She rose to her feet and I could hear her walking a bit.
“Want anything?” She was standing over at the bar, pouring herself a drink.
“Thanks no.”
“What you up to?” she asked.
“Just reading the magazines.”
“We just got a copy of New York Native. See it there?”
“No, but its all right.”
“Aren’t you gay?”
“Not right now.” I replied, not caring for any tongue-in-cheek crap. Why couldn’t she just leave me alone. I gazed at the lingerie ads in one of the many woman’s fashion magazines.
“What is your problem?” she finally asked.
“You.”
“What’d I do?”
“I feel as if you’re testing me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What the hell was that handjob this morning?”
“You looked as if you could use it.”
“And now you’re watching porno when you’re just watching me, asking me if I want to read the Native, all of it.”
“All right,” she finally conceded. “You’re right, and I’ll tell you why, I think you’re a goddamned fraud and the thing that bugs me is that you don’t have to be.”
“If I am a fraud,” I nibbled, “why don’t I have to be?”
“Because,” was all she said for a moment, and then she elaborated. “You kind of remind me of me.” She paused awhile, but I still wasn’t going to show any cards. She had to show more than that.
“If you think that I gave you a handjob just to prove that you’re straight, well, please, I’m not that disgusting. But you are straight.”
“How the fuck can you be so certain. Why can’t I be gay?”
“Well, first of all, I’ve known gays all my life. My father was gay, and you just don’t act gay. Also you behave with this kind of repressed quality; you lurk. You’re afraid that if you let yourself go, I’ll see the truth. And you’re always looking at me in this way. And lastly because I’m really attracted to you.”
“So what now? I mean assuming I am straight. Are you going to tell Ternevsky?”
“If I wanted you out of here, it wouldn’t matter if you were gay or not. All I would have to do is say that I don’t like you.”
“So is that what you’re going to do?”
“No, don’t you understand. I’d like to become friends…”
“Friends? Like how?”
“Well”—she moved alongside me and put her hand on mine—“Ternevsky’s a great accommodator. But he’s greasy, slimy and unromantic and he makes me feel ugly and cheap.”
“All right.” All her cards seemed on the table; if she wanted me out, all she would have to do is tell the maestro that I made a move on her. It would take a whole lot less than a handjob.
“All right?” she replied.
“All right, I’m not gay. Now what?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“I’m tired,” I said nervously, waiting to see whether I had been trapped or not.
“Me too. Why don’t you join me. I’ve rented a pretty good film.”
“That porn film.”
“It’s an art film,” she replied. So I got on the bed and she poured us both a drink and we watched this dirty art film, and slowly we got closer and when I started mimicking the film—kissy, touchy, feely—she didn’t stop me.
When I awoke late the next morning, she was still in my arms, something I had never experienced with Glenn, or for that matter most lovers. I felt hot and sweaty, so I carefully pried myself loose and started a bath. While the water ran, I put on a pot of coffee and got the New York Times that had been slid under the locked elevator door. In the bath I aristocratically downed the coffee and English muffins while reading the newspaper. Soon Janus joined me in the massive tub, and we giggled and splashed around like toddlers.
The beginning of a relationship is always the prime cut of the affair. I was in love. That night, post-coitally, I asked Janus, “Do you think we’re taking a risk by sleeping together?”
“No,” Janus continued, “even if he did come unannounced, he’d come in the evening after a daylight flight.”
“How self-assured,” I replied. “You sound like you’ve done this sort of thing before.”
She smiled and kissed me. “You’re jealous already.”
“Well, I’ll overcome that. But I’m still nervous about him coming in and catching us. If he was so damn thorough about having a homosexual in residence, then he’s obviously the jealous type. And it’d be a high price to pay if we got caught.”
She agreed and carefully we established certain safeguards. The next day, we went out and bought our own linen, which Janus would put on the bed each night and replace with the normal circular sheets the next morning. Also she warned that we should never be seen in public, as the eminent director had a network of opportunists hoping for jobs in his films, doing anything they could to ingratiate themselves to him. Additionally she would distance us by indicating that I was too effeminate for her liking.
One evening, arriving late at work, I opened the office door and found Miguel sitting at his desk with a smile on his face. He didn’t say a word. When I asked him what was up, he took two paper cups from out of the desk drawer and then a small frosted bottle of Cordon Negro from out of the dwarf refrigerator. Popping the cork, he announced, “We got it.”
“Got what?”
“I just got the mortgage on the Jersey place.”
“But it’s nowhere near June.”
“No, but we got enough in our account to get a loan from the bank. I got it away from the loan shark. If we miss a payment, I won’t get killed.”
We toasted and drank, and he explained that we had several more months of embezzling at the standard pace.
“But even then, we’ve got to leave here gracefully or they’ll become suspicious.” We toasted some more and got more enthusiastic. “By the by,” he interrupted himself, “Owensfield called.”
“About his screening?” I remembered that he was supposed to be finished with his film soon.
“Well, he mentioned it, but do you remember that conversation you guys had about Vienna or something?”
“Yeah.”
“Apparently you really did impress him. He asked me to invite you to his contributor’s party celebrating some new issue of his magazine.”
“Why would he invite me?”
“Actually, he invited both of us.”
“When?”
“This Friday.”
“Not this Friday?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I’ll be in Arcadia this Friday with lover boy.” If we went to this Harrington party together, Miguel would discover my scam to get published. And although it was no money out of his pocket, I didn’t want him to consider his future business partner so deceitful so soon.
“What is the name of this alleged beloved?”
“Donny,” I selected randomly.
“Like Donny Osmond.”
“More like Adonis.”
“They’re all Adonis,” he replied, and grabbing his jacket he bid me good night and left.
After all the spins of the turnstile and the backward spins of stolen money 1 locked up, made my night drops, and went to Ternevsky’s. I opened the elevator door and stared at the house. It looked like a small tornado had hit. Janus was sitting on the bed. Silently she handed me the postcard that Ternevsky had sent saying that he had concluded all business on the continent and he would be home by the time she got this postcard.
The night was too grim to make love. The next morning we changed the sheets, and waited nervously for Ternevsky’s grand entrance. Although neither of us wanted it, our great love was instantly turned into a protracted one-night stand. Janus even helped me apply some of Ternevsky’s male cosmetics; transforming into a swank gay in season. As evening thickened so did our anxieties. We wandered around the house like strangers. I didn’t have any work that night, so I pointlessly tried to console Janus. But we became increasingly depressed. She commented that we were just property of Ternevsky and finally suggested that it would be wiser if we were apart when Ternevsky arrived. I agreed and left.