Some Men Are Lookers: A Continuation of the "Buddies" Cycle (46 page)

“I’m
not
going up there!”

The two of them standing in my bedroom, their hard-ons just starting to die down. Sex in your house. We can see out; we can’t see
in
.

“Boy,” said Carlo, “you are going where you have to go. Or how else will we ever know?”

“He won’t even shake my hand!”

“I’ll be with you.”

“He’ll just—”

Carlo grabbed J. and held him so tight I thought the boy would cry out. But he whispered, “More. More.”

“Another damnhell freak like the rest of us,” Carlo muttered, turning on a lamp. “That’s what we got now.”

He was poking in the closet.

“It’s just suits in there,” I said.

“Well, where’s the sex clothes?”

“In the dresser.”

“Sex
clothes?” Cosgrove echoed.

“Shh,” I told him.

Carlo sought, and found, some things to satisfy his sense of occasion. He threw them at J.

“Get dressed, street boy.”

“They’re going upstairs,” Cosgrove lamented to Fleabiscuit.

Fleabiscuit whined. He doesn’t like it there, either.

Carlo helped J. dress: in a tight black T, reading “Fire Island Pines” in a circle on the left breast, and baggy white shorts. He smoothed down J.’s hair. Then he struggled into a pair of old jeans and, for some reason, put on my Blue Max medallion.

“This is me,” Carlo said, facing us all.

Then he extended his hand to J., who took it, quiet now. I tried to see Little Kiwi there, but J. has made himself over too well.

“This could take a while of talking, I truly believe,” Carlo told me, “so give me some keys.”

I got into the drawer and tossed him the spare set.

“I’ll be back,” he shot out, imitating Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“You hero,” I told him.

Carlo took J. in his arms. “You’re all wet and warm from that, and that’s just right. Did I hurt you?”

“Everyone’s been hurting me for years now. I didn’t say anything till recently.”

“Come on.”

With a hand on the back of J.’s neck, Carlo gently propelled him out of the apartment.

Fleabiscuit looked at Cosgrove, and Cosgrove looked at me. “Now what?” he said.

“You mean,” I said, “who’s going to squire you to
Monstlies II?”

“I don’t mean that. I mean, will Dennis Savage take James Fenimore back and save the family?”

He was settling under the covers. I turned the lamp out. Fleabiscuit stretched and smoothed out a place for himself.

“Will he?”

In the darkness, I saw Fleabiscuit lift his head and regard me quizzically, because this is a key question.

I made no remark, because, for the first time in this series, I haven’t the vaguest idea what happens next.