He would not have known what to do were he to do anything. Consequently, he did nothing.
But nothing was not very interesting. So he dreamed of something.
He dreamed of high mountains where the grass was yellow and the sky was parched with sunlight and he could not see who it was who had begun to kiss him.
It is not easy to remain passive when someone begins to kiss you. Nevertheless, he did not move when he felt the sweet taste of a kiss, the breath of a kiss upon his lips.
He lay quiet and the kiss lingered until it was gone and then he wept until it returned.
It did not return.
Long after it did not return and he had become inside like an expressway at rush hour he stopped crying.
He thought, I will get dressed this evening and walk slowly through the alleys between the apartment buildings and along the tree-lined lanes of the park. I will walk slowly and suggestively, he thought, and someone will see me and desire me and approach me with the intention of taking me to his bed and handling me and kissing me and caressing me and entering me.
The moon shone in the sky that night and the leaves on the summer trees shimmered.
He put on an old pair of low slung jeans with a wide brown belt.
He put on a pair of Cuban heel boots.
He put on a faded orange t shirt that stretched tightly over his chest. It showed the contours of his chest. It showed his nipples. It showed he was excited to be dressed like that. it showed the lean muscles of his graceful arms. It showed what he wished to show, it showed what he feared to show.
He watched as the pigeons wheeled through a sky of falling light circling above the summer trees.
He walked, sauntering, slowly feeling the force of desire become his identity.
Hello, the other one said, the other one who was almost the same, almost, but not exactly, the same. That space between the same where something was different was where they would meet.
He was like the same brand but a more expensive model.
Hello, he said.
A word is a caress when men walk almost in their sleep dressed as for a dream.
He walked as in his sleep, dressed like that, looking for a word that was like a caress in a world that was like a dream.
Had he wanted to he would have. Yes, he would have. But he changed his mind at the last moment and gained another loss by that.
It was nothing, but it inflamed him.
Why not, the other one said who was almost exactly like him but only a better equipped model.
So he said yes and lost what he had almost won.
It was a losing battle. It was like being penetrated by stars strung on a silver chain. It was like being tossed upon leather waves. It was like losing your grip when you had not been holding on and falling so far that you rose.
He felt his heart beating afterwards and knew by that insistent palpitation that he had passed the first test and would never again have to, even if he wanted to.
Nevertheless, it would be alright. He would know what it was like to see a sleeping face in moonlight, to feel the prayers of another's lips being incanted touching his lips.
Their lips touched and their breaths mingled and a trembling of the air was all that separated them.
The other one said he was going to Texas, but he could not convince himself to go along. He remained behind but said good-bye at the airport and stood on the other side of the security gate after their parting kiss.
I would not have gone away had there been someone like you for me to stay with, the stranger beside him, who was still wearing a suit, said ruefully.
He was wearing a suit and his hair was well-combed and his nails were manicured.
I do not know what is like me, he said.
An angel is like you, the stranger said.
I have no wings, he said.
How do you know? the stranger said. You can not see them for they are small and delicate and flutter behind you on your back. if I touched them you would feel them.
The light in the airport hurts my eyes, he said. The fluorescence is disagreeable.
I will bathe you in candle light when you come with me, the stranger said offering him a pair of dark glasses.
Thank you, he said, putting them on, but he was not ready, he said.
But the stranger was not fazed. He knew it was a matter of time and invited him to dinner.
As they sat beneath the amber globes at a table covered by a peach damask table cloth, their faces softened by the light of candles, three candles flaming in a triple-branched candelabra, after the steward had poured champagne, he said it but with hesitation.
He wanted to be a slave, he said. He said he wanted to be treated like a slave. He wanted to be disciplined. He wanted to be trained. He wanted to be mastered. He wanted to use all those words. He wanted to squeeze the erotic out of them and use its distillate like a magic potion, a transforming elixir.
He wanted to be a slave, he said. He wanted to surrender, to yield, to be forced, but the stranger knew it was not true. He knew that he did not know who he wanted to be or what. He knew he did not know who he was or who he had been or who he was going to be or what. He was like a drunkard living in a savage present, waiting for time to come to him with a bride's embrace and take him to her house.
He did not know he would become nothing, but he sensed it might be so.
That was why he wanted to be a slave.
Nevertheless, he was not to be trusted.
Neither those who want to be slaves nor those who seek to be masters can be trusted. Nor even can those whose quest is equality.
Who then can be trusted? Those who want nothing? Hardly.
After a brief silence they stopped talking.
Then the stranger said they were making progress.
The streets were dark with starlight. The street lamps shone like moonlight. Their hearts were bright with beginning the way they are when everything yet is to happen. They had entered the land of wishes, groping their way through desire unashamed.
The echoes of nightingales deafened the sound of the motorcycles as they walked beyond Third Street.
They stood together looking at the great sea beneath them, their fingers laced together like their hearts.
My heart when I touch you is like water.
It does not make sense, he said.
No, the stranger who was not a stranger said. It does not. But nevertheless it is as it seems.
Which does not happen often, he added.
But here together now with you it is what is and nothing else.
Nevertheless, it was something else although they did not know it. Each in his own way did not know it.
My heart is flowing like water.
They embraced. Their breaths were a mist that darkened their gaze and the blaze of their eyes turned inward.
They appeared among many others in costume at a party where you were required to wear one later that night.
They went as Don Giovanni and Leperello, but as in the latter part of the opera, each as the other. He was disguised as Don Giovanni disguised as Leperello. He was disguised as Leperello masquerading as Don Giovanni. No one could tell them apart.
I could not take my eyes off you all night they said as they made their way to bed, slowly undressing each other and marveling with their touch as the folds of clothes fell away to reveal their marble flesh.
Their breath was a metamorphosis of two into one. It had the force of a tide when they kissed, and their hearts drew their chests together, and their hips, and their thighs.
The actuality of the world was the sight of their eyes.
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