Orientation Page 2

  Why did Keith have to die?

  Why did Robert have to live?

  He closed his eyes and went into the kitchen, ready to feed the fabulous food to the garbage disposal. The work, just like the preparation of the meal, would take his mind off things.

  And then he heard Keith’s voice, watery, weak, a shadow of its former self, call out. If the garbage disposal had been on, he wouldn’t have heard it. But the sound of his own name coming from his lover’s lips filled him with a kind of insane joy and optimism. The irrational part of him wanted to take it as a sign, a U-turn in the road toward death.

  His Keith was getting better! Getting better in spite of the fact that all these other men with AIDS were dying quick, painful deaths. Keith would be the exception to the rule. He always had been. A sob caught in Robert’s throat, and he hurried toward the stairs.

  “Robert?” Keith’s voice sounded again, querulous and weak as a kitten. But it was Keith and he was calling for him.

  Robert rushed up the spiral staircase, tripping once, a startled laugh escaping from his lips. Who knew? This AIDS thing was still so new. Who was to say there weren’t people out there who could beat it? People with imagination and fortitude.

  People like Keith.

  Robert hesitated outside the bedroom door. Inside, it was quiet, and he dreaded going in there and finding Keith on the bed asleep, a sheen of sweat clinging to his sunken cheeks, his breath phlegmy and labored. What if Keith’s call was just a momentary peek through the twin curtains of fever and consciousness? Or worse, the product of his own overly hopeful imagination?

  What would be, would be (hadn’t some virginal blonde even once sung about it?). Robert steeled himself: deep, cleansing breath, let it out slowly. And entered the room.

  Keith was awake. His face looked even more drawn and tired—the color of ash. Robert would have said it was impossible for him to look any sicker even this morning, but now he did. In the air, despite the cinnamon- and vanilla-scented candles in the room, was the smell of sickness and shit.

  But oh, Lord! Keith was looking at him. Looking right at Robert. And he was seeing him! For the first time in forever, their gazes met and connected. Robert approached the bed warily, as if a sudden movement would send Keith plummeting back into unconsciousness.

  “Honey? Can you hear me?” Robert stood, wringing his hands, heart fluttering, beating against his ribs.

  “Of course.” Keith’s voice was a croak. Gone were the bass notes that had made him sound so sexy and assured. Keith reached a bruised hand out over the covers and patted the bed. “Would you sit next to me?”

  “Oh, of course!” Robert took two steps and weighed down the bed, reaching out to brush a strand of hair off Keith’s forehead, biting his own lip at the heat radiating off Keith’s flesh. “I’m so happy you’re awake.”

  Keith swallowed. The swallow took a long time and looked as if it took all of the sick man’s effort. He let out a weak sigh and turned his head. He looked up at Robert and managed a wan smile. Robert closed his eyes and gently laid his head atop Keith’s.

  And then Keith began to talk, his old voice suddenly returned, strong and sure. “I have just a few things to say, Robert. And I need you to shut up and listen. No interruptions. The first thing I want to say is ‘Merry Christmas.’ I’m so sorry I couldn’t be a bigger part of things for this, our first Christmas together, but that decision was taken from me and it doesn’t look like Mr. Claus is seeing fit to give me a chance to make it up to you.

  “The second thing I want to say is that I love you with all my heart. I searched forty-some-odd years for you, for what I’ve always dreamed of, and what I thought I couldn’t have when you dropped, like a gift, like an angel, into my life last winter. You were what I hunted for all my life: a family. You are my family. Don’t ever forget how precious that is.

  “The third thing I want to say is that you’re an idiot, running around, burying your head in the sand, and trying to make a Christmas that neither of us has the capacity to enjoy. And last, I love you for that. I love you so much for trying…for hoping against all odds that this moment would come and I would let you know how much I appreciate you. For hoping that we might share one final kiss before I have to go. And my love, I do have to go.

  “But I couldn’t leave without you hearing these four words. You. Are. My. Family.”

  Robert wanted to cry, but there was cold stillness inside, almost as if the frigid air outside had invaded and possessed him.

  Robert lifted his head, stopping himself from recoiling at the memory of a feel of a crusty lesion on his cheek. He reached down and squeezed Keith’s hand, knowing with all his heart that Keith wanted to say all those things.

  But the reality was that Keith had only enough breath left to whisper, “I need…” A big hard swallow, tears welling up in Keith’s sallow eyes. “You.” Keith pushed out the word “you,” Robert thought, with all the breath he had left.

  And that was all, really, Robert needed to hear.

  Now, the eyes Robert stared down on were not only yellowed and red-rimmed, but vacant.

  Keith was gone.

  Robert patted his cheek. “I know,” he whispered. “I’ll always know.” Could it be that Robert could already feel his lover growing cold? He bit his lip hard enough to taste his own blood and then reached over to pull Keith’s lids down over his eyes. Robert didn’t know what Keith stared at now, but he hoped it was like the death lore he had read about and that Keith hovered somewhere near the ceiling, taking one last look at the two of them on the bed before departing toward a warm and welcoming light and a place where there was no more pain, no more suffering.

  Robert stretched out next to Keith’s body on the bed, fitting himself against Keith’s bony form, and wrapping his arms tight around him. He buried his face in Keith’s neck, searching for just a little scent of what Keith once smelled like (bitter, like the incense he remembered from Catholic mass when he was a boy; it wasn’t really a cologne, just the smell of Keith). But his smell, like his spirit, had moved on.

  Robert closed his eyes. There would be phone calls to make. Arrangements. A new life ahead, one which would find him suddenly alone, freed from the burden of caretaker, and imprisoned in a grief he supposed would never leave him.

  But now, there would be sleep. On this Christmas night, he needed to drown in the comfort of one last slumber with his lover, spoon style.

  Chapter 2

  It was Christmas, 2007. Robert listened to Ethan in the other room, talking rapidly and in a low voice on his cell phone. Robert didn’t want to eavesdrop, but lately Ethan had been hiding things from him. The traces were all around: Internet trails carelessly left behind of gay male hookup sites, business cards on Ethan’s dressers, clichéd matchbooks with phone numbers in them. Robert didn’t want to be suspicious, but he knew that his young lover was at least entertaining the possibility of cheating on him.

  And the thought for Robert—who was well into his forties—was not as upsetting as it might once have been. Ethan was young, beautiful, with a naturally muscular body, wavy black hair, and brown eyes that were startling against his long black lashes. Robert knew Ethan’s sex drive, at twenty-six, was revved up far hotter than his own. It was a matter of testosterone, Robert supposed. If Ethan wanted to burn a little surplus energy with someone else, then so be it. But Robert had thought, once, that Ethan loved only him.

  Now he wasn’t so sure. Not when he could hear the young man in the next room whispering frantically into the phone. Not when Robert could hear the pleading tone of Ethan’s voice, if not all the words. On this night, Christmas, which had become so special to him over the years (since Keith died, the day had become both a celebration and a memoriam), he wanted the one person upon whom he had decided to lavish all of his own affections and fidelity to be there just for him, alone.

  Fooling around behind his back was one thing. And, as stupid as Robert knew it sounded, fooling around (or making plans to do
so) behind his back on Christmas was crossing the line into unforgivable territory. Robert leaned forward in his leather office chair, trying to make sure the polished hide didn’t squeak as he moved and to silence the ice clinking in his gin and tonic. He didn’t want to listen. He didn’t want to hear the words of a young man who had shared this penthouse condominium with him for the past three years whisper frantic entreaties into the ear of another man.

  But that’s just what he was hearing. And as adept as Robert had become at deluding himself and playing the charade of denial, he couldn’t discount what his own ears were picking up.

  A pause and then Ethan again, his deep voice higher, a whine, as he begged. “But it’s Christmas, Tony. I have to see you. Can’t you get away for just a little bit?”

  Robert wished Ethan had a brother named Tony—or even a best friend—but as far as he knew, he didn’t. He sipped his drink, being careful to tip the glass slowly, so the movement of the ice would not alert Ethan to the fact Robert was listening. But how stupid the boy was! To carry on this conversation right outside Robert’s den in their living room, when he could have easily gone upstairs and closed a bedroom door.

  But Ethan, as Robert could hear, was too desperate to think about Robert overhearing. His focus was all on this Tony person. And that made Robert doubly sad, because Ethan didn’t even care enough about him, or them, to hide his duplicity, his little betrayals, now, and online, in the bars, at the gym. The traces lay around everywhere, almost as if Ethan wanted Robert to find them. What did Ethan expect? That Robert would grant him permission to have other boyfriends? Grant him this permission and continue to let him live here, in luxury? The boy didn’t even have a job!

  “Listen, we are getting together, or I’ll find someone else to take care of me. Is that what you want?” Ethan’s voice hiccupped a little at the end of the question, and Robert realized things were worse than he thought. “Okay, okay. Yes, I can be there. No, he won’t mind.” Ethan laughed. “We already unwrapped our prizes.” Another pause and then Ethan said, “I’ll tell you all about them when I see you.” Another pause and then, a breathless whisper: “Hurry.”

  Robert turned his chair around to face his laptop computer screen and pretended to be checking his Yahoo e-mail the moment he heard the snap as Ethan closed his cell phone. He reached over to the shelf, where a small CD player sat, and turned up the volume on Kay Starr singing, “Everybody’s Waitin’ for the Man with the Bag.” Some things, like Robert’s yuletide musical selections, never changed. Ethan didn’t have to wait for the man with the bag anymore. He’d already opened his presents, which included little trinkets like a Movado watch, the latest top-of-the-line iPod, a selection of clothes from Ermenegildo Zegna…even the cell phone on which he had talked to this Tony character had been a gift. The Sony Ericsson phone had cost about eight hundred dollars, and Robert knew Ethan would lose it before spring arrived.

  Robert clicked on an e-mail (it could have been SPAM, but he played at looking absorbed) as Ethan padded in behind him, probably wearing the shearling-lined Cole Haan slippers he had just unwrapped that morning.

  Robert tried not to flinch as he felt Ethan wrap his arms around him and lean in close. “How are you doing, Daddy?”

  Robert had never really liked the term, but Ethan wasn’t put off from using it at the start of their relationship as a sexual term of endearment, and the nickname had become permanent. Why didn’t Ethan just be honest and put “sugar” in front? Robert closed his eyes, a headache gathering force behind his eyes. Maybe he was mistaken, maybe he was reading all the signs wrong…

  Ethan had overwhelmed him with gifts that day, at last outdoing even Robert. It was a bounty.

  And all of it charged to Robert’s American Express.

  Stop thinking that way! Give the boy a chance. He clicked the red X in the upper right-hand corner of the screen and watched it return to its screensaver of last year’s Christmas tree, decked out completely in Christopher Radko ornaments.

  “I’m good, sweetheart. Getting hungry? I could have dinner together in about an hour. All the prep work is done.”

  He smiled up at Ethan, trying to look guileless, trying to appear as though he had no idea what Ethan was about to say. Robert hoped his innocent face and promise of dinner would shame the younger man into canceling his plans.

  “About that.” Ethan removed his hands from Robert’s shoulder and stood back, waiting for Robert to turn the swiveling leather chair toward him. “I need to run out for a bit.”

  “But honey, it’s Christmas. Where would you need to go?”

  Ethan looked out the window over Robert’s shoulder. Robert wondered if inspiration was written in the black night sky. Perhaps in stars…

  “My aunt, up in Evanston? I shouldn’t have, but I promised I’d stop by. I thought it would be easier if I got it out of the way now, then we could have the rest of the evening together, without any interruptions.” Ethan touched Robert’s face, smiling down at him.

  And Robert was damned if the gesture and flawless smile didn’t make his pulse race, in spite of himself.

  Just to be cruel, and to see how Ethan would react, Robert stood. “Aunt Janine? I love her. She’s a complete and utter hoot. I’ll come with you.”

  Ethan frowned. “There’s going to be a whole slew of family there. Aunts, uncles, cousins, even my dad might crawl out of the woodwork. I don’t want to put you through that.”

  “I don’t mind. Just give me a G&T and a spot near the fireplace.” Robert grinned, enjoying this and wishing he wasn’t.

  Ethan shook his head. “No. I can be in and out much quicker if I just go on my own.” Ethan paused to think. “Besides, don’t you have a little more work to do in the kitchen? I know after Aunt Janine’s hot artichoke spread with Triscuits, I’ll be ready for some real food.” He pulled Robert close and planted a chaste kiss on his lips. He grinned and let his brown-eyed gaze linger. Robert supposed the younger man was calculating its effect on him. “I will be so ready for that Beef Wellington.” Ethan stepped quickly from the den, and Robert listened as he collected his keys and cell phone.

  “Drive carefully,” Robert called. “The roads might be icy.”

  Like your heart.

  * * * *

  The beef wellington was cold. It sat in its All-Clad pan on the counter, exterior perfectly caramelized. But, like Robert’s spirits, the puff pastry he had labored over was now deflated. Next to it were bowls he had covered with cling wrap: a mesclun greens salad with pears, Maytag bleu cheese, and walnuts, roasted potatoes with rosemary and parsley, a sad-looking chocolate soufflé that had emerged from the oven puffy and bursting with the scent of Valrhona chocolate, now a gooey concave mess, not at all tempting.

  Robert sat alone at the kitchen table, nursing his fifth gin and tonic and feeling more than a little woozy. The wooziness was not a good thing—his stomach churned and his temples throbbed. He had consumed none of the food he had prepared, making G&Ts his appetizer, main course, and dessert. The denial, the food preparation, and the sad Christmas carols playing throughout the house took him back to another Christmas Eve twenty-four years before. The loss, then, had been much worse, and he had been much less jaded, but this Christmas night had some of the same feel of things going permanently wrong. At least twenty-four years ago, his loss hadn’t been compounded by a sense of betrayal. But at that time, he had truly loved the man who had died on Christmas night.

  And had never really felt the same about anyone since. Not even this Ethan, with his stunning beauty and quick, biting wit Robert pretended amused him. Maybe it wasn’t betrayal by Ethan that cut into his heart so deeply, but betrayal from himself. Robert looked down at his reddened hands, a burn on the back of one from the oven, and thought he was nothing more than a silly old fool. Forty-six years old and sitting here alone on Christmas night while his young lover, the one with the dollar signs in his eyes, was off getting fucked by someone half Robert’s age. He felt completely worthl
ess and alone.

  No wonder he had no appetite. Was he so foolish that he allowed himself to be taken advantage of this way? Shouldn’t Ethan at least be here, pretending to enjoy the holiday with him? Robert couldn’t kid himself: they both knew their relationship was nothing more than pretense. A show for an audience of one. A prop to shore up Robert’s sagging jawline he encountered in the mirror each morning when shaving.

  He assumed he had never allowed himself to think this way before. And yet, in the back of his mind, he wondered if he was kidding himself and if some subconscious part of him had known the truth all along.

  He got up, the chair scraping across the marble floor with an unpleasant screech, and walked out of the kitchen, flicking the light off as he left the room. Let the damn Wellington, with its expensive Kobe beef and forbidden pate de foie gras, spoil in the heat. Let the greens wilt. Let it all go to hell. It was a meal for a happy couple.

  Robert laughed at his own melodrama, crossing the living room to the bar. Maybe one more Bombay Sapphire and tonic would knock him out, and he could spend the rest of the night in oblivion, stop seeing his young lover in a thousand different positions with some twenty-something stud with a permanent erection and the stamina to go all night.

  After all, wasn’t that what was going on right now? Wasn’t sex the reason for Ethan’s visit to his aunt’s house, which was only supposed to last for an hour, had now gone on into the late night, without even the courtesy of a phone call to Robert? Once upon a time, Ethan would have cared enough to call and make up a story about his ever-absent father showing up and, oh, maybe how he wanted to stay the night in Evanston, since he hardly ever saw the man. It hurt that Robert rated so low these days that he wasn’t even worth lying to. Not even on Christmas Day.