Free A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb Page B

ping out of a pool. Mitch was smiling as he felt under the bed.
       He pulled out James's treasure box and looked inside. Frown ing again, he brought out the art book. He shrugged and returned it. He was just starting to open the poetry book when the man in the kerchief came into the doorway.
       "You're turning into a narc," he pointed out.
       Mitch pushed the box back under the bed and stood up.
       "Why're you still here?" Mitch wanted to know. "I gotta be at work."
       "I need a ride."
       Mitch and his friend left Billy's room as the sound of water in the shower stopped. I slowly sat down on the bed, for some reason still so careful not to cause the slightest stir even though the two men were now well away, their voices in the kitchen.
       When James came into the doorway, he was wearing a towel like a kilt, and his hair was still dripping. "I need some clothes," he said in apology and skulked to the dresser.
       "I'll go," I said, and I was through the wall at once, lingering in the bushes outside the house, near the bedroom window. The sun was trying to push through the clouds, and every leaf was wet and clean. I did something then I'd never done. I watched my host dress. I didn't go back into the room, but, like a guilty thing, I stayed at the window sill, a peeping torn, watching James throw his towel onto the corner of the bed and pull a pair of gray shorts from the top dresser drawer. He stepped into them and I meant to stop, but it wasn't just the novelty of his nakedness that gripped me. It was all of him. He let the door stand open to the hall, so unmindful of the other men, yet he dressed quickly, as if not wanting to keep me waiting and as if he would be too modest to have me arrive back before he was covered.
       I felt quite the sinner, but I couldn't help myself. I had to watch him step into a pair of pants and pull a sweater over his head. Was it actually the shape of his chest or the muscle of his arm that attracted me, or was it just James? He started to pick up his shoes from the floor but changed his mind. As he left the room, I moved back through the wall and found him in the living room, dropping into the couch there, picking up the tiny box that controlled the television.
       "Do we have any food?" James called loudly. "Maybe I should go to the store."
       Mitch came into the kitchen doorway. "There's half a pizza left. You don't go anywhere. Clean this place up, if you want something to do."
       The other gentleman came from the hall, tucking his shirt into his stained trousers. "Stop bitching," he laughed at James. "We have to go to work. You get to sit around here and jack off to MTV."
       There was a slight pause before James spoke, as if he were al ways translating from one language to the other. "Screw you." James turned on the television to a movie with cars chasing each other and muted the sound. He slid down on the couch until he was almost reclined. Mitch and his friend picked up keys and denim jackets, and the friend took a half-empty bottle of beer from the small table in front of James.
       "Have fun," he said.
       "I'll be thinking of you, Benny," said James without looking at him.
       Benny stopped with the beer almost to his lips. "What did you say?"
       Mitch shoved a tattered cap into Benny's hands. "Ignore him."
       James waited until the two men had closed the front door be hind them, then he sat up and turned the television off. He watched the door until he heard the sound of a car engine mov ing away down the driveway. Then he looked around the room and found me loitering in the corner.
       "He'll be gone for hours," said James. "Wait for me." I watched him rush from room to room, gathering trash to the garbage can, dishes to the machine in the kitchen, clothes and towels to the machine on the back porch.
        "If I do any more than that in one day," he said, "Mitch will think I'm losing my mind."
       I watched him put on shoes and take