Eye Contact (27 page)

Manning laughs. “You’ve got this all figured out, haven’t you?”

“No one to talk to but myself tonight—I’ve been giving it a lot of thought.”

Manning hears the key in the door, then David enters, along with a rush of cold air. He carries a fresh cocktail with a lime in it, probably gin and tonic. David tells Manning, “Our lounge lizard started in again on Stevie Wonder’s greatest hits. Roxanne and I couldn’t take it, so we called it a night.”

“Shrewd move.” Through the phone, Manning tells Neil, “David’s back.”

“So I hear.” Then Neil shouts, his voice buzzing through the earpiece,
“Hello, David!”

David laughs, having heard it clearly.
“Hey there, pal! Wish you were here.”

Manning holds the phone at arm’s length, avoiding the crossfire. With his other hand, he lifts the glass and finishes his vodka.

Neil shouts,
“Be sure to tuck Mark in for me tonight.”

“You got it.”
Crossing past the desk, David picks up Manning’s empty glass and heads into the living room, where he switches on a lamp and closes the blinds at the big window.

Manning tells Neil, “He’s left the room. You can scream yourself hoarse, but it’ll be for naught.”

Neil laughs. “Thanks for the tip. By the way …” He cuts himself short, then asks in a secretive tone, “Can David hear you?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Then just answer yes or no. Have you gotten a look yet at the whole ‘package’?”

Manning smiles. “No.” David has moved from the living room farther into the cabin, to the bathroom or his bedroom.

Neil says, “You’re on a mission, remember. And I expect a full report.”

“Yes, sir,” Manning answers dryly. “I’ll do my best.”

There’s a pause. Neil says, “I love you. And I miss you. So hurry home.”

“I love you too, Neil. We’re heading home first thing in the morning. And thanks for the information—sorry to force you into secretarial duty. ’Night, kiddo.”

They hang up, and Manning sits for a moment, simply savoring their contact, counting himself a lucky man. The message light continues its persistent winking. As he reaches for the phone and dials the front desk, David returns from the other end of the cabin wearing workout shorts, bulky sweat socks, and an old Northwestern sweatshirt with its arms cut off. It’s an athletic, grungy frat-house look that contrasts sharply with the refined design of his eyeglasses.

He steps in from the living room and tells Manning, “I didn’t feel like bed yet,” referring to his change of clothes. “Can I get you another drink?”

“Sure,” says Manning. Why not?

As David returns to the bar in the living room, the desk clerk answers Manning’s call.

With pen poised over his notebook, Manning asks if he has a message. There was a call from Victor Uttley. He makes note of the number and hangs up, checking his watch. Nine-thirty. It is indeed too early for bed, but probably too late to be phoning people on business. Besides, Neil has already delivered the gist of the message. He’ll return the call tomorrow.

David reappears in the doorway, carrying two glasses. Setting one on the desk in front of Manning, he tells him, “As I suspected, they don’t have your Japanese brand in the minibar. And I had to recycle your old orange peel.”

“This is fine,” Manning assures him, raising his glass. They exchange a casual toast. As they drink, Manning eyes David’s bare legs and arms. “Aren’t you cold?”

“Actually, yes.” David laughs. “I thought I’d start the fire. Do you mind?”

“Not at all. Good idea.” Manning rises. “Need some help?”

“I think I can handle it—it’s all set to go.” He retreats into the living room.

Manning follows, watching as David squats before the hearth, strikes a long match, and sets it to the newspapers crumpled beneath the grate. The room instantly fills with the glow and warmth of burning paper and kindling. As Manning removes his jacket and drapes it over the back of a chair, he asks, “Are you sure the flue is open?” The room already smells smoky.

“Oh, Christ,” David mutters, scampering to turn the mechanism in the chimney. “Better open the door awhile.”

There’s a door from the living room that leads out to a small terrace overlooking the water at the back of the cabin. Manning unlocks it and fans it back and forth, drawing in fresh air. After a minute or two, the smoke has cleared, but the room is colder than it was before they lit the fire.

“Sorry,” says David, turning to Manning from where he still hunkers by the hearth. “I’m starting to get the hang of reporting, but I’d make a terrible pioneer.” He rises, smiling. Reflected flames cavort in the lenses of his glasses.

Manning closes and locks the door, reminding him, “Pioneers didn’t have chambermaids, either. All
you
have to do is strike a match.
Those
guys had to rub sticks together.” He returns to the center of the room carrying his drink, which he sips. Noticing David’s glass on the coffee table, he picks it up and offers, “Here.”

David crosses to Manning. “Thanks,” he says, taking the glass, which looks suddenly small in his beefy hand. The room is warming up again, but the glass is icy, and as David drinks from it, Manning sees the little hairs on David’s upper arms standing erect in their follicles—he has goose bumps on his biceps.

“You’re cold,” Manning tells him.

“I’m fine.”

“I’d suggest you bundle up, but …” Manning hesitates. Dare he broach this? He doesn’t want to send the wrong signal, but he’s curious. It has gnawed at him since their conversation in the car. “There’s something you haven’t shown me yet.”

David stands no more than a foot from Manning and can easily read the confusion in his hero’s eyes. “I’m not shy,” David tells him. “Just say when.”

So it’s come to this—it’s Manning’s decision. It could stop right here, and it probably should. Or, Manning could ask the kid to take off his shirt. Big deal. David regularly shows more of himself when he goes to the gym, thinking nothing of it. It doesn’t
mean
anything. This isn’t an
overture.
It’s not as if Manning is
interested.
Just curious. He needn’t feel accountable, let alone guilty, for an inquisitive foray into the cultural identity of a younger generation. That’s all it is, really. And besides, only two minutes ago, Neil actually encouraged him to get a look. Neil couldn’t possibly object to this, could he?

Manning hesitates, then whisks his eyes from David’s waist to his face, commanding quietly, “Show me.”

David’s lips curl. It’s not exactly a smile, not exactly smug. It’s a grin, expressing not victory, but relief. He hasn’t tried to conquer Manning—he’s simply been eager to display what he’s done to his body. Of
course
he finds the situation erotically charged. So what? There’s nothing dirty, nothing seedy, nothing underhanded about this. He’s twenty-four and built. He’s
always
horny. So David gives his drink to Manning (who now holds one in each hand) and removes his Armani glasses, which he sets with care on the coffee table. Then he lifts the remnants of the sweatshirt over his head, shakes his hair, and tosses the shirt to the floor.

There, precisely as he described them, are the pierced nipples, a ring through the right, a little barbell through the left. Both bits of jewelry are made of silver, flashing with the fire mirrored by their curved surfaces. The nipples themselves are cold and hard, like the metal running through them. David stands proud, gently flexing his biceps, pectorals, abs—or is that merely the play of firelight on his skin? His eyes ask, Well, what do you think?

But Manning isn’t looking at David’s eyes. He stares, transfixed, at the bizarre body ornaments. Though David had described them in detail, Manning was utterly unprepared for the sight of them, for the visions they conjure of David willingly enduring the pain of their installation. The intensity of Manning’s stare is dreamlike, unreal, out-of-body. He tries to analyze the situation, to weigh what might, could, should, or shouldn’t happen next. He tries to ask himself what Neil would advise at this point, but his brain is now focused solely on David’s nipples. In his mind’s eye he watches himself—from high in a corner of the cabin’s ceiling—watching David.

David again asks the question, this time verbally, “Well, what do you think?”

There’s no answer. What could Manning possibly say? He cannot even
think
about what he is seeing. He can only react. Even Neil would surely understand—wouldn’t he?—that this situation allows for, indeed demands, but one response.

Manning watches from the ceiling as he himself steps toward David, lowers his head, and drags his tongue across the barbell. David stands perfectly still, except to drop his head back on his shoulders and gasp. From on high, Manning watches David’s eyelids flutter. Then the man on the floor puts his mouth over the barbell, closes his lips, and draws it into his mouth. He tastes the metal, discerns its shape with his tongue, hears it click against his teeth, feels signals from deep within his jaw, like some inbred alarm—caution! don’t swallow! there’s a bolt in your mouth! But it’s not a bolt, and there’s no danger of swallowing it because it’s attached to David’s nipple. Manning tongues the fleshy knob that stretches around the barbell’s shaft. David pants. A tremor, a shudder, ripples through his chest. But he remains standing still, taking it.

Manning sees his tongue glide to David’s right breast, the one with the ring. It seems intended for one purpose. Manning takes it into his mouth, grabs it with his teeth, and gives a tug. David yelps, placing his hands on Manning’s head. But it’s a restrained protest, and as soon as Manning releases the ring, David guides Manning back to it. While Manning explores it with his tongue, David kneads Manning’s hair.

From the ceiling, Manning watches, dazed, as the man on the floor takes the two icy cocktails, one in each hand, and touches them to David’s nipples. As David laughs, his jewelry clacks against the glassware. With his hands still in Manning’s hair, he pulls his hero’s face to his own. He gets the glasses out of Manning’s hands, sets them nearby on the mantel, then returns his attention to Manning’s face, blindly rubbing his open mouth around the other man’s features until their tongues meet.

As they kiss, Manning tweaks David’s nipples, fingering the silver ornaments that hang there, inserting the tip of his pinkie into the ring, pulling. When David opens his mouth wider to emit a deep, guttural groan, Manning forces his own tongue farther into his assistant’s throat.

In David’s mind, this is mere foreplay. He’s heating up for some serious sex, the most energetic orgasm of his young life, the fulfillment of a fantasy he’s harbored for over two years.

Manning’s mind, however, is blank. If he could rationally classify what he’s doing, he’d know that it is not foreplay, not sex. And even though he likes the kid, it is certainly not love. No, it is simply a form of passion—instinctive and unwilled, a response to an overpowering stimulus, utterly beyond his control. He is no more able to back off right now and hand David his shirt than he is able to doubt for an instant his love for Neil. They are equally impossible.

So the scenario is set. Though David and Manning lead separate lives, each its own story, tonight’s chapter is a shared one, and it draws steadily toward a mutual climax that neither can now edit or revise. Though their motives and instincts may differ, they both respond to the same cues. This scene can end only one way.

Manning’s hands are still busy on David’s chest. David’s hands have been working the lump in his own shorts. Now he slips the waistband below his hips, lets the shorts drop to his feet, and kicks free of them. With one hand, David masturbates against the khaki of Manning’s slacks. With the other, he grapples to unfasten Manning’s buckle.

From his voyeur’s perch overhead, Manning watches the two men’s bodies tangle before the fire. Finally, he averts his eyes—knowing, even with the limited cogency of this moment, that such scenes are more vigorously enjoyed from the perspective of the imagination.

D
AVID AWAKES EARLY
the next morning, well before six. He didn’t think to close the blinds in his room when he finally went to bed last night, and the eastern sun now skims across the water and through the window, reflected in the dresser mirror, targeting his bed. It hurts to open his eyes.

His nipples are sore. His face is sore, abraded by the night-stubble of another man’s beard. And his penis is sore. But these are minor agonies, the price of an evening’s pleasure, a bargain by any measure.

He lies in the bedroom at the far end of the cabin, alone. He and Manning shared every known intimacy (and invented a few new ones) in front of the fire last night. With their repertoire exhausted, it was finally time to sleep, and each took to his own bed. Half awake now, blinded by daylight, he kicks the covers off the bed and feels his genitals. His morning erection invites attention, and the escapades of a few hours ago are still fresh enough in his mind to fuel some steamy jack-off fantasies. So he gives it a shot—but quickly concludes that his efforts will get him nowhere. There’s simply nothing left for now.

Lacking sufficient energy to get out of bed and close the blinds, he rolls over, shading his face with an arm. There’s time for more sleep, but it’s so
quiet
up here—no traffic, no car alarms, no garbage trucks, nothing. Well, birds, sure. A hungry duck. God, that’s annoying. And what’s that other sound? Movement in the cabin, beyond the living room. Mark. Was that the door? Someone is being careful to be quiet, but David has definitely heard the sound of the screen door.

He puts on his glasses, gets out of bed, finds his workout shorts, steps into them, and pads out of the bedroom to explore. There’s a light on in the bathroom, as if Manning was in there earlier, while it was still dark. The living room is much as they left it last night—no particular disarray, just a couple of empty glasses. The spent embers of the fire smolder like a tired cliché, a tangible metaphor, there in the grate.

David pokes his head through the doorway into Manning’s bedroom and finds that he’s already up and packed, bed made—what a neatnik. But Manning isn’t in the room. The outside door is open, so David crosses to it, folding his arms over his chest to shield his cold-sensitive nipples from the damp morning air. Through the screen, he sees Manning with a terry cloth towel, wiping one of the car windows, wet with dew. He’s scrubbing intently, frowning. “Hey there,” says David, speaking in a stage whisper that seems appropriate to the early hour.