Gossip (15 page)

I would’ve snorted and shaken my head if I’d read that in Trollope. But Trollope died over a hundred years ago, and I hadn’t swallowed gallons of his spit. This was Bill talking. These were his words, his thoughts, the real man behind the kisses.

I was wading through a chapter on Hillary’s friend, Lani Guinier, “the Quota Queen,” when keys jingled outside the door. I quickly stuffed the book between the mattress and box springs.

“Hey hey!” Bill crowed as he came in. “It’s over! It’s finished! I’m free!” He waltzed around the bed and tossed his briefcase in a chair. He had an exuberant, goofy grin.

“How did it go?”

“I was a hit!” he cried. He leaped on the bed, laughing and bouncing on all fours—I was afraid he’d dislodge the book. “People there knew who I was! Who’ve been reading me all along! They kept saying how amazed they were I was so young. That I sounded wiser than my years.”

“Sorry I missed it.”

“I shouldn’t have told you not to come. I was afraid of making an ass of myself in front of you. But they loved me! There were even people who think my book might make me famous.”

I tried to smile. “What do they like about it?”

“That I told the truth. That I didn’t pull punches. That I said the very things they’d suspected all along.”

Seeing him crouched at my feet in his coat and dangling tie, I could feel nothing for Bill except cold courtesy. I had an inexplicable fear of being angry with him.

He rolled off the bed and pulled at his tie. “Care to join me in the Jacuzzi? Then we can go out and celebrate.”

“Sure.” I remained seated against the headboard, watching him remove his suit, wanting to think his suit had written the book and he might become likable again once he was out of it.

“I am so glad it’s over. And I was good. You were right, Ralph. They were on my side. Did you have a good day? You don’t look like you got much sun.”

“Got out a little. It was too bright to read on the beach.”

He returned in underwear and glasses and sat on the bed. He was already diagonal in his briefs. “Aren’t you going to undress?” He gave my kneecap a squeeze.

“In a minute.”

There was a worried pinch to his eyes as he stretched out beside me. I assumed it was my coolness that worried him, until he said, “Oh. There’s been a change of plans for tomorrow. We’re invited to go sailing by a friend of mine. With a senator. My friend wants to talk to this senator and needs me as his crew. And chaperon,” he added with a laugh. “This senator’s afraid people will think they’re up to no good if they’re out there alone. New man. Skittish. I told my friend I had a pal down visiting, but he said, ‘Bring him along, bring him along. The more the merrier.’ I’m sorry. Do you mind?”

“Not at all. Sounds interesting. Sailing.”

“It means we won’t be able to spend the day alone.” He was surprised that I gave in so easily.

“No problem. We have tonight.” Even that seemed too long to be alone with someone who could write such rot. “You think I’m butch enough to pass for straight?”

He frowned. “Don’t be silly. We just have to be discreet.”

“Does your friend know about me?”

Bill shrugged. “He knows about me. He’ll figure it out.”

That caught me off guard. “Who is this guy?”

“Jeb Weiss. A lobbyist and consultant. He’s done me a thousand favors. Which is why I couldn’t tell him no.”

“He’s the man you met at the Plaza, right?”

“That’s right.” He was pleased I remembered. “He arranged this weekend for me, so the least I could do was say yes. But you really don’t mind?” His bare toes plucked at my sock.

“Not at all.” I did not respond to his signal that he wanted to play.

“I’m sorry about last night.” He finally picked up on my distance, but attributed it to the sex.

“Last night was fine.”

“I wanted to enjoy being with you. I tried. I really did.”

“You seemed to enjoy it,” I reminded him.

“My body did. But the rest of me was elsewhere.”

“Your body was enough.” I slid my hand into the fly of his briefs. His erection did nothing for me. I popped it out. Just a dick, a turkey neck with a flared cap too small for its shaft.

He lay there watching. “Miss me?” he asked.

I closed my eyes and kissed his mouth, accepting the challenge of making love without affection or even lust. I was afraid I wouldn’t get hard, but my cock responded when he shinnied my pants off. We went into our nude routines and I was the erratic, unpredictable one, straining to connect.

“Should you—be doing that?” he sighed, after my tongue had been in the seam and buttonhole under his balls long enough for him to discover how good it could feel.

“No.” I pressed his legs back and probed deeper in the gamy sweat.

“Oh my,” he moaned. “Only—I could never do it to you.”

“No? No?” I let his legs drop. “You wanna bet?” I scrambled up and squatted on his face, daring him to taste me.

He pushed me up, pleading, “You’re suffocating me.”

I furiously kissed his mouth, forcing him to taste a tongue that had been in his ass. “Still want me to fuck you?”

“That’s okay.”

“You wanted to last night. I got condoms while I was out.”

“I was feeling strange last night. I’ve never been—no, Ralph. I’m enjoying you too much to spoil it.”

He couldn’t sense the anger in my moves?

“I can’t believe you’ve never been fucked. You’ve got such an all-feeling asshole.”

“Don’t talk like that. Talk nicely.”

“All right. You have a sensuous anus. I want to get in it.”

He looked in my eyes. “Okay,” he said. “I should. With you.”

I got out of bed, broke open the condoms and uncapped the tube. The daylight made this more deliberate and dirty.

He lay on his stomach while I prepared him, “Ooh, cold,” he giggled nervously. “Like I’m at the doctor.”

I was nervous too, afraid a fuck would end the last bond I had with him. The latex turned my cock into an albino mugger.

His butt was raised by a pillow, his palms on the sheet.

“Go ahead. Hmm? Okay. Gently. Ow. Ow!
No!
Stop! Pull out, pull out! I can’t—”

But I continued in, using my knees and one hand to keep him pinned, refusing to listen to his pleas. Until I was in him up to my balls and he was breathless with pain.

“Relax,” I commanded. “Don’t fight it.” I was buried in tightness. And buried beneath us was the book that had hit me with the truth about Bill and how any love I’d had for him was built on self-deception.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to inhale more space into his ass.

“Like it?” I said.

“No, it aches. Can’t we do something else?”

“I want to come like this.”

“Then just do it! Quickly.”

I snuggled in. “Oh yeah, baby. You feel so good.” I hated it when people talked to me like that during sex. “If only your Christians could see you now,” I purred. “Mr. William O’Connor.”

He didn’t seem to hear. His face was clenched tight.

His lack of response fed my anger. I dug my hands in his hair. I spread his legs with my knees. I burrowed, rocked and stabbed. But when I let go, all fury and coldness vanished with the familiar, intimate beautiful jolts.

Before the last twitch, I was kissing his neck and face, whispering, “Sorry, sorry. Are you all right? Did I hurt you?” Because now that desire was satisfied, I was frightened by how badly I’d wanted to hurt him.

“I’m okay,” he said. “Okay.” He wiggled and found we were still joined. “You scared me. When you wouldn’t listen. But after that—I trust you. I don’t enjoy it. But I didn’t have to.”

Of course I hadn’t hurt him, but I remained guilty, and guilt made me tender.

I eased out and flushed the white spleen in the bathroom. We resumed and it was solely Bill this time. He required attention to get worked up again, but I could be generous, knowing that tonight would be our last night. I silently declared us over. After I returned to New York and finished his book and became myself once more, I knew I’d never want to see him again.

W
E CHECKED OUT WHEN
we left to go sailing the next morning. Our flight wasn’t until six, but we didn’t know how long we’d be on the water. Bill’s book was buried safely inside my bag.

“And your friend Weiss knows you’re gay?” I repeated on the ride over.

“That’s right.”

“Is he gay?”

“God no. Happily straight. A family man with three girls.”

“He a Christian?”

“Nope. A real Texas Jewboy. As he likes to put it.”

“But he has no problem with you being queer?”

“He considers it a totally private matter, no worse than alcoholism.”

“How very liberal of him.”

“Uh, Ralph. Promise me you won’t be a professional homosexual today. Okay?”

“Sure. I’ll be like you. An amateur.”

He laughed as if it were a harmless jest—yesterday’s triumph had made him invulnerable—yet there was no real bitterness in my quips. Knowing we were finished, I felt very loose and careless with Bill this morning, and able to suppress all bad feeling for the sake of a close-up look at some Republican movers. Bill was sharing a lovely farewell gift with me.

We parked by a small marina on the Biscayne Bay side of the island, where a grove of masts gently rocked and rang their halyards like wind chimes. Miami fretted the horizon across the water. We found the boat at the end of the dock, a white twenty-five-foot sloop with “Born Free II” on the stern. The skipper, a leathery blond with an old face, an athletic body and a ponytail, stood on top of the cabin, unwrapping the boom while listening to a stout man in a gray suit on deck. It was the same stout man in the same gray suit whom I’d seen with Bill at the conference.

“Billy! Good morning!” the stout man called out. “Come aboard. Come aboard.” His golden voice had a tinge of Texas. “This is Sam, the owner of this fine craft. You’re Ralph,” he told me. “The chum who Billy flew down for the weekend. Jeb Weiss,” he announced when we shook hands. “Sorry if I spoiled you all’s plans, but we’ll have fun. Sun and water. Sun and water.”

I wondered what else he knew besides my name and sexuality, but there was nothing else to know, was there?

Bill beamed, proudly showing me off like a trophy. He was instantly familiar with Weiss. “This your yachting outfit, Jeb?”

Weiss chuckled. “Forgot to bring my play clothes. Consider yourselves lucky. You wouldn’t want to see my knobby knees.”

His double-breasted suit and Windsor-knotted rep tie added to his comic look. Short and heavy, with a high forehead and salt-and-pepper chin beard, he suggested a love child of Napoleon and Burl Ives. His feet were surprisingly dainty, the ankles in thin blue socks like silk stockings.

“I think we’re set. We’ve laid in plenty of Dr Pepper, which I hear is Mike’s beverage of choice. I’ve asked Sam to stick to the bay. We don’t want our guest getting seasick. All we need is our guest. And unless I’m mistaken, that’s him yonder. Ahoy!” he shouted.

A tall man in a yellow windbreaker came out of the parking lot: the squared face and broad shoulders of Senator Mike Griffith. Won’t Nancy be surprised, I thought, if I ever tell her about this weekend. He was accompanied by what looked like a teenage son.

“Will you look at who he’s brought,” said Weiss. “Our old friend Ren Whitaker. Mike’s cagier than I thought.”

In a rugby shirt and festive shorts, without his suit or podium, Whitaker looked more boyish than ever. He came down the dock with a preppy strut and Ultra Brite grin. The Senator had the bland geniality of a man doing a chore, but Whitaker was slyly tickled to be here.

“Oh God,” groaned Bill. “We’re stuck on a boat with
him?”

“Relax, Billy. Ren can be perfectly pleasant when there’s no other born-agains around. Having him along might make it easier to show Griffith who we are. Wouldn’t hurt for us to spend time with Ren either. Mike!” he sang out. “Come aboard, come aboard. So glad you could make it. You found a friend, I see?”

“Hope you don’t mind,” said the Senator, climbing into the boat. “You know Ren Whitaker, don’t you?” His half smile was more knowing than he pretended.

“We’re good buddies,” said Weiss. “Say hey, Ren.”

“Morning, Jeb,” the boy chirped, his voice perkier here than in public. “Ran into Mike at breakfast. He told me where he was headed. Sounded like fun, so I invited myself along.”

“Afraid we were going to tell stories behind your back?” Weiss joshed.

The boy only laughed. “Nothing to tell, is there?”

“The more the merrier,” said Weiss, and introduced the rest of us. “Billy’s going to be a household word when his book comes out this spring, Mike. At least inside the Beltway. And his friend, Ralph. Who is not in politics but is a real person.”

I wondered if Griffith might find my face familiar, but he saw a hundred new faces a day. Whitaker shook my hand with a hard little grip and a suspicious glance at Bill. He and Bill greeted each other like estranged sibs at a family reunion; Whitaker did the better job of feigning friendliness. With his button nose and Sunday school haircut stiff with hairspray, he looked like he’d been specially designed to be hugged by grandmothers and pedophiles.

“If you’re ready to shove off,” said Sam, “I need one of you gentlemen to give a hand.”

I volunteered, hoping Bill would join me and I could ask about Whitaker. He remained with the others, as if afraid leaving them would mean a loss of face.

Sam started the engine, I cast off the bow line and pushed us from the dock. We motored out into the water, a ship of fools on a day cruise. I doubted that I’d witness anything so obvious as money changing hands, but I hoped to learn something.

When I got back to the deck, Weiss was still on his feet, making a great show of inhaling the salt air. Whitaker and Senator Mike had parked themselves on the bench in the stern to watch the marina slide past. Bill sat self-importantly at a right angle to them, keeping an ear cocked in their direction. The engine was too loud for anyone to speak without shouting.

“Isn’t this the life!” said Weiss.

“God is good!” said Whitaker.