Nightswimmer (18 page)

“I do! ‘Romantic’ doesn’t mean ‘idiotic,’ not to me.”

With your dismal expression, you peered off toward the range of distant mountains that graduated into pastel smudges and finally blended into the horizon.

After a while I said, “I just want you to be open to the idea of having great sex with somebody else.” With me, I could have added, but didn’t have to.

“Will, I never complained about our sex life. Our sex life is fine.”

“But how do you expect me to feel when you say sex ‘will never be the same’ again?”

“I’m not saying it’s written in stone. I’m just saying that, so far, since Randall, since ten years. And yet I knew it would be great with him even before he laid a finger on me.”

“That’s because you’d decided it would be.”

This made you suddenly angry. “My body decided, goddammit!

It was my body. Natural magnetism. I could
smell
the guy, all right?

The smell of him made my fucking toes curl up with desire. I’ve never smelled a body like that since then, black or white or Asian. And I’ve had them all. I’ve tasted a lot of other people.”

“But love has to be there to sustain the attraction.”

“Yes, but at some point the attraction always dies.” I knew this much better than you knew that I knew. And yet I felt something withering inside myself, some climbing hope dying like a parched vine.

“Come on, Will,” you said with displeasure, “wasn’t it great with
him
? You said it was amazing with Chad.”

“But I’ve had great since.”

“Well, then that’s where we’re different.”

“No, here’s how we’re different, Sean—”

But you threw up your hands. “I can’t take discussing this anymore! Will, if we keep on like this we’re going to kill everything good there is between us.”

I glared at you, offended.

“All right, go on, then. Just tell me. I know what you’re going to say, anyway. You’re going to say what other people have said, that I’ve used my thing with Randall as a barrier, or a smoke screen, something—you’ll be sure to give it a metaphor. Because if I can’t have great sex, then it follows I can’t have great love. Therefore there’s no chance that I’ll get burned again like I was burned before.”

Of course, this had been exactly what I was about to say.

You smiled eerily. “Yet there’s this guy I see sometimes. Comes in and out of my life. I don’t even know where he lives. He just calls me up sometimes at 3:00
A.M.
and asks me what I’m doing. He comes over, we get it on like a couple of hungry pigs. And I must say, it’s pretty damn hot. It comes close. Physically. But as a person he leaves me cold.”

I hated hearing about this. I felt queasy. “That’s because it’s like making love to a phantom,” I forced myself to say.

You turned to me with a look of bewildered anger. “Yeah, that’s exactly what it is. And it’s just the way I like it. I told you once before that I was a better friend than a lover. And
you
thought I was being flip.”

“No,” I said. “I just hoped it wasn’t true.”

H
E COMES TO SEE
you one last time before he disappears. Comes at night during the typhoon because he knows your parents are away. Even though the storm is about to be upgraded to Condition 3, your parents decide to travel by helicopter to some important function on the mainland of Japan. Your mother holds an umbrella against the diagonal drapery of rain and walks clumsily in her sequined ball gown and trips as she tries to hold the umbrella and maneuver herself up into the cockpit. You’re alone in your room, drawing a plan for a gazebo at the officers’ club, when you see him in silhouette at the window. He’s pressed up against the pane like a mask, dripping water. And somehow you know, even though he’s never done it before, that he’s going to barge into the house and hurt you. It’s weird when the one most beloved in the world turns violent. When the lover’s embrace becomes a stranglehold.

He confronts you about cheating on him. Tells you he heard about it a few days ago and then he socks you in the chest. You can’t breathe. It’s as if you’re a kid again, falling off a bicycle and getting
t
he wind knocked out of you. You feel all cottony and numb because it’s so outrageous. And yet somehow you’ve expected it, you’ve known the moment would come. And you can’t fight back. You’re crippled because you’re in love with him. And it occurs to you that this is the end, the relationship will never be the same, even if he lets you live. That if anything continues there will be no difference between pleasure and pain, and he will crave violence with you like a drug addict craves a fix.

He beats on you until finally you wrench your arms around him to keep him from punching anymore. You scream that you won’t fight back. You scream until finally he stops and you both lie there on the rug, both crying. Then he makes the move. You can’t believe it, how you just let him do what he wants. And yet, the moment he begins to touch you in the old way, you know that you’re losing him. He never utters the words that he’s leaving, but you sense he will as he clutches you, finally spits on his hand, lubricates himself and forces in. And you watch his face as you’ve watched it in the past. Remembering other times. Remembering how his eyes would always lock hungrily with yours, measuring your pain for his own gratification. Remembering how when it was over, and he slipped out, your whole lower half would burn. But knowing this, knowing how it hurt, he would kiss your neck and your chest until you revived and could stand it again. That was how it was.

But now his thrusts are hollow and without love. Now he doesn’t even consider that he might be rubbing you raw. And when he finally closes his eyes, it’s the loneliest moment of your life.

I
ARRIVED BACK AT
my building to a slew of mail, including what I thought were several Jiffy bags stuffed with review copies of books that were leaning against the wall of the vestibule. One of the parcels for some reason immediately caught my eye. Instead of having a typed label as most of these packages do, it had my name scribbled right on it. There was no return address. Alerted to something odd and offbeat, I tore open one end and reached inside, feeling something soft and scratchy and jerked my hand out. What could this be?

Tilting the package up to the light, I peered in and saw what I first thought were wood flakes, but then noticed that the pieces were too large and looked more like torn newsprint. A gift, perhaps, that needed a lot of buffering? I again reached in to grope around the roughage, but still came up with nothing. Bewildered now, not even thinking about what I was doing, I punched the bag and a clump of its ripped contents dumped out. Slips of ragged-edged paper caught the air and fluttered delicately down to the floor of the vestibule. Something about that cascading cloud of print now reminds me of a magical moment up in Vermont when I’d once been lucky enough to witness the exfoliation of a larch tree.

Then I realized exactly what I was looking at. Fragments of color and cardboard gave it away. My second novel. It was a copy of my second novel, its cloth cover obviously shorn off and the entire 307 pages shredded.

Gripping the package with both hands, I stood there for a moment, reeling. Who had done it? Not hundreds but thousands of torn pages now seemed to be dusting the floor of the vestibule like snow. I slowly bent down and dutifully swept the floor with my hands until I managed to retrieve every last bit of lacerated print and refilled the Jiffy bag. I clutched the pulverized book to my chest as I walked up the single flight to my second-floor apartment, noticing how the book actually seemed to weigh less now that it was in complete tatters.

Just as I was passing through the apartment door, the phone began ringing. Startled, I dropped the package down on my desk and lifted the receiver.

“You’re back.”

Brimming with suspicion, I asked, “Who’s this?”

“It’s Greg, who do you think it is?”

I hadn’t recognized his voice at all.

“You sound strange,” he said. “Are you okay? Is somebody there?”

“No to both questions.”

“Well then, what’s wrong?”

I explained.

“That’s really
sick
!” Greg intoned. “Only a … Jesus Christ, only a certified fucking lunatic would think of doing something like that.”

I pressed my palm against the Jiffy bag, making a dent in the bulging material.

“You there, Will?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” I said, barely audibly.

“Are you freaking out?”

“What do you think? I mean…I just literally got home and found it!”

“Could it be the guy you mentioned, the one who’s angry at Sean Paris?”

“Perhaps that’s preferable to thinking it was somebody who hated my book.”

We both laughed. But then Greg’s saying “At least you haven’t lost your sense of humor” annoyed me.

I couldn’t help saying, “Your name is in there somewhere, you know. Your dedication. Although by now it’s an anagram.”

“You didn’t say it was
my
book!”

“As if that makes a difference … So what’s up with you, Greg?” I really wanted to get off the phone.

“I got home and found Casey but no note. I’m just calling to see how your trip was.”

“It was pretty good. Anything else?”

“I need to talk to you about a few things. But they can wait. I’ll catch you some other time.”

“Like what, like what did you need to talk to me about?”

“Obviously this is not the moment.”

I was too preoccupied to press Greg the way I normally would have. Casey had spent most of the day cooped up in my car, and I was planning on taking him for a long walk later on in the evening.

“What time will you be coming by?” Greg asked.

“I don’t know. Nine or ten. After dinner, certainly. But what difference does it make if you’re not even going to be there?” Greg would be at work.

There was a lull. Finally he said, “Yeah, but depending on how late you get there, somebody else might be.”

My first reaction was jealousy. And then fear that Greg’s new relationship would outlast mine and once that happened I’d feel doubly alone. Why should somebody else—not me—be able to make it work with him?

“Was that what you were waiting to tell me?”

“Kind of.”

“Don’t be coy, okay? So, is this guy actually living at your apartment or what?”

“No! He just meets me there after work.”

Greg had given him a set of keys. That was a big step. I felt oddly betrayed. “Why?
Why
did you do that? Why can’t you meet him at
his
place?”

“It’s … complicated.”

I knew what that meant. “You’ve gotten yourself involved in a triangle?”

“Something like that.”

“Look, I don’t want some strange man lounging around with my dog.”

Greg sounded gratified. “Why? I don’t mind that Sean’s been taking care of Casey. He even drove up to Vermont with him.”

“At your insistence.”

“Well, I’m not the one who has a problem with other men.”

“Look, what if this guy’s lover gets jealous and suspects something and follows him to your place? Then Casey would be vulnerable.”

“Spare me the gothics, would you?” There was an irritating silence and then Greg sighed. “Anyway, you’d probably know if his lover, or I should say ex-lover, is capable of something like that.”

“I thought so,” I said in a huff. “You’re being so weird about this—I figured I had to know the people involved. So who are they?”

When Greg hesitated I began churning. “Not one of my exes?” I said.

“There’re so many exes that the odds are actually in favor of it.”

“Greg!”

“No, he’s not one of your exes.”

“Then who?”

After a moment, he said, “Sebastian Seporia.”

“Very funny, Greg.”

“It’s no joke.”

I was livid. “What? Come on! Get real—Sebastian Seporia. What’s with you? You know he’s still involved … with Peter!”

“Not anymore.”

“Oh, Christ, they break up every six minutes. But those two are bonded in blood.”

“Well, the bond certainly didn’t hold
you
back.”

I reminded Greg that when I met him Peter minimized his other relationship. “I never even knew the extent of it until after I’d slept with him a dozen times.”

“A dozen times in
two days.
”

“Greg, I can’t believe this! After all I’ve told you about Peter and Sebastian, how could you let yourself get involved with them?”

“Like
you
didn’t. Like
you
wouldn’t in my position!”

“If I’d known, I wouldn’t have. I’d try to steer clear of creating complications.”

“Why is it ‘creating complications’? You’re not seeing Peter anymore.”

“What’s this about anyway, Greg?” I was furious. “Is it about me? Are you trying to get back at me for some reason?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. Sometimes it’s nice to get one’s rocks off.”

“You get plenty of other opportunities to do that. You don’t have to choose such an incestuous situation. Don’t you understand that Sebastian knows that as soon as Peter finds out he’s going to—”

“Who says Peter is going to find out?”

“I got news for you, Greg. You might be quite familiar with the way that Maltese boy uses his cock, but believe me, you don’t know jack shit what he’s capable of. How did this mess start, anyway?”

“We met at the dog run.”

“
He
has a dog?”

“No, he started petting Casey.”

Of course. It now made perfect sense. Sebastian could figure out who Greg was because he knew who Casey was—he’d seen me there with the dog. Just then I glanced at my answering machine. “Greg, I’ve got fifteen messages. What do you want to bet that half of them are from Peter Rocca?”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

The Jiffy bag full of my shredded novel lay on my desk. This, I reminded myself, was what had happened to me as a direct result of having taken on another life, another lover, someone other than Greg. I wasn’t with Greg anymore, so it shouldn’t matter so much what he did. So said my voice of reason.