The Gargoyle

“It doesn’t matter if you agree. One ca

I pointed out that it was not actually the one-year a

“You should not regard time in such literal terms,” Maria

“I thought every day mattered,” I said. “Especially the ones when you almost die.”

It would have sounded more dramatic, I think, if at that exact moment Bougatsa had not jumped into the air beside us to snap wildly at some bug buzzing around his head.

“But you didn’t,” Maria

“Not really.”

“Then begi

She believed sincerely that I was starting over, and I suppose I was: but not entirely, and I felt a twinge of shame at what I was doing with the cash I was advancing from the credit card Jack had set up for me.

A few days later, Maria

“The nearest porno shop.” My voice, revving like a rusted motor, made the taxi driver size me up in the rearview mirror. He seemed to have some second thoughts about taking the invisible man on a field trip, but they were dispelled when I held up my credit card. The driver put the car into motion and we passed the front of St. Romanus, where Father Shanahan was changing the white plastic sign to read: “Was Your Friday As Good As It Could Have Been?”

When we arrived at the Triple-XXX Velvet Palace, I asked the driver to wait. He nodded; he had seen me hobble into the car and knew that I couldn’t run far. Entering the shop was like coming home. There were the familiar smells of latex, leather, and lube. To my right was a collection of anal probes and giant rubber cocks, and to my left was an assortment of French maid and Japanese schoolgirl outfits. Magazines lined the walls, but I was interested in the videos at the back. Sca

Back in the belfry, I slid the movie into the player. There was the warm blue glow of the television screen followed by the logo of my old production company. The plot, as in most pornos, left something to be desired; even to me-writer, actor, director, and producer-it was muddled. The film opens with a woman, A

I thought of the day of the shoot. The catering came from Sun Lee’s Chinese Take-Out, just down the street, and the delivery arrived late. Boyce Burgess worked the camera and Irdman Dickson did the sound and, despite the fact that we were shooting at one in the afternoon, Irdman was plastered. As the director, I would’ve reprimanded him if I had not been blasted on cocaine. In fact, if you carefully scrutinize the film, you can see a small gold spoon on my necklace bouncing out of my doctor’s coat as I rear-end A

This opening scene is, regrettably, the cleverest part of the film. From this point forward, the story becomes exponentially more ludicrous. One of my lovers is a psychiatrist, who continually prattles about my hostility towards women as I spank her. Meanwhile, A

All this would seem laughable if not for the way I looked. My hair bounced with each thrust of my pelvis, and my skin shone beautifully as sweat crept down my neck onto my chest. The muscles of my arms flexed as I spanked my silly-stern mistress, letting her out and reeling her back in. My smile strained the corners of my retractorless mouth and my face tensed in wonderful anticipation as I neared orgasm.

I had to turn the video off: it sickened me to see the princely boy I’d been, compared with the wretched thing that I’d become. It sickened me to see, forever captured on film, the sweat on my smooth skin. I, who can no longer perspire. Is this how Fred Astaire felt as an old man unable to dance? Footage of one’s athletic youth is a kind of tyra

When I hit the eject button, the tape came whirring from the machine like a tongue sticking out at me. I took it down to the fireplace in the living room, where I placed it on a pile of torn newspaper. Taking a match to it, I watched the flames jump up to engulf the cassette.

That was the last time I ever looked at one of my old films.

Sayuri was coming once or twice a week, always smiling as she put me through my increasingly difficult paces. The results could not be denied: my body was starting to uncurl its contracted muscles, my back begi

Kinetic basics mastered, we set out on walks of greater speed and longer distance. Bougatsa demanded to come along as well, ru

She always checked my garments during her visits, and occasionally found something that needed modification. As the scars on my face healed under the constant pressure, the mask needed to be adjusted. Sayuri would sand it down accordingly, and a few times even took it to the hospital to be reshaped. Once, the mask came back having been altered incorrectly; when I pointed this out to Sayuri, she muttered to herself in Japanese: “Saru mo ki kara ochiru.” When I asked what that meant, she answered, “‘Even monkeys fall from trees.’ It means-”