Page 22 - Titanic: The Untold Tale of Gay Passengers and Crew

8 Jack Fritscher

above of the orchestra playing the “Varsouviana.” The roar-
ing, re volving engines drove their long steel pistons deep into
Titanic’s guts like huge copula tion machines. The maze of
cat walks was lined at both rails with sailors, coalmen, cooks,
mechanics, and blackamoor masseurs from the Turkish steam
room. The hot red tips of the crewmen’s rolled ciga rettes and
the gentlemen’s cigars blinked with each drag in the dark like
stars signaling in the night. We threaded our way through
the silent, standing men, taking our bearings.
“I leave you gentlemen here,” Felix said. “They look rough.
They are rough, most of them, some of them, no doubt,
criminals, but they know where they are. Titanic is their
discipline. They must be careful with nowhere to escape but
the open sea. So you are safe. Perfect, yes? They know you
are not them. The same as you gentlemen, they have their
terms. They want at night only what they give you by day.
Ser vice.” He turned, then turned back. “Enjoy yourselves,
gentle men.” He disap peared through the lounging lines of
men standing in the half-darkness of the red bulbs lighting
the engine room.
“Let’s take an adventure,” Edward said. “Let’s split up.”
“Divide and conquer.”
He put his arms around me, even surrounded as we were
by so many dark eyes in the red glow. “I love you,” he said.
“I love you,” I said. “More than life itself.”
“Ah,” he said, “but not more than all this irresistible cock.”
“Let’s regroup at our suite.”
“When?”
“Whenever.”
“Our clock is not ticking.”
“Time is not run ning out on us. We have a week to kill
on this voyage.”