A proposition. I step from the shower, pulling a towel off the rack, and carefully consider the best words to use that won’t offend the man. I know the standard—any other intern or house employee would be rock hard at the thought of a moment with the legend. The distinguished forty-five-year-old has a build perfectly set off by his designs, his appeal enhanced with his fame, talent, and money. But I’d been clear, in our initial interview and in the time since, about my sexual orientation. I had a talent and passion for men’s fashion—not cock. And he hadn’t seemed bothered by that fact, assuring me that any stays in his New York home would be absolutely professional.
I wrap a towel around my waist, and wait, unsure in my footing. When he begins to speak, I listen. And when he proposes an arrangement between us, I consider it.
Now, I turn off the water and wipe my face, reaching for the heated towel and stepping onto the warmed tile. My feet flex over the stone, my eyes catching in the large mirror that stretches the length of the room.
To say that Vince wanted me for my design skills was a lie. My body, my face … that was why he had picked me. I rub the towel across my cock and watch it respond, thickening out of habit. He had liked it too, and liked showing it off. The parties we attended, the naked Sunday pool parties we hosted … half the gay man in New York knew that Vince Horace’s boyfriend rocked a cock that rivaled his perfect face.
I used to scowl at the thought, my public reputation almost not worth the high lifestyle, the front seat into Vince’s design and thought process, his confidence, his respect. Almost not worth it. But as time passed, I learned not to give a fuck. I knew who I was, and so did Vince, our respect and bond growing stronger as the years passed, my access greater and opinion more valued with each new season.
Vince had given me the keys to a kingdom. I had given him my reputation. It had been an equitable trade, in my eyes.
Tossing the towel to the side, I step into the dressing room. The tailor averts his eyes, hanging the first of three outfits on the display hooks.
“These are the options for the interview?” I stop, thumbing the collar of the first vintage suit.
“Yes, Mr. Lent.” He pulls back the jacket to show me the shirt, and I move to the next.
“This one.” It’s powder blue, a color Vince used in countless campaigns, and is paired with a charcoal turtleneck. I pull the scarf off the hanger and toss it to the side. “It’s ready?”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
I turn away, moving to open a nearby compartment and pulling a pair of pressed underwear off its hanger. I step into the boxer briefs and pull open the drawer to select a pair of socks. “Wait for me by the shoeshine station. And polish the Patek Phillippe.”
“Certainly.”
When he leaves, I return to the suit, carefully removing it from the hanger and dressing, each moment almost reverent, thoughts of Vince heavy on my mind. In the mornings, our dressing had been a ritual, ideas and inspirations pulled as often from this room as from the drawing room floor. I glance toward the front of the room, where the long mirror sits, the dressing counters empty, the lights off. As Vince’s condition had worsened, his need for concealers, spray tans, and the makeup team, had grown. Now, there is no need for any of it.
I press a button and the belt rack moves, a smooth rotation of leathers, all sliding by. I remember us building this room, knocking down walls and laying out the design. Each cabinet had been custom-designed and constructed, the discrete lighting shining off the pieces as if they were jewels. Over five hundred pairs of pants. A thousand shirts. Coats and jackets from every designer known to man. More custom pieces than not. A separate room dedicated to shoes. A watch and cufflink collection insured for a hundred million dollars.
I stop the action and pull a caramel colored belt from the display, sliding it through the loops and fastening the clasp. Sliding into the jacket, I step up onto the platform and look into the mirror.
“God, you’re pure sex.” Vince’s voice comes from behind me and I meet his eyes in the mirror, working at the neck of the jacket to get it flat. “Here.” He steps up and lifts his arms, batting away my hands and taking over the action. “You know, if I ever fire you as a designer, you could work as a model.”
“Tried that.” I grimace. “Couldn’t keep those frisky designers from trying to paw at me.”
He chuckles, smoothing his hands over the fabric. “I can see the problem.” He moves beside me, looking at his own reflection, next to mine, in the mirror. “It’s not fair, how the clothes hang off you. It makes my job too easy.”
“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”
He grins, and I laugh and—in this moment—there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with our lifestyle or our lie.
This suit, like all the others, hangs perfectly. Part of that is due to the custom fit created by our tailor’s needle. The other half of the equation is my build. Vince was right. You take a six-foot-two man, one with an athletic build and perfect proportions—and clothes behave. It never hurts that my pretty mug is stuck on top. I scowl at the mirror and the package only perfects. Every day, for the last decade, my looks have had a purpose, one that Vince and I exploited to benefit his reputation and brand. Now, I look in the mirror and don’t know what to do with myself.
* * *
“The interview won’t last long.” Paulie wears a suede jacket with a pocket square that clashes with his belt. I stare at the belt and force myself not to mention it. “An hour tops.” He stops in front of me, and I nod, distracted by the nervous clasp of his hands, the fidget of joints and fingers and twisting of wrists. Jesus. Has he always been so hyper?
“Who is this for?”
“GQ.”
“And this had to be today?” I watch the crew prep the area around the sitting couch with light screens and stands. A separate group stands by the window, looking down at the crowds, and discussing the noise. As if on cue, a new chant of Vince’s name begins. “Are we doing the photos before or after?”
“Whichever you prefer.” A bead of sweat makes it halfway down his temple before he captures it with a silk handkerchief.
“I’d prefer some lunch.”
“Yes sir.” He clears his throat, then nods. I watch him leave, whispering the order at the assistants as if my lunch request is top secret. I hear the feminine lilt of a voice and turn my head, watching a leggy redhead enter, her heels clicking across the floor. She spies me and I meet her halfway, extending my hand to meet hers.
“Peggy Nance, GQ.”
The interviewer. They didn’t tell me it was a woman. I tighten my jaw and force a smile. “Marco Lent.”
She blushes, and I don’t miss the glance that sweeps over me. “It’s a pleasure.”
A stupid thing to say, considering she is here to interview me about my dead boyfriend. I let my displeasure show and pull back my hand. “Terrible circumstances.”
“Yes. Of course.” Her hands grip the edges of her portfolio, and she manages to conjure up a frown.
I don’t want to spend an hour with this woman. I don’t want to answer her questions, to feel her eyes, and to watch that mouth.
“Mr. Lent?” An assistant gestures toward the dining room. “Lunch is ready.”
I nod, pulling off my jacket and passing it to Edward.
* * *
Lunch is an elaborate clusterfuck of expense, as every meal in our lives is. I once asked Vince about it, his tongue loosened by wine and success, his guard down. He confessed that at his first design jobs, he used to sneak into the restroom and eat his lunch there. He was ashamed of his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, his inability to afford eating out with the other designers. When he first made it big, he made a habit of eating out at the hottest restaurants, ordering the most expensive items and overtipping the waitstaff. As his wealth increased, so did his meal budget. In came the private chefs, the commercial kitchen, the five-course meals. In this house, we have over three dozen sets of china and hundred
s of table settings. I sit down at the head of the table, in Vince’s old place, and take the napkin from the attendee.
“Bring the interview in here,” I look down at the tiny soft-boiled egg, brilliantly showcased in a silver Tiffany stand, set atop a Versace plate. “Set a second place.”
“Certainly, sir.” There is a quiet flurry of movement, silver, and china quickly set, fresh flowers brought in to frame the setting. I enjoy my egg, setting down the spoon as the woman settles in next to me, a recorder in hand.
“Do you mind?” She lifts the recorder.
“No.” I sit back as my plate is cleared. “Go ahead.”
“Great.” She digs into her bag and pulls out a pen and notepad, setting it on the table next to her plate.
The next course arrives, a crisscross of dressings over thinly-sliced steak. I wave off the server and watch as she eyes the meat.
“It’s carpaccio. Tenderloin carpaccio.”
“None for me, thank you.” She glances down at the pad, then at me. “Mr. Lent, we’re very familiar with Vince Horace’s life, but know little about your personal relationship with him.”
I twist the fork through the meat, piling it high before I bring it to my mouth. I take my time chewing and wonder if there is a question coming. She falls silent, and I pat at my mouth with the napkin before speaking. “Privacy is something that was important to both of us.”
“Privacy?” A small laugh coughs out of her. “Excuse me for saying this, but your lifestyle is anything but private.”
“Our lifestyle. Not our personal relationship.” I set down my fork and met her gaze squarely. “While Vince was fiercely loyal to the gay community and its causes, our story didn’t need to play a publicity role in that.”
“I wouldn’t view it as publicity,” she crosses her arm, resting her forearms on the table, and the woman must have been raised in a kennel. “I’d view it as the documentation of a beautiful love story.”
A beautiful love story. Ha. I pick up my fork and pay careful attention to my plate, delicately scooping up the next bite.
“Did you know that Vince Horace hired a historian?”
“Of course.” That damn man had spent thousands of hours with Vince, moving painstakingly through every single day of his life, as if anyone cared about Vince’s high school prom date or the time he spent a night in a Cincinnati hostel. “If you’d like to save me a great deal of time, you can just read his book.” The book had cherry-picked from Vince’s tales, each excerpt carefully selected to put Vince in the best possible light. The result—a glowing tale that made it seem as if Vince had single-handedly started the gay pride movement, along with every major fashion trend from the last three decades.
Her lips tighten, and I’m glad she’s a bitch. It makes this experience much easier, any temptation much more manageable. Not that I have any temptation, that disappeared when she pulled out the recorder.
“I’ve read it.” She smooths the front of her shirt, pulling it tight over her ample chest. “I want to talk to you about what isn’t in the book.”
“You’ll have to be more specific.” I reach forward, lifting my glass of wine and wonder if chugging it would show weakness.
“There’s nothing in the book about the two of you.”
I shake my head and bring the glass to my mouth. “That’s not true.” I’m all over the final chapters, minute mentions that paint me as a sexual Adonis and Vince as a well-taken-care-of stud. Think Hugh Hefner, finally settling down and getting married—that is us, in black and white text, in that damn book.
She reaches forward, gently touching my arm, and I recoil, the reaction obvious enough that she thinks better, and retracts. “There’s nothing personal about the two of you. Was your love instant? What was your relationship like? Our readers want to know the details.”
The intimate details. That’s what she wants. I watch the signs from the crowd, bobbing by the window, and regret agreeing to this interview.
“Marco?”
My eyes snap to hers. “It’s Mr. Lent.”
“Okay.” She adjusts the napkin in her lap. “When did you fall in love with Vince—Mr. Horace?”
Never. While I loved Vince like a brother, being ‘in love’ was never part of that equation. I pick up the closest utensil, a dinner knife. “You know, Miss Crawford, when I met Vince, I was just a struggling designer, trying to get someone to listen to me.” I watch the way the light glints off the blade. This is a Presidential set, from Kennedy’s term. He probably handled this same knife. Cut his meat with it. Lifted the fork to his mouth.
“And Vince gave you a chance.”
I carefully set the utensil back down, in its spot in the setting. Glancing toward the kitchen, I nod at the closest uniform, ready for the next course. “Yes. He gave me a chance.”
My chance hadn’t been on the design floor, it’d been in that bathroom, the opportunity brought on by my looks and not my talent. Vince had been a vain man, and I’d had to overcome my looks to get him to see my talent. In that first year of ‘dating,’ we’d fought more than we’d gotten along. And I’d been away from him more than I’d been at his side. I pick up the tiny fork that lies to the left of my setting and hold it up. “Do you know what this is?”
She focuses on the utensil and I can tell she doesn’t. I set it down. “It’s an oyster fork. Before I started working for Vince, I couldn’t tell the difference between that and a salad fork.” Six weeks of etiquette training, eight hours a day, had taught me that.
“Before Vince, I spoke English and a few rudimentary phrases of Spanish.” Now, I’m fluent in Italian and French. Half our staff is Italian, and I can find my way around Rome and Paris drunk off my ass.
“So… what?” She rests her chin atop her fist. “Vince taught you things?”
I move my hands off the table, sitting back as the lamb tenderloin is delivered. “Vince taught me everything. About fashion and about life.”
Her lips purse. “It doesn’t sound very romantic.”
It hadn’t been. His proposition, first made in that opulent bathroom, later legalized in a stack of documents, had been simple. Vince had just had surgery for prostate cancer, the complications which had rendered him unable to perform sexually, and void of any desire to. His image and reputation—one carefully built through three decades of screwing half of New York’s hottest men … he wasn’t ready to give up.
“I don’t understand.” I run a hand over my face and avoid his eye contact. “Why don’t you just find a boyfriend, someone who doesn’t mind your…” My mind gives out, leaving me stranded and without the proper word.
He brushes off the idea with the toss of a well-manicured hand. “Most gay men don’t know how to keep their mouths shut and their dicks to themselves. Especially not the sort of man I would need. One with your…” His eyes travel the full length of my body, and the meaning is as clear as a Times Square billboard.
He’d wanted a stud who wouldn’t try to fuck him. A stud who wouldn’t try to fuck anyone else. A stud who could stay loyal, and quiet, and give him the credibility and reputation he’d always had.
I pull the plate closer to me. “The two of us weren’t interested in appearing to be romantic to columnists, Miss Nance.”
Her cheeks flush and I look down, cutting my meat with the detached air I’ve perfected. “We were men. We enjoyed each other’s company. We learned from each other, me more than him. Did we fall in love over candlelight and champagne? No. Did we read poetry to each other, or share heartfelt conversations in a manner that you would understand? No.” I stab the tender piece and bring it to my lips, pausing and meeting her eyes. “I think we’re done here.”
Her gaze darts to her list of questions then comes back to me. “I’m not done.”
I chew the piece slowly, focusing my attention back on the plate, dividing the remainder of the filet into four small pieces.
“What will you miss most about Mr. Horace?”
I ign
ore her, lifting my glass and taking a sip. I clear my throat and Paulie steps forward. “Miss Nance, thank you for your time. If you could, follow me.”
“I’m NOT done.” She raises her voice, sputtering when Paulie all but pulls her out of the chair, their journey out of the room loud and argumentative. I wait until they leave, silence returning, then spear the next piece of lamb with my fork.
Maybe it’s too soon for press. Or maybe I’ll never be ready for them. Vince always handled questions about us. I had always just shown up, looked pretty, and smiled for the cameras.
“Should I cancel the photo shoot?” Edward speaks softly, leaning over the table to refill my drink.
“Let the attendants do that,” I snap. “And yes.” The thought of posing, more posing, at this point, drives me mad. “Have the executive team assembled. I want a meeting in Vince’s office in thirty minutes.”
“Certainly.” He glances down at my wine. “Should I bring you a stronger drink?”
“Hell no.” I stuff the last bit of lamb into my mouth, manners be damned, and reach for my napkin. “And have them bring out the rest of the courses.”
Three days. He’d been gone three days, and everything is already falling to shit.
Chapter 6
AVERY
I spend the evening researching Vince Horace. Fuzzy socks on, eighties music playing, I purchase an eBook called Vince Horace: The Real Story. It contains a detailed history of the man’s life, and I intend to scroll through until the eighties, but get sucked in by chapter one, and lose four hours reading. I stop sometime around two in the morning, stretch my stiff neck, and head to bed.
I can’t sleep, my mind filled with the stories, ones of an upper-class and conservative family. They hadn’t understood or supported a young Vince who enjoyed dressing dolls more than crashing trucks and had spent hours planning his outfits. There had been photos at the end of each chapter, grainy images of a serious-faced child, one who often looked as if he was fresh off an admonishment. I had zoomed in on each photo, tried to pair his chubby cheeks with my own, and I’d almost picked up the phone and called the McKennas to ask for some childhood photos.