemed to be inviting him, daring him to abandon restraint. Had he gone so far that he could suspend distinctions between male and female? If so, he was only a step away from falling in love with his boy. A shiver ran down his spine. He was torn between flight and surrender. He had pledged himself to discovery. He had drawn no line there. He rinsed his mouth and spat into the sink.

Patrice waited, worshiping the power in the shoulders and hips that were turned to him. His heart was beating rapidly as the conviction grew that he had depressed more of himself than necessary. Rod had reached a “line,” and he had failed to lead himself across it. With nothing left to lose, he was determined to do so now.

Rod dried his hands, and they exchanged a look in the mirror that neither quite dared to interpret. Patrice silently led the way to the bedroom. Rod pulled off clothes as they went. Patrice almost dreaded seeing him without them for fear the afternoon had robbed the worshiped body of the special glory his eyes had always seen in it.

He opened out the sheets and made sure that everything was ready for them. He glanced across at Rod as he moved away from the armoire, and his breath caught as always at his nakedness. His manly beauty could have no equal; nothing could diminish the impact of his virility. They came together in a few quick strides and put their arms around each other and exchanged a kiss that swept many questions away, although they each had different ones. When they drew apart Rod’s eyes held Patrice’s intently.

“It feels like a long time, baby. This morning–something’s changed. I think–maybe I really want you.” Rod seized Patrice and lifted him. They tumbled into bed.

Patrice wriggled away and scrambled to his knees and faced him. “Are we going to make love? I mean really?”

“We’ll soon see.” Rod gathered himself together and butted his head into Patrice’s stomach and toppled him over and took possession of him with a mouth that was no longer fastidiously awkward. He was suddenly discovering passion that he hadn’t known existed in him. Within moments, Patrice escaped with a joyful cry and slid in against him and faced him.

“Something’s changed, all right,” he said against Rod’s mouth. They rolled and pitched about on the bed, vying with each other in sexual audacity. Patrice was a shameless leader, but Rod quickly learned that he could follow. A battle raged within him. His body was learning how to keep Patrice his. In fleeting moments of disengagement, his mind recoiled from what he was doing. How long could it contain his warring spirit? He felt as fragmented as if one of those bombs had finally gotten him.

He drove the boy to a pitch of excitement so intense that he found himself contending with a hard, demanding male. Without breaking the flow of their bodies’ ecstasies, Patrice prepared them for coupling, and Rod entered him in easy domination of the masculinity he had himself uncovered, claiming it, absorbing it into himself, becoming–master? protector? confirmed lover, satisfied and satisfying? Fragments.

They reached a climax together and lay in silence while each tried to define the new balance that had been established between them. Rod had made him his boy again, removed him from wanton scenes of the unimaginable, but he had gone a long way toward accepting the unimaginable for himself. His mind seemed to teeter toward chaos in the face of his body’s adaptability.

Patrice was fighting back tears.

“I can do anything with you now,” Rod admitted at last.

“Let me up, darling,” Patrice said abruptly. He left, recognizing despairingly all that they had missed. There wasn’t a particle of him that Rod hadn’t known and loved and used, and his body’s needs were finally fulfilled. It was there for the future because they were true lovers now, but he couldn’t unlearn the afternoon’s lesson. He would never belong to Rod as he had dreamed of belonging to him–with a complete, unquestioning surrender of himself. He was closer to total happiness than he had known was possible and knew that it was too late for it to mean what he had thought it would mean. They were lovers–nothing more. He had dreamed of much, much more.

He returned and washed his lover proudly and climbed into bed beside him. Rod put an arm around him and held him close. “I guess I better marry you, monkey,” he said.

“I accept.”

“I’m not kidding, really. You’ve become so much a part of my life. I don’t see how it can change. If I ever go back to New York, we’ll fix it so that you can go too. Nicole will have to know about us–not necessarily the gory details but enough so that she can guess there might be something going on if she wants to. As you say, she probably wouldn’t take it seriously.” He thought he might be able to talk it into the shape of a life he could imagine living. Rod lifted himself on an elbow and leaned over him and stroked Patrice’s hair. “I am sort of in love with you, I suppose. It doesn’t sound so peculiar. You know, don’t you?”

“Yes, I know. We’re just finding out. I’m still amazed. I didn’t expect it to go this far.” He felt the magnificent erection beginning to fill out and gather strength against him. He hoped it would subside. He had led Rod far enough.

“Can anybody be in love with two people at once?” “Why not? If one is a girl and one a boy, it must be very different.”

“It is.” He kissed Patrice on the lips and inched closer to him. “No matter how queer you’re making me, I still want Nicole. I don’t expect that to change. Do you?”

“No.” He could probably dispose of Nicole now but only because he had brought Rod down to his level. He didn’t want to keep him there. “You want children for one thing,” he added firmly. “You need a wife. Even when we get married, which I’m planning to do tomorrow, I’m afraid you’ll want a lady wife too. And other boys, I think.”

“Other boys? Why should I want that? You don’t count. You’re a monkey. Other girls, maybe.”

“No. You’ve always wanted to be free of girls, free of anybody you might need too much. Much of you is only for your work. Boys are nice for loving and leaving. Nicole must be very good and very clever to know how to make it right for you. Oh,
mon amour.
I’ve wanted so many foolish things with you. And now we have everything. For tonight.”

“That’s just it. Why tonight? Did it have something to do with what I did this morning?” He was still trying to come to grips with what it meant for him, trying to assemble a more stable self that could encompass it. “Now that it’s happened, it’s hard to understand why it didn’t long ago.”

“It’s odd. If you had been queer–I’ve heard people say gay. Is that better?–if you had been gay and I had–if my life had been different–would we have fallen madly in love and lived happily after? I have doubts. If you had been gay, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you and that would have been that. You’ve been my god. I’ve worshiped you. You know that.”

“Yes, but I’m not sure it’s good for me to be worshiped. It’s better like this. I’d started to wave my cock around as if it were the only one in the world. Only queers do that.”

“Perhaps you are more queer than you know.” The thrust of flesh against him diminished, and he drew a quick breath of relief. He wasn’t ready for his own body to be put to the test again. “You don’t hate the idea, do you?”

“After tonight? Oh, my baby.” He gave Patrice a little hug. “But how do we explain Nicole? Either I’m both ways and have to get used to the idea, or you have to get used to being my quirk. You can’t say I’m not turning into a willing lover, whichever way it is.”

“You’re a divine lover,
mon amour.
Better than–better than any boy I’ve ever known.” He was close to a confession but knew it would only be self-indulgence, a relief for him but for Rod an unpleasant discovery that he had allowed himself to be seduced by a skilled whore’s tricks. He realized that his greatest responsibility now was to keep up the pretense of being worth loving. “We’re both tired. It has been 24 hours to be forgotten, except for the way it’s ended.” He reached for the light ands turned it off.

“You’re the nicest quirk I know,” Rod said, stretching out with a sigh in the comfortable bed. Perhaps everything would make sense in the morning.

It was a little after noon and another magical day. Rod’s eyes lit up, and the little tightening of anxiety in his chest eased as he saw Patrice emerge from the crowd and come swinging into the Flore. They shook hands in the French way, their hands lingering together until Patrice had seated himself. Their knees touched under the table, and they looked at each other and smiled.

“This is OK,” Rod said with an optimistic renewal of his recent high spirits. “If this weather goes on, I’ll want to come out and meet you every day. You want a beer? We have time.” He handed Patrice the note François had left with the
caissière.
“I’ve forgotten where rue Monsieur is.”

“Not far.” Patrice glanced at the note and nodded and handed it back. “Ten minutes. It’s a good address.”

“That’s reassuring. Come on. Don’t look so disapproving, ” Rod said.

“Not disapproving–yet. Worried. You didn’t bring much money with you, did you?”

“It’s too soon for that. I hope it doesn’t turn out to be a total fraud. It’s so wonderful not thinking about Mr. Kappenstein.”

“I understand,
chéri.
Artists shouldn’t have to think about their work for paying the rent or for babies or for anything. In time I’m sure we’ll find you a patron, not like Germaine or Gérard, but a true patron who cares about your painting and nothing else. That’s what we should be looking for, not playing crooked games with François.”

“But just think. If I let him do whatever he does with $1,000 just twice, I’ll have $3,000 and no more worries until fall.”

“Have you told Nicole about François?”

“No. I’m sure she won’t like it any more than you do. Why have I asked you two to marry me? Actually, I have a feeling she doesn’t want to marry nearly as much as you do.” He saw the mischief spring up in Patrice’s eyes, and they burst out laughing. Another beer was put in front of them, and they drank lazily in the sun. “The next time I talk to her, I’ll tell her I’ve moved,” Rod said, having reached that point in his thoughts. “I’ll tell her you’re queer in case she’s heard of you or finds out and thinks I’m trying to keep it a secret, OK? I’ll make a slight point about sleeping on the sofa, not much of a one. She can draw her own conclusions as we go along. Would you mind cooking for us, monkey? I’d like to ask her for dinner.”

“It would be very exciting.”

It wasn’t the word Rod would have chosen. The light of his happiness was fading already, as it seemed to do easily these days. He felt a terrible hollowness in what he’d been saying. The battle he had provoked in himself last night had left him still feeling deeply fragmented. Every effort he made to regain a grip on some inner reality increased the sense of fragmentation. Had he gone too far? Was there a rule about bringing his girl and his boy together that even he couldn’t break? Had something happened within him that he still didn’t know about but which demanded that he make a choice between them? Perhaps money still stood in the way of understanding. If he could stop worrying about money, he’d be able to think straight about things that mattered.