These Curious Pleasures Part 6

"Coming back to my place?" I asked.

"No, not tonight. I have to go home and change clothes for the morning," Allison said.

"Can I stay with you tonight at your place?"

"I don't think that would be fair to you."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Sloane, let's face it. You can't sleep in the same bed with me again without wanting to make love. Well, I don't want it."

"Thanks, lady. It was kind of you to tell me before I started getting foolish ideas. What happened to that bit about the run-of-the-play contract?"

"That still stands," Allison said. "It's just for the present. I couldn't take s.e.x now. Not after what happened. Please try to understand. It won't last forever. I'll be all right in a little while."

Yeah, I understood. That's my specialtya"understanding when I have no other choice. But I didn't like it.

I put Allison in a cab and explained to her that I felt like walking home. I waited until her cab was out of sight then I hailed a cab and headed for the Village. I was on my way to find me a woman.

I couldn't blame Allison. Her behavior was perfectly logical. But, G.o.dd.a.m.n it I just couldn't take it. How long did she think she could just keep me waiting? I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life sitting by the river and feeling sorry for myself.

The Harbor was the big deal gay bar that season. It would have its moment of glory for a while and then the crowd would start going somewhere else. For the time being anyway it was the best lesbian pickup joint in town.

I took a seat at the end of the bar near the cigarette machine. That way I could see the length of the bar and, by turning slightly, take in the booths too. I had had two whiskey sours with Allison. Now I ordered the whiskey neat and double.

There was an all right looking specimen at the other end of the bar. She was sitting alone and she looked like she didn't like it. I saw her looking at me but I let her wait.

After a while I went over. "Mind if I join you?" I asked rhetorically, pulling up a stool as I spoke.

"Please do. My name's Betty Jean. I'm from Atlanta. Where are you from?"

"Vermont. I was brought up on a farm." Yeah, me and Laurence Olivier. For some crazy reason I felt like lying about everything that night.

"Oh, I wish I lived on a farm. I just love nature, don't you?" she asked, lifting her gla.s.s with both hands. The nails were so long and red that they frightened me.

"No, I like the city. I hate nature," I said.

"I like the city, too. I bet we like a lot of the same things," Betty Jean said.

"That remains to be seen." I tried to make that come out with a diabolical undertone but it fell flat.

"I like lots of things. You know, cultural things," Betty Jean ranted on. "But there are so few girls who really appreciate the finer things in life. You're different. I can tell. Do you like music?"

"Yes."

"I mean cla.s.sical music."

"Yes, I like cla.s.sical music. Some of it anyway."

"But I mean real longhair music. Like The Student Prince," Betty Jean said.

That did it. I told Betty Jean that I didn't go for eggheads and left.

Someone was sitting on the stool I had occupied. I stood next to her, digging her in the mirror. She wasn't bad. Not bad at all.

"Alone?" she asked me.

"I was."

"That's bad. That's real bad. I think we should do something about that situation. My name's Dinah."

I introduced myself, giving the name of Jean. Dinah asked if she could buy me a drink. I accepted. Things were looking up.

"What do you do?" she asked me.

"I work in a book store," I said.

She gave me a long searching look. "c.r.a.p," she said succinctly. "You don't look like the type."

"What's the type?"

"What you don't look like. What do you really do?"

I told her the truth, omitting names.

"You don't belong there. You shouldn't work at all. I can see you sitting at home taking care of the house for some real nice butch," she said.

I roared with laughter. She couldn't have been more off base.

"Don't laugh, baby," Dinah said. "I've met girls like you before. They just haven't met the right woman, that's why they're aggressive. What you need is a real butch to take care of you. Not one of those phonies you meet down the Village who are one thing today and another tomorrow. I don't go for that. I'm butch all the way and I always will be."

I didn't know what to say. What did she expect, congratulations or condolences?

"Now take you, baby," Dinah continued. "If you were my woman I'd have you dressed in nice little dresses all the time. Not those slacks like you're wearing now. They just don't suit you, baby. That's my bit."

"I like to wear slacks."

"You'll get over that, baby. You just need a good butch," she said.

I took out a cigarette and started to light it. Dinah s.n.a.t.c.hed the lighter out of my hand and lit my cigarette for me.

"What are you trying to do, baby? Castrate me?" she asked.

I had had it. I told Dinah I had to go see a man about an anxiety syndrome and left.

I wanted to go home alone like I wanted to chop off my left toe. But staying in that playground for the feeble-minded was worse.

Luckily, by the time I got home I was tired enough to go right to sleep.

Now that the production end of the pilot was finished, I went back to drawing doodles. When the phones weren't ringing I didn't have much to do. That was bad because I kept moping over Allison. Sometimes I would think of Allison and Marilyn's face would appear before my mind's eye.

Allison and I agreed not to see each other until she was ready to go all the way. That is, Allison said that she felt it would be better if we didn't see each other and I went along with it because I had no other choice. Allison a.s.sured me that her room-mate, who was going to be in town for a week, was taking good care of her. It was sweet of her to tell me.

I tried to stay home nights and write but it was no good. Every night I ended up at the Harbor. I didn't pick up anyone. Just cruised and drank until one or two in the morning and then went home to bed.

Sylvan Miller called at least once a day. He kept asking me to go out with him but I made up excuses for each time. Finally I agreed to meet him for dinner one night just so I'd have something different to do. He was going to pick me up after work.

Pat Donnelly came in the office, crying. Happy wasn't in and from what I could gather from Pat's tearful story he hadn't been where he promised to be either. Pat had been waiting for him to come to her apartment since early morning.

Judy and I knew where Happy was but we couldn't tell Pat. He was at Toots Shor's having c.o.c.ktails with Bibi Johnson. She was his latest. Bibi Johnson had been a successful nightclub/singer before she was in an automobile accident. It had taken her five years to get to the point where she was ready to perform again and the great man was going to get her jobs. Not as her agent but as her friend. No commission that way. Not in cash anyway.

Judy took Pat into her office. I went into Happy's office and shut the door so I wouldn't be heard. I called Happy at Toots'.

The lousy b.a.s.t.a.r.d told me to hold Pat there for an hour and then he'd come and pick her up. It didn't bother him a bit that Bibi probably expected him to have dinner with her.

Sylvan was waiting for me in the lobby when I finished.

"How about going down the Village for dinner?" he suggested. "I know a good Italian restaurant down there that isn't too expensive."

"Fine," I said. This would be a switch. Going down the Village with a man.

I let Sylvan think that it was the first time I had ever been to the restaurant. Actually, the walls of the place could have told him quite a story. I had been there with girls about fifteen times. Different girls each time.

We talked about the television industry through dinner. After the waitress had brought the coffee Sylvan leaned back in his chair and unb.u.t.toned his jacket.

"O.k., enough of this noise," he said. "Let's get down to reality."

"You mean real real?" I asked, smiling. I was liking Sylvan Miller more each moment.

"Yeah, like gutty, like of the earth, like we will speak now of blood and sweat and tears and that which is contained in what we will henceforth refer to as the heart," Sylvan said.

"Must we? What ever happened to the tradition of people discussing roses?"

"That went out with the gazebo. Died a horrible death the day they invented prophylactics," Sylvan whispered mournfully.

"Ah, the gazebo. I remember when I was young and trifled away the sweet never to return days of my youth in romantic dalliance in a gazebo."

"Really? Who was she?"

That one brought me up short. "Who was who?" I asked brightly.

"The girl you frittered away your long lost youth with. Who was she?" Sylvan asked.

I looked down at the table top for a long moment but when I looked up he was still there. "How did you know?"

"I've read a lot of books." Sylvan leaned forward and took my hand in his. "It's all right. It doesn't make any difference to me."

"Takes one to know one?"

"You've got the picture, Sloane."

I relaxed. It was almost funny. Here I had been stalling him off because I thought he was trying to make me and he couldn't be less interested. "I'm glad, Sylvan. I didn't mean that to sound like an insult. You're an attractive, intelligent man but it just wouldn't have worked if you were interested in me romantically. I need a buddy, Sylvan. I'm glad you came along."

"Who is she? When a girl says she needs a buddy, she's in love and something's not going right."

I told him all about Allison. When I finished Sylvan had a rueful smile on his face.

"I had a similar experience myself. Two of the waitresses in my mother's restaurant got hold of me when I was fourteen. I won't go into the details but if anything made me what I am today, that did. I haven't been able to stand the thought of touching a woman's body since."

"I couldn't agree with you less," I said.

"That's why we can be friends." Sylvan leaned back in his chair and laughed. "Happy Broadman would have a fit if he knew. He told me some very interesting fantasies he had about you one day when he was up in the cutting room. He says that he's just waiting for the day when you leave the office so he can start operating."

"Over my dead body. Even if I went for men, I wouldn't have anything to do with Happy. Any woman who goes for him is asking for a broken heart."

"I know," Sylvan said. "I think he hates women unconsciously. For him making love to a woman is an act of hostility. He wouldn't treat them the way he does if he really liked them."

We went for a walk in Was.h.i.+ngton Square Park after dinner. There was the usual line-up of young men sitting on the railing waiting to be picked up.

"Smorgasbord," Sylvan said, looking at them.

"Want to make contact?" I asked him.

"I could use a little. Would you mind going home alone?"

"G.o.d no. I've done it enough times before for less worthy reasons," I a.s.sured him.

We agreed to go to the showing of the Ferguson pilot the next night together and I left. I felt good. I had a friend. It had been a long time since I had had a close relations.h.i.+p with anyone who wasn't my lover.

Sylvan and I were among the last ones to arrive at the sound studio. I saw Allison sitting in the back of the auditorium. She was sitting next to Chris Salem. There was an empty seat next to her which I knew was for Amy Ferguson.

We sat down in the front of the auditorium with the Broadman office staff. Happy beamed at Sylvan and me like a benevolent but insinuating father.

This was going to be everybody's first chance to see the completed pilot. There were two hundred people there, all friends of people connected with the pilot. The showing was for the purpose of recording the audience's laughter on the film. Getting a laugh track, it's called. It was good insurance to invite friends only, we'd all laugh like crazy.

Amy Ferguson gave a brief speech before the showing. She looked gorgeous in a rose coloured dress and a full length mink coat. Only those of us in the front rows could see the wrinkles under her heavy make-up.

Amy Ferguson gave us a brief sketch of the history of the script. She told us that Chris Salem had told her about a dream she had one night and that's where the idea for the series had come from. Then she thanked all the people who had worked on the production end of the pilot and her fellow actors. She looked straight at Allison while she was expressing her grat.i.tude. Amy made a few half-humorous pleas for good humor from the audience and then sat down.

The film came on. It was a beautiful job. No wonder they had run $15,000 over budget. They had scenic effects in it that you usually see only in Hollywood movies. It was really funny, too. Even I couldn't help laughing out loud. The audience was convulsed. They'd get a terrific laugh track.

After the film was over, while we were waiting for the aisles to clear so we could get out, Sylvan whispered in my ear, "They've got a flop on their hands."

"What do you mean? The audience loved it."