Like a Love Story(81)

“Eighteen,” I say.

“Eighteen what?” he says.

“You forgot to count us,” I say. “That makes eighteen. . . .”

He smiles. “Oh, wow. You can’t say the word, but you’re counting yourself as a fag, huh?”

He leans in close to me, licks my lips, then kisses me. I want to close my eyes, but I don’t. I’m too paranoid about all the eyes on us. I’m sure I see a woman with a bad perm shake her head at us in disgust, and two teenage girls giggling as they whisper in each other’s ears. But Art’s eyes are closed. He doesn’t care what these people think, and that’s what I love most about him. I wish I cared less about other people, and more about myself.

When he pulls away from me, he holds my hand tight, and I don’t pull away. No one knows us here, and in any case, they all just saw us kiss. We stare into each other’s eyes. The train makes a stop.

“Are you nervous?” I ask.

“Not at all,” he says. “Let them arrest me if they want to. I’m ready.”

“Not for the protest,” I say. “To see Judy.”

His eyes flutter. He looks down, then out the window, so many trees outside, so many shades of green whizzing past us. “Judy . . . ,” he says. “Yeah . . .”

“She wouldn’t have agreed to be there if she didn’t want to forgive you,” I say.

“But she didn’t want to come with us,” he says. “I mean, she’s driving with her mom? Over taking a train with us? Her mom is probably going to play some self-help book-on-tape in the car and make Judy talk about self-improvement and the power of positive thinking.”

“I love her mom,” I say. “When we were together . . .”

Art quickly cuts me off. “You and Judy were never together. It wasn’t a real relationship.”

“I know,” I say. I don’t fight him. I would never stand a chance. But I know in my heart that, despite my lies, Judy and I did have a real relationship. There was true affection there, and laughter, and understanding, and fish pins. I was going to say that when Judy and I were together, her mother was always so welcoming and kind to me, and that those qualities seemed to rub off on Judy. In this moment, I realize that Art’s parents are combative and reactionary, and that some of those qualities have rubbed off on Art.

“Of course I’m scared,” Art says. “I don’t even know what to say to her anymore. I don’t want to see myself through her eyes. When I think about that, about how she must see me, I hate me too.”

“I feel the same,” I say. “I hope she forgives me.”

“Yeah,” he says. “She probably will. But you didn’t know her very long. My betrayal is so much worse.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I say, though I can’t help feeling like he doesn’t understand that what I did to Judy, and what I felt for her, matters too.

“You realize that we’re going be sharing a hotel room,” Art says. “Do you know what that means?”

“Room service?” I ask, joking nervously.

“Yeah,” he says. “Definitely room service. And sex. Hotel rooms are basically made for sex.”

“Why?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I read that in a story in some porno magazine once.” After thinking about it some more, he says, “Maybe it’s ’cause the maids change the sheets every day.”

“Where did you . . .” I stop myself from asking the question on my mind.

“What?” he says.

“Where did you get a porno magazine?” I ask.

Art laughs. He squeezes my thigh. “Oh, Reza. My innocent Reza. The first time I read a porn, I was twelve. I found my dad’s stash of Penthouse and Playboy magazines in the back of his closet. Playboy was pretty much useless to me. But Penthouse has these sex stories in them, and they were very hot because there were men in them.” I find myself getting hard, and he moves his hand to my crotch. “Just covering up the evidence,” he says with a smile.

“Maybe you could . . . read those stories to me someday. You can’t get AIDS from story time.”

He laughs. “Any day you want.” He squeezes my erection, and I find myself looking around, wondering who can tell what’s going on. “You’ve never bought a porno mag?” he asks.

I shake my head.

“The gay ones are always hidden at the newsstands. They’re amazing. There’s porn for all kinds of guys. Honcho. Inches. Black Inches. Latin Inches.”

“What about Iranian guys?” I ask.

“I think that might be a void in the gay porn market,” he says. “You could fill it by becoming a porn star.”

“That would make all my mother’s dreams come true, wouldn’t it?” I smile sadly.

“I can see it now,” he says. “The debut issue of Iranian Inches, with cover star Reza, photographed by me.”

“Okay,” I say, smiling. As the train rumbles toward Union Station in Washington, I think about our hotel bed. I see me and Art in that bed, taking turns invading each other, helping each other figure out if we are tops or bottoms or both. But then I think . . . what if the maids are lazy and don’t change the sheets? What if the sheets we will be sleeping in have other men’s semen on them, possibly infected? This thought stays with me as we take a cab to the hotel we are staying in, and as we check in, and as we enter the room.