Say A Little Prayer

Lane says “Oh,” plainly and clearly, like someone’s just said something thought-provoking over drinks and not like Don’s just undone his fly.

A slip of his white underpants shows past the zipper, like the gash of a slit throat. Don moves against him, feeling the equilibrium shift in his body like liquor in a tipped glass — both of them have a significant amount of liquor in their bodies right now, and if he has to break it off mid-act to vomit on his own bachelor mattress he’ll be really sorry.

“Let me do this for you. I want to do this.” Looking in his eyes, fumbling him out, gauging size without meaning to. Not what he was expecting.

“Well, I’m not complaining,” Lane says, inappropriately merry in a way that isn’t enough to mask his unease. Men who joke about it tip their hand. His face is flushed, or else Don is imagining it in the near-dark.

Lane grabs at the inside of Don’s leg, stammering — he wants to do this another way, the way that must be more familiar to him. He’s hard, and it’s almost pitiable, except Don won’t pity him now, he won’t think about him at all. Don doesn’t look Lane Pryce in the eyes again; he bends down and takes him in his mouth like it’s the most natural thing in the world — working with his hands and drawing him in past his teeth, past the bourbon-flavored pad of his tongue. He can take him all the way, he hasn’t lost that knack yet, but he doesn’t know if he ought to try — if that would be vulgar.

He’s going to lose the last person in his life who ever saw him as he was, as a person, nothing but a person — and she was the first. On some level that must be sad, that must be dizzyingly sad, but if he doesn’t think about it then no one else ever has to know. No one ever knew in the first place. In the dark Pryce is breathing like one of those inbred pug dogs, but in context it’s flattering — it’s the liquor, or maybe he’s crying in the dark with another man’s hands down his pants, and that’s none of Don’s business. Lane is a good man, but he’s weak. He’s pleasant enough, but he’s not an easy man to admire.

Automatic action, easy. Don swallows him down, making his mouth a wet passage, and Pryce gives a soft cry. He grabs at the back of Don’s neck with comforting inexactitude. This way is lonelier than the back row of a Manhattan movie theater, lonelier than a call girl’s embraces — he’ll have to tip both girls extra for their discretion. Pretend it’s a special occasion. There will be many more special occasions like this one in Lane Pryce’s future, with his marriage out of the picture. They’ll come cheaper. This way is easy, and it costs nothing.

Lane Pryce is a good man, but he’s weak. His hands are soft, his wristwatch band is cool against Don’s cheek. Their sweaty stifled clinch could last forever, here on the bed wreathed in the smell of stale cocktails and fresh sex, and indeed it seems to. Time dilates for the pair of them. Don knows this kind of man — men with tired eyes, girl’s eyes, men who walk into a whorehouse and pass through the rooms but they never find what they’re looking for. They find Dick Whitman instead.

Pryce finishes without fanfare. Don spits into a handkerchief and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. He could say something about Korea — what men do at war — or about what men do when they’re drunk. Roughhousing. Horseplay. But none of that would satisfy.

Don rolls over onto his back and exhales. He wants a cigarette to chase the taste from his mouth.

“It’s been a while.” Hand over his eyes, blocking out the thin light.

The mattress rocks under them as Lane sits up, tugging down his shirttails.

“Might I get you a glass of water?”

The girls are in the other room. They’re waiting. They know.

“Just go to sleep.”