Mirrors of Narcissus Page 6

  She was right, of course. But I disliked it when she tried to force her way with me. Our relationship as it was satisfied me, and I couldn’t understand why she wanted more. Meeting two or three times a week was fine with me. I couldn’t imagine seeing her every day, no matter how much she meant to me. It would be like we were married, and that was something I didn’t want.

  “Will you give me time to think about it, Chrissie?”

  “That’s what you always say. I don’t see what there is to think about. Either you want to live together or not. It seems pretty straightforward to me.”

  There was an almost desperate look on her face which I’d rarely seen, and it frightened me. I knew she was only voicing her feelings out of love, yet I detected a spitefulness coming from her, even a desire to hurt me. I hated her when she was like this; she was ugly.

  “It isn’t like I’m asking you to marry me,” she said. “If it doesn’t work out, we can always go back to the way things were. What are you afraid of, Guy? You make it seem like imprisonment or something.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m a little afraid it won’t work out. Maybe I’m afraid it’ll be what breaks us up.”

  “Don’t you want to grow up? I mean, look at the guys in the dorm. They’re just kids, a bunch of childish babies. You’re so much more mature than them.”

  Was she jealous of the dorm? I laughed. “We’re only nineteen, after all, Chrissie. I I want to have fun, too. Living with the guys has its good moments.”

  “I’m sure it does.”

  “Why do you feel so insecure, Christine? You make it sound like you’re worried about my feelings for you. You know I love you. Our living together isn’t going to change that.”

  “I know,” she said, and a worried look crossed her face. She herself had confessed that she was a little dismayed at the strength of her own desire for domesticity. She’d never before wanted to live with a guy until she met me. I, on the other hand, was growing more resistant to being tied down—I wanted endless possibilities in life. To settle down with a woman was to concede that those possibilities were limited, restricted.

  “Look, I wish you hadn’t brought this up just now, Christine. I just found out my roommate is a thief, and here you are already making arrangements for my future. Hell, if I move out now, the guys might think I’m the thief. They’ll mix it up in their minds when they think back over it.”

  She laughed. “I’m sorry, Guy. I get like this sometimes. It must be hell going with me.”

  “No it isn’t. Not at all.” I grinned. “Listen, Chrissie, after having refused your offer to move in with you, this might seem cheeky, but I have a little favor to ask.”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “Can I spend the night over tonight? I don’t know if I can face Jonesy, knowing what I do about him.”

  She raised her fist and made as if to strike me, but she was only joking. She sighed. “Sure. I understand. But I’m gonna be up half the night studying for my midterms.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll probably sack out while you hit the books.”

  I was glad to be able to be alone with my thoughts, not only about Jonesy, but about my encounter in the restroom with the unknown boy. Too many things were happening at once. Christine’s room was a sanctuary from it all.

  I took up a book and lay down on the bed to read, but Christine seemed unable to concentrate at her desk. As if she’d been thinking it over for a while, she asked me without turning around:

  “Guy, am I being a bitch?”

  I sat up, concerned by the undertone of seriousness in her question. “No, you’re not being a bitch. Why do you say such a thing?”

  “Well, one wants to know these things.” She shrugged.

  Her pretended unconcern touched me. “Look at me, Christine.” She turned around. “We’ve always said we wanted openness in our relationship, right? And you were only voicing your true wishes. And I was voicing my own.” And then I became a little bolder. “And anyway, does it look to you like I think you’re a bitch?” I lay there on my side and saw her glance flicker down to my lap. Now that all the excitement of the day had wound down and I was relaxed, an unasked-for erection had blossomed during our talk.

  She smiled. “I don’t know. Let me get a better look.”

  “What about your midterms?”

  “That can wait.” She pushed her book aside.

  “And Nancy?”

  “She’s spending the night with David.”

  As she came over to the bed, I undid my jeans and pulled them down, then unbuttoned my shirt and took it off.

  She lay down alongside me and put her arms around me. As always, the contrast between her fully-clothed body and my complete nudity intensified my arousal. Unlike with Peter, I could allow my excitement to blossom unchecked. I felt her clothes against my skin as she pressed herself against me and then the moist warmth of her mouth sought mine.

  Some of the girls I’d been with had claimed that kissing gave them more pleasure than the sexual act itself. Often I’d kissed girls for—seemingly—hours on end, until their lips grew hot and their bodies trembled. I’d been told by them that most boys can’t kiss a girl for very long, for they become so aroused that they want to get to “the real thing” as quickly as possible. Unlike those straight boys, however, I could control my emotions long enough for the girl to get as much pleasure as she liked from kissing.

  I helped Christine out of her clothes, and soon we were locked in our familiar embrace, with me sitting cross-legged and her on my lap, my dick deep inside her. I usually started out by not moving at all, just kissing her and caressing her all over with my hands. In Christine’s case, because she was so self-conscious about the smallness of her breasts, I concentrated most of my caresses on them, rhythmically kneading them and gently pinching their nipples, leaning down to kiss and suck at them. Only after she made it clear that she couldn’t stand it anymore did I push her back onto the bed and begin pumping into her with long, slow thrusts.

  In high school, after my initial dismay at encountering a girl’s body, I gradually forced myself to learn to like it, as I was resigned to the possibility that it would be all I could ever have. And perhaps a part of me was hoping that after enough times, I could “cure” myself of my more powerful homosexual desires. And still another factor was that I wanted to prove to the straight world—who would have crucified me for my true inclinations—that I was every bit as good as the straights, that I could compete with them at their game, even better them at it. If I couldn’t have what I really wanted, I might as well put up with what I could, and make the most of it. At any rate, I accepted the fact that I would have to at least be able to pretend heterosexuality. My first few times were clumsy, but I gradually learned the geography of a girl’s body.

  My lack of true passion gave me a certain clinical detachment in my explorations, and this in turn allowed me the objectivity that most boys were denied. Most of them, no doubt, became so overwhelmed by the feel of her naked skin against theirs, the taste of her lips, that they couldn’t keep back the rising tide of orgasm, which erupted much too soon, just when she was becoming aroused. Unlike those boys, however, I was able to last much longer, my secret sobriety allowing me to concentrate on her pleasure. It usually takes women so much longer to achieve gratification—even after a long session of kissing and fondling—that I really can’t blame those men who are unable to hold out that long.

  So I got a reputation among certain girls as the experienced one, the mature one. Little did they realize that I was only using the whole thing as a cover-up: going out with girl after girl and almost mechanically going through the motions, playing the numbers game, ranking the girls according to my own system of values, judging them by physical beauty, degree of sexual passion, the extent of their emotional involvement with me. Above all, I loved the irony of the fact that I, who had no true passion for girls, became famous in my school for my sexual expertise.

  Boys wo
uld sometimes confide to me that they didn’t know if their girlfriends had orgasms or not. They were either afraid to ask or worried that they would be lied to if they did. For some reason I had much more open communication with my girls, and I’d learned that most of them really weren’t as concerned about orgasm as the boys thought. What they cared more about was being held by a boy they loved, and giving him pleasure.

  Christine, always the eager explorer, had discovered orgasm when she was 16, through clitoral masturbation. She’d excitedly told her friends about this but most of them, to her surprise, were loath to try the experiment, either through prudery or fear. She herself found nothing wrong with masturbation; sometimes during our lovemaking, she would openly caress herself. Or I would caress her clitoris for her. I knew just the right touch she liked—it was different for every girl.

  Tonight, though, she seemed happy with standard coitus. Her lips had drawn back and I could see her teeth clenched together hard. The muscles in her neck were corded and she was emitting short, powerful gasps. Usually, the sight of a girl’s sexual excitement left me cold, even blunted my own. Christine had been the first with whom I normally didn’t have to resort to mental substitutes for the final effort, but tonight my mind was too stimulated to do otherwise.

  I pulled her legs up behind my hips, then pushed myself up off my knees, balancing all my weight upon my toes for a more steeply angled pivot. As her loosely crossed ankles came to rest on my buttocks, I began thrusting into her, harder, deeper, and faster. My motions caused her heels to rub rhythmically against my buttocks in a caressing manner.

  I thought about Jonesy, and how he’d crept into other boys’ rooms and fondled their valuables. This vision was somehow linked with the boy I’d encountered in the restroom today, whose naked erection had been so brazenly exposed to my view. The two images merged in my mind, and I had a vivid picture of Jonesy mischievously pumping his dick at me. It was going to be good. It was going to be very good.

  Christine had given up any attempt at suppressing her cries. I listened to them absently for a moment before giving myself up completely to the pictures in my mind.

  The next morning I had to go back to my dorm to get my books for class. As I was about to unlock the door to my room and step inside, I heard sounds coming from within. It had to be Jonesy, packing his things to leave.

  He seemed to be in the shower room taking out his toothbrush, soap, shaving gear.

  I listened intently, dreading the prospect of meeting him. Would he say good-bye? Or should I? Didn’t I at least owe him that? Yet I was afraid of what the others would think. It would be like a betrayal, when he’d hurt so many of them. Leaving my post at the door, I quietly made my way down to the lounge. For about fifteen minutes I pretended to watch television, imagining I could hear the sounds of his packing. And then I heard a door opening, then shutting. Footsteps came down the hallway. I felt my eyeballs get hot.

  But he didn’t come to the lounge.

  After a decent interval had passed, I stepped out into the hallway and went down to Kruk’s room and knocked on his door. When he came to answer it, he looked drawn.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Jonesy just left.”

  “Yeah, I know. I heard him from out in the hall. But I didn’t say anything to him. Did you see him?”

  “Yeah. I cracked open my door so I could get a look. And he saw me, too.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “Yeah. He was lugging a suitcase and a box. There was a taxi waiting for him outside.”

  “Did he say anything? Any last words?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No contrition, no excuses, no anger? He just left?”

  “That’s right. He couldn’t even look me in the face.”

  I felt a sense of letdown, of having been cheated. Perhaps I had wanted drama—some indication of the impact he’d made on our lives. After all, he had been the virtual leader of the floor, the one who organized things, got things going, the life of every party. He’d been here since the beginning, was the first guy I’d met when I came here. And now he was gone from our lives. It was hard to believe, or accept.

  I left Kruk and went to my own room. Except for Jonesy’s bed, the night table, and the study desk, everything had been cleared away. His side of the room still looked dirty. There were tiny holes in the wall, left by the thumbtacks where pin-ups had hung; beer rings had hardened on the window ledge. He’d left behind a huge stack of men’s magazines in the closet. I picked one up at random and idly flipped through it, then tossed it down.

  I had to get to English class.

  *

  Part Two: Terra Incognita

  1

  I found out who “H. Golden” was, the mysterious person who liked to check out gay books. I was looking for courses to take in the coming winter term when I came across his name in the course catalog; he was a professor at the college.

  Apparently Harold Golden taught Western Art History, among other subjects. I knew instinctively that he had to be the one, and felt a little let down. I had wanted to keep him in my imagination as a young, attractive athlete.

  I checked the Underground Guide to find out what kind of instructor he was. Written by past students of the school, this mimeographed publication put out by the student union rated all the instructors on campus, telling how difficult they were, whether they were interesting lecturers, how tough they were at grading, and how to pass their classes.

  Professor Golden was apparently well thought of by former students. As a lecturer he was rated “excellent,” and his courses were in high demand. His Western Art History class was especially popular among students majoring in non-art fields, such as Engineering, P-Chem, and pre-med. For them, the course was interesting and, at the same time, satisfied the art requirement they needed for graduation. Athletes also favored the course; for them, it was highly recommended.

  I decided to drop in on one of his lectures to see how “H. Golden” looked.

  My first sight of him was a disappointment. Perhaps I’d built him up too much in my imagination, but the middle-aged professor wearing old-fashioned glasses wasn’t quite what I’d come to expect. Unlike some of the younger instructors, whose hairstyles and clothes made them virtually indistinguishable from their students, Professor Golden was immaculately groomed and dressed. There was an air of old-world culture about him, even though apparently he was from someplace in Indiana. With his gold-rimmed glasses and goatee, he seemed quite cosmopolitan, a little out of place in this university.

  In any case, the lecture hall was packed. Unlike most of my other courses, in which by the end of fall term half of the students had dropped out, his class showed no signs that attendance had diminished at all.

  It was easy to see why: his lecture was fascinating. Quite apart from what he was discussing—in this case the art of the Weimar Period, with music from the era softly accompanying his slide presentation—his voice was mesmerizing. It was deep, soothing, and authoritative, somewhat like a doctor’s, and I wished it would go on and on. And his absorption in the topic was so infectious that I noticed students sitting on the edges of their chairs—students who probably normally wouldn’t have been interested in art at all. The hour that I spent listening to him was like a wonderful time trip into a glamorous past.

  When the class was over, even after most of the students had left, there was still a small crowd around him, eager to ask more questions. He was apparently something like a sage for these hangers-on. Perhaps it was the distance they felt from him which gave him this special aura, and I could understand their feeling, for he seemed so different from anyone I’d ever met before.

  I wondered how many of his students knew he was gay. This secret knowledge had colored some of the things he’d said; a brief mention he’d made of the beauty of Michelangelo’s David was for me tinged by the knowledge that he undoubtedly found the statue as sexually exciting as I did.

  However, as I listened in
on his talk with the students, I discovered that he made no secret of his gayness. I caught the word “homosexual” just as I joined the circle gathered around his lectern. One of the boys was asking him about a book called Maurice, by E.M. Forster.

  “I’ve read some of his other books,” said the boy, “but they didn’t interest me at all. I thought they were kind of boring. Flatulent. I’ve never understood why the critics regard him so highly.”

  Golden had been putting his notes into order, and now he put them aside and looked animatedly at the students around him. “A thing about literary criticism you have to understand is that there are certain academics who seem to feel that the more boring and obscure a book is, the deeper it is. Apart from Forster’s other books, with which I feel you’re being a little too harsh, what did you feel about Maurice?”

  “It seemed a bit corny to me.”

  “Well, you have to understand the times in which it was written. Remember, when Forster was a young man, homosexuality was actually a prisonable offence. So you can easily understand why he remained a closet homosexual all his life, and why he didn’t dare publish Maurice in his lifetime—which is a pity, because I think it’s quite a good novel. He did leave instructions for it to be published after his death, though. But by that time his treatment of the subject had become rather passé. When he first wrote it, it was no doubt a daringly straightforward and honest portrayal of a homosexual love affair, but by today’s standards, it’s almost quaint. After all, by the time of his death, in 1970, we had seen the publication of writers like Burroughs, Vidal, Rechy, and Genet, who are much more explicit in their depictions of sexuality.”

  “Who’s Genet?” asked one boy.

  “A French writer who’s still alive, though he hasn’t written anything for quite some time now. He wrote in the 1940s, and his work was translated into English in the 1960s.”

  “What sort of stuff did he write?”

  “He wrote five novels, dense with a rich, poetic prose, about his life in prison, about his—”