Object of Desire. William J. Mann

      “Yes,” Thad said, gesturing across the room to a large black-and-white photograph of a naked man, only half visible, against a stark concrete wall. “It’s a self-portrait. Taken in Baghdad before the fall of Saddam.”

      “Are you Iraqi?” Frank asked.

      Hassan nodded. “I was born in Basra and lived many years in Baghdad. My family was not religious, and we did well for a time.” He smiled tightly. “For a time.”

      “Hassan was explaining to me that he doesn’t take portraits of people to flatter them,” Randall said. “He looks at a person and sees the quality that most defines them, and he takes a picture of that.”

      “Oh?” I looked over at the photo on the wall. Hassan had a beautiful body, and he had photographed himself quite provocatively. “And what quality is captured in that picture, might I ask?”

      Hassan turned his dark eyes to me. “Faith,” he said simply.

      “Faith? But I thought you said you weren’t religious.”

      “Faith need not be about religion,” he said. “It is faith that has defined me from infancy. Faith in my own destiny, faith that I would go where I needed to go. That I would make it from there to here.”

      “Fascinating, isn’t it?” Randall gushed.

      Smitten indeed.

      “Go ahead,” Randall was saying, nudging Hassan. “Tell them what you see when you look at me. The quality you say defines me.”

      “Hope,” Hassan said plainly.

      I sneered. “Clearly, you’ve just met.”

      The photographer’s eyes hardened. “It is when I just meet a person that I see most clearly.”

      Randall smirked. “My very good and dear friend Danny is being sarcastic, because I’ve been a bit, well, pessimistic of late.”

      “That doesn’t mean you are not hopeful at your core.” Hassan looked from Randall back to me. “At his core, would you say he was hopeful?”

      My mind flashed back many years. A night at Randall’s house in West Hollywood. A horrible night. It was raining miserably, and there was a leak in the ceiling, and water was pooling in the kitchen. And Randall sat on his couch, his eyes unblinking. “Positive,” he said over and over again. “The test came back positive.”

      “What are we going to do?” I asked, the “we” uttered by instinct. I was terrified.

      Randall didn’t answer right away, but finally he just shrugged. “Just go on living,” he said. “I guess we just go on living.”

      Just go on living.

      “Yeah,” I admitted to Hassan. “Hope is a good word for Randall.”

      “And me?” Frank ventured. “If you were to take a picture of me, what would you be photographing?”

      Hassan turned to face him. “Gravity,” he said, without a pause.

      “Gravity?” I asked.

      “Yes. Do you disagree?”

      Frank was looking at me.

      “No,” I said. “Once again, you’ve hit the nail on its head.” I smiled. “Just don’t do me, okay? I don’t think I want to know.”

      “Well,” Thad said, “I’m sure it would be talent or beauty or artistry or something like that.” He was such a good host. “Now, my friends, I must go and mingle. Do enjoy yourselves. Wander around anywhere you like. Have as much to drink as you like. Enjoy this beautiful desert night.”

      We all nodded as he moved off into the crowd, embracing and kissing the next group of people. The four of us stood awkwardly for a moment.

      “Oh, go ahead,” I finally said. “Tell me what you see in me, Hassan.”

      He hesitated. “No, I think when someone is reluctant, it’s best not to.”

      Now I was curious. “No, really. Go ahead. I was just kidding.”

      “Yeah,” Randall said. “What do you see in Danny?”

      Frank looked at me uncomfortably over his wineglass as the photographer trained his gaze on me. This time there was no quick pronouncement. He started to say something, then stopped.

      “What is it?” I asked. “I feel like I’m with a fortune-teller who doesn’t want to give me bad news.”

      “I don’t see anything,” Hassan said finally.

      I smiled. “So finally someone has stumped you, huh?”

      Hassan shook his head. “No. I mean I see nothing. If I took a picture of you, I would be taking a picture of emptiness.”

      I had no reply to that.

      “Well,” Frank said, moving in to defend me, placing his arm around my shoulders, “you’re wrong about that, Hassan. Danny is hardly empty. He has tremendous passion and great talent—”

      “I am sure that he does,” Hassan said. “I did not mean to offend. But you asked me what I saw. And when I look at you, my friend, I see a great aching emptiness. Something that is missing. Something that you are always looking for but have never found. If I took a picture of you, that is what would come through on the image.”

      “Well,” I said, trying to lighten the mood, “then maybe I ought to stick to getting my shots done at Olan Mills.”

      We all smiled.

      “Please,” Hassan said, “you will not take offense at my words?”

      “No,” I assured him. “No offense.”

      But I lied.

      I wanted to get away from them. From all of them. From this entire party of powdered and perfumed peacocks. Friends in Los Angeles had told me I’d never make it big, really big, as an artist until I learned to schmooze. But I hated schmoozing. Hated smiling at people I didn’t know, making small talk with people I didn’t want to talk with, being charming to a room full of phonies when all I really wanted to do was hang out at home, on my couch, the remote control in my hand, flipping back and forth between reruns of Doctor Who and the E! True Hollywood Story.

      But smile I did, and small talk I did engage in, as we moved in and among the crowd, getting kissed by Ruta Lee and clucked over by queens. I did my best. At least forty percent of the assemblage would leave that night with my card in their pockets. As Thad dragged me from one of his friends to another, I kept smiling and shaking hands, popping breath mints repeatedly into my mouth. Soon enough, I needed another drink, and Jimmy, Thad’s less gregarious lover, was dispatched for a refill. I was glad for that, not wanting to approach the bar again myself.

      And then, midway through the night, a murmur rippled through the crowd. Donovan and Penelope Sue Hunt had arrived at the front door. Everyone stopped their conversations, whipped their eyes away from their companions, and turned to see.

      “Well,” Randall purred in my ear, “if it ain’t your old boyfriend.”

      “Donovan,” I breathed.

      Long before he’d married Penelope Sue, Donovan had carried the torch for me. He was so rich that labels like gay or straight were simply nuisances. Absurd categorizations. Someone as wealthy as Donovan Hunt didn’t need to declare one way or the other—though, given the number of beautiful boys he always had on his payroll, his preferences were obvious to everyone. Penelope Sue, at least a decade older than her husband, didn’t seem to care one way or another, provided he was on her arm at every function. Tonight she looked her usual shining self, with her big copper hair piled up on top of her head and bright pink lipstick smeared across her face as bold as Joan Crawford had ever worn, outlining and emphasizing her collagen-injected lips. Donovan, at her side, was as tall and handsome