Matt played along. He found a tumbler, fumbled his way into the dark living area. William would get a shared drink—and nothing more. Matt would sip in stony silence.
But not in darkness. He wanted William to see his face while they marked the end of their association.
Matt reached for the light switch.
“Just the corner lamp, please,” William said. He sounded tired.
Matt clicked the lamp. Its single bulb emitted a soft, golden glow, like a porchlight on a foggy night.
William sat illuminated in his overstuffed chair, which seemed less Godmother’s throne, more booster seat. His clothes were disheveled, his face puffy. He caressed a tumbler of amber liquid.
At his feet stood a bottle about two-thirds full of the same murky stuff he was drinking. A crumpled bag of McDonald’s fare rested near the bottle. The air smelled of fryer grease and salt.
Matt sat on the couch. Stared at the coffee table that separated him from William. It was littered with newspapers and their clippings, all apparently devoted toColton Langley, who had achieved more notoriety in his one week of infamy than in his previous twenty-one years as golden boy and heir—and that was a LOT of ink.
William reached for Matt’s tumbler, poured in a small bit from the bottle at his feet, then handed the drink to Matt.
“It’s scotch, dahling.” William drawled out the vowels. He held his glass up in a toast, said something that sounded like “Slanj-a-va!” and took a sip.
Matt did not return the toast.
There’d been a time—just weeks in the past—when Matt would have asked about that mysterious phrase. Not anymore. He was no more interested in William’s cult of gay sophistication than in Celeste’s pseudo paganism.
“Scotch is a gentleman’s drink,” Willliam said. “It’s meant to be sipped and savored. Wet your lips, then let a few drops seep into your mouth. Hold it there while the flavor coats your tongue.”
Matt raised the tumbler to his lips, let the fiery whiskey pass between his teeth. It tasted of burnished wood and leather chairs and wet wool and sooty fireplaces. In short: it conjured Victorian gentlemen’s clubs.
His eyes watered.
“You drank too much, dahling,” William scolded.
Matt shrugged and, since he did not want to meet William’s gaze, busied himself with the news clippings in front of him. There was Molly’s photo of Colton and Bella being led into the police station. The front-page headline screamed “Inhoffe Intern Gay Scandal.” Another headline: “Inhoffe Blames Intern Hiring on Staff.” And, accompanying a close-up photo of Bella in drag: “Female Impersonator Claims Rape.”
“He’s in hell, you know,” William said of Colton. “He calls me at least twice a day, just sobbing. Fired from his Senate internship before it even began. Kicked out of MCU. His dad got him an apartment in Weatherford, told him not to come home ‘til he’s ‘straightened out his shit.’ He’ll have to enroll at Southwestern Oklahoma State University in the fall. ‘SWOSU.’ What kind of school name is that? He’ll be a SWOSU Bulldog, for Christ’s sake. And that’s assuming he doesn’t go to jail. Even if Bella refuses to testify about the fake rape, Colton’s still facing charges for public intoxication, public indecency, resisting arrest, and assaulting a police officer.”
Matt knew now that Bella’s black eye had resulted from a similar “assault” on one of the cops. Her face had brazenly connected with the officer’s flying fist, bruising his knuckles, ergo “assaulting a police officer.” It was a tidy fiction, one that befitted Colton.
Bella’s charges had been dropped once the District Attorney came to the tardy conclusion that even drag queens could be victims—not of police misconduct, mind you—but of attempted sodomy by faggotycollege boys.
It was not lost on Matt that William was in contact with Colton. Whatever. William was an adult. If he wanted to be codependent with a psychopath, that was his concern.
Matt ventured another sip of scotch, which, this time evoked craggy castles and highlands and kilts and the massive, hairy balls they shrouded, balls that gay boys everywhere dreamed of licking.
Still, …the watering eyes at the end. This was a drink that lulled you with soft kisses then slapped you hard on the cheeks for your audacity.
“Your silence is churlish,” William said. “And, no, the irony is not lost on me. Can we fast forward to the part where you start talking?”
Matt shook his head.
William swirled the scotch in his tumbler. “Normally you and I could settle our differences with sex. But, as you know, The Handshake Rule precludes that.”
“So, this is my fault?” Matt asked, unable to remain silent. If he had completed the first round of handshakes with all the GM members, he and William would be free for seconds (thirds actually, if the locker roomKrakencoupling counted).
“No, dahling,” William said. “It’s my fault we’re in this predicament, hurtling towards a precipice of my own making. I was merely observing that our options are rather limited. There aren’t many off-ramps remaining, are there? I mean, let’s be honest: we’re past the point where a mere apology from me would suffice.”
Matt nodded.
“If that’s the case—and a handshake is off the table, and scotch hasn’t done the trick, would you indulge me one last favor?”
