Intersections

How could it have been easy for me to live in humiliation, shamed like that, wounded with a wound worse than any flesh wound?

I had cherished my record. Now it had been fouled.

None of my buddies who were offering consolation could really understand what it was like.

I sat confined in my apartment for ten weeks, with legs that were as good as useless, in disgrace, on suspension, with nothing to do, looking out the window, waiting for time to pass, waiting for things to get better.

I wondered if they ever would. I could not get away from the gnawing pain, a sense of injustice, an unrelenting anguish in my mind as I relived the scene.

It was so stupid, so stupid, what happened. I realize that now, whenever I started thinking about it, which I tried not to do, with no success.

With no success -- now that I have time to think about that, that phrase could easily describe how my whole life has been.

I had to come face to face with it sometime. I'm a failure.

We busted in the door and found two guys copulating and a couple of half-smoked joints in the ashtray by their bedside.

I hardly had time to register what I was seeing. I had never seen anything like it.

Mike and Blazes held them at gunpoint and Rapaport and I each grabbed one and cuffed him.

Now, when I get flashes of it again, I can see the looks on their faces, how far away they were. I can still feel the trembling of their bodies in my grip. They did not know what had hit them. They were in bed together experiencing I don't know what when we come crashing in on them.

But it is impossible to know how dangerous a situation can become, so a maximum use of force is always in order, and a superhuman attitude. Whatever happens, the officer must remain in control.

So there was no time to think. If we did not take decisive action, we might not be around to regret our mistake later on.

We took them to the station-house and they were booked for lewd and lascivious conduct and for possession. We threw in resisting arrest just to make sure the screws were tight, so to speak.

Within a half-hour, their lawyers showed up, posted bond, and they were released.

In the morning, it was all over the papers. They were celebrities. We were the ass-holes bothering them, violating their rights, and using excessive force, and off-the-wall shit about fascism.

There was a big to-do about privacy. And the worst was when it was discovered that we'd busted into the wrong apartment. It should have been the sixth floor. We were on the fifth.

There were complaints. There were hearings. Nobody understood a goddamn thing about the kind of work we do or the constant strain and pressure we're under. But I don't give a fuck now. I'm lucky: ten weeks at home with a bracelet; that that was all I got.

ii

As he lifted his arms over his head to stow his luggage in the rack above the seat, his shirt rode up revealing his flat, smooth, bare midriff and the black band of his boxer briefs rising just above the waistband of his corduroys.

I'd been admiring Paul all year. Now I was taking the train with him to East Hampton to spend Christmas and New Years with his family.

It's going to be crowded, he said, as we sat drinking coffee in the club car. But my folks said they'd keep my room for us.

We're going to share a room? I said.

Is that ok? he asked by way of apologizing for what couldn't be helped.

No, I don't mean that, I said. I just hope I won't be putting you out too much.

You couldn't put me out if you wanted to, Paul said, and then I thought he said, I'm already out...for you.

What? I said, confused at what actually I had just heard.

You're gonna like it. It's a nice town. My folks are nice people. It might even snow, and when it does it looks just like a Currier and Ives print.

iii

"Nipple machine for Sale twenty-seven year old Male with full nipple control and fast nipple response ready to Command for hands on inspection call 555-4939

That was a piece of craziness if I ever saw one. It was a code for something. And now it was my job to find out what.

I'd been back at work for several months. I'd been taken off patrol and was in a search and destroy unit, finding the crime before it's committed and stopping it before it can be.

The thing smelled of lewdness right to the center.

I dialed the number.

Hello, a soft baritone voice answered.

Hands on inspection, I said. I want. I read. Your ad. Nipple.

Got you, the voice said. You have a car?

Ok, I said, penciling an oval around the info I'd scribbled down.

iv

It was snowing when we got there. His folks were waiting at the station for us with their station wagon. It was like a scene in the movies. I could not believe it. I was elated.

A young man in jeans and a black t shirt and great arms came out to carry my bag into the house.

I smiled, embarrassed. You don't have to.

He looked at me in a way that suggested I did not understand something.

It's ok, Paul said. Mike, he said addressing the houseboy, this is Reed, my friend from college. Reed, this is Mike, my father's houseboy. He likes to take care of us. It's ok.

Mike stuck out his strong soft hand and shook mine. It's nice to see you, he said. You don't have to feel uneasy about letting me take care of you. Here, give me the handle of that bag.

I did not resist.

The amber street lights and some light coming from behind shuttered or curtained windows gave all the light there was in the street save for the radiance the star-brightened snow glinted back into the air.

I was breathing deeply.

Welcome, Paul's father said as we stood in the atrium-like foyer that gave on either side onto sets of rooms and from which arose a two-sided staircase of richly polished rosewood.

There were two sitting rooms, two dining rooms, a library, a study, and through a door in the rear of a short passage, a large brick, stone, and tile kitchen a few steps down. It had huge windows that gave out onto a rolling field that sloped to a lake.

He pulled off his coat and offered me his hand after he helped me out of my coat.

I thanked him and he asked me if I had ever met Chomsky, because he thought I was a grammarian.

I had, I told him. But it was in a political context, I added, apologetically. And I had taken one slightly baffling course in linguistics. That's where Paul and I met. But I couldn't tell a predicate nominative from a predicate adjective.

He laughed and shook his head.

I always got stuck at the vocative when I had to take Latin at Yale, he said conspiratorially.

We all laughed.

He told us we must be tired and that Paul would make sure I had everything I wanted.

He apologized, as Paul had, for not having a free guest room. But I told him I was honored to be invited along with other guests and that we would all have a wonderful holiday celebration.

We'll pour some champagne after you get settled in, he said. Take your time.

I thanked him again. Wrapping his arm around my shoulder, Paul led me away upstairs. Mike followed with my suitcase, set it just inside the door, winked at me and then touched Paul's shoulder and disappeared.

Paul's "room" consisted of half the third floor. It connected by a closet staircase to the attic. It was quite an attic, vast. In most of it, I could stand with no trouble and not be able to touch the rafters.

At one end was a little gym: some weights, a chinning bar hung between two of the roof beams, and an inclined leather-covered bench.

I stood in the doorway.

Your family is rich, I said.

Don't hold it against me, Paul said.

I don't, I said. I envy you, and I'm glad for you. And I'm also glad.... I'm overwhelmed. It's....

Come, Paul said, standing on the first step. Let me show you where you, where we, will sleep.

I followed behind looking at his strong thighs and his sleek butt in his tight jeans and wondered how I'd gotten so lucky as to be spending Christmas like this.

It was snowing. We stood side by side in the nook under the hood in the roof made by the dormer window. Through a picture window we saw the snow flying through the night. Paul put his hand on my shoulder and turned me towards him. I moved fluidly under his direction and let my lips melt into his and my mouth open to his mouth, my breath belonging to him.

He was a tender lover, a lover like I'd never had before. The more passionately he gave himself to me, the more desperately I wanted him.

He looked at me.

Do you know how long I have wanted you in my bed?

For as long as I've wanted to be in your bed.

The skylight above us was covered with snow.

v

It would have been a lot better if it had been a joke. But as far as I could see it was no joke.

He met me at the door barefoot and with a bare chest, a pair of black leather shorts on, and with rings through both his nipples.

Hi, he said in the same soft baritone I'd heard over the phone.

I tipped my hat without removing it and with the slightest sign, I nodded my head.

You come for the hands on.

What's the charge?

If you mean what's the price, there is no charge. It's free. I'm free. A free test drive, he said smiling, closing the door to the apartment behind me.

But I hope there's plenty of charge. He started up again. I'm just full of energy. And I think you are, too, by the looks of those twitching muscles in your neck.

He winked.

This was more than peculiar. What the hell was I supposed to do now standing at a loss in a small hallway or foyer? It's one thing to have to bust down a door and lock up a perpetrator, quite another to play cat and mouse with a wierdo who you're trying to set up to get the goods on so he'll show you his hand.

I was not sure I knew anymore what the goods were.

I stood there, the deer caught in the glare of the headlights, not knowing what do. So I took off my hat and hung it on a brass hook attached to the side of a dark wrought oak frame, a carved rectangle enclosing a beveled mirror, hung above a table with a lamp with a rose lampshade on it and one fresh cut rose in a tall, thin vase with a crystal mouth that branched into four flower-petal points.

I make it a practice to notice and remember things.

The rose light of the lamp gave the rose a gray patina, made it look like a flower in a black and white movie.

Anyhow, I placed my hat carefully, slowly, deliberately on the hook, killing time because I did not know what I was going to do next.

It's ok, he said, taking my hand and leading me into his room.

I looked at him. He sat me down at the table. He held my hands. He could not help but feel how violently I was trembling.

vi

We did not get to bed until nearly four in the morning.

Everyone had arrived. The house was full. It really was like the movies.

When everyone else had gone to their rooms Paul and I lingered downstairs, poured ourselves a last glass of champagne, and opened the front door and smelled the cold almost-morning air caressing us.

What's that? I said pointing to what looked like a person.

Who's that? It's Mike, my father's houseboy.

What's he doing out there? I asked, but saw, he was getting on a motorcycle.

He has his own apartment, one room. He goes there. He's not on duty tomorrow morning.

How many servants does your family have?

Four, he said, deadpan.

We shut the door and shivered and fell into each other's arms giggling.

I love you, Paul said to me.

I could not resist saying it back to him. When I did a wave of excitement lifted me up and carried me to regions in the ocean of life I had never swum in before.

I want to show you something, Paul said grabbing me by the hand and pulling me I did not know where until he pushed me against the wall and devoured me with a kiss.

Ten minutes later, no more breath in my throat I said, What did you want to show me?

How much I want you, he said, his palms kneading my chest.

vii

It was a complete washout. It was like I found myself at a crazy costume party with just one other person. If there was something going on that I should have detected, I could not find it.

He did not make a move, and I felt that if there was any move going to be made, it had to be entirely at my initiative. I just sat there looking at him as he made some coffee. Even the way he made coffee was weird, though. It was Greek coffee, he said. It was strong and sweet. I drank it in the small cup he gave me. I felt alert.

I was trembling.

What's the matter? he said.

Nothing, I said.

He lit the oven and opened the oven door. A wave of heat poured out. I shuddered.

You're not supposed to do that, he said, heat with the stove, but there's air enough seeping through lots of tiny cracks around the windows, so it's ok, and the heat from real fire is very good.

My flesh, my bones, absorbed the heat and gradually I stopped shaking.

So what does it mean? I said, figuring it would be best to be as direct as possible without revealing my true identity.

What does what mean?

That stuff about a nipple machine?

Don't you know? he said.

Know what? I said, returning the challenge.

But he beat me.

Why did you answer my ad in the personals? he said.

It interested me, I parried without revealing anything.

viii

There were a dozen people beside Paul's parents at dinner the next evening in the larger of the two dining rooms. Champagne was served throughout the dinner. After melon with port and after vichyssoise, there was a choice of grilled salmon or a gigot of lamb. Lentils, lima beans, stewed tomatoes mashed white or sweet potatoes, broccoli and ratatouille graced the table in abundance. The meal ended with an assortment of cheeses, Gorgonzola, St. Maure, Comte de Savoie, Emmental, and Brie, bowls of grapes, figs, raspberries, strawberries, and walnuts, mangoes, and pineapples. There was the kind of cake the French call an Opera, with lacy chocolate and gold leaves decorating it.

It had not stopped snowing. After dinner, most of the guests wandered to one of the sitting rooms, to the library or to the billiard room for cognac, coffee, and conversation.

Paul and I, however, decided to go for a walk and invited anyone who wanted to join us, but everyone else thought we were mad and said they'd much rather gather round the fireplace or the widescreen tv in the library.

The air was crisp and clear and punctuated by streaks of steadily falling snow.

ix

I did not show my hand, but I also did not learn anything. Well, I learned that his name was Mike Cyrus and that he was a graduate student with a nipple fetish and he made his money by posing for erotic male calendars and he sometimes stayed at a place out in the Hamptons. But I could not tell if he was telling the truth or spinning a story.

And that he was a nipple fetishist. That was a new one. But I did not learn anything that could lead to his arrest or to an interesting line of investigation.

There was nothing to do. I was not going to make the same mistake twice, I thought.

No, that would be too easy. I had to make a different mistake.

x

Ice skating, I said, laughing.

Yeah, ice skating. What you got against ice-skating?

Nothing, I said.

So we took the railroad into Manhattan and rented skates. I wobbled a little at first. It had been ten years since I'd been on the ice. Under a sunny blue sky on an icy day, we glided together, high in our hearts in the rink off Fifth Avenue in Central Park.

Afterwards we found a cafe on Central Park South and had several grogs before we decided it was time. The rum did what it is designed to do. It brought the feelings we had into stronger relief and we walked to Grand Central pressing our bodies side against side lost together in a wintry euphoria.

xi

Driven by a memory of you, I play with my nipples intensely until I make them burn and ache and crave a touch that is not mine, a master who can subdue me through the pain he inflicts on me through nipple torture to his will.

I am set ablaze by words like obedience and command.

I continue to torment my nipples, my head thrown back, my eyes cast downwards as far as I can push them, my mind a blank, my body a model of muscular discipline. I want someone to take me, to keep me, to subject me to his discipline, to command me.

Could it be you?

What the hell was all that?

I knew where it came from, even without seeing his name in the inbox. Who else...?

I figured it might be useful to play along. One thing leads to another. I just might get a useful lead. My career, hell, my reputation and my self-esteem all needed something, and something big, and quickly.

So I wrote back.

Since we met, I wrote, I have thought about how I can use you.

Use me? The answer came back minutes later.

xii

I never knew what they meant by bedroom eyes until I met you, he said.

Me? I said and he tickled my side.

Yes, you, he said and bore into me with kisses and I countered them with kisses of my own and we were laughing, rolling, kissing on his huge bed, protected by its four oaken bedposts.

He was lying on top of me. I held him round the waist and gazed into his eyes.

I don't want this ever to end, I said.

It won't, he said. It can't.

How do you know?

Because I never let go of something I want.

And I'm something you want.

Like nothing else.

Our lips drew nearer. Our breaths joined.

xiii

Benny's was jammed. It was New Year's Eve. I stood outside waiting for Mike, dressed as he had suggested I dress, like a biker, boots, jeans, leather jacket over black t-shirt. I was standing under the awning, watching the snow fall on Twenty-third Street wondering what in hell I was letting myself in for when a taxi pulled up and he got out.

He wore a long camel's hair coat and a slouch hat with a wide brim. His eyes sparkled and his breath formed a cloud. He put out his hand and as he took mine he drew me to him and lightly kissed me on the lips. Before I could recoil, I felt a sharp jolt, an unexpected electricity charged through me, as if we had been walking on a carpet. I was stung and without knowing how, I felt something in the pit of my stomach yielding. I became dizzy.

He took my arm.

Come on, he said, and led me passed a line of people waiting to get in, smiled at the burly doorman/bouncer, who put out his hand and smiled back in greeting, and we entered the bar.

At the cloak room, Mike removed his hat and coat and handed them to a boy dressed in a skin-tight silver body suit, but told me to keep my jacket on and unzipped.

Mike was dressed, if you can call it that, the way he was when I saw him that night a few weeks before for the first time.

I like the way you look in leather, Mike said. I want to see you on my motorcycle.

I did not know what he was talking about. But it did not matter. His words were one thing. but then there was his breath, warm and caressing, embracing my neck and giving me chills as he breathed his words into my ears, standing closer to me than anyone ever has.

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