Free Turning Idolater by Edward C. Patterson Page A

neighbors are old farts. You know the
type. They have been asleep for hours.”
    Philip twisted about until he faced Mr. Dye, and
then planted a fervent kiss on expectant lips. Yes, there was an
unfathomed depth beneath this bowsprit.
2
    The aftermath of passion is ignorant of time or
place. Therefore, it mattered not that Philip and Tee rolled about
on silken waves in a vast bedroom (one of four) in a king-size
canopied four-poster. It could have been a rope coil on the main
deck and would have been as pleasant. Philip did get the grand tour
— the kitchen (spotless and stark white like a butter churn on a
dairy cottage); the media room (electronically decked and
amplified); the library (a midden of neat bindings and slap dash
biblio-spillage); the office (splattered with a dozen in-boxes and
a solitary out-box, and slathered with eight-and-half by
eleven confetti); and the guest rooms (as inviting as the ones
at the Hilton). Philip nodded his pleasure at seeing anything so
spacious in Manhattan, or rather anything so vast within his
access. However, he would review it all in the morning in the
butter-churn kitchen over the Eggs Benedict. It was the master
bedroom that enthralled him most, and now, in the aftermath, with
the satin sheets kissing his naughty bits under the counterpane, he
drifted off into a half-sleep.
    Thomas lay awake. He might have been having second
thoughts, but how could he? Philip sensed the insomnia and turned
to him.
    “Disappointed?”
    “Nothing like the sort.”
    “Good. I didn’t think so. Are you awake for more, or
is it the Injun food?”
    “Indian food.” Thomas didn’t see Philip’s wince in
the dark. “No. I am too content for sleep. I would rather
talk.”
    “Pillow talk?”
    Thomas propped his head on the pedestal of his
crooked arm. “Just Queequeg and I.”
    “Excuse me,” Philip responded and also propped
up.
    Thomas clicked his tongue. “Time for a Melville
moment.” He spoke in soft tones:

    “ We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at
short intervals. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily
warmth, some part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in
this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. So, I kindled
the shavings, kissed his nose; and that done, we undressed and went
to bed, at peace with our own consciences and all the
world.”

    Philip sat up. “Dick again?”
    Thomas placed his fingers across Philip’s lips, and
continued:

    “ How it is I know not; but there is no place like
a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife,
they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other;
and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly
morning. Thus, then, in our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg —
a cozy, loving pair.”

    “Melville really was Gay,” Philip said.
    “He was,” Thomas said, “but I am not so sure about
Queequeg and Ishmael. Actually, passages like this well up from the
golden soul of the discriminating palate and glow universally, gay
or not. It is a true disclosure of the soul.”
    “Disclosure of the soul?”
    “Chatter in bed.”
    “Better than sex?”
    “Not better,” Thomas said. “Different. Within it.
The full blend.”
    Philip adjusted his stance. A sweet aroma caught
him, one that he couldn’t describe. It wasn’t the man’s aftershave
or even his afterglow. It was the same captivating slap that he
felt when he had the book opened fully brined. He supposed
it had something to do with these men of letters, this Melville —
this Dye.
    “Wow. Words flow out of you like . . . like . .
.”
    “Diarrhea.”
    “No.” Love tap. “Silk.”
    “Silk?” Thomas said. “Silk as in silk stockings or
as in silk and satin sheets.”
    Suddenly, Thomas held Philip tightly. Philip felt
Thomas’ naked heartbeat, but somehow this was not a prelude to more
sex. It was a preamble to something else. Something more
defining.
    “That feels so good,”