Letter Found in a Desk - 1. Chapter 1

To Vic the family delegated the task of emptying out Uncle Martin’s apartment. It’s not as if Vic and Martin had been particularly close. Vic knew that his cousin, or great-uncle once removed, or whatever Martin was exactly, was a generous, principled, good man who had been very active in AIDS service organizations in the 80s and 90s. But he knew nothing of Martin’s personal life. Still, being between jobs, he didn’t mind preparing his cousin’s belongings for storage, now that Martin had to move to long-term care. There were few heavy items and a lot of memorabilia, so the work was more drudgery than back-breaking toil.

The quantity of papers was starting to get him down when he began emptying out the roll-top desk. He was tossing papers into a banker’s box when an envelope stuffed far back into a pigeon hole caught his eye. It was not addressed, exactly; on it was written only “Open Only If Marty Vanishes Without a Trace.” It was obviously quite old, and whatever emergency it was meant to address had never happened. Vic hesitated only a few seconds before opening it.

Inside he found this letter:

10/21/80

First, let me say that the sex was really good. That doesn’t do it justice. It was amazing. This guy put me right into my reptile brain and kept me there. Fucked me up, down, sideways, zigzag, to the North Pole and the South Pole with stops in Tahiti and Rio, and into a fourth dimension and back again. You know how meditation is supposed to silence all the mind chatter that continually goes on? I mean, theoretically, if you keep at it for fifty years? Well, there was no mind chatter while we were at it.

And this guy, this man, Lou, that I met in a bar, for God’s sake, could have taken me straight to bed, but first he took me out to dinner (he paid), took us for a walk to watch the almost-full moon play peekaboo through the patchy clouds, wrapped his coat around me when the evening got chilly and he saw that I was shivering (what was I thinking, going out in October without a jacket?), kissed me so sweetly right out on the street, and generally was a perfect gentleman until he took me to his place and fucked my brains out.

And when we’re done, the only chatter that’s coming up is: when can we do this again? So I subtly and indirectly start to steer a conversation that way, trying not to seem desperate, opening with, “When can we do this again?”

He grins and says, “I like you, Marty.”

“I like you, too, Lou.” Always play it down. Don’t jump ahead to I want to bear your children. Not the first night.

“But you don’t know anything about me.”

Oh. The I’m-a-bad-boy-and-you-should-forget-about-me speech. All right. I can deal. I’ve gotten it before.

He continues, “But this was – good, and I thought we fit together really well.”

Oh. Maybe not the bad-boy speech. “It checked all my boxes. Some I didn’t know I had.”

“And if we want to go farther with this, there are some things you should probably know.”

Oh. The I’m-dying-and-you-should-forget-about-me speech. Haven’t heard that one in a while.

“I have some – peculiarities. I suppose you could call it a syndrome. Nothing life-threatening, not even debilitating, most of the time, just unusual.”

“Like the size of your dick?”

He laughed. “Well, that’s part of it. And we who have this – syndrome, tend to keep quiet about it. People sometimes freak out about it, so it’s best not to tell most people.”

What the hell. “Are you all in some kind of secret club?”

He laughed again. “You’re not far off. We do tend to recognize each other. You know, like gaydar.”

“Okay, now you’ve lost me.”

“Well, one of our characteristics is an acute sense of smell. We can smell each other. It’s not a bad smell, just slightly different.”

“People sometimes freak out about this, you say? Can’t imagine why. ‘Cause there’s nothing weird about it. But I’ve got my seat belt on, so keep driving. Is this, like, something you’re born with? Genetic?”

“It’s partly genes and even more a matter of gene expression. There are lots of people who have the genes, but in most of them, the genes aren’t switched on. We can usually smell those people, too, but the scent is fainter. Now, where it gets hairy--” He pauses to let me salivate, since I do appreciate his all-over hairiness. I spent quite a bit of time, on first seeing him naked, appreciating his hairiness, which he in turn appreciated. “Where it gets hairy is that the positive traits of the syndrome – strength, speed, focus, sharpened senses – are balanced by something similar to bipolar disorder.”

“Oh. Mood swings?”

“You could call it that. It goes in cycles, about a month long. For a few days a month my rational brain sort of steps aside, mostly, and the more primitive, irrational parts come front and center. My senses completely take over, especially smell.”

“Um, sounds either terrifying or hot, depending on the mix.”

“It’s nothing to worry about. It doesn’t get out of control or anything. I just get really into the physicality of my body and the world, and intellectual efforts are pretty much a bust. Talking becomes difficult if not impossible. Can’t read or write, either. And I don’t sleep well – I’m restless at night, especially. So, part of getting to know me is being able to deal with that. It’s only a few days a month.”

“I had a German Shepherd when I was a kid. Totally feral. Would not stop killing gophers and rabbits. If I could deal with her, I think I can deal with a guy going a little bit animal for a few days.”

“Good. Yeah. Having a dog is good practice.”

“So what do you do during those days?”

“Oh, when I’m restless I go for a walk or a run. City smells start to bother me, so I try to get out to a park or a forest. Or I paint. Sometimes I sing, if you could call it that. It’s more like howling. Sometimes several of us sing together.”

“I look forward to hearing your first album. I assume there’s more.”

“Yeah, there is. One of the other characteristics – hm, how can I describe this? – my physical appearance becomes rather – malleable.”

Well, that could mean anything. “So, you go from good posture to really badly stooped, or what?”

“No, my teeth change shape, and my fingers and nails, and my hair grows really fast, and actually, the way my body fits together changes quite a bit.”

Well, if you just want to scare me off, you don’t have to go to so much trouble. “If you don’t want to do repeats, all you have to do is say so. I don’t need elaborate stories or explanations. It’s fine.”

“The thing is, I do want to do repeats. That’s why I’m telling you. I hardly tell anyone about this.”

I search his face. Good God, is he serious? “I think I’m out of my depth right now. Maybe you should talk to someone. I mean, someone with professional qualifications.”

He rolls his eyes, clearly accustomed to this reaction. “Oh, I go to the vet when I need to.”

“Um – the vet?”

“Little joke between my doctor and me. He’s a veteran, so I call him my vet.”

“This thing about your body changing – physically changing, right? – I’m having a little trouble imagining that.”

“I think I can show you. It’s close enough to that time of the month. Say something sexy to me.”

If all he wanted was round two, he only had to ask. “You’re very handsome.”

He grins. “No, something more physical, more in your body.”

Okay, I can do that. “I want you to fuck my throat until my larynx has bruises.”

“Yeah,” he says, holding up his hand with the back facing me, “that should do it.”

And right in front of my eyes, his fingers get thicker and, I swear, shorter, and his nails get dark and narrow and start to look a lot like claws. It takes about a minute, but there it is, right in front of me.

I’m stunned. “That was incredible! How did you do that? Do you have a whole stage act of this? ‘Cause I think your patter needs a little work, it’s really too long for the payoff, but the effect – I’m a foot away from you and I can’t tell how you did it! That’s totally amazing!”

“That’s not all.” He grimaces, exposing canines that are getting longer and pointier by the second.

“Wow!” I say. “I can’t see where the real teeth end and the prosthetics start. And the way they keep moving and growing, it’s so believable, it looks so natural. Combined with the claws, it makes a really good effect.”

“It’s not an effect, Marty. It’s me.”

I look in his eyes, and the light is playing funny tricks, because they look yellow. I don’t think they did earlier.

“It’s real, Marty. This is how I am. This is what I am.”

I sit there with my mouth open like a goldfish. Then it finally dawns on me, and I start laughing. “OK, OK, you really had me going. This is the sense of humor test I have to pass, right? OK, very elaborate, but really fun. Excellent setup. You pulled me in so gradually, I didn’t see where you were going with it until just now. So, bravo. You totally had me on the point of believing you're a werewolf.”

He's looking down and – he growls. Seriously, he growls. “That’s such an ugly word,” he says, real pain in his voice, and when he looks up, his eyes have tears that haven’t quite spilled yet. “See, this is why I don’t tell people.”

Whoa. Sure, maybe he was being manipulative, but I feel fully justified in thinking I've been a jerk. “Listen, I didn’t mean to say anything to upset you. I mean, I don’t know you, I just met you, I have no business judging you. If you have some genetic anomaly, I don’t care. All I know is what I’ve seen of you – you’re fun, you’re incredible in bed, you’re handsome, you’ve been kind and respectful and generous with me, with the possible exception of trying out your magic act on me, and I would love to spend more time with you.”

He shakes his head as if in frustration, then tilts it like he can’t quite figure me out. “You would?”

“Are you kidding? Yes! What does your schedule look like, oh, say, tomorrow?”

He wipes his eyes and chuckles. “Oh, you do not want to be around me for the next couple of days.”

“What, mood swings coming up?”

He nods. “Yeah. Mood swings.”

“And it always just passes, no problem?”

“Regular as clockwork.”

I reach over and grab his hand, tug it back and forth a bit. “Does it hurt or anything?”

He looks surprised. “Not really.”

“Good. I’d hate to think of you being in pain for three days every single month.”

“Oh, God, Marty,” he says, pulling me into a hug. “You’re going to make me cry.”

I let myself enjoy the hug for a minute, thinking, 'I bet this poor guy is going through this completely alone every month.' But all I say is, “So maybe in a week I could see you again?”

He pulls back. “Yeah, I’ll be fine in a week. I’ll call you.”

I kiss his cheek. “You’d better.”

“Oh, I will.”

“And maybe, if we get along well enough, I could stay with you during one of these big mood swings. If you want. I just feel like I want to get to know the whole you. You don’t have to be chipper or put on a brave face or entertain me. I mean, we don’t have to do anything, or even talk if that’s hard. Just hang out. I can pretend I’m dog-sitting.”

He laughs. “That is way too accurate. And I think we’ll get along.”

I make a pathetic attempt to sound sexy. “What was your first clue?”

He hesitates, then says, “You’ve got the genes. They’re just not switched on.”

“Funny, you turned me on in every other way there is.”

He’s hugging me from behind, and he starts scraping his teeth along the sensitive patch between the back of my neck and my shoulder. I say, “I’ll give you exactly eighty years to stop that, and then I’m calling the police.”

“Aw, you don’t want me to do a rush job, do you?”

“All right,” I say reluctantly. “Two hundred years. But that’s my limit.”

I somehow get out the door. He has my number. I have his.

I go home grinning, remembering how we introduced ourselves. He told me his name, and the bar was really loud, and I didn’t quite catch it.

“Luke?” I asked.

“Lou,” he corrected. “The ‘p’ is silent.”

I said, “Nice to meet you, Silent-P Lou. My name’s Marty, M-A-R-Q-T-Y. The Q is silent.”

He just grinned and said, “QT, eh? Very appropriate. I might have to start calling you that.”

How can I resist such a man?

Still, why the bit with the nails and teeth? Do they somehow help him deal with his condition? I don’t doubt that he has something weird going on medically. Does he honestly believe that he turns into an animal? Is that an actual mental health thing? An actual mental health thing that he shares with an elite group of weirdos who think they can sniff each other out?

Oh, well – what’s a little delusion among friends?

So, Officer Whatever-your-name-is, if you’re reading this, you must have opened the envelope on my desk labeled “Open Only If Marty Vanishes Without a Trace.” My friends would insist (I can hear them) that I leave the police something to go on if I disappear. Hence this little reminiscence (which I always find is part of savoring the experience), with (P)Lou's contact information below. I hope you’re not opening it just because I didn’t answer my phone for an hour. I mean, my friends have a point, but – drama queens, all of them. Do they think this is the first crazy boyfriend I’ve ever had?

There was a separate sheet with the name “Lou” and an address and telephone number. Vic read the entire contents again, then sat thoughtfully for a few minutes. And then he ransacked the desk for anything similar.

Nothing turned up.