L.

[5.] The Men of My Life

I did not resent him. Not Dasius.

At night, while he fell asleep, I held his hand. His eyes searched me by candlelight, deep and wanting. 

"Touch me gently," he whispered, two weeks after Leis moved into Nicky's bedroom. "You have to touch me. Please."

"Take off your shirt."

He remained, lying on his stomach, as if he had not heard me. 

His violence, which had swept him up two weeks before, had left him. In its wake, he was defeated. Always tired. He slept often, and his words were simple. 

I lifted his white chemise and brushed his back with my fingertips. Barely warm, dry, lovely back.

In his age, boys of seventeen were grown men, but they were not so different from boys of seventeen in other ages. He had then been curious, restless, struggling with a sense of duty and wanting more for himself. Dasius is one of those who always denies that he wants more out of life, but in his heart, he wonders what he could be. I think, even now, he wonders. 

He must have always been hungry, when living. I know a little of what that is like. But he does not like to talk about himself as a boy. He does not really like to talk at all. But he speaks in other ways. With his head turned to the side on his pillow, there crept the most gentle smile on his pretty, full lips. Do you still love me? he thought. Though what I do is wretched? I kissed him upon the crown of his head. 

I thought to go out in the night. It was raining lightly, and I wanted to walk barefoot in it, and naked, and go to my temple of Herculaneum, and dance the ecstatic dance of heretics. I wanted to swallow the moon with my eyes, and dig my fingers into the dirt. 

That is for a boy of a different age. 

In the hallway, after seeing Dasius into a deep sleep so rare for him, I briefly fingered his grey frock coat. It is my favorite one that he has, because of its perfect angles and the velvet. With regret, I report it was far too large for me. Sometimes, in spite of himself, he has these things I desire to wear with my entire soul.

I slipped out, instead, wearing his black, wide-brimmed hat and carrying his ebony walking stick. 

I don't wonder that were things different, Dasius could have been a violent man. He learned to control his temper while young, in my company. Holding the ebony stick, I remembered beating him when he was new. I hit him hard. I whipped him when his mouth was full of curses. He had wanted to dominate his life, but with me, he could not ever do so. It is my will that never wavers.

For that treatment, sometimes I think he ought to be grateful. To find his evil impulses curbed. But it gives me pause of course, for it is true that neither he nor I quite believe in such a thing as evil. There are greater matters. Faith. Truth. Fragility. Fidelity. 

Oh, fidelity. Who is she? What is her face? 

Leis was not, by any stretch of the imagination, the first intimate after Dasius. Dasius maintained to himself that we are not lovers, still says so. But I think this division is a self-defense. These are only words. I do not care for the idea of a spiritual marriage, or some kind of singular bond. What are these? I do think much of promises. I do think much of love. 

Though, in many ways, I believe in being bound.

In the light rain, there were many people still about, and to them I did not look any good for market purposes. A man in a hat like this one has his own destination, and indeed I did have one, and so did not look out on anyone. But on the way, I did happen to find an orange, and bought it without bargaining much. What a funny thing to find in the rain.