If it had been anyone else but Fleming, Ferguson probably would have said no, but he had come to like the professor over the course of the evening and felt drawn to him because of the kindness he saw in his eyes, something tender and compassionate and sad, an ache of suffering caused by what Ferguson imagined must have been a constant internal pressure to hide who he was from the world, a man from the generation of closet-men who had spent the past thirty years skulking around in shadowy corners and dodging the suspicious looks of his colleagues and students, all of whom had surely and always pegged him for the sissy he was, but as long as he behaved himself and kept his hands off the innocent or unsuspecting ones, they would grudgingly allow him to go on tending the grass at their Ivy League country club, and all through the dinner, as Ferguson had sat there contemplating the grimness of such a life, he had begun to feel sorry for Fleming, perhaps even to pity him, which was why he said yes to the journey upstairs instead of no, even if it was starting to give him the old Andy Cohen sensation of being with a person who said one thing and meant another, but what the hell, Ferguson thought, he was a big boy now and didn’t have to accommodate anyone he didn’t want to, least of all a sweet, aging man for whom he felt no physical attraction whatsoever.
OH MY, FLEMING said, when Ferguson opened the door and switched on the light in the room. It is indeed very, very small, Archie.
Ferguson hastily pulled the quilt over the bare bottom sheet on the bed and gestured for Fleming to sit down as he swung around the desk chair and sat down as well, face to face with Fleming, so close to him in the cramped room that their knees were almost touching. Ferguson offered Fleming a Gauloise, but the professor shook his head and declined, suddenly looking nervous and distracted, not at all sure of himself, as if he wanted to say something but didn’t quite know how to say it. Ferguson lit up a cigarette for himself and asked: Is everything okay?
I was just wondering … wondering how much … you would want.
Want? I don’t understand. Want what?
How much … money.
Money? What are you talking about?
Vivian tells me that you’re … she tells me that you’re strapped for cash, liv … living on a tight budget.
I still don’t understand. Are you saying you want to give me money?
Yes. If it would please you … to … to be nice to me.
Nice?
I’m a lonely man, Archie. I need to be touched.
Ferguson understood now. Fleming hadn’t come upstairs with any plan or expectation of seducing him, but he would be willing to pay for sex if Ferguson was willing to go along, pay for it because he knew that no young man would ever want to touch him without being paid, and for the pleasure of being touched by a desirable young man, Fleming would be willing to turn that young man into a whore, a male Julie to fuck him up the ass, although he probably wasn’t thinking about it in such crude terms, since it wouldn’t be the anonymous sex of whore and client but sex between two people who already knew each other, which would turn the transaction into a gesture of charity, an older man giving a younger man some much-needed money, for which the older man would be repaid by a different kind of charity, and as Ferguson’s thoughts spun around in his head, arguing back and forth about how his small allowance couldn’t be counted as a hardship because of the free rent and free food and free clothes that came from living under the protection of his wealthy benefactress, and yet, still and all, living on what amounted to ten dollars a day for all the rest wasn’t easy, not when there were so many film books he wanted to buy and couldn’t afford to buy, not when he longed for a record player and a collection of records to listen to at night instead of the broadcasts on boring France Musique, yes, more money would help him out, more money would make life better in dozens of different ways, but was he willing to do what Fleming wanted him to do in order to get that money, and what would it feel like to have sex with someone who was physically repellent to him, how would that feel, and once Ferguson asked himself that question, he suddenly imagined how rich he could become by indulging in such activities as a side occupation, sleeping with lonely, middle-aged American tourists for money, a studly young rentboy for the men, a charming young gigolo for the women, and even though there was something morally wrong about it, he supposed, something wicked, to use the word Lisa had used several times that evening, it was only a matter of sex, which was never wrong when both people wanted to do it, and beyond the money there would be the additional reward of experiencing many orgasms while working for that money, which was almost comical when you stopped and thought about it for a moment, since an orgasm was the one indisputably good thing in this world that money couldn’t buy.
Ferguson leaned forward and said: Why did Vivian tell you I was hard up for cash?
I don’t know, Fleming replied. She was just talking to me about you and … and … she mentioned that you lived … what were the words?… close … close to the bone.
And what made you think I’d be interested in being nice to you?
Nothing. Just a hope, that’s all. A … a feeling.
What sort of money do you have in mind?
I don’t know. Five hundred francs? A thousand francs? You tell me, Archie.
How about fifteen hundred?
I be … I believe I can do that. Let me have a look.
As Ferguson watched Fleming slide his hand into the inside breast pocket of his jacket and pull out his wallet, he understood that he was actually going ahead with this, that for the same amount of money he received from his parents for his monthly allowance he was going to take off his clothes in front of this fat, balding man and have sex with him, and as Fleming began counting the bills in his wallet, Ferguson realized that he was scared, scared to death, scared in the same way he had been scared when he had stolen the books from Book World in New York, a hotness under the skin caused by what he had once described to himself as the sear of fear, a burn that was spreading through his body so quickly now that the pounding in his head bordered on excitement, yes, that was it, the fear and excitement of going past the edge of what was allowed, and even though Ferguson had been found guilty and could have spent six months in jail, which theoretically should have taught him never to go near the edge again, he was still taunting the no-God impostor-God of his childhood to come down and smash him if He dared, and now that Fleming had extracted twelve one-hundred-franc bills and six fifty-franc bills from the wallet and had put the wallet back in his pocket, Ferguson was so angry at himself, so disgusted by his own weakness, that it shocked him to hear the cruelty in his voice when he spoke to Fleming:
Put the money on the desk, Andrew, and turn out the light.
Thank you, Archie. I … I don’t know how to thank you.
He didn’t want to look at Fleming. He didn’t even want to see him, and by not looking and not seeing he was hoping to pretend that Fleming wasn’t there, that it was someone else who had come up to the room with him and that Fleming himself had not been at the dinner that night and Ferguson had never met him, had never even known that such a man as Andrew Fleming existed anywhere on the face of the earth.