over. Sex had lost its continuity. It was no longer smooth and frictionless but
awkward, bumpy, grabby.
Abbas stopped kissing, stepped back, and yanked his sweater over his
head. “Hurry up. We don’t have much time.”
Daniel undressed quickly, like a man who was going to jump into a river
and save a drowning swimmer. He watched Abbas, wanting to enjoy the sight
of him undressing, but Abbas looked so serious sitting at the foot of the bed,
grimly struggling with a shoelace. Daniel whipped off his own undershirt and
shorts: the air was freezing. He leaped under the blankets: the sheets were like
ice. He wiggled there, trying to warm the bed. Then Abbas stood up, a nude
silhouette, and he climbed over the covers and under them, his warm body
joining Daniel’s body. He promptly got on top and resumed kissing, opening
Daniel’s legs with his knees, holding Daniel’s head in both hands.
E x i l e s i n A m e r i c a
2 6 1
Daniel ran his own hands over a muscular back and oval ass and sinewy
thighs. How had he convinced himself this didn’t matter? A hairy chest
rubbed a hairy chest; a hard tongue filled his mouth. Daniel hooked his legs
around Abbas’s legs and hung on happily.
Then Abbas withdrew his tongue and lifted his head. He let out a short,
sharp sigh. “It’s not working,” he said.
Daniel laughed, thinking he was kidding. “What isn’t working?”
Abbas unwound his legs and rolled off. Daniel reached down. He
found a warm squash of genitals, the penis barely distinguishable from the
scrotum.
“Oh, baby,” Daniel whispered. “Here. Relax. I’ll get us in the mood.” He
set Abbas’s hand around his own erection, as if to set an example. He resumed
kissing, more slowly now. He cradled testicles in his hand, as gently as eggs; he
stroked with his thumb.
But it was no good. The thing remained a loose handful of skin. Its soft-
ness was as contagious as a yawn. Daniel needed the other body to want his
body, and when the other body didn’t, his body died. The laughter from the
TV next door became audible again.
Daniel scooted under the covers to use his mouth.
“No!” Abbas stopped him. “It is no good. Forget it.” He turned as if to get
out of bed.
Daniel grabbed his shoulder. “Hold on. It’s not even nine yet. We still got
time. Maybe our bodies just have to get used to each other again. Relax. Have
a cigarette.”
“My cigarettes are in the car. If I get dressed to get them, I won’t come
back.” But Abbas remained in bed, sitting up with his knees raised under the
blankets, his body folded around his genitals. He rubbed his face in the blan-
kets. “I thought I wanted this. I thought it would help. It would make things
clear. But it doesn’t.”
“Help make what clear?”
“My future. My choices.”
Oh shit, thought Daniel. This was why he needed sex tonight, not because
he was horny but to finish his argument with Hassan.
“But you already said no to your brother.”
2 6 2
C h r i s t o p h e r B r a m
Abbas frowned. “But I will have to say no again and again. Not only to him
but to myself.”
“Why? You don’t want to go to Iran.”
“Most of me doesn’t. But part of me does. And why not? I am nobody in
America. Painting is dead here. But my brother says Iran needs artists. Iranian
art for the Iranian people. I could have success. I could be useful. My brother
says. And I am Iranian. I am a foreigner everywhere else. I would be foreign
there, too, but maybe less so. Still, there might be a war. So I can’t even con-
sider it.”
“Does your brother know you’re gay?”
Abbas remained sitting up, facing forward. “He knows. He does not un-
derstand. It is a childish thing, he says, a schoolboy thing. I have children now,
he says. My children love me, my wife loves me, he loves me. He says I must
listen to their love and forget about sex with men.”
“Poor baby. No wonder you can’t function. You got a helluva lot on your
mind tonight.”
Abbas nodded. “And I wanted to get out of my mind and into my body,
but my body is useless to me. My body is dead.” He grabbed the blankets and
pulled them to his chin as he scooted against the headboard, keeping his nu-
dity covered. “This was a mistake, a big mistake. But I was angry at home and
making everyone else angry, and Elena said, ‘Go get laid. Get sucked by your
American. Get fucked by your American. Maybe that will make you feel bet-
ter.’ But I can’t and now I feel even worse.”
Daniel lay on his side, staring up at Abbas. It was Elena’s idea that Abbas