Death of a Pirate King - lanyon Josh. Страница 17

He was perfectly right. That was what normal people did.

“I don’t want to argue with you,” I said at last.

“Well, we can add that to the list of all the other things you don’t want to do with me. Like getting married -- or even going away for the weekend.”

“Guy…” I didn’t know what to say to him. This outburst was so out of character, and I knew I was at least partly to blame. He already felt that I kept him at a distance, and my unwillingness to commit, to take our relationship to the next level exacerbated the situation -- and now this: the return of Jake and everything he represented -- probably the things Guy liked least about me.

He shook his head, closing the discussion, and resumed eating. We finished our meal in silence.

We recovered a little amicability during the course of the evening. Guy was grading essays and I was watching some cheesy flick on the Sci Fi Channel -- nothing like a little CGI horror to put your own problems into perspective -- but eventually he was lured over to the sofa by my commentary. Before long he was playing Siskel to my Ebert.

That was one of the nicer things about Guy: he didn’t hold grudges. My first adult lover, Mel, had been a gold medal winner in the long-distance silent treatment. And even Jake had a tendency to revert to terse monosyllables when he was really irritated with me. Guy fought like a civilized person. He didn’t shut me out, and he didn’t try to thrash me into submission.

When we finally went into bed, Guy leaned over me, his mouth finding mine. He tasted like toothpaste with a hint of the plum wine he’d had for dessert. His mouth moved over mine with more insistence than he’d shown recently.

I kissed him back. His long hair feathered lightly across my face and chest. It tickled a bit.

“What do you want?”

What I wanted was to go to sleep -- but I knew how that would go over after our earlier argument. I kissed him back, and tried to put a little energy into it.

His mouth delved mine, his tongue slipped inside, and he murmured something soft and urgent. I murmured in return, stroked his back. His cock pressed into my abdomen, and I reached down to fondle his balls. I could practically feel the rush of heat beneath his skin, and I began to consider strategies for bringing him off fast.

He thrust against me. His hand stroked my hip and groin -- and he’d have had to be fairly oblivious not to notice I wasn’t as interested as I ought to be. One thing Guy was not was oblivious.

His hand slowed. Stopped. He leaned back from me, staring at my face, trying to read my expression in the lamplight. He said, “We haven’t made love since you got out of the hospital.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” I felt his erection wilting against me, and felt worse. “I’m just tired.”

He said wearily, “I don’t want you to be sorry, I want you to want me the way I want you.”

“I do.”

He stared intently down at my face. I turned my head and coughed. “I do,” I said, turning back to him. “I’m just not back to normal yet.”

He raised his brows.

“Normal for me,” I clarified.

Finally he sighed, reached behind himself, and turned off the lamp.

We lay there side by side not speaking.

Chapter Eight

Supposedly the elegant entrance gates to Forest Lawn in Glendale are the largest wrought iron gates in the world. I’m not sure. I think the gates at Porter Jones’s Bel Air mansion might have given Forest Lawn a run for their money, but the cemetery entrance was admittedly impressive.

And brought back a number of memories. My father is buried at Forest Lawn; I actually remember childhood trips to the cemetery better than I remember him. Lisa tells me I’m a lot like him, although there were presumably a few crucial differences. In any case, when I attended Porter’s funeral on Thursday, I decided to visit my father’s gravesite.

The grave was on a hillside with a number of other graves marked “English,” and I realized -- belatedly -- that I had quite a bit of family interred in these stately green parklands. It was an odd feeling. So was staring down at the bronze memorial tablet and realizing my father had been younger than me when he died.

It occurred to me I should have brought flowers or something. I hadn’t been to his gravesite since I was small enough to play on the bronze statuary by the lake with the Heron Fountain -- Lisa strangely indifferent to decorum on those long-ago field trips.

I wondered if my old man and I would’ve got along -- if he’d have been all right with the fact that I was gay. I wondered in what ways I’d have been different if he had lived -- besides my sexuality. Jake had been convinced my pop’s premature departure from the mortal coil during my formative years was responsible for my inverted orientation, but I’d known I was different before I was an adolescent. Nor did I consider my orientation inverted. But that was just one of many areas in which Jake and I disagreed.

* * * * *

I couldn’t help but think of Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One as I stood near the back of the Wee Kirk o’ the Heather and listened to Porter Jones’s nearest and dearest send him off with fond recollections and anecdotes.

From the jolly time everyone was having, it sounded like Porter was headed for that grand Opening Night in the Sky, and although he was not precisely a celebrity, he drew a reasonably full house. I recognized more than one familiar face -- not including those cast and crew members I’d already met.

Paul Kane was there, naturally, and he spoke eloquently and amusingly about Porter and their long association. They had apparently met through a mutual friendship with Langley Hawthorne. I recalled Ally mentioning something about Langley Hawthorne, and I made a note to see what I could find out about him. He sounded like another Hollywood mogul.

I had to admit -- grudgingly -- that I learned more about Porter Jones from Paul Kane’s eulogy than I did from anyone else’s reminiscences. Kane managed to cover the fact that Porter donated to numerous charities, gambled on small, noncommercial but deserving indie projects, and served on many industry committees and scholarship boards -- while poking gentle fun at Porter’s passion for deep-sea fishing, modern art, and gourmet cooking. According to Kane, Porter had his sensitive side: he had always wanted to write, and penned terrible screenplays in addition to several attempts at writing his memoirs -- but he had also been loud and crude and more than capable of drinking anyone or anything under the table. But most tellingly, in Paul Kane’s opinion, was the fact that Porter stayed friends with everyone.

Porter’s first wife, Marla Vicenza, was a well-preserved sixty-something. She looked like a bargain-brand Sophia Loren; I recognized her from too many late nights spent watching TV. She confirmed that Porter was a hard man not to like. Even when he had broken it to her that he was ending their thirty-year marriage and replacing her with a blonde trophy wife, he had apparently done it in the most charming way possible. By which, I gathered, he’d given Marla one hell of a generous settlement.

Marla seemed pretty easygoing herself. She sat next to Ally in the front pew of the chapel, and they seemed -- from where I stood -- to be on friendly terms.

Ally was apparently too overcome with grief -- or guilt -- to speak. She wore one of those flimsy black dresses that looked like it was designed for use while consuming apple martinis and bacon-wrapped scallops, and she leaned heavily on the arm of a short, brawny, and very good-looking young man. Maybe he was her brother. Because showing up on the arm of someone who wasn’t her brother was surely flying right in the teeth of LAPD -- and the teeth were very much in attendance.