Exiles in America(22)

work on the floor.

Daniel sat down on the sofa, next to the stack of club clothes: it was every-

thing, even his socks and underpants—black boxer briefs. Abbas must really

get into his paint when he worked. But he’d told the truth when he said he in-

tended to go to Norfolk today.

“How’s it coming?” asked Daniel. “Are we there yet?”

Abbas didn’t laugh. He didn’t respond at all. He was lost in his brush-

strokes.

Daniel sighed, sank back, and listened to the music.

Art books from the school library stood in stacks beside the sofa, a hun-

dred or more. Abbas must have checked out half of the modern art section.

Several volumes were open, one parked on top of another. Francis Bacon lay

on Lucien Freud, who lay on David Hockney. Daniel wondered why Abbas

was exploring Brits, but no, the pictures were about all bodies. Hockney by

Hockney—with green fingerprints in the margins—was open on the Cavafy

E x i l e s i n A m e r i c a

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drawings, scratchy pen-and-ink sketches of boys in bed. There was a book of

Muybridge photographs, opened to a multiplied naked runner. Abbas

seemed to have a thing about naked men, yet there were no literal naked men

in his paintings, only Klee-like ideas of men, boxed or paisley symbols of bod-

ies.

Abbas squatted at his canvas like a rubbery logo, his brown shoulder

blotched with green, the white seat of his overalls rubbed with yellow. And

here was his black underwear in the stack of folded clothes beside Daniel.

All right, sitting in the man’s studio was like getting into the man’s head,

and Daniel couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to get into his

pants.

That was why Daniel was here, of course. Sexual curiosity. He had already

seen Abbas naked—there was no mystery there—and Abbas looked naked

now, his backbone and ass shifting inside his overalls. Daniel had hoped a trip

to Norfolk would teach him enough about Abbas to kill off the rest of his cu-

riosity. There’d be no mystery at all, and Daniel could treat him as simply a

pal, a peer, a friend. But he liked Abbas’s art, which made Abbas sexier.

Daniel was jealous of his talent—he admitted it—which made him want to

hump Abbas just to get on the other side of that talent. But Daniel wasn’t

Abbas’s type—Abbas had made that clear. Or had he?

This is too silly, thought Daniel. He should just go ahead and get the ques-

tion out of the way. Unasked questions are the worst. He’d be making a fool

of himself, but he had nothing to lose. He decided to treat the idea as a joke.

“Here’s a thought,” he said. “We don’t need to go to Norfolk to get laid,

you know. We could just do it ourselves.”

Abbas stopped. He looked at Daniel. He frowned. “You have sex with

your friends?”

“Now and then.” Daniel was pleased he didn’t have to explain.

“Then you know. Friends misunderstand and want more. Which is why I

prefer strangers. But we talked about this already. We are in the same boat.

We are not single.”

“We’re certainly not.”

Abbas studied the brush in his hand. It was tipped with white. He turned

away. “Let me think about it. See how I feel when I am done. Do you mind?”

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C h r i s t o p h e r B r a m

“Not at all.” He had muffed it. He should have waited until Abbas was fin-

ished and they could jump on each other without time to think. “Just an op-

tion,” he said. “No big deal.”

“Hmmm. My colors keep changing their tune.” Or did Abbas say “tone”?

He was bent over the canvas again, back at work, which was humbling. If

Daniel were in his shoes, he’d be too distracted. But Abbas continued to

paint, as if he didn’t care whether he had sex or not.

What the hell am I doing? thought Daniel. Sex wasn’t going to happen. Or

if it did, it’d be ugly and humiliating. What did he want from Abbas anyway?

His respect as a fellow artist? Or the arrogant sneer that one man gives an-

other when he gets a blow job from him? That was all Daniel could picture

happening: himself on his knees, giving head to a visiting faculty member, a

Muslim with a wife and two kids. Could life get any tackier?

Abbas’s silence was too annoying. “Do you ever show or sell your work in

Iran?” asked Daniel, just to say something.

“Oh no. I am too Western and decadent. You should see the art they admire.

Hideous murals. Like Soviet propaganda. Elena says it is like the art of her

childhood, only it is of Khomeini and the mullahs, not Brezhnev and Kosygin.”

It was such a relief to talk that Daniel seized the subject. “But it’s not like