Ted stared absently at the reviving foliage that overhung the road crossing east west through Central Park at Eighty-sixth Street as he made his way to the west side. He wondered if Ilia would call. He was annoyed at himself for not having taken his number at the same time that Ilia took his. He had been aware that he was leaving unattempted an action he might perform, and he watched himself neglect to do it as if in a trance, bound by an energy that usurped the action.
Afterwards, as they were walking back to his place on Tenth Avenue, in his spite, Frederick mentioned it as something of a taunt.
You have not changed so much, he said. You still depend on somebody else to take the initiative. How different are you really from when you rolled over and played dead for da Ponte?
A young man in a doorway who wore cut-off jeans, high boots, and a form fitting wife beater caught Ted's eye as he passed by and winked at him, but remained in the shadows seeing he was taken.
But that was not what had happened, Ted heard himself protest.
I would not say I rolled over and played dead. I was devoted to him. I was in love with him. He rescued me and transformed me.
Cinderella!
You can laugh. Maybe it was like that, Ted responded. So what! Giovanni brought me to life. If it seemed at all like I was dead, I wasn't. I was very much alive. For the first time! Or if it was like death, it was the kind of death that comes before resurrection. I was reborn.
And then you were abandoned.
But I got through it -- in large part because of you. I acknowledge that. So why are you picking at me?
•
How can you spend your days the way you do? Ilia said, looking up from his sketch pad.
Ted did not recoil.
It always felt like I didn't have a choice.
Really?
Yes. Before Giovanni I was stuck in what he made me see was a rat hole. Under Giovanni, I was transformed into something sleek, but I was no creation of my own. When he cast me out, I had nothing inside me until Frederick took over. Even then, I had nothing without a job.
Your writing?
No one wanted it.
And now you think I will replace Frederick? Ilia said.
Ted looked at him without answering, not sure what the right answer ought to be.
I don't know.
I won't, he said.
Ted looked as if he had been chidden.
I did not ask you to, he said.
Ilia went back to his sketching.
Ted was quiet. He gazed at the sketch pad. Ilia was shading in grey charcoal the scene across the Hudson, the façade of the new Hoboken.
Do you still feel like you have nothing inside you? Ilia asked without turning his attention away from his work.
I want you inside me.
And I like making love with you. But that's not what I mean, and I think you know that.
You mean do I feel an empty space, a hollow center where the person I am ought to be.
Right. Do you still feel like there's nothing there?
It feels like confusion.
Confusion is better than nothing.
I don't know. I guess so.
These days confusion might be all there is.
That's a bleak assessment.
It's something to work with.
•
The first day I went to school in America, Ilia said, I was taught to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I did. I was excited with the excitement with which my parents had filled me up about being in America. So I willingly pledged allegiance to the flag, but in college, things began to change. I began to realize that I could not be bound emotionally and intellectually to any country, to any system, and that ideas and beliefs did not exist for me to be bound to but for me to explore in words and images. And then I stumbled upon William Blake while I was reading a biography of Allen Ginsberg. I decided that the only thing I would pledge allegiance to was the unattainable.
Is that why you left Columbia?
I dropped out before getting my doctorate because I did not want to contribute to making war and helping corporate industrialism.
How will I live if I give up my job?
How will you live if you don't?
That's rhetoric, Ted parried. It's idealism. But idealism may not be what I need right now.
Why not?
Because my life depends upon my becoming somebody.
But the real issue is: who? And how?
That's what I have to find out, and quitting my job is not going to help me do that. I'm floundering already. What good will it do if I throw myself overboard?
You'll have to start swimming.
All you have to give is rhetoric or metaphor. But I need something concrete, something to hold on to.
Ilia anticipated there would be trouble as he watched Ted leave the café.
He knew already, despite what he had said, that he did wish to possess him, but he was displeased with himself, for he had vowed to himself that he would purge himself of his fantasies of domination. And here he was imagining himself Ted's master despite his own protestations otherwise.
It would be so simple. The young man was vulnerable. And that vulnerability served as a temptation to Ilia. He had a struggle ahead that he had to wage with himself. If he could master himself, he would not have to master Ted.
•
I have a job for you, Ilia said the next time they met. And a place for you to stay.
Ted looked unbelieving at him.
I have a small place, but not too small for two.
But if I stop working, I will not be able to pay you my share.
You could in kind if...
If?
If you agreed to be the houseboy and perform whatever duties I assign you.
It was as if nothing had happened and no time had passed.
Do you know what you are saying? Ted asked in astonishment.
I think so, Ilia said. Do you?
You can't be serious, Ted said. You are testing me to see how much I have changed from how I was once, if at all.
Perhaps I am testing myself, Ilia said in response.
•
When night fell Ted found himself wandering on the periphery of the park wondering what he was doing, what he was going to do, how he was bound on a wheel of repetition, with variation finding himself always cast back to the place from which he thought he was finally emerging. How could this happen? Was it his will to meet forever the same man dressed in different guises, but always the same, the one in whom he could easily find himself subsumed and who had, at least for a period of time, an appetite for him? How was it that he had become a man who was continuously spat out?
Without looking, as these grim and futile questions revolved around in his mind like horses on a merry-go-round that would never get anywhere, he became aware of someone trailing behind him. Familiar with the ways of the street, he stopped and leaned against an old tree with a tough trunk and as if glancing in appreciation at the darkening sky, looked to see who was behind him.
You picked the wrong time to walk, his assailant said, pointing a knife at him. Now give me your wallet if you don't want to get hurt.
I have no wallet.
You are lying.
I have no money.
The young man who held the knife slapped him.
Do you think I am joking? he said.
No. But neither am I joking or trying to be defiant. I have no wallet, no money, nothing.
The young man who was as tall as Ted and hard of muscle although lean, took Ted around the waist with one arm as if embracing him and traced his open palm over his back pockets, and with his thighs pressed against Ted's thighs could feel that his front pockets were empty, too.
They were so close that Ted could feel that as he pressed against him his assailant had an erection, and as if in a trance, he moved a hand to the young man's crotch and groped him.
What are you doing? the would-be assailant said.
You are hard, Ted said, hard, too, now, himself.
What of it? the young man said.
Please kiss me, Ted answered.
What?
I want you to kiss me or to tell me it is alright for me to kiss you and that if I do you will not hurt me.
You are crazy, his would-be assailant said backing away.
It felt good to feel you pressed against me.
You were not afraid?
Sexual excitement always scares me. But this time I did not tremble. Have you done this before?
Done what before?
Held someone up at knife point?
You are my first, the young man said with embarrassment.
Ted hesitated no longer, nor did he ask for permission. Although the young man still held the knife, he approached him and pressed him against him and at the same time pressed his lips to his and with his tongue soft as velvet, made a knife like slit across his mouth that forced his sealed lips to open, and touched his tongue to the young man's and at the same time, not with force but with desire, caressed the youth's wrist, and the open knife fell out of his hand and pierced the earth inches from where they stood but did them no injury.
What is your name? Ted asked him, still pressing the youth to him.
Philip, the young man said.
I'm going to call you Tod, Ted said.
What's your name?
Marc, Ted said.
[When you write please put story name in subject slot. Thanks.]