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His accounts were frozen. But it's not that that spooked him. He had seen his last boyfriend laid out on one of two medical tables in a private hospital room overlooking a few medical students who laughed in the leafy wind-cobbled courtyard below, and nodded to acknowledge this, too numb to think. He had seen Tweak prepare sandwiches, weightless things with iceberg lettuce and tomato, and he had seen him buried. Life he thought would last longer. Nothing had prepared him. A pretty pink corpse in Vancouver on too pure Heroin, an uncle of AIDS, and more than one casual acquaintance or someone whom they were close to diagnosed with Cancer. Yet none of this had wizened him. But that, also, is not what spooked him. - I don't even know who you are anymore, Jeff said. An enigmatic extreme sport: the way this new lover applies make-up. Tom was an accountant with some spare time on his hands and some pretty grim theories of cosmetics. And Jeff, after a few drinks, had sensed he needed the danger. Total saturation of the cloud in which his thoughts moved. Temporary overturn of his reality. None of his senses were in accord. The stranger stood, a ghost and yet a consciousness, overfed waist in ballooning pants. Black circlets painted under both flesh-hung eyes. Eyeballs of a curious plasticity. White cream on pasty cheeks, silver on full lips. Big black spidery wig. In an axle of icy bathroom light. Jeff was going the way of brokers you only read of, indiscretions that were just part of the culture at the time, only his own was curiously more. Hard drives and files had been seized months ago. Lawyers and regulators and the police. Each passing day left him further from the world as reported in the papers. What was reported there left him no backdoor. He needed the change - the distraction. He had met Tom just hours before at the sports bar hubbed at the base of his office tower along with the pizzeria and the dollar store. GABBYS was one of those homely pubs lost in the size and neglect of the immediate city, arranged on the interior with a silent ritual of unrelated strangers. Some hesitant talk, some eyes locked upon the peculiar televisual fantasy that glowed as if predestined for them. Jeff in white shirt and black tie lightly sweated and sipped. He had just finished skulking off from his office with whatever two banker boxes would carry, boxes which he then disposed of in a lane of dumpsters down half a block. In his current state he was no doubt a magnet for strange and corrupt men. Tom talked of domination, magic and play. Jeff got himself progressively pinker and drunker, his speech thickening. Tom was an accountant who moonlit - you just never know with accountants. When the invitation came, Jeff was too weak to decline. Minutes later they had paid their bills and were riding Tom's
elevator up to a condo of interlocking beige rooms. Minimal furnishings.
A large central oil depicting subtle patter of confetti upon a
tumultuous black. There were harlequin masks with no eyes and
grotesque goofy grins. Vases of battery-operated roses blinking
as hazard lights. - A clown, said Tom, lips thick, grinning. - Jeeesus, said Jeff, moving away, I'm not sure I can go through with this. - Tell me your fantasy, hissed the clown. Your fear . . . Jeff had lost everything in the dogged pursuit of his grief. The man from the funeral agency who officiated had spoke kind, if general words. In the graveyard before the casket was lowered Jeff had distracted himself watching a few fighter jets streak across the sky, turn arcs, their high frequency screaming sounding a moment later. There was an air show going on that day and a war overseas. He remembered the leaves of the tree that day. Their crispness and circumference. Tweak's father, from beneath a black suit of mourning, had said to Jeff, - You know I never approved. But I know you loved him. He touched Jeff's shoulder. All Jeff could manage was, - I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. North American childhood had become, within his lifetime, improbable, indistinct, a hovering intransient mass, as if there had been a screen placed between him and it. Despite entire industries set up to preserve it. Cabbage Patch dolls. Star Wars figurines. Saturday morning cartoons. Tom's breath was hot on his inner ear. His beer gut touching the small of Jeff’s back. Jeff seemed to feel a whole lifetime withdraw in cards raining on a trading floor, the melted glass and frame of a shrinking building, Tweaks bald head and white pyjamas and his eyelids finally laid to rest. Tom's fingers massaged Jeff's fingers. Tweak and him were seventeen again, in sweats, in the bright of Tweak's kitchen. Tweak made his lunch every morning before first period, bagged and placed in an orange lunch pail on the stainless steel island in the centre of the room. Amanda, the only girl Jeff had ever been with, made fun of Tweak. Amanda called him pansy. Tweak gave a small mischievous grin. Amanda would leave for out west at age seventeen, gigging at a peeler’s bar, renting a room with a view of the ocean. Jeff at his peak had had more than ten million tied up in assets and he just froze. Everything was uncertain that day. A scream unrolling from cyberspace and beyond, message boards filling up: Where was the president? Can you see the towers from your office? Are we under attack? On September 12th, the headlines heralded: "a chilling new era." The markets lurched and Jeff did nothing. Not for his clients. Not for himself. He let the loss come. He watched the data withdraw. His voicemail max out. He went to a Lebanese restaurant that lunch as if in a trance and ordered a Coke. The man behind the counter slowly shook his head and served. The clown's wig shook as he hissed in Jeff's ear, low, certain, - Play. Regain your naive belief again Jeff. C'mon sweetie, play with me. A tear rolled down Jeff's cheek while the clown kissed his neck, his eyes, his shoulder. He was twelve again, on the way to the midway, when his father said, - You're Uncle Joe has been living with a man for seven years. You're not to repeat this to anyone. He's dying of AIDS. - Do you do tricks? laughed Jeff through tears. The contact with the man felt so good, it had been so long since anyone had touched him. He shuddered as tears continued to come. - Do us a trick! Do us a trick! shrilled the clown in delight, clapping his hands together. The clown's hand moved around to the front of Jeff's pants. Jeff had never felt so vulnerable before with a stranger. As if to be raped consensually in a ghost world. - Perhaps squeaky toys? leered the clown, cupping Jeff's balls. Jeff's sobbing became audible. He laughed despite himself. - Let me tie up your hands, said the clown. Jeff and Tweak, at seventeen, fell in bed. It was prom night. Neither of them had gone. After the first four moths Amanda's letters became less and less. It was the first time they had kissed. Jeff was surprised to feel Tweak’s tongue through the reek of vodka. They would meet again, nine years later, both of them commerce graduates, no idea what the other had been doing, surprised they had both done the same thing. They met as singles in a cruising bar. Tweak told him then that Amanda had ODed. That her parents had had to fly up to identify the body. They had gone home drunk together, Tweak and Jeff, wobbling, careening off the curb while headlights misted rain. He felt Tweak's body against an ATM. Blue-crystal on his face like a miracle. Tweak’s tongue in his mouth that cut to Jeff’s heart. White shirt wet against his flesh. Jeff, at twenty-eight, laughing in tears into his cell phone, - Tweak, mark my words. They're gonna investigate. The whole market, it's been going on for years. All the market is inflated, you know that. That fucker knew. Bin Laden, he knew. He was popping our balloon and he knew it. Tweak didn't respond. - What, Tweak, talk to me man, am I paranoid here? Am I just jazzed up? I am hyperventilating here man, speak, Tweak, speak. - I am scared that you stay with me because I am dying. - Tweak, don't be maudlin. My career is going down the tubes. All of ours are. America is under attack. - Do you love me because I am dying? - Tweak I don't even know who I am just now. Don't ask that. - You know I am dying Jeff. - Tweak I don't want to think of that now. There’s just this harrowing voice in my head. I don't know what to expect anymore. There was a beep on call waiting. - Will you come visit the hospital tonight? I got a VCR, from the cute nurse lady who looks like Audrey Hepburn. We can watch videos. You could pick one up on the way over. - Gimmee a sec Tweak, other line. And the zero-degree voice on the other line, - Jeff, you need to set things in order. Something in Jeff crashed. He paused on the sidewalk, blocking a scatter of professionals. Light went from green to red. - Do you hear me Jeff? Get to the office now. We've been subpoenaed. They’re going to investigate. Jeff is now in the bathroom, weeping frankly, while a clown kisses his newly undressed body, his dimpled nipples, his breast. His hands raised above his head and bound around in black ribbon. Watching this reflected skull of caked make up hover near his cheek, in the mirror, down at his shoulder, as a hand cups his ass. Through a lacquer of tears, Jeff repeated, - I don't know who you are anymore. Black and silver balloons shook. The curtains, white, let in wind. There was the chill of coming storm. - Magic and play, grinned the clown. I'm whomever you want me to be. Jeff cried more as the hand began more freely discovering his ass. - Pretend all there is, is today and today is your birthday. What do you want Birthday Boy? From the bathroom window, downtown towers continued in austere armored silence. - I want to disappear, Jeff hissed, please let me disappear. |
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12.07.06: Scarlet Letters -- in case it isn't glaringly obvious -- is currently
on an extended hiatus. The web has changed, we've changed, and
we're trying to figure out how we both fit together now, which isn't a process we want to rush. If you're looking for more current SL-related content, you can
have check out upcoming books from editor Heather Corinna and previous co-editor Hanne Blank, check out Heather's current sexuality sites, or explore sites through the femmerotic network. We hope to be back with you soon, as fresh, challenging and
unexpected as ever.
In the meantime, by all means, enjoy our years of past content,
all of which still remain in the public and subscription areas.
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