Straight Man

fact. All the evidence suggests that I’ve got a lot of good years left.”
    On the fifth try my lock finally opens.
    “Fornication is more spiritual than physical,” Tony continues. “Most women know that, but not so many men. Which is why men like me are in demand. You laugh,” he adds.
    It’s true. I am laughing, though not so much at Tony’s genial boasting as at the fact that he doesn’t consider it boasting. Having introduced this subject, he sees no reason why he shouldn’t explore it fully, as if his interest were purely analytical, scientific. “You’re the only man I know who claims to know what women want,” I explain.
    “There’s nothing mysterious about what women want,” Tony informs me. “They want everything. Just like us. What’s interesting is what they’ll settle for. What’s interesting is that often they’ll settle for me.” He pauses to let me contemplate this mystery. “I don’t know if they’d settle for you,” he adds.
    “Well—” I begin.
    “The intensity of the orgasm isn’t there anymore,” Tony concedes, as if he’s anticipated that I’m about to register this objection. “My first time was when I was thirteen, in Brooklyn. There was a woman wholived in our building. She invited me up one afternoon. I had this incredible orgasm standing in the middle of her living room before she could get out of her brassiere.”
    “I’m not sure that qualifies as fornication.”
    “That was my brother’s position,” Tony says. “When I told him about it, he set me straight. I even went back to the woman and apologized.”
    “Did she accept it?”
    “Accept what?” Tony says. “If you’re going to be careless with pronouns, we’re going to have to talk about something else. Fornication requires precision.”
    “Not to mention patience,” I add.
    “Not to mention skill and stamina and affection,” Tony continues. “Not to mention other things you’re too young to understand. But in answer to your question, she did accept it, all of it, quite graciously.”
    When we finish dressing, we dry what’s left of our hair under wall-mounted dryers. Tony’s is black and steely gray, my own sandy and baby-fine. To look at the two of us, you’d never guess what we’ve been talking about.
    “In fact,” Tony says, slipping his comb into his back pocket, “I wouldn’t object to a little fornication this evening after I’ve had my supper. Except that I’ve got a lot of other things I’ve been putting off. And our friend Jacob has asked me to chair the internal review of the English department.”
    Tony is watching me in the mirror, one eyebrow arched significantly. I do what I can to disappoint him, as Gracie disappointed me earlier by not reacting to my fake nose.
    “I was asked if I thought I could be objective, since you and I are friends.”
    “And you said?”
    “I said sure. I said I didn’t consider you to be my friend. I said I’ve never been friends with you.”
    I can’t help grinning at this. I can hear Tony delivering the line to Jacob Rose, who knows better.
    “You should have refused,” I tell him. “It’s a thankless job.”
    “I would have,” Tony says, “except that I’ve heard that the word has come down from above to fornicate you people.”
    “Why would anyone want to fornicate us?” I say, feeling more than a little silly about having slipped into Tony’s metaphor. “We’ve pretty thoroughly fornicated ourselves, I should have thought.”
    We grab our gym bags and head outside, where it’s still light out. The days are growing longer. Most of the students have adjourned to their dorm rooms and dining halls, but across the pond, in the VIP visitors’ lot, there’s a van that bears the logo of the local Railton television station. The dedication of the new Technical Careers Complex, I remember.
    “It’s all these grievances and litigation,” Tony is saying. “The English department has fifteen grievances pending—against you, the dean, the campus executive officer. That’s more than all other faculty grievances put together. What I hear is that since you people can’t get along, they’re going to fornicate the lot of you.”
    “I don’t know,” I tell Tony. “These grievances are the only sign of life we’ve had from some of these folks in years. Do we want them to return to their slumbers?”
    Tony shrugs. “Consider the market. All us old farts could be replaced with young guys at half our salaries.