In the Drink (29 page)

“Worse than stealing my glass?”

“I think so,” I said. I paused, then blurted, “I gave all that money to the cabdriver.”

“What money?”

“That hundred dollars.”

“What hundred dollars?”

We stared at each other.

“You gave it to me the night I—the night at George’s, with Gus.”

He sucked on the inside of his cheek for a moment. “Huh,” he said finally, “maybe you dreamed it.”

“No,” I said, “I didn’t dream anything that happened that night. I wish I had.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t remember? I hit on you, and you sent me home in a cab.”

He leaned his head back against the wall and smiled sideways at me; I basked in the steadfast warmth of his gaze. It was hard to breathe. I felt pleasure and pain and a druglike urge to melt. I closed my eyes, unable to bear it.

“William,” I burst out, “how could you call me wholesome?”

He laughed. “Why are you so upset? What’s so bad about being wholesome?”

“I’m not
wholesome
. Let me explain something, William. I don’t want you of all people to think of me as some kind of sister. I’m no sister.”

“I never said you were.”

“Well, good,” I said. I was really doing this; I was saying these things to him. I felt a little loopy with relief. I also felt as if I were only about halfway there. “Also, while I’m at it, I might as well tell you that I slept with John Threadgill again the other night, which was a complete mistake, but it just confirmed something I’ve known for over a year.”

“That he’s still married?”

I ignored this. “I can’t have that kind of casual thing any more. I want something real or nothing at all.”

“Me too,” he said, “that’s exactly what I’ve been—”

“No, it isn’t the same thing. Because I—”

“That’s what I wanted to—”

“Shut up.” I set my glass down on a coaster on the coffee table and slid over to put my hands on his elbows. The room went completely silent. His eyes didn’t waver from mine; he had no expression on his face.

“I’m just sitting here waiting for you to get it,” I said finally.

“Get what?”

“You know what, William. It’s totally obvious and you’re not stupid, at least not usually.”

“I am right now,” he said. “I don’t know, Claudia, you’re going to have to tell me.”

“I love you,” I said, just like that; my tone was conversational, almost bemused, but every cell in my body was alight, as if I were in some warm, thrilling dream, the kind I awoke from and tried to reenter with all my might but never could.

“You love me,” he repeated, in what appeared to be bafflement. “You mean love, love?”

“Yes.”

“Do you really?”

“Yes,” I groaned, half with relief, half with dread of what he’d say now.

“No,” he said then; my heart almost failed me. “You don’t.”

“I swear, I do.”

“Trust me, you don’t.”

He sounded so cool and unmoved that I started to cry.

“Stop,” he said.

“I can’t stop,” I sobbed. “I feel so stupid.”

He put his arm around me and pressed his lips to the crown of my head. As he spoke his breath warmed my skull, and the warmth spread downward into my entire body. “No, no, no,” he said. “It’s me.”

“Don’t humor me,” I said fiercely.

“I’m not humoring you. Ask me why we’re celebrating.”

“Why are we celebrating?”

“I got my results today. I got tested.”

My veins flash-froze. I pushed him away and faced him. “And?” I said.

“And I’m negative. I’m okay.”

I went to throw my arms around him, but he staved me off with both hands raised. “Wait, I’m not finished. I had every reason to think it would be positive. I’d accepted it, but for years I was too scared to find out for sure. Then recently Gus convinced me to go in. And I’m okay. I don’t really believe it.”

Gus. Of course. I’d known it all along, somehow. “Pour me another glass,” I said.

We tossed off another glass each, then refilled our glasses and downed most of those, too. I was fully crocked already after just two beers and three little flutes of champagne.

“All right, William.” We were sitting upright again, facing each other at either end of the couch, the bottle between us on the coffee table. I was interested to note that he’d neglected to place a coaster under a wet vessel. He was agitated indeed. “I’m ready to hear about Gus.”

“Oh, that,” he said distractedly. “Well, I slept with him years ago, once or twice right after college, but that’s not what I have to tell you.”

“Oh, William,” I said. “How could you? He’s so disgusting.”

William cleared his throat and started to say something, licked his lips and tried again, ran his hand over his mouth. “Shit,” he said, “I can’t.” He leapt up and walked with jerky steps into the kitchen. I heard him opening and closing the refrigerator a few times.

“What are you doing in there?” I called to him after a minute or so.

“Stalling,” he said, and came back in with a bottle of mineral water. “Are you thirsty?”

“I don’t drink water,” I said. “Come on, William, look at what I just told you, and if I could survive that, you can say anything. Come on, it’s your turn.”

He stood in the middle of his living room, holding the bottle straight out from his breastbone and capping the top with his thumb. He stood like that for a minute or two, looking at me, mulling the words over on his tongue, getting them ready to come out. I looked patiently back at him, waiting. He made an impatient wrought-up karate chop in midair.

“What is it?”

He sat down next to me and hid his face in his hands. “I can’t look at you while I say this. You have to look out the window until I’m finished.”

I tilted my head so all I could see was the pale, skewed reflection of the room in the big window.

“I’m a pervert,” he said finally. There was a long silence. I sat up slowly and looked at him, waiting. He placed his palms together, slid them between his knees. “For so many years,” he said with a mild discursiveness that made me suspect he was extremely nervous and hiding it well, “I’ve been sort of like Jekyll and Hyde, clean-cut professional by day, degenerate weirdo by night—except that it’s essentially voluntary; I don’t go temporarily insane or anything, I’m just twisted.”

I laughed; I couldn’t help it. “You are not twisted, William, you’re—”

“Wait a second,” he said, and sighed as if he’d been holding his breath and was finally letting it out. He took a long drink of water. I watched him as he swallowed, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and stared at me, his eyes dark and hollow.

“What?” I said, really alarmed now.

“Okay,” he said. “I do weird sex things.” His voice sounded a little hoarse. “I mean I used to.”

“What weird sex things, exactly?”

“Uh—well, with prostitutes,” he began, his eyes trained on
my face for the slightest twitch or flinch. Seeing none, because I was exerting every ounce of my willpower to keep from showing my horror, he continued, “And people in S&M clubs, those dungeons. And various people I meet through personal ads, a lot of older women, couples looking for a third—”

“Prostitutes,” I said wonderingly. “Dungeons. You mean you—what do you do in there, exactly?”

“I—” He looked at the rug. “Everyone’s really polite and soft-spoken, actually—I don’t know, Claudia, do I really have to describe it?”

I stared at him. “Tell me,” I said.

“Okay, well, when someone asked me to do something, I’d do it. Is that enough detail for you?”

“No,” I said. “I want to know what kinds of weird things you do. Did. Specifically.”

“I’d let people tie me up—”

“Is this women, people? Or—”

“And men,” he blurted.

Suddenly I didn’t want to hear any more about that. “And prostitutes?”

“They’re strangers. They’re professional and impersonal. Like nurses; I’ve always liked nurses.”

“What about personal ads? Who did you meet? What’s it like sleeping with a couple? I’ve never really done that.”

“Claudia. Quit interrogating me. It’s weird sleeping with a couple, what do you think?”

“Have you ever slept with two men at once?”

“No.” He gave me a look. “I feel even worse about all this now than I did before.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t be curious?”

“Last question,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Okay. Did you ever fall in love with these people?”

He gave a dry little laugh, which I found oddly touching. “No. That was basically the whole point. Look, Claudia, the last time I did anything like that was more than three months ago. I almost—the other night after we left George’s—I started to go down to Mott Street to meet a—”

“That night? The night I hit on you? Who were you meeting?”

“Some Chinese couple. But I changed my mind. The next day I made my appointment to get tested.”

I stared into his face. It was the same face it had always been, the same watchful, half-smiling, heartbreakingly direct gaze.

“Oh, God, William, you slept with Gus?”

“Yes.”

“And all those strangers? Why?”

“I felt useful,” he said. “I felt like I was useful to them.”

There was a long silence. I could hear the electricity humming through the walls. A lightbulb gave a small tick, expanding in its own heat.

“And I thought you were so perfect,” I said. My mouth was dry.

“Why would you think that?”

I said insistently, as if my words could make William go back to the person I’d thought he was, “Look at this apartment. The way you are. You never even have a button missing. And in high school you were so—I don’t know, such an odd bird, so antisocial and—”

“I was pissed off,” he said. “All I wanted was for everyone to leave me alone, and they did.”

“You were my role model,” I said in despair.

“Serves you right for having a role model,” he said, but gently.

“Ah,” I said despondently, and drained my glass. “I can’t believe it. All that agonizing about Devorah and Margot and all those normal nice corporate girls—”

“That was real, Claudia. I mean, I wasn’t—”

“And always treating me to things. Buying me off. Appeasing your conscience. Allowing me my little delusions.”

“No!” he said. “That’s not at all what that was about.”

“Leave me alone for a minute. I have to think.”

I got up and went into the bathroom and locked the door. I looked into the mirror for a few minutes. My eyes looked as huge and shocked as an owl’s. William had a life he’d hidden from me; he had allowed sleazeballs and perverts of every age, sex and persuasion to do whatever they wanted to him, including Gus—okay, I thought, I would pretend this was no big deal, I wasn’t shocked or heartbroken, I’d never imagined anything to do with him and me except friendship. I was his friend no matter what and always would be, I’d tell him, and then I’d go home.

I strolled back out to the living room. The potted ficus cast a leafy shadow over the rug. William was on the couch, looking into his champagne glass, his legs crossed so that one foot rested on the other knee. If he knew I was there, he didn’t show it. He seemed to be wholly absorbed in his glass. The light on his face was soft enough so I couldn’t read his expression, but from the angle of his legs and the looseness of his shoulders as he leaned back against the cushions I got the feeling he was lost in his own thoughts, none of which had much at all to do with me. Realizing this, I was so overwhelmed that for a moment I just stood there in the doorway, staring at him.

“Hey,” he said, noticing me for the first time, “you’re back. Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?”

He furrowed his brow, lawyer-like, weighing his next words
as if they were coins he was placing one by one on a scale. “I’m sorry I upset you,” he said. “That was the last thing I wanted to do; I just wanted to come clean. I couldn’t stand lying to you any more.”

“Couldn’t you?” I was surprised at how calm I sounded. My whole body was shaking.

“Sit,” he said, and gave the cushion next to him a comradely thump.

“No thank you,” I said politely, “I prefer to stand.” I continued to stand there, my hands clenching and unclenching at my sides, my tongue tapping idly and ruminatively against my teeth, looking at him.

“Quit it,” he said after a moment, laughing a little. “You’re making me nervous.”

“Am I? Sorry.”

“Sit down. Have some more champagne. It’s good, by the way. How much was it?”

“I’m not telling. You asked me to bring it, I brought it.”

“Yeah, but you just got—”

“It’s my fucking treat,” I said. “See, that’s what I mean. No matter what you do during your off-hours, you have a secretary, you own this apartment and you’re going to be made partner, it’s just a matter of time. And meanwhile, I’m some kind of poor relation you help along, try to set up with a menial job at your firm, slip handouts to on the sly—if we wore the same size and we were both men you’d give me your old suits. I can’t take it any more. It’s unbearable.”

I went into the kitchen, found the second bottle of champagne in the fridge and opened it over the sink.

“What are you doing in there?” he called worriedly, as if he feared I might be slitting my wrists with his bread knife.

“Slitting my wrists with your bread knife,” I called back. When the foam came up I drank it, wiped my mouth with the
back of my hand, took a good swig and then another one, coughing a little at the sharp bubbles in my nose. Then I went back into the living room and stood in the middle of the rug, holding the bottle by its sweaty neck. “No, really, it’s no big deal. I’m glad to know the truth. I’m glad your test was negative.”

He leaned forward so his elbows were on his knees and both feet were on the ground, looking up at me with his empty glass held loosely between his legs. “Can I say something?”

“It’s your house.”

“First of all,” he said, “I had no idea you felt that way about my treating you to things. Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me keep doing it if it bothered you? I was just trying to be gentlemanly.”

“It’s not that I didn’t appreciate it,” I said, feeling absurdly dramatic all of a sudden. “And second?”