Michael swallowed the last of the Blueboy’s cum, then let the still-hard cock fall from his mouth. He pulled out, gently lowering the boy’s legs to the bed, then removed sodden condoms and tossed them into a waste basket. He settled his head on the Blueboy’s stomach. The kid’s breathing slowed; his legs trembled.
Michael felt the boy’s hand run over the crown of his head where his hair was thin. Awesome, the Blueboy whispered.
Michael wanted to laugh but couldn’t. He rolled over and swallowed the Blueboy’s cock again, sending an electric jolt through the boy’s spent nerves. The Blueboy said nothing as Michael lay there, tongue circling the sensitive shrinking head.
The next morning, Michael cooked them eggs. His new AIDS Buddy, Keith, had taken it upon himself to keep Michael’s refrigerator well stocked. Michael was glad for the healthy appetite of company. The Blueboy ate greedily, his hair wet from the shower, his bruise a green copper-stain in the morning light, his young body fast to heal. Michael’s own food grew cold on his plate, appetite only for the pleasure his eyes drank in. He tore an ATM receipt in half and wrote his phone number on the part not showing his deficit, then handed it over. Come see me again.
The Blueboy shrugged and put on his coat.
*
When the first call came at 3 a.m., Michael stirred from sleep and groggily pressed the cold phone to his ear. It took a long moment to decode the “It’s me” at the other end. More words, a whisper, a bare exhale of breath. Look outside.
Michael gathered an extra handful of cord and pulled the phone to the window. He squinted down at the snow-slushed street. In the watery light of the street lamp, a figure stood by the payphone. Slowly a face turned up toward Michael’s window like a swimmer surfacing for air. The Blueboy. Michael breathed in deep at the sight.
While the Blueboy choked through another fight with his brother, Michael kept the receiver tucked against his ear and scrambled to find clean clothes. It had been days since he’d last been out of his robe. Quickly he pulled on jeans and slipped on a shirt. Before the kid’s quarter ran out, Michael took down his number, scribbling it on the wall above his nightstand. He ran a washcloth over his face and called right back.
Even with his window closed, Michael heard a faint ring from the street below before the kid picked up the phone. As the Blueboy confessed he had nowhere else to go, Michael walked to the window again and saw the kid’s face still tilted up toward his window. Michael told him he’d throw down his keys.
Soon, any late hour “It’s me” was all it took for Michael to let the Blueboy in. No sad tale of brother and fists required. Few words at all, the language of bodies simply enough.
With Keith’s help Michael kept his apartment cleaner—clothes put away, papers off the couch—as if expecting company. When Keith asked why, Michael revealed nothing. The Blueboy had to be kept secret, the one thing Michael could look forward to now when every doctor visit meant plummeting T-cells. Keith would ask too many questions—were they having safe sex, did they know the risks involved? Though Michael was careful, he knew Keith would consider skirting the issue a sin of omission. But surely the Blueboy knew, didn’t he? Surely he noticed Michael’s sallow cheeks, the skin growing thin on his frame.
In shame, Michael waited for nights of freezing rain or heavy snowfall. Always the Blueboy called from the payphone on the street below, always after Michael had gone to bed, the sharp ring of the old black rotary jarring away dreams unremembered.
But most nights Michael lay alone, listening to his body: neck vertebrae clicking against a pillow’s imperfect comfort. Blood pulsing in his ears. If he slept at all, it was only to dream about rising to go to the bathroom, on his way looking out his window at the corner below, the snow-sludged street empty of all but the lost boys and the lost men who fed them.
When the Blueboy came again, Michael didn’t want to undress. He didn’t want the Blueboy to see his mongrel-thin frame, elbows and ribs ready to tear through faint skin. The wind raged outside as the Blueboy insisted; he lay already naked, erect, wanting the heat of skin to warm him. But when he tugged off Michael’s shirt, the blue sky in his eyes clouded over.
Words had gotten bigger the longer left unsaid. Michael watched the Blueboy slowly roll to the side, making room for him on the bed. Michael climbed in, sagging into the mattress, reached out and cupped shrunken fingers around the boy’s crotch. He lowered his head and leaned in openmouthed. The Blueboy’s hand stopped him. You don’t have to. The kid’s erection already flagging. Let’s just hold each other.
Michael turned from the pity in the boy’s eyes. The Blueboy tried to spoon around him but Michael shrugged him off. He couldn’t stand the feel of the kid’s stare lasering his back. Michael clenched his teeth and focused his eyes on his nightstand, on the phone heavy enough to kill someone, its black plastic lipped with moonlight, the silence of the room looming louder than any bell.
*
Michael grew to hate the Blueboy, his good looks and health, the pity and shame in the boy’s blue eyes. Rage circulated through Michael’s system. It stooped his shoulders, gnawed his gut, leeched oxygen from his blood. It consumed the meat of cell after cell as it shrank his body and the size of his heart.
Keep your spirits up, Keith said every visit, bringing prepared food from an AIDS organization now. Michael ate a few mouthfuls while Keith offered health tips Michael would never heed—his pretense of hospitality wearing threadbare. After Keith left, Michael flushed the rest of his meal down the toilet, watched it swirl away with the water.
When the Blueboy called again, Michael said he was too sick to see him. It was true; he lay curled in the mess of his bed, the phone receiver a black dumbbell crushing his ear. Couldn’t even beat off anymore to the other Blueboys, dog-eared magazines stacked inside Michael’s steamer trunk. Forget someone real. No rallying himself for a kid who was only a hustler, who asked for more than money or marijuana, asked on a cold winter night to steal through walls better left in place.
On the phone, the Blueboy’s voice choked through tears. It’s snowing. I’m cold. She snuck me in the basement again, but he heard us. I think my nose got broke.
Sickness puddled in Michael’s bed, assaulting his senses. He couldn’t even walk to the window now. I can’t help you, he rasped.
You’re just like him!
The Blueboy’s words felt like blows inside Michael’s brain. With great effort Michael carefully returned the receiver to its cradle.
Outside, snow howled.
*
Keith came the following morning, cleaned the bed’s caked filth, and taxied Michael to Graduate Hospital. There, doctors probed Michael’s stick-figure frame, pumped his veins full of drugs and fluid, snaked tubes down his throat to ease air into lungs. They started him on a new combination therapy they called a cocktail, as if such a name could invent for Michael pleasant memories of Boatslip tea dances and Fire Island free-for-alls.