Kevin was breathing heavily. When his breath evened out, Guy pulled out and wiped himself with a tissue from a box on the night table.
Kevin propped himself up on one elbow and looked at Guy intently, seriously, with those dark circles of weariness under his eyes, so touching in a kid. He started to cry and Guy kissed away his tears. At last Kevin said, “That’s dangerous, fucking me. Are you ready for me to fall in love with you forevermore?”
A little fatuously, Guy said, “So you liked that?” and Kevin nodded solemnly, which sobered Guy enough to say, “Yes, I’m ready for your love. Give me all you’ve got.”
They kissed each other languorously again and, suddenly rousing himself, Guy slapped him on the ass and said, “Okay, okay. Your turn.”
For a second bewildered, Kevin said, “You want me to fuck you?”
“Yes, dummy.”
Kevin lubricated Guy with a sticky finger, then entered him; they were both lying on their sides. Guy advanced his upper knee and crooked it and rotated it upward, the Ralph position. Kevin had learned through imitation how to thrust; he already knew that Guy’s G-spots were his ears and nipples, though he’d been warned to go easy on the nipples lest they become enlarged. Guy liked the idea that Kevin’s ass was full of his come and that tribal physics would make it seep through his loins and spurt through his little cock.
Afterward, Kevin balanced his head on his open hand, lying on his side, and beamed into Guy’s face, smiled and smiled, wondering. Guy could feel and smell his warm breath, smelling like coffee, a fine stream of air on his cheek.
“What am I going to do with you?” Kevin said, shaking his head. “My little Ralph.”
Bright and early the next day, Fred’s lawyer, Marty, phoned. He said that Fred’s sons, the attorney and the podiatrist, had been driving him crazy. (Guy noticed that lawyers called each other “attorneys,” just as doctors referred to each other as “physicians,” as if the normal word weren’t sufficiently reverential.) “So, those little schnorrers are indignant their dad gave you the house, the lion’s share of the estate, and they want to contest it in court. I told them they’d lose the fifty thousand Fred willed them if they contested — and they might get nothing. I told them they didn’t have a very strong case, that I’d been there and could testify they hadn’t bothered to visit their father more than once, that they’d taken Ceil’s side in the divorce, that they’d treated their father’s new lifestyle with contempt, that you’d been there every day. Of course, they started howling that you’d infected Fred and killed him.”
“I had the test last week,” Guy said, “and I was negative.”
“That’s great news! Would you be willing to show that report in court, if it came to that?”
“Why not?”
“Could you xerox it and send me a copy?”
“Sure.”
“I told them I was their father’s oldest friend from Brooklyn days, grade school days, good ol’ Theodore Herschl days, and that I knew Fred was fed up with Ceil and the boys and that he’d known real happiness with you, and I’d say as much to the presiding magistrate, who’s another ol’ Herschl boy. Now, if I have a copy of your health report, their whole case will fall apart, though that Howie is an underemployed lawyer and could keep this thing going on for years. I hate to think of that house on Fire Island sitting empty and you missing out on those big summer rentals. The bastards … you better be prepared for a long, drawn-out fight we may lose. The courts have been favoring the relatives over the lovers, the gay lovers, the fegalas. You might as well be going out there to use the house yourself. Sort of establish a presence. And enjoy!”
Pierre-Georges came by for Guy’s signature on a contract. “It’s for a horrible American fragrance. Why can’t Americans come up with something that smells good, that has woodsy notes or lemon? Don’t they have noses?”
“Noses?” Kevin asked. “What’s a nose, sir?”
Guy saw Pierre-Georges bridle at the word “sir” and its suggestion of an age difference. Of course there was a considerable age difference, but fashionistas didn’t want to acknowledge it. They were young forever, and that’s what the all-night dancing and cocaine was all about, though in the long run the drugs and the late nights only made them look older, more desiccated.
Pierre-Georges was just back from Paris. He’d flown on the Concorde that very morning and sat next to an old German baroness who owned her own bank and smelled bad; he’d left at ten and arrived in New York two hours earlier. He was full of Paris gossip and was wearing a new floaty black jacket by Yamamoto and baggy gray trousers by Kenzo, more culottes than trousers. He looked silly. Guy thought he must warn Kevin not to call people in fashion “sir.” His faux pas wasn’t as serious as Guy’s had been when he’d called Édouard “Monsieur le Baron” when Édouard had been posing as an unruly dog in need of discipline; nevertheless, fashion people worried about losing their looks. Kenzo’s clothes looked ageless because he’d brought his whole team of Japanese seamstresses and stylistes to Paris and they had their own way of assembling clothes. And Pierre-Georges, in wearing Kenzo, was obviously up to date, though Kenzo had been around for a decade already and his women’s wear was much more adventurous than his boxy, conservative men’s line.
“You look very chic,” Guy said. “Is that Kenzo?” That was as meaningless in their world as saying hello.
“Of course it is,” Pierre-Georges snapped, pouring himself a glass of Perrier from the fridge. “I’m through with all those Hugo Boss suits, with their silk pochettes and solid silk ties and lace-up polished shoes. I’m sick of the rich banker look. I’m going geisha.”
“Well, it’s very chic,” Guy said.
“Which is more than I can say for you, with your dull Ralph Lauren slacks and tassel loafers and baggy Brooks button-down shirts. I mean, please, this isn’t 1950! We’re almost through the eighties and men are falling so far behind women. Women are in their Arlésienne Christian Lacroix, so gay, so cheerful, and bright, and their beautiful Paloma jewelry, and here we are in Brooks Brothers. You say you’re a fashion model, but look at you! So boring! Since you’re so old and you’ve been around so long, you’ve accumulated all these clothes, but you’re not running a museum. I know, let’s clean out your whole closet and give it to Good Volunté—Goodwill, that’s what they call it.
“And then you should develop a new look all your own. With attention to detail. You must have exquisite detail. Refined detail. Look at your heels. Run-down. And you’re going out like that! You must inspire designers, not just cover your back against the sun or rain. You are a fashion model. That means you yourself must be inspirational to couturiers. I know there aren’t any good ones over here. But what if you ran into Karl Lagerfeld dressed as you are now? He comes over here a lot. Everyone in Paris is dressing now! The jewels: Now that they see Mitterrand isn’t going to ruin them, that he’s the capitalists’ best friend, they’ve brought all their jewels out of hiding. Marie-Hélène tried New York but she hated it, all those dull businessmen, no amusing actors or writers, and all those CEOs in bed by ten o’clock? Karl has decided accessories are the important things. I saw him and a boy from his entourage at Le Palace, so chic, I danced with Jimmy Sommerville, and Roland Barthes wrote an essay about it before he was run over, poor dear, though he had the most extraordinary hair growing out of his nose! It must have been four inches long. He never recovered from his mother’s death. Anyway, Karl’s boy had on the most miraculous silver belt with interlocking eighteenth century heads complete with wigs, he said he got them off his andirons, you know he has that chateau now and lives as if he were in a Mozart opera. Karl himself I thought was carrying a purse, but, my dear, it was a book! Les Liaison Dangereuses, in a first edition. Oh, so chic, reading at a disco! And of course he had his fan and monocle and his hair in a ponytail, but he should lose weight. He’s wearing a sort of blouson by Yamamoto, but all his boys are wonderfully thin and they’re all wearing silver, long, heavy necklaces with the head of Medusa, such bad luck, or ravishing gypsy bracelets all up one arm, very thin jingly bracelets. Keiser Karl had on a silver brooch, art moderne, I’d say, his mother’s, I think, with an emerald the size of a quail egg, of course not art deco, he auctioned off all that, including the Ruhlmann desks and the things from Jeanne Lanvin’s house, he can’t abide that now, such a restless spirit, such a genius! I told one of his mignons that I liked his silk vest and he said, can you believe it, ‘I’m so glad you like it. I’ve ordered it in twelve colors.”’