Oh, Dainty Triolet
Three Novellas
by
Edward C. Patterson
Dancaster Creative
Smashwords Edition, February 2010
Copyright 2008 by Edward C. Patterson
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part (beyond that copying permitted by U.S. Copyright Law, Section 107, “fair use” in teaching or research. Section 108, certain library copying, or in published media by reviewers in limited excerpt), without written permission from the publisher.
Previously published separately as Cutting the Cheese (copyright 2008), Bobby’s Trace (copyright 2008) and
No Irish Need Apply (copyright 2008)
Other Works by Edward C. Patterson
No Irish Need Apply ISBN 1434893952
Cutting the Cheese ISBN 1434893847
Bobby’s Trace ISBN 1434893960
The Closet Clandestine: a queer steps out ISBN 1438220502
Come, Wewoka & The Diary of Medicine Flower ISBN 1438227639
Surviving an American Gulag ISBN 1438247230
Turning Idolater ISBN 1440422109
Look Away Silence ISBN 1448651921
Are You Still Submitting Your Work to a Traditional Publisher? ISBN 1441407383
The Academician - Southern Swallow Book I ISBN 144149975X
The Nan Tu – Southern Swallow Book II ISBN 1449994202
Swan Cloud – Southern Swallow Book III
The House of Green Waters — Southern Swallow Book IV
Oh, Dainty Triolet
Belmundus
The Road to Grafenwöhr
Green
Folly
The Jade Owl Legacy
The Jade Owl ISBN 1440447977
The
Third Peregrination ISBN
1441456724
The
Dragon’s Pool ISBN
1442170999
The People’s Treasure
In the Shadow of Her Hem
For
further information contact
edwpat@att.net
Cutting the Cheese
Bobby’s Trace
No Irish Need Apply
Table of Contents
Slice One: Cheddar-Sharp
Slice Two: Roquefort
Slice Three: Stilton
Slice Four: Baby Bon Bel
Slice Five: Liederkranz
Slice Six: Neufchatel
Slice Seven: Mozzarella
Slice Eight: Camembert
Slice Nine: Provolone
Slice Ten: Gorgonzola
Slice Eleven: Velveeta
Slice Twelve: Brie
Slice Thirteen: Feta
Slice Fourteen: Jack
Slice Fifteen: Pot Cheese
Slice Sixteen: Mascarpone
Slice Seventeen: Gouda
Slice Eighteen: Ricotta
Slice Nineteen: Hickory Smoked
Slice Twenty: Fontina
Slice Twenty-One: Asiago
Slice Twenty-Two: Gjetost
Slice Twenty-Three: Reblechon
Slice Twenty-Four: Bel Paese
Slice Twenty-Five: Boursault
Slice Twenty-Six: Mimolette
Slice Twenty-Seven: Fromunder Cheese
Slice Twenty-Eight: Cream Harvarti
Slice
One:
Cheddar-Sharp
Kelly Rodriguez struggled with the plastic grocery bags while trying to shut the back door.
“Kelly? Is that you?” Mortimer shouted from the recesses of the living room.
Kelly swept into the kitchen balancing the bags.
“No, it’s Tom Cruise,” he said. He flung the bags on the butcher block, waving his hands about his nose. “I was in the neighborhood, found these fucking bags of cheese and thought they needed a home.”
No response.
Kelly rolled his eyes and, placing his hands on his hips, did his best impression of a salad cruet.
“Would you help me? This is your shit anyway!” He slammed his palm on the counter, and then muttered, “I’m not having the gay scary fairies of New Birch meeting.”
Kelly caught his reflection in the polished flour canister.
Scary fairy, my ass, he thought. Lovely creature.
“But I’m not some fucking slave, Mortimer! Do you hear me?”
Kelly continued to preen before the canister until Mortimer bounced into the kitchen, his hands over his ears as if to block an air-raid siren.
“I heard you,” he said. “And they’re not the scary fairies.”
Sharp ears, Kelly thought, giving Mortimer attitude.
Mortimer approached the hallowed butcher block and its cheese cargo.
“The Gay Activists of New Birch are the hope for our future. And who are you to call anyone scary?” Mortimer stepped back and waved his hand down Kelly’s skinny butt. Kelly answered with a finger snap, and then blew a hiss between pursed lips.
“And who are you? Vanna White?”
Mortimer shrugged. He had reached the butcher block.
“I’m just glad you finally got back. I thought you’d gone to the Moon.”
“Where else can you get this much cheese?” Kelly snickered.
He grabbed a dishcloth and began washing the counters, occasionally smiling at the image in the flour tin.
“They’ll be here any minute.”
“I’ll be out of your way,” Kelly said. “Roy gave me a chore list.” He twirled around, his back to the counter. “And I’m not hanging around here to be enlisted in the Cheddar brigade. It’s bad enough I’ve got dish pan hands.”
Mortimer looked into the bags, his face gnarling like a sourdough pretzel.
“Shit! This is cheddar-sharp.”
Kelly threw the dishcloth into the sink.
“Not all of it.”
Mortimer scowled, placing his hand mid-hip. Kelly shot him a glance that would kill.
Who the fuck does he think he is? Kelly thought. I’m the houseboy and it’s not his house. Wait ‘til Roy gets home.
“Sorry I didn’t beat the cream on the rock,” he said, “so disa here cheese, she’d be purfuct for y’all.” He bowed, the dishcloth now retrieved like a fop’s hankie. “If you don’t like what I got, you should have gotten off your princess ass and went yourself. Cheddar-Sharp! Not all of it.”
He grabbed Roy’s chore list from the counter.
“I asked you not to get Cheddar-Sharp. Can’t you follow a simple set of instructions?” Mortimer looked at the cheese as it dumped across the block. He clicked his tongue as if the world turned on dairy products. “I wanted it to be perfect. Cheddar-Sharp is harder to cut. It crumbles and they don’t eat it.”
Kelly clanked the silverware into the dishwasher.
“Roy asked me to help you. I’m not under any obligation for this meeting.” He dipped his back against the sink like a precious coquette at Twelve Oaks. “I’m not even a fucking activist you know.”
He grinned as if the angels had tickled him.
“You should get some community spirit and a social conscience,” Mort said. “You should join.”
Kelly’s grin faded. He charged toward the bags of cheese, his slinky gait beckoning to the runway.
“Do you want this in the refrigerator? Or what?” he snapped.
Mortimer blocked him.
“No, let it be. I said they’ll be here any minute. You don’t hear a word I say.”
I wish, Kelly thought. His eyes said as much.
Mortimer stacked the cheese blocks into a pyramid.
“We’ll start cubing when they come.”
Kelly rolled his eyes, then adjusted his crotch in an eat me gesture.
“What’s this meeting about, anyway?” he asked, retreating to the silverware.
“I thought you didn’t care.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t care. I said I wouldn’t join.” Kelly twirled over to the counter, leaning back again — the perfect Liza Minnelli. “Just think of it as an inquiring mind needing to know.”
It was Mortimer’s turn to roll eyes and snap fingers.
“Important stuff.”
Kelly chuckled. He had been to the Gay Activist of New Birch meetings — at least twice, and he had seen these committee groups and sub groups meet in various homes in the area. Not once did he ever consider the content weighty enough to label it important stuff.
“Be a shit then,” Mortimer snapped. He continued the cheese set ups. “I don’t think you take anything seriously.” He glanced back at Kelly. “Well, maybe your waistline, or by some stretch, your hair.”
“What’s wrong with my hair?” Kelly glanced into the flour canister again.
No one ever took the houseboy seriously, especially Kelly Rodriguez. Sure, he was a looker — had those thin, wiry hips, good for bed, but the boy had attitude — too much for a serious community member, like good old Mortimer. Kelly had moves, true. He danced naked in DC — on the bar top, down past his BVDs. That’s where Roy Otterson first saw him, somewhere between the five-dollar squeeze and the one-hundred dollar nibble. It was at the club La Cage, where the DC cops turned their heads the other way. Kelly knew a Sugar Daddy at five hundred yards. Roy Otterson never had a quiet bankroll. Roy knew its power — power to draw young Kelly into the Otterson coterie of fops and tag-alongs — a hummingbird knowing nectar in one sniff. For this, Kelly now cleaned the toilets and mopped up party spills in service to the generous and powerful lord of the manor, but — seriously — no one took Kelly Rodriguez seriously — especially Mortimer Levine.
Kelly combed his fingers through his hair.
“Of course, I take it seriously,” he said. “I think very highly of the committee’s decision on the bunting color at the Gay Pride Parade. Heavy, man. Real heavy.”
He gave Mortimer an Italian glance — an over the shoulder, Gloria Swanson glare.
“You wouldn’t understand these things.”
“Like I don’t vote!” Kelly skipped to Mortimer, then perched his chin on his nemesis’ shoulder, winking with butterfly lashes. “You know, Mortimer, just because you’re Roy’s Project of the Month, doesn’t give you free rein to get snotty with me. I’ve seen that basement apartment rented to the best . . . and the worst, not saying where you lay . . . dear. You know, they come and go and come and come and come . . . but in the end, they go.” He flicked his hands in an inevitable whoosh.
“Look who’s talking — the twink du jour.”
“At least I know it.” Kelly was nobody’s fool and anybody’s purchase. He would be the first to admit it. To proclaim it. “Houseboys are in it for the Moolah and the perks. Roy’s riches flow freely to those of us who open our hearts and do a little light cleaning.”
“You mean spread your legs and do a lot of apple polishing.”
Mortimer continued to spread the cheese on the block.
Kelly clunked his elbows on the block and supported his pretty head in caressing palms like a candy heart perched in a show window.
“What’s your point, Sir Mortimer?” No response. “I’ll tell you the point. I get the master bedroom, while you get the basement apartment — the damp, cold basement apartment with the water bugs and no windows.”
Mortimer clicked his teeth. He had taken a steady stream of Kelly’s tongue-lashing since he had arrived as Roy’s star tenant. After all, Kelly was the hired help. One should never stoop to quibble with the hired help. Instead, one rises to the occasion and underscores the reality of existence — values and affect.
“Roy has confidence in my work,” Mort snarled, then smiled. “He’s backing a winner.”
Roy Otterson sponsored emerging artists — writers, musicians and sometimes a dancer or three — it was his hobby; that, and the constant expansion of the house, this ghost of Tara future that all gay men in New Birch aspired to occupy, if only for the price of a committee meeting and a lump of Cheddar-Sharp cheese.
Kelly regarded Roy’s winners in horse racing terms, so many contenders on the track.
“Roy has confidence in my work,” he said. “And I go to the bank the winner.” He preened over his reflection again. “No illusions here.”
He stood at attention, took a stiff breath and marched to the butcher block. His hand slammed down on a pale block of cheese.
“Look here — mild cheddar.” He poked at another. “Most of this is mild, mild, mild.”
Suddenly, the doorbell rang — or should we say clanged, a rich string of chimes and chords playing Bach’s O Jesu, heart of man’s desiring, a most unfitting tune for the Otterson estate.
“Oh, there’s the doorbell. Shall I get it, your lordship?” Kelly cocked his head. “Surely you don’t want me to greet your company, or are you just going to lay there in state surrounded by rank cheese.
“Fuck you.”
Mortimer threw the cheese aside, and then headed through the kitchen door.
Kelly chuckled.
They all think they’re hot shit, he thought. Roy’s been through writers, musicians, singers, philosophers and even a dress designer. Flashes in the pan. He returned to his reflection and grinned, his teeth blossoming like a pretty jackass wreathed for some bacchanal. Talent is playing Indiana Jones in bed — and I’ve a doctorate in that.
“And when my charms fade,” he muttered, “or if the MasterCard’s declined, then — and only then, I’ll consider my next career move.” His nose twitched. “Oh, that cheese stinks already.”
Slice Two:
Roquefort
The Otterson home, less a home than hobby, was set partly up a hidden drive, which cut away and sank into a ravine beside the river — a perfect hiding spot from the tourist riff raff of New Birch. A cross between Tara and the Pink Flamingo, the mansion was always under construction adding this wing or that barn, giving it a museum look — the curator always at work. Entering the Otterson homestead was an experience not soon forgotten. The portico led into a marble-floored lobby — a palazzo gran in Venetian style. It was flanked by a spiral staircase in plantation style and graced by a grand piano (of course) and not an ordinary grand piano. No. Its owner had never played it and, like all great show pieces, it was meant to fetch attention rather than curry the ear. The lobby gave way to a verandah that overlooked a woodland pool and a Tuscan-style patio.
This homestead offered guests a huge sunken living room complete with Florentine couches and matching chairs set on Oriental carpeting. Air freshener was never needed here, because the florist delivered barrels of cut flowers daily — roses and peonies and the Calla lilies, when they were in bloom again. Sometimes Kelly Rodriguez bunched these into arrangements, but Roy paid a professional to twist Sunflowers and Spider Mums into contorted displays to please his eye and his exclusive nose.
Everything was just so and undercut by walls of original art. Roy’s close friend was an art dealer, and as dear to his heart as all procurers were. Overhanging the living room, like a flower box, skirted balconies around the periphery, making the room appear medieval; sort of the great outdoors — indoors. Another grand staircase cascaded into the living room like a bridal veil.
From the living room, one needed a map to navigate through the labyrinth of rooms — a veritable Cathedral. Although many a Mary graced these alcoves, there were few virgins. An award winning dining room, with a long, mahogany table, always set for banqueting, thrust into a wing that overlooked the pool and patio. The walls were half-timbered — the windows Louis Quatorze. At the table’s center stood a carousel horse, the genuine article rummaged from a trolley park in the mid-west that had fallen on hard times and bulldozed. The great horse cast its shadow across a table that was now set for work — the monthly meeting for the Gay & Lesbian Activist Association of New Birch and Sipsboro (GLAABS). A banner draped across the wall to announce this fact, a spurious addition as if no one who had wandered in from the pool would know that they were at a meeting of the lavender brigade.
Into these hallowed halls came the ring chimes of Bach, announcing the arrival of the first members of the GLAABS. They rang twice and waited, as anything beyond that would be rude (at least according to Miss Chatty’s Book of Queenly Etiquette). Three bodies stood before the door, listening to the muted sounds of O Jesu, heart of man’s desiring. One body was lank, one portly (although he’d be the first to deny it), and one was just right in all proportions. The lank one swayed over both feet appearing either impatient to gain entry or in need of a urinal. The portly one rolled his eyes, probably wondering if he had arrived too early. He scanned the portico’s trim as if comparing it with other trim in his acquaintance. The just right one twisted before the door as if he hoped it would never open and thereby affect his escape. Finally, it did open.
Mortimer lifted his arms in welcome.
“Todd, Padgett, Luke. Come right in.”
Luke, the just right one, thought to turn around and leave now. He was the new kid on the block and relied on Padgett (the lank one) and Todd (the portly one) to steer him through these gay (and in this case, ostentatious) waters.
Entering Castle Otterson was a ritual Luke had not learned yet, but he soon had a pattern to follow. Even these three early arrivals (in truth the cheddar-brigade) had to do this predestined shtick. Padgett threw his hands up like Carol Channing and spun about ogling the walls, the paintings, the stairs, the piano and the lemon pledged shining marble.
“Wow,” he sang, his tall frame spread to its full height like a crane about to whoop — only he was whooping already. “What a place.” This was coached so much like Betty Davis’ What a dump, Luke laughed, for which he received an arched eye and an Italian glance. Padgett grabbed Mortimer’s hand and whirled him around. “How did you manage this, Mortimer?”
Todd (the portly one-although he’d never admit it) gave the place the once-over, a glance that any disapproving mother would know. It was another take on ye old entry ritual.
“It’s quite nice here,” he said, touching the banister and checking for dust. As he looked about — looking for fault, no doubt, he reached for Luke’s shoulder. “You know, my home was photographed by Better Homes and Gardens.” This was not a lie, but it was also old news — over the hill and far-away news, but still it was meant to maintain shelf life until Todd decided it should be discarded, which meant — never. “Better Homes and Gardens, I said.”
“Really,” Padgett remarked rolling his eyes. “We didn’t hear about that — today!”
Todd Moorehouse’s mitts brushed the piano keys admiring his ambiguous visage in the highly polished black hood. Padgett watched him, and then shook his head. The look sent Luke a clear message. It said see the embittered, jealous queen. “Always comparison shopping,” Padgett said. “He’s never quite at home unless the home is his.”
Luke laughed — but not really. The place was grand and he thought to make some compliment to his host, but he realized that Mortimer was not the host. Roy was the host, only Roy should get the compliment, and it had to be a careful, terse remark so it didn’t pander, or at least that’s what Padgett had told him. Luke, dear, you always say the wrong things to Roy. You should rehearse a few brief comments and deliver them in your sweet, but masculine manner. Roy likes that, and what Roy likes, Roy takes.
The grand entry hall intimidated Luke. He couldn’t imagine anyone living in such a magnificent space. He lived in a two-room apartment and liked his little shoebox. He had no aspirations to grandeur and often wondered why he was even traveling amongst the Padgett Andersons and the Todd Moorehouse’s of this world. Still, if you come out, you need to know the territory and if the territory came with posh entry rituals into the halls of the Pappatozzi, so be it. He sucked it in and shook his head in wonder, quietly watching Padgett and Todd paw the furniture. He had learned one basic truth. When in the company of Queens, sometimes silence is the most laudable of qualities.
“Come in,” Mortimer said to Luke, pulling him through the lobby. “The place won’t bite you.” Luke shrugged as if he had been bitten already. “I know it’s big, but it’ll shrink once you know your way around. Isn’t it nice that Roy’s letting us have our meeting here?”
Luke did think it was nice, even accommodating, considering that Roy never meddled with GLAABS, and as far as he knew, never set foot across the threshold of their regular meeting hall — the New Birch Unitarian Church of the Holy Family.
Todd began a crouching investigation now.
“I do so love the carpet,” he said, bending and plushing. “Is that recessed mahogany?”
“You know it is, Toddy,” Padgett said. Padgett had eye rolling down to a science. In fact, he had at least six distinct classifiable eye rolls, each with its subtext and glossary. “I know you, Todd Moorehouse. You’re just trying to set us up for the story about how you had the same work done in your little bungalow.”
Todd sprang to his feet.
“Bungalow? Pardonez-moi?” Whether insulted or not, the springboard was there. “Oh, you’re such a kidder. Perhaps, I should call you Margo from now on.”
Mortimer continued to pull Luke through the living room like someone arriving at a penitentiary and guided to his cell. Luke looked back toward his mother hens, a look that said, save me. Todd grabbed Luke’s other hand and tugged him center room.
“What’s your hurry Mortimer?”
“Yes, Mort, we’d like to take in the sights.”
“When Roy returns, he’ll give you a tour.”
Padgett gave the classic dreamy eye roll.
“I bet he will.”
Mortimer snorted, and then waved them toward the kitchen, but since they weren’t budging, he leaned on the stairway railing and enjoyed Luke’s just right torso. Suddenly, he shook his head like a cook who forgot that the roux was on the stove.
“Luke, didn’t Roy ask you to bring someone with you — to the after-meeting get-together?”
Luke had met Roy twice before, both times at social events at the local gay bar — Leathers and Feathers. These were private affairs, to which Luke went stag. Roy was perturbed by this and demanded that the next time he invited Luke anywhere (Luke was invited as part of the network of ripple invitations that always followed in the wake of Roy’s commands), Luke must bring a date. You didn’t thwart Sir Roy Otterson and expect another invitation. Most regarded the command as Luke’s reprieve.
“Yes,” Luke said. “I have invited someone.”
Mortimer looked behind Luke.
“Where is he?”
“Or she,” Padgett interjected. “I sometimes wonder whether our little newbie here is really gay or is just doing a research paper.”
Luke took a step backward nearly falling into the gaping hole of the living room.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “He’ll be here later.”
Mortimer did the salad cruet stance.
“Well, who is he? Is he at least a GLAABS member?”
“He is,” Luke said. That of course would make all the difference — instant acceptance into the club. Little did Luke know. “His name’s Chaz.”
The hands went to the chins as the mother hens pondered the GLAABS roster for a Chaz. There were plenty of Mikes and far too many Scotts, but a Chaz?
“I don’t think I know him,” Mortimer said with a tone that reeked of doubt as if Luke was making the whole thing up and the mythical Chaz would never materialize.
Three strikes and you’re out at Roy’s ball game.
Luke tried to muster an image of Chaz.
“He’s pretty quiet at the meetings,” Luke said. That didn’t describe many of the pansies that pranced in the halls Unitarian, but it narrowed it a bit.
“Like you, eh?” Padgett remarked. “Don’t tell me you have a gay brother.”
Luke grimaced. Why he put up with these geese, who could tell, but they had hovered over his coming out with enough panache to assure some modicum of security.
“Chaz sat next to me at the last rap session.” He imagined the thin, duck-snouted Chaz, not a great looker, but fetching enough in his three-piece suit and his unfastened tie. Chaz had cocked his head and was listening to the rap group leader. The subject was coming out to parents and siblings, a ritual Luke had performed recently and not to the best effect. Chaz seemed far away and lost in the leader’s words, which to Luke’s mind meant that he was elsewhere. When the meeting concluded, Luke introduced himself, then . . .
“Since Roy insisted I bring someone tonight, I got up the nerve to ask him.”
“Just what we need,” Padgett said, “another wallflower to sit in the corner with you, dear Luke — someone to help you count the ceiling tiles.”
Luke began to flip Padgett the finger, but stopped mid-flip. Padgett was okay, very funny at times and as sharp as the cheese they were about to cut, but sometimes the attitude was too stiff for Luke.
As Luke’s middle finger unfurled, and then stopped, Todd intervened.
“No, dear,” he said. “You must follow through when it comes to Padgett. Like this.” Todd zapped his finger out with great élan, bowling his arm up. “See . . . one clean, steady, underhanded sweep. Middle finger extended to the full. And there. A worthy fuck you for dear, and I’ll say it, old, Padgett.”
Padgett’s head bounced as if it were on springs. He pursed his lips. Luke knew that there would be a small war of digits accompanied by a concerto of rhyming vulgarities. He had seen it before. It wasn’t pretty.
Mortimer intervened.
“Let’s get started before the Lesbos come,” he said, heading off this charming spear-throwing contest.
Todd preened toward the windows. He changed the subject:
“I like this window treatment,” he crowed. “It’s almost like mine, but not quite.”
Padgett blew a loud raspberry.
“So, Luke,” Mortimer said, trying to keep the momentum toward the kitchen and away from fairy ring-toss. “What does this Chaz do?”
Luke stared at him.
“I don’t know. I just met him.”
“You didn’t talk with him a little, dear,” Todd remarked. “He might be a doctor, like me.”
“Doctor, my ass,” Padgett said.
“Well, a child psychologist is a doctor, you know. And if you need a doctor for your ass, dear, try a proctologist.”
Luke smiled at this. He had only one brief conversation with Chaz as they had sat at the rap, watching the guest speaker show the correct application of spermicide before applying a condom. Although the demonstrator used an acrylic penis, the hall filled with catcalls from the men; admonishments from the womyn, not that they would ever see one of them thar things beyond the acrylic.
“Chaz isn’t a doctor,” Luke said. “He works for Grebe.”
“Grebe? How quaint,” Padgett said. “An insurance faggot.”
“Maybe an insurance adjuster,” Mort said. “I could use an adjustment.”
“I once dated an Insurance adjuster,” Todd said.
“Oh, shut up,” Padgett snapped.
“Or was it a rate adjuster?” Todd took Luke aside, grasping his wrist like Auntie Mame. “In any event, Luke, you must remember the newbie rule. You can’t have a husband before I get one. Newbies must wait their turn in the halls of love until their long hopeful sisters get settled.”
Luke looked to Mortimer for help now. He had heard enough bullshit to last the evening. He also knew that the evening had just begun — the piles were just beginning to unload into neat pink clumps on the carpeting.
“Don’t listen to him, Luke,” Mort said. He grasped Luke’s other wrist and wrestled him from Dr. Moorehouse, child psychologist. “Into the kitchen, folks. Let’s cut the cheese.”
Slice Three:
Stilton
The minute they entered the kitchen, Mortimer took charge. He felt the pink power of social committee chair surging through his veins like Texas oil. Suddenly, the early arriving talent became the cheese-brigade — minions in the service of GLAABS.
Mortimer glared at the butcher block. He tapped at three specified places for his work band. Amazing what a stern glance and a firm tap on a block of wood will do to bring everything into perspective. It was a work party, after all. With complete submission, Padgett, Todd and Luke surrounded the cheese like mountaineers at the base station of Everest. Kelly gave them knives, and then rapped the butcher block, pointing to the bricks of cheddar-sharp (and the mild, mild, mild stuff too).
Todd was distracted, as Kelly was a distraction.
“And you are?” he asked.
Kelly arched his back on the counter.
“I’m the fucking slave.”
Mortimer, for a fleeting moment, feeling his authority slip, deferred to the wiry charms of Kelly Fuck-me-twice Rodriguez.
“He’s the houseboy,” Mort said as much to say, don’t step in it boyz. There are piles of it everywhere.
“Oh, the follies of the rich,” Padgett said.
Mortimer agreed, although he would never classify any decision by His Majesty Roy Otterson as folly. Nor would he discount having one or two houseboys of his own once his got his play produced and fame and moolah laid at his doorstep. Mort clapped. The work brigade began dicing cheese into small cubes, mincing the cheddar, while twitching their heads like hens in a barnyard. While Padgett and Todd were experts at the art of mincing, Mortimer observed that Luke was a neophyte.
“Luke, I know you’ve never done this before,” Mort said. “Let me show you.”
Mort reached around Luke’s back and guided hands. Luke’s eyes widened as Mort embraced him like a golf instructor. He maneuvered Luke’s hands — knife in one, cheese wedge in the other.
“You can’t have big cubes. They won’t eat big cubes.” Mortimer guided the cut. “Just this size. The right size.”
Luke smelled delicious — apple scented, or was it pear. Anyway, Mortimer didn’t mind giving instructions, except he could feel Luke’s heart pounding — and it wasn’t a passionate, full thud, but the thrum of a frightened deer. Mortimer grinned, and then released him.
“Now, you try it.”
Luke sighed, and then took a virgin cut.
“How’s that?” he asked.
“A little larger; and be careful with that block over there.” He shot a glance to Kelly, who had been watching this little show with interest. “It’s cheddar-sharp . . .”
“. . . and we know it crumbles easily,” Kelly said. “Mort, shove a toothpick in it.”
“You’re a testy one,” Todd said, munching a cube.
Mortimer shook his head.
“Don’t eat them. Cut them.”
Todd was a bit portly (although he’d be the last to admit it) and Mortimer did not want to start a trend that would deplete the plates. Todd glared at Mort.
“Well,” he said, “I will say this kitchen’s bright and airy.” Mortimer pointed to the knife and cheese in a keep cutting command. Todd lifted the knife in a backhand stance, and then bounced his head, but if he had a notion to pin Mortimer’s hide to the counter-top. “Is that a frühstuckraum next door?” he asked.
“A what?” Padgett asked.
“A frühstuckraum — a breakfast room.”
“Why don’t you just say, a breakfast room?” Mort complained. He always thought that Todd was pretentious (well, more pretentious than the other GLAABS upper echelon). It was always a game of one-upmanship with Todd.
“Well, because it’s a frühstuckraum — gingham cloth and all.” He clucked his cheeks. “I bet Roy has little jam pots for the strawberry spread. That’s what frühstuckraums have, you know — little pots of jams. I have authentic jam pots that I bought in Hamburg when I visited there in ninety-seven.”
“Where haven’t you been?” Luke asked.
If he had known what door this opened, he might have kept his gob shut.
“Not many places,” Todd answered, feigning modesty. “I like to travel twice a year — the perks of Juvenile Psychology, you know.”
“Juvenile, indeed,” Mort said.
“And where did you visit last?” Luke asked.
Mortimer tapped the table for faster cutting. He wished the newbie would just sit pretty and work in silence rather than stoke the fires of Todd Moorehouse and his world of travel and boring one-upmanships. Mortimer thought that if Todd ever owned a boat, he’d christened it the USS One Upman Ship.
“He went to Iceland,” Padgett said. He dropped the knife (it was break time already). “Can you imagine? That’s the last place on Earth I’d go.”
Mortimer ended the break with another tap. Padgett snapped the knife up and chiffonaded through some mild cheddar, risking a too small accusation. None came.
“Yes, Luke, he went to gay old Iceland. Maybe he’ll do Nepal next year.”
“Been there.”
“Figures.”
“No, Nepal was wonderful,” Todd gushed on cue. “But Iceland . . . ah, Iceland . . .” He gazed to the ceiling, and then sighed as if he was born there and were reminiscing about the eider ducks. “Yes, Iceland was delightful. They have sizzling gay baths there.” So those were the ducts of his pining.
“On Hekla?” Luke asked.
Todd puckered his lips, clearly impressed by the geographical reference.
“Oh, what a smart boy we have here.”
“Or just a heckler,” Padgett said.
“Funny. No, Hekla is amazing and desolate — and the geysers.”
“You mean geezers.”
“Paddy, you’re just jealous because you haven’t been outside the country.”
Padgett buried the knife in the butcher block.
“I’ve been to Canada.”
Todd rolled his eyes.
“Big deal.”
Paddy blew Todd a raspberry — a loud farty, vibrating raspberry. Luke laughed. Mortimer just pointed to the cheese. Todd sliced with care and calculation as if he was the prince of cheese cutters and the world was beholden to his craft.
“Cretins. You’re all Cretins. And I know, because I’ve been —”
“To Crete!” they yelled.
“Luke,” Mortimer said. “You’re cutting those pieces too large. Take care.”
“Sorry.”
“Enough about Miss Moorehouse,” Paddy said. “What are you up to, Mortimer? What’s your latest project? Or should I say who?”
“Who is accurate?” Kelly added as he flitted by the cheese congress.
“Shut up.”
Mortimer drew close to the center. He knew what he was going to offer them in answer to this question, but it was a matter of how. If he said it was the best goddamn play that was ever set to paper, it might sound pretentious. If he made light of it — nothing much, just some writing project, it would encourage the juvenile psychologist to ruminate on his last thesis — the issue and volume numbers of its publication, framed in the foyer of his Better Homes and Gardens house. So, since Mortimer was proud of his work, but didn’t want to wave it before swine, he just said, “I have a new play in the works.”
“In the works? In production?” Todd asked — a leading question, indeed.
“No,” Mort said, watching for Kelly’s caustic embellishment, which he knew would be coming. As sure as the sun rises and turkeys get pains in the neck at Thanksgiving, that axe would fall straight away. “Production is always tricky — you should know that. It takes time.”
Unexpected silence, which astonished him. Therefore, he filled it.
“But Roy has read it.”
“Alert the media,” Padgett said. “Roy has read Mortimer’s play.”
“Sad boy,” Kelly said. “He thinks that if Roy reads it, the next step is casting.”
“He liked it.” Mortimer pursed his lips. Kelly flipped his hands in the air with a who-the-fuck-cares expression. “Roy said he liked it, Kelly. I’m sure he’ll talk to some people. Maybe arrange for a reading.”
“Can I read it?” Luke asked.
What was this? A positive comment in a sea of black tar? Mortimer glanced at Luke with the favor of a man who, with one act of blessed kindness, made it to the top of the Christmas card list. And he hasn’t stopped once in his cheese cutting. What diligence. What taste.
“Of course you can. How sweet you are.”
“He’s a newbie,” Padgett said. “He doesn’t know any better.”
“Ignore these jaded queens, Luke.” Mort patted Luke’s arm, and then gave it a squeeze, not hard enough to detract from the cheese cutting, but nudgy enough to provoke a dim smile. “Remind me to get you a copy . . . and you’re cutting those pieces too small now.” He took the knife and minced a few examples. “It’s nice that you’re interested.” It was nice, but maybe that was all it was. Perhaps Luke had no experience with good or even great plays, like Mortimer’s. “Do you like the theatre?”
“I go on occasion,” Luke said. “I enjoy it.” He shrugged. “It breaks the monotony.”
Ah, one of the unwashed millions.
“I’m a programmer, you know.”
Mort thought — Programmer, as in one who designs Playbills or programmer, as in Geek into Greek? Too taxing to consider.
“Well, that’s nice,” Mort said as if Luke had suddenly become one of the lost tribes. “Not all newbies are as nice as you.”
Padgett pounded the block.
“Watch out for him, honey. Mort here will write you into one of his real life plays . . .”
“And what soap operas they are,” Todd remarked. “Besides, I told you — you can’t have a full-blown romance until I have one.”
Mort stuck out his tongue.
“Never thought you’d ask?” he said.
“Think I’ll pass. What kind of cocksucker do you think I am?”
“Don’t go there girl,” Paddy said. “You might get an answer you don’t want.” Paddy pushed Mort away from Luke, and then grabbed his hand inspecting it for who-knows-what. “Luke, you’ve been to how many GLAABS meetings? Not these for-shit committee gatherings, but the full bull in the big fucking hall. Haven’t you seen anyone there that’s caught your fancy, hon?”
“Sure,” Luke said. Newbie naiveté — nervous and put upon. “A lot of great looking guys come to the full meetings.”
“Your insurance adjuster?” Todd asked.
“Chaz?” Luke speculated to the fluorescent lighting. “Well, I wouldn’t call Chaz good looking. He’s not really a date either. I only invited him because Roy insisted I bring someone. No.” Luke minced again watching the piecework. He grinned. “There’re a few good-looking ones.”
The three men cocked their heads, dreaming about the parade of pecs and buns that graced the full meetings. If this were an opera, they would be singing a sweet eglantine trio about now, with three choruses of bluebirds. Mortimer stared at them. He could hear their softheaded noodling. He wondered if they would ever have the cheese diced in time.
“Don’t stop cutting the cheese,” he said, breaking their reverie. “They’ll be here and it won’t be ready.”
“I’m game, Luke,” Todd said, ignoring Mort. “Who caught your fancy at the ball?”
Luke bit his bottom lip, and then grinned wider.
“Well, there is one guy — I don’t know his name. He’s, well — he had wonderful eyes.”
“Eyes are important,” Mort said. “A big dick is better. “
“Is he buff or — what does he look like?” Paddy asked.
“Well,” Luke sighed. “I noticed his eyes first. His butt is pretty cool and he has a smile that — well, it lights up the soul.”
“Lights up the soul?” Paddy crooned. “Sounds fascinating. Hair color?”
“Brown. And a waistline I could get easily around and a basket —”
“Go on,” Mort said. “Details. Details.”
Suddenly, Mort was more interested in the mystery man and his attributes than the stack of orange-yellow cheese. Kelly hovered near Luke now, listening for the critical details like the judge at a fishing contest who has caught the biggest catfish with the smallest lure.
“Well.” Luke blushed. “I can tell he’s . . . hung. But does that really matter?” The entire company shook their heads yes. Luke smiled and they knew he agreed: “But his quiet smile — that’s what got me. It penetrated my soul. It lingered. I keep thinking of it. I can close my eyes and . . . feel him.”
And he did so, smiling like that big catfish caught now by a larger lure.
“A newbie in love,” Todd said. “How sweet. But I fall in love a hundred times a week. Trust me. Ulcers are rarer.”
“Don’t discourage him,” Mort said. Mort gave Kelly a go-away look, and then drew close to Luke’s right ear. “Two things, dear Luke — two things to remember. One, never listen to a gay child psychologist; and two, cut the cheese or it won’t be ready.”
Kelly bumped Mortimer aside. He whispered in Luke’s left ear.
“Keep that gorgeous picture in your mind, hon.” He rolled his eyes, and then sighed. “They’ll be days you’ll need it more than you know. And number three . . . never share good and true thoughts with these cheese cutting bitches.”
The doorbell rang — an encore of Bach. Mortimer raced away to play butler . . . . again.
Baby Bon-Bel
Bach had a way of settling into a baroque mood for all those had heard him — that is, filigreed emotions and stately strides across the foyer of any rich man’s hobby. At the door, and wafted by the seventeenth century jingle, was Maxwell Vreeland and his acquaintance, Branch McPherson. We could call Branch an acquaintance instead of a lover, because that’s the term applied to a lover whose status is under scrutiny by the community. Was he? Is he? Are they? If anything, it would have been a strange coupling, but there had been stranger. After all, Jackie Kennedy did fall for Onassis, and then there was Franklin and Eleanor. So the match of Maxwell Vreeland, accountant and über-activist, husky and as serious as the Quaker Oats logo without the smile, with lithe Branch McPherson, aerobics professional, with Tom Cruisey looks with none of the Scientology baggage, was quite a stretch. Because they always arrived together, drove together and managed to separate upon arriving to any affair, it solidified the lovers notions over the other possibility — roommates with a platonic and flatulent penchant. Kept the community guessing.
“Max. Branch,” Mort said, brimming with hostess pride. “Come in. We’ll get started soon.” That was added as an attempt to erase Max’s business face. For once, there appeared a hope that GLAABS business could adhere to a proper easement — chitchat, a friendly squeeze and mayhap a glass of anything alcoholic. “Please. Entre-vous. Have a seat.”
Max entered like a presiding mucky-muck at an electrician’s ball. He seemed to be looking to the chandeliers for proper building code standards. He clutched his attaché case as if it contained secret plans to a bank robbery. He had ignored the grand foyer, the polished banisters, the piano, the inlaid carpeting or the window treatments. The place could have been a barn for all he cared. It was a place to hold an important meeting; that’s all. The sooner the meeting started, the better.
“Give me your stuff, Max,” Mort said. “I’ll put it in the dining room.” Max stared at Mort as if the offer had sinister bent. Mort held his arms out to receive the sacred bag. “We’re set to go in the dining room. I’ll set it at your place.”
Max gave the attaché case up, looking after it as it disappeared through the sitting room into the dining area. On the other hand, Branch found a comfy chair in the living room and bounced in it, his smile eradicating any snobbery pouring from his partner.
“C’mon, Max,” Branch said. “Take a load off.”
Max paced about the room, perhaps noticing it for the first time — the wasteful paintings and the expensive ceramics. In his mind, he was surely amortizing the furniture and wondering how much insurance Roy carried on such frou-frou.
Branch sighed, his bushy eyebrows raised at Max’s accountant peregrination. The arched brows suggested how much longer will I put up with this? In fact, it may have been one straw beyond the last one.
“So, you’re just gonna fart around until we start. I feel like a drink.” Max darted a Presbyterian glance at the young gym-master. “Well, I do.”
“We’re not here for a party,” Max said, gazing up at the balcony and squinting. “I’m sure there will be a party.” He clamped his hands behind his back, and then rocked on his feet. “No one takes these meetings seriously.”
Branch bounced to his feet. He rubbed Max’s back.
“Yes they do, you old bear.” Max cocked his head and finally appeared like something near a Tolstoy character — one of the gruff ones that had strayed to folly and regretted it. “Besides, we need a party when business is serious. And a party means a little drink.” Max frowned again. “But I’ll wait until Madam President adjourns us to the punch bowl.”
Branch now looked up to the balcony — the peripheral walkway. His eyes danced above his smile, crescent teeth blossoming as he counted the doors along the causeway.
“What’s up there?”
“What do you think the patron of New Birch would have up there?”
“I don’t know. Men?”
“Likely. He has bedrooms.”
“Bedrooms?”
Branch’s back prickled. He had been to a place where the bedrooms flowed in mattress kingdoms, but that was a bordello in New Orleans. He had just come out and his friend, Gary, took him on his first gay road trip to the Big Easy during Mardi Gras — lots of drinking then; and a steady parade of half-naked men. Hell, fully bare-assed and crotch flared men, all vying for the beads.
Show us your dick! Show us your dick!
Showers of purple and pink beads, not your flimsy Dollar Store kind, but the ball busting, jawbreaker ones. Gary had dragged him from corner to street to balcony to plaza. They finally dropped on the doorstep of the Rising Moon Tavern, where more than the Moon arose. There, young Branch McPherson, still virgin to all but his right hand, had wandered through the plush surroundings of a genuine, blue bordello. Above his brow line there had been an anchorage of doors — closed doors and moans and sighs; and he wouldn’t be a virgin for much longer.
“Just bedrooms,” Max snorted. “What are you thinking about?”
Branch grinned, the reverie fading, but not really. He saw the man who occasionally shared his bed now and thought of that Quaker Oat box, the one that’s good for your cholesterol. Suddenly, he knew that he was beyond the last straw. He didn’t need lectures; or a father. He didn’t need the cash now that his aerobics classes were packed fetching him top dollar.
It’s not my place to torture this man, he thought. He can do better.
Branch didn’t answer Max. Instead, he twisted about just as Mort returned.
“Who sleeps in all those bedrooms, Mort?”
Mort grinned, and then looked up, but before he could answer, Max was at his side.
“Is Bambi here yet?” he asked.
“No, not yet. Just the cheese brigade.”
“Not that cheese again!”
“Sorry, Max.” Max snorted, but Mort had returned to Branch’s question. “Now, what did you ask? Bedrooms?”
“Yes, who sleeps in them? You?”
Branch winked.
Mort giggled. He smacked his lips.
“No. I have the place in the basement — a spare room.” He templed his hands, and then blew through his fingers. “A suite of rooms. Small, but it suits my purpose.” He waited for Branch to launch into an inquiry. However, it never came. Branch just craned his head up again, the Rising Moon recalled.
“Those bedrooms are for overnight guests,” Mort said. “The fly-by traffic.”
Mort shook his head as if the fly-by traffic was a horde of street waifs instead of stockbrokers, university presidents and the occasional B-list movie star.
Branch clapped. Suddenly, he wanted nothing better than to run up the staircase and bounce through the rooms.
“Can I go up there?”
“We’ll be starting soon,” Max protested.
Branch shook his head, and then stuck out his tongue. He looked to Mort for permission; which came. Branch bolted up the staircase two steps at a time.
“Oh, let him go, Max,” Mort said, probably noticing that Max had no say over the matter. “In fact . . .”
Mort jaunted after Branch, not two steps at a time, but at a prissy pace.
“Wait, Branch, I’ll show you the sights.”
Slice Five:
Liederkranz
Max snorted. He piled into a massive armchair that swallowed him like Monstro the Whale. He balanced himself, and then rolled his eyes.
“What’s there to see?” he moaned.
There was plenty to assess, insure, calculate and catalog, but seeing any of Roy’s inventory, and that’s what it was to Max Vreeland, went beyond his noggin and the business at hand.
“It’s ostentatious,” he muttered, rubbing his sausage fingers over the velvet arms. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for Roy letting us use the place, but it distracts us from our true purpose.”
He pounded the deeply piled sides.
“We must focus on community issues, not on how many bedrooms Roy Otterson has in his Palazzo.”
Slice Six:
Neufchatel
Branch rubbed his hands along the cherry banister as he wandered from door to door. Fascinating rooms, true to form as bedrooms, with beds and walk-in closets and pissoirs. Twelve bedrooms.
One for each month of the year, Branch thought.
“Pretty nice, don’t you think?” Mort asked coming up behind Branch, who stood now on the threshold of the master bedroom.
“They’re decorated to the hilt,” Branch said.
He turned to ask a few dozen questions, particularly why Roy needed so many bedrooms, but as he turned, his eyes met Mort’s horny ones. Branch could tell. With his deep peepers, he had seen many horny eyes — eyes of interest. And here was — the big bedroom, and Max was downstairs and beyond that last straw.
It was hot up here, despite the air conditioner’s roar. Branch cocked his head toward the bedroom.
“Master bedroom?”
Mort didn’t avert his eyes. He was fishing, after all. He might have hooked himself an acquaintance — a handsome acquaintance, full of piss and vinegar.
“Each room is named after a favorite,” he said in a monotone, perhaps not to upset the mood. “And yes, the master bedroom.”
Branch was never above a quick roll in the hay. He had lost his inhibitions in the post-Rising Moon Tavern days. He knew every position and contour there was to know. He missed them, especially with the Quaker Oats man, but there was something amiss with Mortimer Levine — some self-absorbing mist that repelled. Maybe it was Mort’s squinty look or his small hands. Branch broke the gaze, looking over Mort’s shoulder to another doorway — a glass pane that sparkled in the sunshine.
“Is that the bathroom?”
Branch was off again, leaving Mort mid-sigh.
The bathroom was pristine and crystal with white shag throw rugs over an ivory marble floor. Well appointed, it had a Jacuzzi and three showers, and an unobstructed view of the pool through the window, nice for observing naked swimmers in secret.
“Wow. What a place to pee!” Branch said.
He turned to Mort, who had sauntered behind him. Branch drew in the pine aroma from the only room in the palace that was chemically deodorized.
“I’d be pee-shy in a place like this.” He tapped the Jacuzzi. “You could swim in there, it’s so big.” He thought to do so, and almost jumped out of his slacks, but then recalled that he wanted to keep Mortimer in check. If he filled the tub with pink bathwater, he’d have company before his ass broke the surface.
No. Business first. Party later.
Slice Seven:
Mozzarella
“Yes, twelve bedrooms in all,” Kelly said, babbling to the cheese brigade. “There’s the Joe Room, the Tony Room, the Dave Room, the Scott Room, one for Julius, one for Danny, and Roman, Wilbur, Frank, and, then there’s the Richard/Günter Room.”
“Richard/Günter?” Todd asked.
“Well, it keeps changing. Richard comes in from Houston on occasion, while Günter travels in from Düsseldorf.”
“Düsseldorf? I’ve been . . .”
“We know. We know,” Paddy said, throwing his hands up.
“Then there’s the Leather room,” Kelly continued. “What a fun place that is — and of course, the master bedroom.”
Todd bounced his head on his neck like a bobble doll in the rear window of an old Dodge.
“Where you sleep?”
“Sometimes.”
Kelly smiled, clearly visualizing the cupids painted on the master bedroom ceiling.
“I do, when Roy’s not in residence or if he’s had a different trick that doesn’t fit any of the room themes. His tricks need to fit the decor, you know. When that happens, I get the pool house.”
“Who was at the door?” Luke asked, still cutting the cheese. “Mort’s been gone for a while.”
“I think it was Max and Max’s squeeze,” Paddy said.
“Branch?” Todd sighed. “Oh, he’s lovely.” Todd pushed away from the butcher block. “Lovely, lovely and worth a look.”
“If you stop your choppy, choppy, Mort will do a snappy, snappy,” Kelly warned.
“I’d pay to see that,” Paddy added, but joined Todd in the push back. They both came to terms with the idea — the only idea they had shared that day. They glanced at Luke, who shook his head deciding to keep his cheesy rhythm, now that it had arrived. The elders scrunched their shoulders as if they were members of a synchronized shrugging team, and then skipped toward the living room.
Luke continued to cut, while Kelly watched. He wondered why the newbie stuck to his task.
Because he’s a newbie, that’s why.
Moreover, he was a cute newbie, with great promise — perhaps an opportunity for an overnight stay. Not with Roy, heaven forbid, but maybe a little toss down by the pool house.
“So, sweetie,” Kelly said, coming about and propping his head between his hands on the butcher block. “How did you fall in with these jaded bitches?”