LITMIR.BIZ

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place some of those nights.”

      “It’s not important to me.”

      “Apparently not. Out of curiosity, how long was your last relationship?”

      “With David Bonner?”

      “You tell me. I don’t keep track of your boyfriends.”

      “Three … maybe four months.”

      “Right. I seem to recall he was CEO of some import firm. Very successful, too. What happened to him?”

      Dan lifted his arm from his face and looked out. Rain clouds had gathered. “David was insecure. Apparently my size bothered him, because he felt I was out of his league. I told him size didn’t matter but ...”

      “The second gay lie!”

      “What’s the first?”

      “Take your pick: I’ll love you forever or I won’t put this on the Internet. Ba-dump. What happened to him?”

      “I got tired of telling him it was all right. It was such a drama just to get him into the bedroom. I eventually stopped returning his calls.”

      Donny made a flushing sound. “What about before that? Who came before David?”

      “Perry Donaldson. That only lasted a month.”

      “I remember him — the accountant. Also very successful. Nice guy, but a terrible pianist. What happened there?”

      “Perry had a huge hang-up about his mother. He could never see me on Fridays because that was their night to speak on the phone. She hated that her only son was gay and he was tormented by guilt over it. I told him if he wanted to see me then either he had to set his mother straight or stop complaining about her to me.”

      “And he didn’t?”

      “No and no.”

      “So he got the big flush too?””

      “Yeah … I guess so.”

      “And what about Gordon, that nice banker in Rosedale?”

      “I never dated him.”

      “No, but you were friends. Good friends, in fact. Why haven’t I heard you talk about him in a dog’s age?”

      Dan hesitated. “We don’t really … talk anymore.”

      Donny jumped on this. “Why?”

      “It got too difficult. He was always too busy to do anything.”

      “I think you said you saw him flirting with Bill.”

      “That too. It pissed me off. I don’t think that’s acceptable behaviour from a friend, no matter what anybody says about the gay moral code.”

      “And I say you’re right. No one should flirt with your man in front of you. Behind your back’s another story, but I’m not telling that one right now. Are you seeing a pattern here, Danny Boy?”

      “No — should I?”

      Donny sighed. “I’ll say. You date these highly successful guys or become friends with them till they piss you off, then they all get the royal flush and you withdraw your affection. It’s how you punish people who get close to you.”

      “I don’t think that’s — am I really that complex?”

      “No, you’re that simple.”

      Dan felt the sting. “Well, what would you suggest?”

      “Get some loyal friends and a lover without hang-ups? I don’t know.” Donny exhaled impatiently. “Did you ever get close to any of them? Close enough that you thought you might have been in love?”

      “Not really. But I was fond of them.”

      “Ah! The big revelation — you were fond of them. How sweet.” Donny was silent for a moment. The cigarette started up again. “Just out of curiosity, will you tell your therapist about your Brazilian weekend adventure?”

      “No! Are you crazy? I tell him I dream of cuddly bunnies, not urges to kill myself. I want out of those fucking sessions.”

      “Can I assume that if you lie to your therapist, then you probably don’t trust him?”

      Dan tried for a confessional tone. “You’re the only one I trust,” he said, but Donny resisted the efforts to pacify him. “I hope you realize that’s a compliment.”

      “Oh, I do! And I’m sure you’re fond of me, too.”

      “I resent that ...” Dan began, but Donny cut him off.

      “And now for the question du jour, Mr. Sharp. Apart from that little mishap on the boat between Bill and his dear friend Thom, do you still cling to the pathetic fiction that you have an exclusive relationship with Miss Doctor?”

      Donny had never pushed him this far before. He seemed to be going for broke. Dan’s voice hardened. “I don’t hold proprietary claims to his body, if that’s what you’re asking.”

      “It is what I’m asking and, no, you don’t, because if I told you the places I’ve seen him in, and the positions I’ve seen him in, and the men I’ve seen in him....”

      “Okay, okay!” Dan interrupted. “Just tell me you haven’t had him.”

      “I’m not that low that I’d steal a friend’s lover. Or that desperate that I’d fuck someone I despise.”

      There was another pause followed by a long, slow inhalation. Dan could almost hear the nicotine seeping through Donny’s lungs and into his bloodstream. He wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of a response.

      “You want to know what I’m thinking?” Donny said at last.

      “No, actually I don’t, so I should probably hang up….”

      “No — you’re right. You don’t want to know.” The voice remained cool, smoke trapped in ice — there was no stopping this boy. “But I’m going to tell you anyway. What I’m thinking is that maybe you like it this way.”

      “Like what?”

      “Your relationships. You date high-class losers to make yourself feel better. It’s why all your relationships are at arms-length. You don’t trust anyone and you don’t let anyone get close to you. And sooner or later, either they leave you or you dump them.”

      Dan felt the lump in his throat. He felt flattened, as though his heart had been run over by a garbage truck. “Is that what you really think?”

      “It is.”

      Dan affected a lighter tone, but the strain came through. “What are friends for,” his voice cracked, “if not to beat up on you and tell you how screwed up you really are?”

      “Well, then I hope you’re listening, Daniel, because I am your last friend.”

      It was true. Dan thought of all the people he’d pushed away, ignored, or abandoned in the past few years alone. He thought of his father and how he’d cut off contact between them for the final decade of his life. He wouldn’t be surprised if the line stretched back through his entire existence. He felt annihilated.

      Dan wanted the conversation to end, for the combatants to remove their gloves and shake hands, to prove themselves simply worthy opponents, neither with a desire to destroy the other. But Donny’s voice had taken on an edge.

      “By your own admission, you seem to have run everybody else off. How do you like your island, Mr. Crusoe?” Just as suddenly, his tone softened. “You know, I keep waiting for you to snap on me and shut me out. I thought this little talk might do it, but I guess I haven’t crossed the line yet. Or dare I hope I’m exempt from your anger?”

      Dan shut his eyes and leaned his head against the chair.

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