Page 60 of Two Marlboros

(?Jennifer Paige - Crush)

Is the leader of Wit Matrix dating someone?

The photo showing William Clide, leader of Wit Matrix, in the company of a mysterious tattooed boy dates back to more than a week.

William, already known for dating prominent figures (first with Angelica Priest, an actress, until 1998; then with Carter Wallace, until April of this year), now seems interested in someone away from the spotlight.

We know nothing, in fact, about the guy William met between July 25 and 26, in the middle of the night, in front of Webster Hall nightclub (logo in the box on the right), between the 3rd and the 11th.

The only detail immortalized is the unusual tattoo on the back of his right hand; the mysterious boy had a hood hiding his face, an attitude perhaps due to the popularity of what could be his boyfriend.

The two seemed quite intimate and were confabulating with each other, perhaps about how to hide the newly formed relationship. There were several contacts between the two, but no outpouring - not yet!

Is this going to be a major affair or just one of the many flings that William has now accustomed us to?

Whether the relationship between the two was important was the least of my thoughts. Just seeing that tattoo had mademe sling over the paper, and as soon as I had seen the small logo in the box on the right, depicting an animal with horns, I had not hesitated a moment to buy it. The logo was identical in every way to the one I had found at Michael Cossner’s house and belonged to a famous Manhattan nightclub.

The detail that had struck me most of all, however, had been that tattoo. It did not take me long to remember it was the same pattern I had seen on the boy involved in a fight the night of the concert. In fact, it could have been possible that the boy was at the Wit Matrix concert to meet the band leader again. I did not think it was a great choice to arrange a secret meeting in public, but perhaps they wanted to go for the crowding factor hoping of going unnoticed. The boy, however, had a Webster Hall membership card, the same one that Michael most likely possessed.

It seemed that the threads of the skein were gradually unraveling, leaving me a chance to glimpse the core of the matter. Unfortunately, I was still far from finding out where Michael had gone and why he had disappeared, but that nightclub represented a rather important clue.

Monday arrived all too soon. The subway stopped in the proximity of the Empire State Building, then started its ride, and jolted me once again, to the right and to the left. I only wished for a seat rather than the wobbly handle, so that I could make peace with those thoughts that had woken me up in the middle of the night and had been plaguing me ever since I had been awake.

In fact, I had taken my car to work and had driven a couple of blocks, but I had almost run over an elderly woman in a crosswalk; so, I had pulled over and stared into the void for a handful of minutes. No, I hadn’t: I had been stunned because I had returned to another dimension, the dimension of the dreamthat had made me wake up with my heart pounding, and I had returned to it even in that precise moment, on the subway.

In the dream there was Oliver. I was locked in the bathroom, and I could hear him pounding his fists on the door as he begged me to get out. In the bathroom, however, I was not alone. Nor had I locked myself in.

It was Oliver who had been locked out.

And it was Nathan who was in there with me.

It was Nathan who was encircling my body with his hands, as his fingers grazed the skin at the edge of my shirt, which I wore outside my pants - only I never wore my shirt outside my pants. And it was also true that I never kissed Nathan. I seemed to really feel his lips on mine, his tongue licking them, the same tongue he used to lick ice cream with. I sensed a faint taste of tobacco, but I knew it was only my imagination; I squeezed and tasted them again, only to have it confirmed that it existed only in my head. I closed my eyes for a moment and felt again the slight pop of his lips the moment they parted from mine, along with a trickle of saliva that tried to keep us together as much as possible, and then split us apart.

I reopened my eyes and in front of me was only the window of the subway showing me the darkness in which it sped by and there, hidden in the reflections, my bamboozled silhouette.

One, two, three knocks on the door.

It was Oliver trying to break it down, but I knew he would never succeed. There was no key, maybe not even a lock, but that was my dream, and I knew he would not break it down. With bated breath I looked into Nathan’s eyes, those same eyes that had watched me through the smoke on an all too hot August night.

One, two, three more beats: it was Oliver.

In front of me was Nathan, his lips parted and a cloud of smoke coming out of his mouth, filling the air, and penetratingmy nostrils. I breathed heavily and felt it go down my throat, then take root inside me.

The subway began to slow down; a hiss accompanied the braking, and I took a few steps toward the exit. Meanwhile, memories began to fade. There would be no more dreaming, no more...kissing. I would only see Nathan again if necessary.

The doors opened and, in front of me, I read the name of the stop.

I had arrived at the Brooklyn Bridge.

Exiting the subway, I took the stairs to the surface, and for a moment Nathan’s lips upon with mine returned to my mind. I then clutched the lukewarm metal handrail and climbed the steps counting them one by one, interspersed with increasingly faded frames, until I was on the surface. I breathed heavily and the image of our lips together disappeared, but it only took a moment’s inattention for the soft moans to appear, the wheezing of his breath and mine, along with the need to cast my eye over every single car that sped past me. Of each I tried to guess the brand and model and do a color count, two missions I only half accomplished, but enough so that the noise of traffic covered everything else.

Arriving at the station, the blond head of a colleague passed me by, but for once I was faster than my mind and so I raided my pockets, from which I had pulled out a couple of receipts that I read with renewed attention, before finding my badge to get in. I greeted my colleagues and, for each of them, repeated in my mind their first and last name, and role. My little game came to an end when I arrived at the office, where thank goodness, I found Ashton, who immediately came to meet me.

“I was just looking for you!”

“How enthusiastic,” I replied, and smiled at him, fearing he would consider it a sarcastic remark. After that I laid the tabloid magazine on the desk, to which he cast a glance.

“Do you read this stuff?”

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