The Sensual Mirror by Marco Vassi Page B

exactly the same things. He rarely gives an order, or even makes a suggestion. So, when that pressure was removed, I stopped assuming any postures in relation to being gay, and just began to be it. And when that happened, I did begin to change. I stopped using grass and poppers. I had also been on the road to getting into a heavy S & M trip, and that stopped. I extricated myself from the more kinky loops of the gay belt. I stopped hurting myself in such gross and obvious ways. And it was then that I discovered yoga, and became a vegetarian. And Babba didn’t tell me to do any of this. He just gave me his Grace, and a certain kind of light began to flow through me.”
    “It sounds quite beautiful,” Martin said, a bit sourly. He had reached the point where the effulgence of another person starts to cramp one’s own basic dissatisfaction. They walked for another block in silence as Martin’s mood grew heavier.
    “Why don’t we cut over to the river?” Robert said. “We have a few minutes. We can sit down and watch the last bit of sunset over the Jersey slums.”
    “You’re the guide,” Martin said, but the change in direction and topic halted the movement of his funk, and he regained a sense of curiosity and excitement as they came in view of the water.
    The space immediately in front of them was a huge construction site where nearly five thousand acres of river had been corraled and was being filled to provide the ground for Battery City, a complex of high-rises, parking lots, shopping centers, and parks. Behind them rose Liberty Village, five forty-story buildings with as much élan as a Moscow suburb, drab brick structures which managed, despite their newness and height, to appear gray and squat. The whole area was dominated by the twin towers of the World Trade Center, latter-day pyramids erected as monuments to a dead civilization. This was old New York, the first portion of Manhattan to be settled, then forgotten as the action moved uptown, leaving behind Wall Street, the Fulton Fish Market, and block upon block of warehouses. Now the turf was being reclaimed. As usual, the artists had arrived first, moving into deserted lofts, turning sooty and abandoned spaces into airy studios. The developers followed suit, blotting out the sky with expensive projects. And after them, pots and pans clanging on the sides of their buckboards, the merchants. Finally, to give the kiss of completion, the former owner of Max’s Kansas City chose Chambers Street as the site to open his new bar-discotheque-restaurant, and with that came the progression of self-conscious scenicruisers, to be followed, ultimately, by teenagers from Queens anxious to discover the in crowd.
    Martin and Robert sat on a thirty-foot length of rusty pipe large enough to hold a Great Dane. The sky was the color of cement. Cars and trucks thudded by under the closed-down West Side Highway. Two drunks sat in front of a deserted pier building and waxed philosophical over a pint of burbon that they passed back and forth like lovers swapping spit.
    “Julia’s probably taking a bath,” Martin said. Robert continued to stare ahead. His mood had suddenly turned pensive. But Martin was speaking more to himself than to the other man and so Robert’s inattention made no difference.
    “She used to complain that I came home too early every night and spoiled her favorite hour. She said that she looked forward to that hour of solitude all day. I began going home an hour later but that didn’t work either. There was no way to hide the fact that I was an intrusion into her space no matter when I arrived.” He balled up both his hands into fists. His face had become hard, tight. Old angers licked at his mind.
    “Maybe I should have been more forceful. A few times I found her lying on the couch wrapped in a towel and I took her right there, thrusting into her mood with as much strength as I plunged into her body. And it was glorious, to transform her in that way. But