What I Loved

on the single coffee table. More were spread out on the floor, and I noticed that some of their pages had been marked with yellow and pink Post-its. On the far wall were three enormous photographs of Giles. In the first, he was dressed as a man and was dancing with a woman who reminded me of Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice. In the second, he was in female persona, wearing a garish blond wig and a silver evening gown that hugged his artificial breasts and padded hips. In the third picture, Giles appeared to have gone to pieces by some visual trick and was eating the flesh of his own severed right arm. While I was studying the now familiar images, Giles appeared from behind the mirrored door. He was wearing a red silk Japanese kimono that looked authentic. The heavy silk made a noise as he walked toward me. He smiled. "Professor Hertzberg," he said. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"
    Before I could answer, he continued. "Sit down." He made a sweeping gesture with his hand toward the living room. I took the large turquoise chair and lowered myself into it. I tried leaning back, but the chair's proportions put me into a nearly reclining position, so I perched on its edge.
    Giles seated himself in its purple twin, which was a little too far away for comfortable conversation. In order to compensate for the awkward distance, he leaned toward me, and the material of his robe parted to reveal the white skin of his hairless chest. He eyed a pack of Marlboros on the round table between us and said, "Do you mind if I smoke?"
    "Go ahead," I said.
    His hand trembled as he lit the cigarette, and I felt suddenly glad that he wasn't closer to me. From my position about five feet away from him, I was able to examine the overall effect of Teddy Giles. His features were bland and regular. He had light green eyes with pale lashes, a small nose that was a little flat, and colorless lips. It was the robe that gave his nondescript face its character. The stiff and elaborate kimono turned Giles into the very picture of a depraved fin de siècle fop. Against the red material his skin took on an almost corpselike pallor. Its large sleeves emphasized his thin arms, and its likeness to a dress enhanced his sexual ambiguity. It was hard to say whether he was consciously cultivating this image of himself for my benefit or whether he had settled into it as one of his several personas. Nodding at me, he said, "Now, what can I do for you?"
    "I thought you might know where Mark is. He's been gone for ten days, and his stepmother and I are worried."
    He answered without any hesitation. "I've seen Mark several times in the last week He was here last night, as a matter of fact. I had a little gathering, but he left with some people. Are you telling me he hasn't been in touch with"—he paused—"with Violet? Isn't that his stepmother's name?"
    I recounted Mark's thefts and his disappearance while Giles listened. His light green eyes never left my face except when he turned his head to avoid blowing the cigarette smoke in my direction.
    Then I said, "I heard he was traveling with you, somewhere out West—for a show,"
    Giles shook his head very slowly, his eyes still fixed on mine. "I was in L.A. for a couple of days, but Mark wasn't with me." He appeared to be thinking. "Mark was devastated by his father's death. Of course, you know that We had several long talks about it, and I honestly believed that I helped him ..After a pause, he added, "When he lost his father, I think he lost part of himself."
    It was hard to say what I had been expecting from Giles, but it wasn't compassion for Mark. As I sat there, I began to wonder if I hadn't shifted a portion of my anger and frustration at Mark onto this artist whom I didn't know at all. My Teddy Giles was a figment, a man constructed from rumor and hearsay and a couple of articles in newspapers and magazines. I looked across the room at the photograph of Giles as a woman.
    He noticed my glance. "I'm aware that you disapprove of my work," he said flatly. "Mark has said as much, not only about you but about his stepmother. I'm aware that his father didn't have much use for it either. It's the content that upsets people, but I use violent material because it's ubiquitous. I'm not my work. As an art historian, you should be able to make that distinction.''
    I tried to answer carefully. "I suppose that part of the problem is that you yourself have confused the issue, have promoted the idea that you