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When Arthur Stuart came to New York, he came with a portable
typewriter, not electric, and a few clothes in a mostly
cardboard suitcase. Under the layer of jeans and knit cotton,
there had been enough lame and makeup to get him into full drag,
certainly enough that he'd spent the half-hour in customs at
Kennedy airport praying to a God that he didn't believe in that
his bags wouldn't be searched. He would have been calmer trying
to cross the Turkish border with twenty kilos of hashish
strapped to his body. He saw "Midnight Express" five years
later, in a theatre that had only recently been converted from
playing Russian industrial pornography, and was grateful that he
hadn't yet seen it then. At twenty-two, he had sincerely
believed that his life would end if the contents of his suitcase
were upended on that not at all sterile counter in front of far
too many people.
At that time, only his skin had been holding him together. In
the six weeks it took him to find a flat and a job, his addict's
craving for Curt Wild settled into habitual obsession. In the
three years during which he clawed his way from newsroom slave
to staff hack, he operated on the edge of exhaustion all the
time, so that his need for Curt was gradually subsumed by his
need for sleep and real food. After seven years, it wasn't even
something he thought about; it was just a need which had almost
ceased to have a name, and which only bothered him on the
occasional nights when he couldn't sleep and found himself
seated on his living room floor at four in the morning, drinking
English tea and rocking himself slowly on the edge of tears.
At some point during that time, he'd come to a steady
understanding of his sexuality that didn't require the
shimmering, drag-queen props of his glam childhood. He didn't
throw the make-up or the jewellery out, but he did put them
away, and ceased to think about them except as souvenirs of a
life he didn't particularly want anymore.
None of that helped to explain to him why he was sitting
shirtless on his floor with the lights off, drawing abstract
designs on his arms with a tube of ancient and almost liquid
lipstick. He was overtired, still strung out from a week of
intense and ultimately pointless research, and from the
maddening concert at which he'd spent most of the evening. He
couldn't remember the last time he'd slept for more than four or
five hours. Maybe that exhaustion would be enough to justify
himself when he had to explain why he'd decided to allege that
lacquered political pop star Tommy Stone was his own idol's
former lover. No one would make those precise connections,
probably, but untold numbers of people would be furious. He had
sudden visions of being deported. Maybe he could deny that he
had been there. He'd given a nameless teenaged girl his press
pass in the bar; he could easily claim that he'd never received
it, and had left immediately after the tasteless stage spectacle
he'd been subjected to.
Blood, he decided. If he'd been braver, he would have been
drawing on himself in blood. His own, preferably, drawn with
his teeth or with the brooch pin that he'd acquired earlier that
evening. The thing was long enough to be an instrument of
destruction in a Greek tragedy, though he didn't think anything
in his life had ever demanded that level of melodrama. He
wasn't ready to die or go blind; he was only fragile, and
needing the repetition and touch that the body art gave him.
His tea had cooled enough that he could swallow it all without
stopping for breath. Sugar that had collected at the bottom of
the cup covered his lips like another mouth. Licking it off, he
went to shower, and fell asleep naked on his bedspread, curled
on his side with a pillow pulled to his abdomen. When he woke,
he was momentarily disoriented to find that Curt wasn't there.
He'd been so sure he could smell him.
*****
He knew he looked terrible. Lou's secretary had stopped on her
walk through the newsroom, knelt, and checked his temperature
with the back of her hand laid against his forehead. She wasn't
old enough, really, for an action that maternal, but he accepted
it, and she didn't turn it into an advance. On her next circuit
through, she brought him tea and watched him while he drank it.
He was shivering with exhaustion.
He was out of his mind. He had no right to be obsessed by a man
with whom he'd spent only one night, seven years previously, and
who had later gracefully offered him friendship in return for
Arthur's too-invasive questions. Without the Slade assignment,
he lacked even the small excuse of professional interest. There
was no justification for the search he ran that afternoon, sorting
through the layers of names until he found Curt's on a half-dozen
documents. There was a little for his then fleeing to the men's loo
and throwing up. There was infinitely more for the fact that he
then got up, washed out his mouth, and went back to work. He worked
late, until nearly eight-thirty, finishing a half-dozen short pieces
based on the international wires, and only gathered himself up to
leave when the night staff, a collection of trembling, coffee-fuelled
wreaks, began to watch him with thinly-veiled paranoia.
At eight-forty-five he was wrapped as deeply in his coat as he
could bury himself, hailing a cab out of the dense New York
traffic. At nine-twenty, he was shaking in the doorway of the
club that had borne Curt Wild's name in its civic records.
He'd been there before. He'd interviewed Mandy Slade in a booth
in the corner opposite where he was currently standing. It
should have occurred to him that her career wasn't such that she
would receive marquee billing from anyone but a friend. Slade
wasn't visible, and her name was down outside. Around the brick
pillars, he made out two dozen or so patrons, mostly drinking
and all talking in voices too low for him to catch. The absence
of music was startling. He couldn't remember when he'd last
been in a bar or club that didn't have at least a jukebox or the
radio going. In the stillness, Arthur's breathing was
unreasonably invasive.
When the waiter slipped by him, he caught the man, ordered a
beer, then thought better of it and added vodka to the request.
The drinks caught up with him at Mandy's table. He drank the
vodka too fast, then traced the cigarette burns on the wood
veneer while the alcohol-induced pain swept through his head and
cleared it. The beer after that was a sweet change. It settled
him, reminded him of the joys of a comfortable blankness that
didn't demand decisions or present crises.
The sound of tuning wasn't a familiar one anymore. Since he'd
abandoned the Flaming Creatures for the greyness of New York, he
hadn't lived with musicians, and he'd lost his quiet acceptance
of those discordances. Arthur twisted around, saw the stage
stripped of everything but a half-dozen chairs and few basic
amplifiers. A man he didn't know was settled at stage right,
quietly tuning an unplugged electric bass. He did it carefully,
twisting the keys and cocking his head to catch the effect, then
adjusting again.
Curt Wild was sitting on the edge of the stage.
His hair was still tied back, badly, with strands falling into
his face and catching in the sides of his mouth. He was
t-shirted and stocking-footed, wrapped casually in his jeans.
One knee was up, and he was tuning an acoustic guitar against
it. After a second, though, he seemed to be satisfied with the
sound, and began picking out something unpredictably melodic
which Arthur couldn't quite name. The bass man joined him
gradually, until they had a steady rhythm going. None of the
drinkers seemed to notice. When the two players closed, a few
others set down their beers and applauded lightly, but even they
gave up after a few moments.
The only effect that Arthur could see was on Curt. He closed up
shockingly at the small reaction, handed off the guitar and
retreated. Someone else resumed playing. No one noticed.
Curt was still like that, then -- hating attention and always
attracting it. In Arthur's ancient scrapbook, there was a
photograph of Curt shaking off a fan's grasping arm and burying
his face in Brian Slade's shoulder. What he was doing now was
the social equivalent, burying himself in a poorly-lit corner
with a glass. The tie in his hair had come loose, and the blond
mess concealed his face almost entirely.
Ignoring the comfortable jam session taking place on the care
stage, Arthur gathered himself up and crossed the room. He
settled himself opposite Curt and waited for the man to notice
him.
"Buy you a drink?"
"I don't drink, much," Curt said softly. He hadn't raised his
head. The voice was the same growl, running over the folded
hands and pressing through the veil of hair.
"You were drinking last night," Arthur said.
"Yeah, but I really, really needed it then."
Arthur nodded and sniffed a little. The only thing in Curt's
glass was water. There was a whiff of cigarette smoke that he
eventually traced to an ashtray pushed back out of his line of
sight. The butt in it flared slightly when Arthur breathed in
its direction.
"But you smoke," he said.
"Gives me something to do with my hands." In fact, Curt's hands
were frenetic, tapping at the table and the sides of his glass
so forcefully that Arthur thought the man might go into
convulsions if he were forced to still his extremities. When he
caught Arthur's eyes on him, though, Curt immediately hid his
hands below the table, eventually re-emerging with a lighter and
a fresh cigarette. Once lit, the cigarette flashed from hand to
hand, calligraphing the silence between them.
He needed to say something. The silence wasn't awkward, really,
but it shook him, his reporter's need for words forcing itself
to the surface. He was halfway out of his seat to flee the
scene when he found a question and let it fall out of his mouth.
"Look, do you know who I am?"
"What?"
"When you saw me in the bar, on Friday, did you recognise me? I
mean, did you realise that you'd met me before? Or did you only
talk to me because I approached you?"
Curt rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes. "What do
you want me to tell you?"
"The truth." His reporter's answer.
"I doubt it. I'd like to tell you that I remembered you. I
remember you now. Arthur Stuart, briefly of the Flaming
Creatures, more recently shit-disturber in the delicately-
balanced world of superstar Tommy Stone. I met you at the Death
of Glitter concert." Curt flashed him a smile so brief Arthur
wasn't sure it was anything more than a facial tic. "I remember
wanting you like I hadn't wanted anyone since Brian. Maybe even
since before Brian. But when you walked up to me, no, I didn't
know you.
"You look different. Really different. When we -- in London,
you were a kid. I thought you were going to break the first
time I kissed you. Christ, I was so stoned, it's a wonder I
didn't really hurt you. Now you look . . . more solid, I guess.
Stronger than me. Smarter, probably."
"No."
"Sure. Doesn't really matter, other than that I like it on you.
I liked the other look, too, as far as it goes. You know, I did
remember you, the way you looked that morning, for a long time.
You were so happy, and such a mess -- we'd got lipstick all over
your face, and my glitter was on you. You have no idea how much
I wanted to take you home."
"But you didn't."
"I didn't have much of a home. I think I was sleeping on Jack
Fairy's couch at the time. And while I'm sure he would have
found you charming . . ." He dragged the word out, making it
five absurdly British syllables.
Arthur didn't know what he'd expected. It wasn't reasonably to
ask the man to simply take him back. Arthur was, to all intents
and purposes, the grey man he'd tried very hard to avoid
becoming, and Curt was a glittering creature who was too
beautiful to be a man of his age.
And then Curt smiled at him fully and his heart stopped. A
thin, blunt-fingered hand landed on Arthur's to hold him in
place until he sank back against the vinyl seat, picked up his
empty glass, and tilted it futilely against his lips. For half
a second, the eyes creased into what might have been laughter,
then something defensively hard stiffened the face and Curt was
looking at him with almost clinical detachment.
Arthur tried very hard not to be hurt. The old manager's words
nagged at him: 'The shock treatment was supposed to fry the
fairy out of him, but all it really did was make him bonkers.'
It was a harsher judgement that Curt deserved. The man's
fragility came out of that abuse, but the towering arrogance
that coated it was entirely based in Curt's understanding that
the world knew about him. He'd been conceived by wolves, raised
by thieves, fucked by trailer trash, and tortured by the medical
system, and then his personal life had been plastered across
every tabloid in London.
For an instant Arthur changed his sight angle and he was blinded
by what was under Curt's armour. Lust slammed up him like it
hadn't in any part of his rational life. In the very far
distance, there were still musicians on the stage and a dozen or
so drinkers in the line-of-sight audience, but he'd lost any
interest in them. He wasn't about to react to anything that
wasn't within breathing distance. What he did instead was lean
over the table, clamp his hand around the back of Curt's skull,
and kiss the man hard.
In the first second after Arthur's lips closed over the other
man's, Curt went so still that Arthur had to open his eyes to be
sure he was still there. The huge, grey eyes that were too
close to his were filled with something almost like shell-shock.
And then Curt's mouth opened and Arthur found the other man
sucking at his tongue. Arthur had closed his eyes again; he
kept them shut after Curt pulled back and gently used both hands
to loosed Arthur's fingers from their death-grip in his hair.
He could feel the heat of people's eyes on him.
"What do you want, Arthur Stuart?" Dry humour under the
flatness.
"You."
"Okay, then." Curt got up, walked around the edge of the bar
and retrieved his coat. If Arthur had felt the patrons' eyes
hot on him, then Curt had to be burning. He'd only cracked open
his eyes, enough to see Curt fall into his defensive slink for
maybe five paces, then straighten suddenly and glare at everyone
watching him. His lips pulled back a little, and Arthur
realized the man was snarling. If he'd had hackles, they would
have been up. Everything in him saying, *Back off.*
He followed Curt when the man walked by him and wound his way to
the back entrance. He was halfway into the alley when Curt
turned on him and kissed him hard. Oh god there was Curt Wild
all over him and that hot wetness was going to climb right
inside him, climb down his throat and settle inside him, until
Curt was wearing Arthur Stuart as a second skin. So hard.
Curt's hands were on the back of Arthur's head, close against
his scalp, and if Arthur had had more than a few inches of hair,
those hands would have been so tangled in him that they'd never
have gotten loose.
Too good. He twisted them so that Curt was against the wall.
Canted his hips and pushed hard against the man's thigh. God,
he was so hard he was going to come in a minute. He hadn't done
this in far too long. He was gnawing on Curt's breastbone, his
collar bone. Slid his hands into Curt's waistband and pulled
the t-shirt out, pushed it up, and in half a second he was on
his knees, kissing the softly haired belly that he'd exposed.
Curt whimpered, then shook as Arthur ran his teeth down the hair
trail as far as he could reach, only stopping when his teeth
caught against the denim.
Curt said, "Don't."
Arthur paused, looked up with Curt's hard-on just below his
chin. "You're joking."
"I'm not going to fuck you behind a bar. I know these people --
they use the back way *way* too often. And it's raining.
Jesus, aren't you cold?"
He was soaking. The knitted collar and cuffs of his jacket were
so wet he could have wrung them out; his knees were in half an
inch of water. The moment he stood up, he was going to be able
to tell that he was wet from knee to ankle. Like wearing a
sign: *I blew Curt Wild in an alley.* God, he hadn't been this
cheap in years.
"Let me take you home," he said.
Curt snaked a hand down, cupped Arthur's chin, letting the back
of his hand rest against his own erection. "Sounds good. Get
you out of those wet clothes."
He made it sound so innocent. Arthur had a flash suddenly of
Curt as he must have been in Michigan: casual, rude, and
abruptly middle-American. Somebody's cousin. Somebody's dad,
even. Someone who would pick you up from hockey practice in a
ten year old blue pick-up, sing with you on the way home and
then hand you over to your mom to be taken care of. Somebody
who'd always be poor, drink a little too much, dream a lot.
Or the closet queerboy, working an assembly-line job and giving
blow-jobs behind rink because it was the only way he could get
anyone to touch him. Grow up and live with just his mom, loved
carefully by her but always slightly alien. Known as the town
nut-job ever since he got out of psychiatric care.
Arthur pushed himself straight up by laying his hands on Curt's
knees and levering against them. He wasn't even fully upright
yet when he wrapped both arms around Curt and buried his face in
the man's shoulder. He hugged the body against his desperately,
whimpered a little into Curt's neck.
"Hey," Curt said. "What?"
"Nothing." Abruptly embarrassed. "Get a cab?"
"Yeah."
***
The cab had a small PLO sticker visible, and the driver was
young, dark, and jittery. He only seemed relieved that neither
Curt nor Arthur looked to be dangerous, and carefully didn't
notice them necking in the back seat. Ten minutes into the
trip, Arthur hadn't been entirely sure that Curt wasn't simply
going tobend him double and fuck him against the vinyl. As it
was, he had Curt's hand in his pants, rubbing him frantically,
then pulling back just before Arthur would have had to come or
shatter. He was still whimpering when Curt zipped him up, sat
back, and held his sticky palm up, then licked it, with a wide,
deliberate dog-grin.
Four floors up, three flights of stairs, and they kissed on
every landing. On the second one, Curt had pushed him back
against the next flight, bent, and licked Arthur's neck with the
same animal-strokes he'd used earlier on his own hand.
*Bastard.*
"Tease."
"Nuh-uh. When I get you upstairs, you're going to get
*everything*. Promise."
And in his apartment, Curt had made him very naked. Stripped
him entirely, taking off each sock, his coat and shoes and
jeans, his underwear. Rubbed fingers against the backs of his
knees and up under his balls.
"*Tease.*"
His bed was too small for two full-grown men, but Curt appeared
not to have noticed. Arthur found himself laid out on his back
with Curt straddling his waist, still wiggling out of his own
clothes. It wasn't right for a man to be that sexy, writhing
like a dancer with his jeans around his knees. Wasn't proper.
Someone should come and lock the man up where only Arthur could
get at him.
Curt stopped, suddenly. He bent forward and grabbed Arthur's
wrists, pinned them. "*Don't*," he said, fiercely. "Don't even
think about it."
It must have been showing on Arthur's face for Curt to react so
extremely. He was faced suddenly with all the fear that was
just under Curt's surface. He'd broken the armour, and what was
underneath was fierce and feral and completely self-protective.
The grip wasn't hard. He broke it by rolling, ended with Curt
under him and kissed the man's face, kisses that were half
eyelash, rubbing over the skin just faintly, like insects. "I'm
sorry. I won't. I didn't mean it, it was just a thought,
random. I wouldn't do that."
Under him, Curt shifted and kicked his jeans off. Bare legs
wrapped around Arthur's and pulled him closer. Arthur had to
reach between them to free Curt's erection from the briefs, but
he got them off without separating his mouth from Curt's skin.
He could have teased more, but he was so hard he hurt, and Curt
was still shaking with the fear and rage that oddly hadn't
softened him at all. He curled himself around and buried Curt's
cock as deeply as he could in his mouth. Took a breath, let it
out, opened his throat and went all the way down. He hadn't
been able to do that yet, the first/last time he'd slept with
this man; it was a skill that had been part of his New York
education. Curt shook under his lips, rocked all over, reached
for him, and Arthur had to push himself back against the wall to
stay out of reach. After a moment's stillness, Curt accepted
it, and when he reached out again, it was only to stroke
Arthur's shaking belly.
The lube was where he'd left it, in the half-table beside his
bed, but he was surprised when Curt handed it to him. If the
man was coherent enough to search for anything while Arthur was
blowing him . . . He lubed two fingers and pressed them against
Curt's asshole together. The whimper this time sounded more
like pain, but after a moment the muscles gave and both tips
were inside. He worked one in almost completely, just using the
other to keep the hole wide open. When he was buried, the second
one worked in, pushing up against the resistance while Curt
bucked frantically against his mouth.
One hard thrust, and both his fingers were in, and his knuckles
were pushed up hard against the perineum, and Curt screamed.
Came hard, running down Arthur's throat so deeply Arthur didn't
have to consciously swallow. Didn't have a choice. For a
minute or two, he could barely feel his fingers, let alone move
them. Then Curt inhaled and let it out deliberately, relaxing.
While the strange, grey eyes were closed, Arthur worked a third
finger in and rocked them together back and forth. He found
Curt's prostate, but the man was still limp enough from the
orgasm that he only jerked, then whimpered. So Arthur stayed
there, massaging gently inside, and outside with the other hand,
until he felt the muscles against his head and neck tense a
little, and the cock that was still resting against his lips
stir and harden. Curt wiggled against him, then, a movement
that meant clearly that he was supposed to get up and look his
partner in the eye instead of remaining down there, though the
things he was doing down there most surely qualified as incredible.
He turned himself around in the too-small space and faced Curt
without completely withdrawing his fingers. The tips were still
down there, stretching Curt's asshole gently while he waited.
Finally, Curt said just, "Yeah," and lifted his hips. Arthur
let his fingers slide out, and with the extra reach it gave him,
he bent to kiss the mouth under his.
Then bent, latexed himself, lubed, and half-knelt/half-lay
between Curt's thighs. Curt grinned at him and shifted again,
so that his legs were up, and pushed one of Arthur's legs
towards the edge. Arthur grinned at him. Kissed. Dropped his
leg and half-stood. He bent against his forearms and pushed,
hard.
In the first/only night they'd had together, he'd heard Curt
make all the deep sounds that he'd since come to associate with
sex, but never this keening wail. Only the determination on
Curt's face kept Arthur from pulling out completely and just
rocking the man. When Curt next paused to draw breath, Arthur
kissed him, kept kissing while he thrust twice, out-in-out, in
and then in as deeply as he could. Under him, Curt shook. He
thrust again, got a whimper out of the fey body under his.
The next thing he was aware of was a leg close against his hip.
It took him a moment to realize that Curt didn't have the
strength and flexibility to simply wrap his legs around his
partner's waist. But he could help with that. He changed his
body-angle until he was lying across Curt on a slight diagonal,
then let some of his weight down onto Curt's chest and braced
the rest against his right elbow. With his left arm, he reached
behind himself and caught Curt's knee, lifted the leg until it
rested at the small of his back. On his other side, he felt
Curt push his other leg down against the mattress, then raise it
up to join with the opposite ankle on the rebound.
And suddenly, he had Curt's legs wrapped so tightly around his
waist that he almost lost his breath, and he was deeper inside
Curt's body than he'd ever imagined. So good. Out, in-in-
deeper in. Out-in. He wasn't building a rhythm, only moving in
response to Curt's gasps and small begging noises. His free
hand slipped under Curt's head and lifted the odd, pale face to
meet his. Such ordinariness covering the man's fire. They
kissed steadily, rubbing nearly to the back's of each other's
throats, until Arthur finally whimpered into Curt's mouth,
found a rhythm, and started driving them home. Ten thrusts,
fourteen, and Curt shrieked into him, pushing breath into
Arthur's lungs, and clamped down. And then, finally, Arthur
could come, and lie trembling with Curt's legs still locked
around his waist.
He might have slept for a while, he wasn't sure afterwards, but
the sensation of Curt's legs sliding off him made him surface.
The blond man under him was grimacing a little as he flexed his
knees.
"Hurts?"
"My legs kind of went to sleep. Sorry."
"S'alright." He pulled out, slightly amazed that he hadn't lost
the condom while he was out. Curt's asshole stayed a little
open when he left it, and it looked sore enough that once he was
settled beside the long body, he reached over one long leg to
rub gently at the flesh he'd worked so hard. Against him, Curt
almost purred. He was spattered with his own orgasm, but he
didn't appear to have noticed, and he didn't have enough body
hair to make the matter urgent. Arthur was more than prepared
to stay stroking him all night.
"Well," said Curt softly.
"That was nice," Arthur told him. "Can you stay?"
"Yeah." Curt settled against him so securely that he might have
been bracing himself for nuclear war.
***
Arthur woke in the night to Curt shifting. He'd been right in
his initial impression that the bed wasn't large enough for both
of them. Curt had until that point been very, very still, but
Arthur suspected that it was unnatural, and probably forced.
"Wha's wrong?"
"Sorry." Curt stilled, but Arthur could feel restless tension
in him.
"No, it's all right. I just wanted to know if something was the
matter."
"I'm all right. I just don't sleep very well. I've irritated
any number of lovers by pacing the floor in the middle of the
night."
"You've stayed with me." Pause. "Should I be flattered?"
"I don't know. Maybe. I don't think I managed to stay in bed
with Brian more than a handful of times." Small grin, barely
visible in the dark. "It used to make him so mad."
"I believe it." Gently, he rolled Curt until the man was on his
back, then curled himself around the narrow curves that the body
against his afforded. "So. Will I have to tell you a bedtime
story?"
"It couldn't hurt." What a strange sound. He would have
thought it was hopeful. "No wolves."
"No wolves. Tigers?"
"Mmm."
Arthur thought back, but the only thing he could remember was a
poem he'd read to someone's unreasonably clean-cut child over and
over again in his days with the Flaming Creatures. He'd read it
half a hundred times, probably, he should know it by heart.
"My father's got some curious friends --
At least, I s'pose it all depends
On what you mean by curious --
But some are not at all like us.
"He takes a friendly interest
In neighbouring bird and local beast.
The Dubbs live just across the way.
(The Dubbs are tygers, I may say.)"
Arthur's accent made the slightly Victorian poem sound less
ridiculous than it might otherwise have, and Curt seemed
prepared to listen to him for hours as he told how the Dubbs
went to sea and were shipwrecked, how they climbed a volcano and
met gypsies. He was down to an account of the civil banquet
with which the Dubbs were greeted on their return when he
suddenly broke rhythm and said, "It isn't really him, you know,
it's his manager, the red-headed woman."
Meaning Brian Slade. That Brian was less cruel than he was
easily led. And that Curt shouldn't be so hurt. That Arthur
shouldn't be so angry.
Curt snorted. "Yeah, Shannon. She's such a goddamn joke. You
know she was in love with him, back in days of yore?"
"Mm-hmm. Mandy Slade told me. But how did you know?"
"Talk. Mandy. My own eyes. It bothered Shannon, the idea that
Brian might be queer, like it damaged him or something. Made
him less than perfect."
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Did it?" Grateful by now that he
wouldn't have to recall the last lines of the poem out of his
tired brain.
Another snort. "Brian was never perfect, not even on his good
days. The best he ever was was a lump, waiting for somebody
else's ideas to make him into something. Makes Shannon happy --
she just had to pick him up, dust him off, and give him a
terminal case of bad taste."
"This from a man wearing only come, a black sheet, and a hunk of
Victorian jewellery."
"Huh?"
Arthur reached over Curt's shoulder and picked up the Wilde
broach from where it was caught on the pillow case. "It shows
up so often. Do you think it's a blessing or a curse?"
"Blessing," said Curt, instantly. "Wilde fell in love while he
had it. Jack Fairy became the toast of gutter London wearing
it."
"It was Fairy's?"
"Mandy said so. She remembers a lot, you know."
"I noticed."
"While Brian had it, he was a star, and I loved him. When I had
it, I found you." Leaning up suddenly to dog-kiss Arthur's ear.
"Well then, perhaps I should give it back to you, and we could
make you famous again."
The comment was an impulse only, but then Arthur thought about
it. Some part of him was still jealous of Brian Slade, who'd
possessed Curt thoroughly enough to be able to give him up. More
of him was raging at Tommy Stone, who had buried Curt so
thoroughly that he was pale from lack of daylight. Curt was
thirty-seven, now. There were lines around his eyes, but they
could disappear with a little make-up -- or a little plastic
surgery -- and the right lighting. He still had the body of a
slick post-adolescent, rangy and pale, with only a little muscle
and a thin line of hair running from his breastbone to his groin.
The music had changed, but Curt's voice, with a little polish,
could knock Tommy Stone's off the charts. He was enough of a
journalist to know that the public was rapidly tiring of techno-
pop politics, even with president Reynolds' slick, half-youthful
veneer. When Curt Wild was packing Shea Stadium, they'd see who
was the fucking failure.
Grey eyes watching him were steady. "You want to change me too,
Arthur?" Curt asked.
"Of course not. But you have to admit it's a nice fantasy, what
they say about success being the best revenge."
Curt rolled himself half-upright and pulled his knees up to his
chest. "Why would I want revenge?"
"What he said to you . . . before you went to Berlin . . ."
"I don't want revenge, Arthur. I've got my life; I don't need
his."
"But . . ."
"Listen to me: I like my life. Are you going to try to change
me?"
He let the vision dissolve. "No."
Curt sighed and settled back against the pillows, rolling until
he was semi-fetal and still wrapped in the sheet. "I don't want
to be famous any more. You have to give me this, Arthur. I
need this much control. I did the methadone waltz long enough
to know that you can't kick a habit by just taking smaller doses
or substituting something else. You have to give it up, cold
and forever."
"That can't be good for you."
"Hurts like fuck. But at least you're clean. I'm clean." Curt
shifted the black cloth away from his body, and for a second he
was the perfect houri from Arthur's adolescent fantasies. "And
I don't belong to anybody. Not even Brian."
*Not even you, Arthur.*
It hurt, more so than he could have predicted. That he had
found something so wonderful and could not own it. That he
couldn't protect Curt from the damage the world seemed to fling
at him.
Gently. "I'm not joking: I was on methadone for a long fucking
time. It was funny, you know -- it took care of the need, but
it didn't feel good the way heroin did. It didn't feel
anything. I had to give it up just to get back tp ordinary.
After that, everything was real quiet. Arthur, you feel good
like nothing's felt in a really long time."
Even in the dark, Curt had an addict's eyes. They were clinging
enough that Arthur understood Curt would still be there when he
woke in the morning. If Arthur looked appropriately hopeful,
Curt might even come with him to the small restaurant around the
corner that made wonderful, artery-clogging breakfasts. And
Curt would be present, as a friend or as a lover, for a long
time. The only flaw Arthur could find in this beauty was that
he wasn't going to be able to own it, and the only hideousness
he could find in that constant presence was that it wasn't going
to make his own addiction to it any less.