A Limited Engagement Read online

  A Limited Engagement

  By Josh Lanyon

  I heard the key in the lock, switched on the porch light, and opened the door.

  The rain poured off the roof of the cabin in a shining fall of silver needles, bouncing and splashing off the redwood deck. Ross stood there, blue eyes blacker than the night, the amber porch light giving his skin a jaundiced cast.

  “You’re here,” he said in disbelief. The disbelief gave way instantly to the rage he’d been banking down for -- well, probably since the newspapers came out that morning. Even in the unwholesome porch light I could see his face flush dark and his eyes change.

  I stepped back -- partly to let him in, because really what choice did I have? Even if I’d wanted to keep him out, it was his cabin. Partly because…it was Ross and I had no walls and no doors and no defenses against him.

  He followed me inside, shaking his wet, black hair out of his eyes. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and his hands were red from the cold. His Joseph Abboud overcoat dripped in a silent puddle around his expensively shod feet. “I am going to kill you,” he said carefully and quietly, and he launched himself at me.

  I jumped back, my foot slipped on the little oriental throw rug, and I went down, crashing into the walnut side table, knocking it -- and the globe lamp atop it -- over. The lamp smashed on the wooden floor, shards of painted flowers scattering down the hallway.

  Ross’s cold hands locked around my throat. Big hands, powerful hands -- hands that could stroke and soothe and tease and tantalize -- tightened, choking me. I clawed at his wrists, squirming, wriggling, trying to break his hold.

  ‘Til death do you part…

  “R-R-ogh--” I tried to choke out his name as he squeezed.

  The blood beat in my ears with the thunder of the rain on the roof. The lights swirled and dimmed, the black edges swept forward and washed me out with the drum of the rain on the roof.

  ***

  I could hear the rain pounding down. I opened my eyes. I was lying on the floor in the entrance hall of the cabin, the rug scrunched beneath me. The lights were out but the flickering from the fireplace in the front room sent shadows dancing across the open beamed ceiling. I could make out broken glass winking and twinkling in the firelight like bits of broken stars fallen around me. My back hurt, my head buzzed, my throat throbbed.

  There was no sign of Ross.

  Levering myself up, I got to my feet, leaned dizzily against the wall while I found my bearings, then picked my way over the fallen table and through the broken glass into the front room.

  Ross sat in front of the fireplace, head in his hands, unmoving.

  I felt my way over to the sofa and sat down across from him.

  He didn’t look up. I could see that his hands were shaking a little.

  Mine were shaking a lot.

  I croaked, “Rawh.” Tried again. “Ross…will you listen to me?” It came out in a hoarse boy demon voice.

  I guess Demon Boy was about right. He looked at me then, and even in the uncertain lighting the pain in his eyes was almost more than I could take.

  He said tonelessly, “Why did you do it?”

  I had to struggle to get the words, and not just because of my bruised throat.

  He said, “I did everything you wanted. I paid every penny of your goddamned blackmail. Why the hell did you do it?” I could tell he’d been asking himself this all the long drive, all the long day. Six hours from New York City to this little cabin in the Vermont woods. He must have left not long after the news broke.

  “I --” my voice gave out on another squawk.

  His eyes shone in the firelight as they turned my way. I shook my head.

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me?” he asked. “You’ve destroyed me. Why?”

  I couldn’t answer. The burn in the back of my throat moved to my eyes and dazzled me. I could just make him out in a kind of prism -- as though he were trapped in crystal.

  “You don’t think you owe me that much?” He got up fast. I flinched. He stopped.

  “I’m…sorry,” I got out.

  “Sorry?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re…sorry?” The bewilderment was painful. “You outed me to the press. You’ve ruined my career, my marriage --”

  “Engagement,” I said quickly.

  There was a little pause. Ross said, “You’ve ruined my life…and you’re sorry?”

  I said, “I’m sorry you’re suffering. I’m not sorry I did it.”

  I thought he really would kill me then. Fists clenched, he took a step toward me, and I straightened, squaring my shoulders. For a long moment he stared down at me, then, sharply, he turned away. I could hear the harshness of his breathing as he fought for control.

  “Ross --”

  “Don’t say anything, Adam.” His voice was muffled. “Don’t speak. I’m not --”

  Neither of us said a word as the rain thundered down on the roof. I could see it glinting outside the windows like grains of polished rice -- like a shower of rice outside a church. But they didn’t throw rice at weddings anymore, did they?

  Finally Ross gave a long sigh. His shoulders relaxed. He moved away to the liquor cart and poured two brandies. Brandy in the wrong glasses: he really was upset. Handing me a tumbler, he down on the other sofa, and said conversationally, “That’s twice tonight I’ve almost killed you.” He met my eyes. “You shouldn’t have come here, Adam. I can’t believe you did.”

  “I’m not running from you,” I said.

  He raised his brows. “You should be running from me. Because I’m going to return the favor and wreck your life.”

  “All right.” I tossed my drink back and then stared down at the empty glass sparkling in the firelight.

  He gave me that dark, unfathomable look. “You don’t believe me?”

  I actually managed a crooked smile. “I think I beat you to it, yeah?”

  Yeah. Because of the two of us, my career was less likely to survive. Ross was a playwright. A brilliant, respected playwright, at that. I was an actor. A mostly out-of-work and previously not very well-known actor. Not many openly gay actors find leading man roles on or off Broadway. Especially the ones who indulge in kiss and tell with powerful playwrights and producers. I was going to be a pariah, the Ann Heche of the theatah, dahling.

  There also was the fact that I loved Ross -- as much as he now hated me.

  He swallowed a mouthful of brandy slowly, thoughtfully. “Not a smart move from a career standpoint,” he agreed. “Either of your careers. You know, you’re not going to get far as a blackmailer if you betray your paying customers.”

  “Why did you pay me?” I asked.

  He said as though explaining the facts of life to a numbskull, “Because you threatened to out me to the press.”

  “You could have gone to the police.”

  “How the hell would that have helped? It would just have outed me faster.”

  “You preferred to keep sleeping with me even though I was blackmailing you.”

  “You’re not hard to sleep with,” he said dryly. “Far from it. And as we -- and now everyone -- know, I like to sleep with men. And I’m not that choosy.”

  I ignored that last comment, although it stung. I pointed out, “And then when I demanded money, you handed that over too.”

  “That’s my point,” Ross said. “I gave you what you wanted. Everything you wanted, you got.”

  I said bitterly, “Right.”

  “What the hell did you not get? You asked for a part in the new play, and I got that for you too. Jesus Christ. I did everything I could think of --”

  “That’s right,” I said, and suddenly I was on my feet and furious. “You’re so goddamned af
raid that you let me blackmail you into a part in the new play. Was there anything you wouldn’t have done to keep my mouth shut? To keep yourself --”

  He was staring at me, mouth slightly parted -- not a look I’d ever seen on Ross’s face before. Ross Marlowe was the living personification of Man About Town. The suave sophisticate who knew what to do in every social situation. But I guess confronting your blackmailing ex-lover wasn’t covered in Debrett's Etiquette and Modern Manners.

  “What the hell are you crying about?” he asked.

  I wiped my face on my sleeve. “Oh go to hell,” I said. “If you don’t know by now, there’s no point me spelling it out.”

  He was very still.

  It took some effort, but I got myself under control while he stared at me with those midnight-blue eyes.

  “Look,” I said finally. “You asked why. So here’s why. Part of why. All these plays you write about characters finding their true selves and owning up to who they really are, and making difficult choices and standing behind them -- two plays about gay men being true to themselves against the odds -- and all the time you’re hiding behind this…façade of Ross Marlowe the brilliant heterosexual playwright.” Tears and my injured vocal cords closed off my words.

  He said slowly, “I see. This was for my own good?”

  I nodded, not looking at him, mopping again at my runny nose, leaking eyes. “I don’t expect you to understand,” I got out.

  “Lucky for both of us.” Watching me, he shuddered and pulled out a pristine hanky -- and who the hell carries hankies? Wasn’t that proof to the entire civilized world right then and there that Ross was gay? He tossed it my way. “Jesus, mop your face.”

  I took it with muttered thanks.

  “So basically,” he said, watching me scrub my face, “You had some idealistic image of me and I disappointed you, and this is your revenge?”

  Horrifically the tears started again. It took effort to stop them. I managed. “You never disappointed me.”

  “No.” His gaze was intent. “What then?”

  I said -- and I tried to be matter of fact, “I don’t believe you would have been happy like that, Ross. I don’t believe you --”

  “Christ, you’re young,” he said, but he sounded weary, not angry. He set down his glass, rose, and came over to me, taking me in his arms. “Okay, listen, Adam. You’re twenty-three. I’m forty. I think I’ve got the edge in experience here. I believe in the things I write about, but I don’t want to live my life as some kind of gay poster boy for the arts, all right? I like my privacy.”

  His arms felt very good around me, strong and kind and familiar. He smelled good too: a mix of rain and pipe tobacco and some overpriced herbal aftershave you probably couldn’t buy in Vermont. I put my head on his shoulder. I was very tired. I hadn’t slept since I’d done the interview with the reporter from the New York Times Theater section.

  Playing Desdemona to Ross’s Othello hadn’t helped much either.

  “This isn’t privacy,” I said. “This is…a lie. You’re marrying someone you don’t love.”

  I felt the steady, even pulse in his throat against my face. He was past his anger now; Ross was the most civilized man I knew -- and maybe that was part of the problem. He said levelly, “I like Anne. I do care about her, whether it meets your…naïve definition of love. It’s a good working partnership -- or it would have been before you blasted it to Kingdom Come with your exclusive to the papers.”

  Well, Kingdom Come was where I reigned. I didn’t think he’d find that funny though -- I didn’t -- and instead I said, “Marriage should be about more than friendship and respect, Ross.”

  “Respect and friendship -- companionship, shared interests -- that’s a good basis.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not enough.”

  “You’re the expert now?” His tone was dry. “What’s the longest steady relationship you’ve had?”

  “We’ve been together one year, eight months and twenty-seven days,” I said.

  He didn’t have an answer. After a moment he couldn’t even meet my eyes.

  I added, “Depending on how you use the word ‘together.’” I pulled out of his arms.

  After several minutes Ross said, quite gently, “Did you feel I used you? Is that why?”

  I shook my head.

  I could feel his gaze on my profile. “It was never my intent. From the moment I saw you I…wanted you,” he said honestly.

  Yeah. No question. I still remembered looking up from reading for the part of George Deever in All My Sons and meeting those smiling, blue eyes. Ross, who was good friends with the show’s producer, had been sitting in on the auditions that day. Every time I’d glanced up from the script I’d seen him watching me from the almost empty sea of chairs.

  I hadn’t got the role. Apparently I didn’t look like either a lawyer or a veteran. But as I’d left the audition, Ross had followed me out of the theater. He’d offered to buy me a drink. And, as consolation prizes went, I’d have taken a drink with Ross over eating for the next three months easy.

  We had cocktails at the M Bar in the Mansfield Hotel. Mahogany bookshelves, and a domed skylight. It had been raining that night too, glittering down like a fake downpour on a stage set. We drank and talked and then he took me upstairs to a luxurious suite and fucked me in the clouds of down comforter and pillow-topped mattress. In the morning he fed me cappuccino and croissants and put me in a taxi. I never expected to see him again.

  I figured he did that kind of thing all the time.

  Two nights later he had called me, and after a painfully stilted and painfully brief conversation, he’d asked me out. We’d had dinner at 21, and he’d taken me back to the Mansfield. And in the morning Ross had let me fuck him.

  After that I’d seen him a couple of days almost every week. Stolen hours. Borrowed time.

  The best had been the week we’d spent here at his cabin in Vermont just on our own.

  That had been four months ago -- in the summer. We’d swum in the lake and fished and sunned ourselves. We’d barbecued the rainbow trout we caught and drank too much and watched the stars blazing overhead as it got later and later. We’d talked and laughed and fucked and laughed some more. He’d let me read his new play. I told him I’d been offered a job in Los Angeles, and he told me not to go.

  That was the happiest I could ever remember being -- because I’d been sure Ross was falling in love with me. But the next week he’d announced his engagement to Anne Cassidy. I read it in the Theater section of the New York Times. Anne was an entertainment columnist for the Daily News.

  Ross apologized for that, and said he had planned to tell me himself, but Anne had got a little overexcited about the upcoming nuptials. I told Ross that if he broke it off with me I’d go the papers too. He’d laughed, but he’d kept seeing me -- though not as frequently.

  Their formal engagement party, a month later, received quite a bit of coverage in the local papers. I was still reading about it when Ross called and asked if I was free for the evening. I told him I wasn’t free, and that if he didn’t want me to tell his fiancé he was queerer than a postmodern production of Not about Nightingales, he would have to pay me a hundred dollars a week. He had been less amused but he’d given the money and he’d kept sleeping with me, and the wedding plans sailed smoothly along.

  A month ago I’d told Ross that if he didn’t get me a part in his new play, God’s Geography, I’d go to the papers. He’d given into that too -- granted, a very minor role -- although he didn’t sleep with me for two weeks after that escalation of hostilities.

  He’d finally called me late one night, sounding faintly sloshed. I’d insisted that he come to my place, for once, and he actually had. He’d actually shown up at my battered apartment door with a bottle of Napoleon Brandy, and fucked me long and hard in my blue and white striped Sears sheets while we listened to my next-door neighbors quarrel with each other to the musical accompaniment of their kid wailing in the b
ackground.

  “I even want you now,” he'd said, when he had rolled off me. It wasn’t a compliment.

  So as I stared at him in the shadowy firelight, I said, “I know. You never made any secret about it.”

  He said -- not looking at me, “I wasn’t going to dump you. You must know that. I didn’t intend to stop seeing you.”

  “Is that supposed to make it better?”

  His eyes widened at my anger. “I didn’t mean to…tried not to…take advantage of you. Of your…youth, your generosity.” The words seemed difficult for him. “Did you feel used? Is that why?”

  The playwright always wanting the loose ends neatly tied up. Living in fear of the critics, apparently.