"Then don't do it."

"I've already decided."

"That's sound thinking. Charles Manson should have used that one. 'But, your honor, we'd already decided.'"

I said, "Don't make it worse."

"Ahh, now I'm an accomplice. Will it be fun, our immorality tonight?"

"I'm going to hang up now, Timmy."

"Don, the predestinationist. My mother once warned me about getting mixed up with Presbyterians. See you around, lover."

"Yeah, bye."

I wondered if there was a patron saint for the sarcastic.

14

I EXERCISED, JOGGED AROUND LINCOLN PARK FOR HALF AN

hour, showered, dressed, and had a bagel and a cup of plain yogurt while I read the Times Union. I went over my notes on the case and added to them. I left the apartment at five after eight under a starry autumn sky, aiming to arrive at Harold Snyder's apartment fifteen minutes late for the sake of dramatic tension. Not that his life lacked it.

"Donnie! Donnie, Donnie, Donnie!"

She had on a sheer negligee with a leopard-spot design and panties to match. In the" afternoon she'd worn a cheap, wavy orange wig, but now I witnessed her own hair, honey-colored and longish, a smooth whorl combed down over one eyebrow.

I said, "Sondra, would you mind calling me Don? My mother calls me Donnie."

She tapped the tip of my nose with her finger and cocked a freshly drawn eyebrow. "Maybe I'll just call you—Buck."

"I could be trained to respond to that."

"Mmmm. I'll bet you could—Bucky."

We were on the couch. A lamp with a two-watt lightbulb burned in the corner. The phonograph was playing the soundtrack from The High and the Mighty. She poured me what she called a martini. It was bright red. She lit a Gauloise and we told each other about ourselves.

Sondra described her "tragic childhood," which did, in fact, sound difficult and ugly: seventeen years in an Adirondacks crossroads called Sneeds Pond, with fundamentalist Baptist parents who kept telling her she was "abnormal" and "not right" and locking her in her room with a Bible, a football, and a photo of John Wayne.

"Did you play football, Buckie?" She examined my thighs and calves.

"In high school," I said. "And off and on in the army."

"Ooo, which army? Whose side were you on?"

"Ours. Though I once met Jane Fonda and she said I was making a mistake."

"Tacky bitch. Where does she get off."

"History will treat her more kindly than some."

Having checked out the shape of my legs, she moved on to my chest, a long, smooth hand sliding up under my turtleneck. She said, "Did you see A Bridge Too Far on TV the other night? Liv Ullman was too—aloof. She's so unwomanly. Sean Conn-ery, though—God, what a man! You could have played him, Bucky."

I thought, Christ, Sean Connery must be sixty by now. I said, "How old do you think I am, Sondra?"

"Thirty—nine."

"Not bad. You only missed by a year."

"Thirty-eight?"

"Yup."

"You have great nipples—for a man."

Was she a lesbian, too? I'd heard that about some of the famous starlets. She hiked up my shirt and ran her tongue around a nipple. I felt the heart under it begin to pump faster.

"Sondra—look, if we could just talk about some things for ten minutes, then I could be a lot more relaxed and we could really—"

She came up to my face and gave me a hard look. She said, "This is a social visit. You said so. It was your idea, Bucky. You wanna fuck, or you wanna fuck off? Hey?"

What would be would be. I said, "What do you think— sexy?"

She sighed and moved to the other nipple. I pulled her up and we sat kissing and feeling and massaging each other's legs and arms and backs and fronts while the record changed and the sound track from An Affair to Remember came on. She got my cock out of my pants and mouthed it for a while; I bent forward over her back, reached around, and got hold of hers. I wondered if Kim Novak was built like this.

We ended up on the floor, our garments soon strewn around us, kneeling and facing each other, kissing each other's faces, she massaging my cock and balls, me with a middle finger working into her warm, prelubricated anus.

"Bucky—baby—baby—Bucky—you've found my weakness."

We stood together and she led me into the bedroom by the finger. She flung the chenille bedspread aside and we fell onto the sheets. I was on top of her and she said, "Wait—more grease." The romance of the gay life.

She groped my cock with a palmful of Vaseline Intensive Care lotion—I was afraid I was going to come and in order not to I had to think about Eric Severeid—-and then I got some of the stuff on my fingers and lubricated her asshole, which opened at my touch like a baby's mouth.

Her legs came up in the air, as if sprung into their natural position, and I eased myself into her, and felt her working her

sphincters like miraculous strong hands. Then we were moving together, she saying ohhhh, ohhhh, ohhhh into my ear, me grunting and sighing, and thinking from time to time of Eric Severeid.

After a long, wonderful time her face convulsed, tears ran down her cheeks, and she began to moan, "Oh, Donnie— Donnie, love me—love me real good, Donnie!" and suddenly it hit me. Oh Christ, I thought—this was no longer Sondra the movie star pumping and humping under me anymore, but this sad, fucked-up human being whispering and sighing and weeping into my ear was in fact the hopeless, unloved boy, now the lost, unlovable man, Harold Snyder of Sneeds Pond, New York.

I was panicking, having second thoughts, trying to decide whether or not I could go through with it, when Harold began to moan, "Ohhhh—ohhhhh—Yes-s-s—Yes-s-s-s—"

I hesitated, stopped, slid it out.

"Oh, don't stop, Donnie! Donnie!" He was grabbing wildly, trying to find it. I shook my ass around, evading him.

My mouth was at his ear. I said, "First, Harold—you've gotta tell me something."

"Donnie—Donnie, what's the matter? What did I do? You were making me feel so good—so—so loved—"

That was it. I collapsed onto him. I wept into his neck— great gulping sobs that made the both of us shake and slide and make slapping sounds in each other's sweat. He threw his arms around me and held me tightly for a minute, or five, or ten, until the tension was gone and we both lay still. We lay like that for a long while, breathing together.

I said, "It's okay, Harold. I'm sorry. I had a cramp."

He kissed my eyes and stroked my head. "Oh, Donnie— poor Donnie—"

I was hard again. Modern ideas about the human brain to the contrary notwithstanding, I've always thought the damn thing had a life of its own.

We began again, taking it slower and easier this time. We'd build, ease off, build again, ease off again, then ride away, up, and up, and up. And, in fact, Harold Snyder—Sondra the cleaning lady, the unrisen star and dirty-mouthed shrew—

turned out to be, in bed, a strong, sweet, knowing, graceful, warm-hearted homosexual man.

At eleven-fifteen, after a second go-round, Harold smoked a Gauloise, I had a black coffee, and then I drove home.

Timmy had let himself in and was waiting in my apartment. He looked up from the copy of The Nation he was reading.

I said, "How'd the meeting go?"

He said, "Talky, but useful. How'd the immorality go?"