Cleopatra and Frankenstein(17)
“I’ve gotta say,” Frank said, “I liked him more when I knew him less.”
Quentin had not spoken to Johnny since, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said. What did reality have to do with anything anyway? Quentin hated reality. Reality was sweaty and ugly. It was deodorant stains on black clothing and cold sore cream and utility bills. It was fake girlfriends and formal dinners in ill-fitting suits. It was his father lecturing him in broken English about being a man. It was all of Poland, that rundown junk shop of a country, with its stray dogs and secret forests where men fucked each other in the dark and then went home to their wives. No, Quentin wanted fantasy, which was exactly why he was going to the orgy that night.
The night could not come fast enough. The setting sun cast a golden light over the buildings as Quentin walked his dachshund, Lulu, around his neighborhood. It was the hour of evening in which the shops were still open but the bars and restaurants were already beginning to fill, and an air of both industry and frivolity permeated the streets. He let himself into his apartment and poured dog food into a bowl, thinking about who he could call.
Not his mother, who was snorkeling with her new boyfriend on a private island where, she’d told him delightedly, cell phones weren’t allowed. He tried his father’s number, but his phone went straight to voicemail; it was already past midnight in Warsaw. He tried Cleo again. No answer. He thought about calling Johnny. Instead, he opened his inbox and scrolled down to the email with the address for the orgy, rereading it again for any clues, but the information was the same, of course. Then he tried his drug dealer, who picked up on the second ring. He ordered his usual and perched on the windowsill to light another cigarette. The sky outside was turning a dark, bruised blue.
The address given was in a part of Brooklyn he’d never been to before. The only nonresidential building was a laundromat a few doors down. Its lights had been left on for the night, illuminating its checkered vinyl floor and rows of silver washing machines.
He’d made himself a couple of vodka sodas before he left, too strong, he realized now as he shook his head. It felt like a tank of water being sloshed from side to side. He’d decided not to eat that day, which might have been a mistake. Stepping into the faint halo of light cast by the laundromat’s window, he pulled out the vial from his jacket pocket and inspected it. It was already half empty. He should have brought two with him, he thought with irritation, while tapping two small bumps onto the back of his hand. It was his least favorite way of doing coke, messy and inefficient, but he wanted to be quick. He felt better almost instantly, that sharp, bitter clarity shifting his mind into focus again, giving him purpose.
He hadn’t told anyone he was coming here. By the time Cleo called him back, he was already in the cab, and he didn’t want to be talked out of it. He suspected that even girls like her, the socially liberal, sexually adventurous types, were deep down a tiny bit disgusted by what men did together. He couldn’t imagine having the kind of frank discussions with her that other girlfriends had with each other over brunch, giggling about penis size and elusive orgasms. And then I let him piss in my mouth while his power bottom boyfriend watched! Another round of mimosas!
He’d seen it once, the way Cleo recoiled when he’d told her about the bathhouses he’d gone to before he met Johnny. They were in the back of a cab hurtling from one party to another; he’d taken so much ketamine he could barely lift his head—like a baby, like a baby, he’d kept saying. As he babbled on to her about what he’d asked those men to do to him, what he’d done to them, he saw, as if from a great distance, Cleo turn her face slowly, slowly toward the window, leaving him just a sliver of her profile, queenly and remote, focusing her eyes on the wet glow of the traffic lights beyond, and a shame—he could almost taste it now, along with the drip of the coke—a terrible bitter shame had filled him. Enough now, enough.
He rang the doorbell and was buzzed into a dark entrance hall where a bald man wearing a leather loincloth and spiked dog collar sat on a stool, guarding a second door.
“Name?” he asked and scanned his list to confirm. “Proof of negative?”
Quentin removed a piece of paper. He had been tested earlier that week in preparation and was amazed by how relieved he’d felt to get the negative result. He used condoms, but there had been a couple of times with Johnny that they’d forgone them. There was nothing like taking an HIV test to immediately convince yourself that you had it. The bald man looked it over and nodded.
“Check all clothing and belongings before entering. There are no cell phones inside.”
Quentin laughed, but the man looked back at him blankly, waiting.
“Are you serious? Take my clothes off here?”
Quentin thought about turning around, but it seemed like such a waste, after the hours of expectation, plus the cab ride and drug money, not to at least see what was inside. He removed his shirt, then knelt to unbuckle his gladiator sandals. With some difficulty he managed to shed his leather shorts. He folded it all as neatly as he could and passed it to the doorman.
“These are a collector’s piece,” Quentin said. “They’re worth more than you.”
“Underwear too,” said the bald man.
Quentin pinched the bridge of his nose, took a deep breath, and pulled down his underwear. In return the man handed him a spiral plastic bracelet with a round number tag on it, not unlike the kind given at public swimming pools.