THE TWILIGHT CLUB by Leslee Becker

They’d been saying on the news that the wildfires in Colorado had forced wild animals closer to town. People were warned to be vigilant. The cat that belonged to Dan’s ex-partner had vanished before the fires, a month ago. Dan and Tony had split up right after that. Since then, Dan had been reading Tony’s restaurant reviews in the local paper for evidence that Tony had found a new partner, and also checking the Lost and Found Pets in the newspaper and on Facebook and Craigslist, where Tony weekly petitioned for Lulu’s return.
There were scores of missing animals because of the fires. Lulu was likely dead, but Tony hadn’t given up. He’d removed Dan’s cell phone number, though, and revised the ad they’d written together.
“Still lost. Time running out. Glamorous orange and white domestic middle-aged long-haired cat. Lulu. Male. Neutered. Last seen on West Magnolia St. Skittish. Do not chase, but easily enticed with treats. Responds well to loyalty and devotion.”
Dan felt that the new listing resembled something a desperate person would write when looking for a suitable mate. He knew the ad was proof that he’d not been a suitable mate for Tony. He had not responded well to loyalty and devotion. He’d cheated on Tony, and Tony had been right to dump him; nonetheless, he had called Tony again last weekend.
“Have you found him?” he’d asked.
Tony hung up, and to his list of resolutions Dan added never calling Tony again, but he checked restaurants Tony might be visiting, and later drove by Tony’s house.
What have I become? he wondered that night, titillated at the sight of the bedroom light upstairs, yet not seeing what he’d feared to see – another man with Tony. No, the light upstairs had simply confirmed Tony’s routines and his own absence.
The last thing they’d done as partners was make posters and compose ads for Facebook and Craigslist, laboring over each word, as if spelling out an official and binding contract. They’d been together seven years. Tony was sixty-five, Dan fifty-two, and though they’d never discussed formally recognizing their relationship through a civil union or marriage, they had agreed that if either of them took up with someone else, their partnership would be dissolved.
“Have You Seen Me?” their posting began, above a picture of Lulu, looking rakish on his special loveseat. “Glamorous orange and white domestic longhair. Male. Lulu. Approximate age 11. Declawed. Neutered. Petite. Shy, but responds well to human kindness.”
The day after they posted Lulu’s listing, Dan got a call from a crazy woman, complaining about the ad, and likely trying to ferret out personal details about him and Tony.
“How come you didn’t implant a microchip?” the woman had asked.
“Lulu’s an indoor cat. Have you seen him?”
“I have not. What you’ve got there is a husky cat. I would not say that your cat is petite. And how come you’re playing loose with the sex, giving a male a female name?”
Dan had hung up on her.
If he’d had a say in the new ad, he would’ve noted that Lulu could sniff out trouble, a watchful, possessive cat whose knowing gaze had often rattled Dan when he and Tony had squabbles. Perched royally on a nearby chair, Lulu’s yellow eyes passed judgment. Dan knew that Lulu always saw him as the interloper and rival, perhaps suspecting all along that after seven years, Dan would stray. It happened a month ago. On a night Tony was in Denver at a culinary event, Dan had had sex with a young man he’d met at a bar, and Lulu had watched the antics with disapproval. Two rank human beings, smelling of booze and sweat, the younger, toned one having impossibly white teeth and a recently issued hairdo, the other one, pudgy and loud, taking it with his socks on, his face buried in a pillow, his buttocks pink from spanking. And then the men had reversed positions, and Dan had seen Lulu’s nostrils flare, his teeth bared, tail twitching, as if the cat were ready to bite or spray him. He had lifted Lulu from the chair, and deposited him in the backyard to be spared the cat’s close examination of his character.
He’d told Tony only partial truths later that night, when he admitted to the fling, but said nothing about leaving Lulu in the backyard. Tony, in his pajamas, had kept looking down, as if Lulu would appear.
“I met someone,” Dan had said. He’d expected a lacerating assault, stunned to discover how much he wanted it, if only to understand his own motives for detachment and infidelity. He’d been finding fault with Tony, and trying to convince himself it was natural to find fault when you feel that the person closest to you is receding, and that you’ll be left without a mate and witness.
“Why would you do such a thing?” Tony had said. “In our house? For all I know, your lover walked off with Lulu. Who is this guy? I’m going to call him.”
And then that became the focus, with Dan telling the truth about the lover, that they’d exchanged first names, not phone numbers.
“And I’m paying the price,” Tony had said. “I’ve lost everything, everything.”
Dan thought that Tony was being a drama queen. “We all have to make adjustments,” he’d said, as if addressing a financial client. “I’m sorry.”
“The trouble with you is that you confuse pain with pleasure because it’s sensation.”
Later, after Dan moved out, he called the pet shelters, and drove around his old neighborhood, searching for Lulu, afraid of seeing his body in the gutter, or mangled in the road. He’d even seen himself bearing Lulu in his arms at Tony’s door. He didn’t know if he’d confess to Tony, just that he couldn’t dispel his conviction that Tony might already have another partner, a decent man. As for himself, he had no one. It had been a one-night stand with the louche young man, and Dan was currently living in a condo, as if the biggest price of his deceit had been down-sizing.
And now, on Saturday, in the Snooze Academy, as he looked at the mattresses, sheets, and pillows, he arrived at an obvious conclusion: the cost of bedding was exorbitant. He’d heard coworkers at the investment firm rave about how much better they slept since buying mattresses and pillows at the Snooze Academy, so he went there, glad that the salesman was waiting on an elderly couple, who were testing the king-size model, muttering about how complicated buying a bed had become, exactly what Dan was thinking, and also trying to imagine himself and Tony, two old fairies, publicly testing the comfort levels.
The brochure described the problems of conventional mattresses and how experts had designed a unique one that adjusted to each person for custom comfort and personalized support. Dan studied the information, as if preparing for an important test, and then quickly tried each bed, while the couple handled their transaction.
“I hope we get our money’s worth,” the man said. “This mattress cost more than a Caribbean cruise.”
“It’ll last you a lifetime,” said the salesman. “Guaranteed.”
“She has sleep apnea,” the man announced. “And lower back pain.”
“Back pain’s a real misery,” the salesman said. “I hear about it a lot, even experienced it myself. It impacted my whole personality.”
The woman shook her head. “We’ve tried everything, but to no avail. We really appreciate your help.”
A wave of tenderness washed over Dan. It had been happening often, these bouts of emotion. He’d be in the supermarket, deliberating over microwave meals, and suddenly be on the verge of tears, or gripped by a riveting anger at customers yakking on cell phones, while kids turned operatic. Yesterday, he’d almost gone overboard, the awful music and the sight of his impulse purchases putting him in a foul mood. He’d been ready to blast the checkout clerk the moment she asked how his day was going, but she complimented him on his shirt, and he went into elaborate detail about where he bought it, and how he loved the fabric.
“I figure you to be a side sleeper,” the salesman told Dan. His name tag said Bradley.
“Sometimes,” Dan said.
“So, we’ll count you as a side sleeper,” Bradley said. “Got a spouse?”
“Also a side sleeper,” Dan said.
“That helps us narrow the choices. Lots to choose from here, as you can see, but once you pick the level of firmness, you’re close to home.”
Dan chose an extra firm king-sized bed.
“Excellent choice,” Bradley said, then discussed the delivery time.
The pillows alone cost over two hundred dollars, and Dan tried to see the bright side, the story he could tell at work, but the person he most wanted to tell was Tony.
He returned home, ashamed of the money he’d spent. He’d made an investment in an allergen-free bed that would last a lifetime. It’d be futile to indulge in buyer’s remorse. He knew the new bed wouldn’t be the solution for his longing and sense of irretrievable loss. He’d lived with Tony for seven years, seven years, in a spacious house with character, and now he was in a bereaved-looking condominium that seemed, given the noise of power mowers, leaf blowers, and repair of the building, to require the extensive work one would expect of the Palace of Versailles. He’d furnished the condo haphazardly, after staying in a motel in May, and now it was mid-June, and he’d yet to unpack most of his boxes.
He went into the bedroom, knowing he’d forfeited much more than a house. He saw the newspaper on the nightstand, but was afraid of reading Tony’s latest restaurant review, so he rushed out and drove to the outskirts of town to the gay bar. It could’ve been the haze from the forest fires, but everything seemed dirty and squalid, the air smelling of smoke and diesel fuel. The bar was tucked in a district filled with storage units and warehouses, the sparse trees looking ashy and ineffectual among the gray buildings. He heard the throbbing music as he waited in the parking lot. It was Happy Hour, and the men in the bar would have the alert look of people on the hunt. He stepped out of his car, and then saw a trio of older, bearded men in business suits arriving, one of them with an unfortunate toupee. The man with the toupee nodded and winked at Dan, muttering something to his friends that made them grin.
Dan drove away, and was listening to a particularly sad Nina Simone CD, when he saw a scrawny young man hitchhiking. He had never picked up a hitchhiker before.
The young man thanked Dan, and introduced himself as Jason.
“I’m a country music fan myself,” Jason said, “not the new stuff, though.”
“Yes, it’s all gone downhill.”
“I can’t tell who’s singing anymore, or what they’re saying, but those old-timers knew that everything in life can be related to a country tune. Anyhow, makes me feel I’m not alone.”
Dan had not been honest with Jason about his age, job, or history with Tony, but when he brought Jason back to the condo, he was touched by his approval of the place. Jason praised the condo, saying he liked the brand-new look of it.
“I like hotel and motel rooms,” Jason said. “No responsibilities. I like to travel light.”
When Dan asked him about his background, Jason said, “You want to know about my originality?”
“Yes, your origins. Where you were raised.”
“Kentucky. Left home to join the service. I have many interests.”
Jason was polite and sincere, and the sex was satisfactory. He stayed at Dan’s place that night, and after Jason left on Sunday afternoon, Dan mulled over all his actions the past month – cheating on Tony, abandoning Lulu – wondering if his behavior had been an attempt to arrive at something conclusive. Wouldn’t there be some gratification in knowing you’d lost everything, and might then have the luxury of believing that nothing you did mattered anymore? He thought of what Tony had said about confusing pain with pleasure. Had Tony been trying to say that he confused pain with love? It was Tony, after all, who’d said on their anniversary last year: “You’re stuck with the love I’ve got. Do you believe in it?”
Before leaving town, Jason thanked Dan for letting him see how the other half lived, and he’d given Dan a housewarming gift. A hummingbird feeder. “You can put it on your balcony. They might not come for a while, but – ”
“They’re skittish,” Dan said.
“Yeah, but just you wait.”
And there it was, on the balcony of Dan’s condo. Some of the red nectar had disappeared, but maybe through evaporation, he thought, given the hot weather.
Still on the bedroom nightstand was yesterday’s newspaper that he’d been afraid to read because of the way Tony had been reviewing local restaurants the past month.
“Hey, what’s your old pal got against mussels?” one of Dan’s coworkers had asked him two weeks ago.
“Seaside Fails to Rise to the Occasion,” was the heading of Tony’s article, followed by what he’d found unsatisfactory about the mussels and the other offerings at the restaurant, but what had seized Dan was the fact that Tony had mentioned a companion in the review and in all the others that had followed since.
“My companion wisely ordered the halibut. Regrettably, I chose the ahi tuna and a spinach and asparagus salad with caramelized walnuts, peaches, Spanish olives, anchovies, and capers that should’ve been separated by their irreconcilable differences.”
Dan had saved the reviews, arranging them chronologically in a file folder, as he did at the firm for clients, keeping records of their investments and projections for the future.
Last week, Tony had described a new restaurant in town “as an ideal place to take someone you want to impress.” He’d praised the entrees for their “excellent pairings,” and how the wine selection “consorted happily” with the pasta. Tony had concluded by saying that he and his companion would be making regular stops at Panache.
Today, Dan saw a scathing review of Mancuso’s, a local restaurant that had been in business for years, which Tony described as a place “unsullied by decent cuisine and décor.” Dan felt a pinch in his heart. Mancuso’s had been one of their favorite restaurants. Tony had taken him there seven years ago, when Dan was new in town. They’d met at a car dealership. Tony had brought in his old BMW for a tune-up, praising the car, and how he planned to keep it forever. He might’ve been talking about a lover, Dan had thought, given his lavish praise of the car and his loyalty to it.
Tony had driven through Old Town after dinner, and then ushered Dan into his elegant Victorian house. The cat made a brief appearance that night, cautiously descending the stairs, not even giving Dan the once-over, before scurrying behind a sofa.
“That’s Lulu,” Tony had said. “The Little Dauphin. He’s quite particular, so count yourself lucky that he deigned to give you a glimpse of his royal self.”
And then he told Dan the story about finding the cat one day at his doorstep. “He was quite reduced then, the product of neglect. I checked the classifieds and the shelters. I thought he was a female, but I was mistaken. I never bothered to change his name. He’s my constant companion. I had him declawed. The furniture, you know.”
“Of course,” Dan had said.
Months later, when Tony invited him to move in, he’d made the offer sound more like a chance to move up in the world, as if the main attraction was living in a handsome house, rather than with him.
Was this the root of the problem? Tony never felt loved? Forced to use the house and its artifacts as enticements? They’d both had other partners before, but Dan felt he’d found his match. Among the many benefits of loving Tony was the belief that he’d no longer have to be on the hunt. The sex was fine, but what surprised him most was the pleasure he found in small things, the simple routines of eating and shopping together, and watching TV and movies in bed.
“Where do you suppose they found him?” Tony had said one night about a once-handsome leading man. “He looks like the recently embalmed. Promise me, sweetie, that you’ll administer a lethal injection if I ever end up looking so ravaged.”
Dan wished now that he could chart the progress and decline of his history with Tony, as he did when analyzing investments for clients, seeing obvious spikes, gains, and plummeting losses, with their reasonable correlation to world-wide events. Something, or likely many things, had happened to make him weary of Tony’s descriptions of his medical concerns, his visits to various specialists, his latest diet regimen.
In bed at night, with Lulu acting as sentinel, Tony would look sadly at his own body, running his hands over it. The week before Lulu went missing, Tony had asked Dan to touch his throat, where Tony had discovered a small nodule.
“Feel that? It wasn’t there last week. It’s close to the thyroid. This is worrisome.”
“It’s that new diet. You’re depriving yourself of vital nutrients,” Dan had said, wanting badly to say, “You’re depriving yourself of me and sex.”
He’d conveyed Tony to a doctor, taking time from work, and seeing people coming and going from the clinic, many of them with walkers and portable oxygen tanks, and there he was among the walking wounded, prepared to react to the usual diagnosis – nothing to worry about – when Tony emerged, looking devastated. Dan touched his hand. “Bad news?”
Tony had nodded. “I have to cut down on my salt intake, and they want me to try a gluten-free diet.”
“We can do this,” Dan said, sounding like an earnest cheerleader. Surely, Tony felt the artificiality of their interactions, too, the hyped-up remarks about meals, movies, and how much they loved or despised certain people. But beyond this, was a concern that he and Tony had become so fused that everything that signaled Tony’s decline applied to himself. Whenever Tony mentioned how lucky they were to be longtime companions, Dan had felt a lurching dread.
On the front page of the paper that contained Tony’s review of Mancuso’s were pictures of the fires west of town, and an interview with a woman whose dream house had burned down. “It’s only things. They’re replaceable,” said the woman. “I thank God for sparing me and my beloved animals.”
Tony would’ve seen the same article, and Dan imagined him saying, “Certain things are not replaceable. My things. They make it sound like a big old swap meet.”
Dan looked at his bedroom, wanting to see the benefits of temporariness, as if he were Jason, and could feel an agreeable lightness in not being attached.
Tony answered the phone on the first ring, and Dan was taken aback when Tony said,
“You must’ve read my mind. I was just about to call you.”
“Oh, really?” Dan said, and waited a moment. “I’ve been thinking of you, and – ”
“They found him. I thought you should know.”
“Dead?”
“No. Nothing short of a miracle, I’d say, given what’s been happening. Who would’ve believed that Lulu could’ve survived this long, and in the wilderness, mind you.”
“The wilderness?”
“Some people found him up in Poudre Canyon. Our little home boy probably consorted with coyotes and wolves.”
“But he’s all right now? He’s home with you?”
It was the pause that made Dan’s heart race.
“No, he’s not all right. Far from it, but I’ve had help, thank God,” Tony finally said.
Here it comes, Dan thought, bracing himself for Tony’s admission that he’d found a new lover.
“After Lulu disappeared, I hired a detective, a psychic pet finder. I was at my wit’s end. I’d lost my loyal companion.”
“People resort to anything imaginable in dire circumstances,” Dan muttered.
“She told me it all starts at home. She did a thorough investigation. I’ll spare you the details.”
But he did not spare Dan the details, and Dan felt a familiar impatience with Tony’s account of the high-tech equipment the finder used, how she’d collected artifacts from the house, and had a vision of Lulu in a dangerous place.
“Maybe Lulu was trying to find his original home,” Dan interjected.
“He was sending a message. Animals communicate better than us. He must’ve felt – ”
“Betrayed?” Dan was sorry as soon as he’d said it.
“Unloved,” Tony said, and paused, as if to give Dan time to consider the gravity of the situation. “I need to ask something of you, and I want you to be honest.”
Dan closed his eyes for a moment, certain that Tony would ask him a direct question about his culpability in Lulu’s disappearance.
“Lulu’s at Creature Comforts. I have to make a decision. I’d appreciate your help and support.”
Dan wasn’t sure if he should feel relief or anguish. He wanted to try to respond coolly and professionally as he would at work, or as Jason might.
“It’s natural to resist putting him down, but I need to know if this is in his best interest or yours,” he told Tony.
“Both. I’d say both. If you were Lulu, wouldn’t you want to be in familiar surroundings, when the end came?”
Dan cringed, and what he’d been prepared to say about Lulu being in pain seemed entirely wrong now.
“I’ll put him down at home,” Tony said. “That was my dilemma. They’re awaiting my decision. These kind people offer to come to your home to perform the procedure.”
“I’ve come to my senses,” Dan said. He waited for Tony to respond, but a car alarm went off outside, and he had to raise his voice. “I’ve done despicable things.”
“Jesus,” he muttered, when he realized that Tony had hung up. He knew he should be thinking of what Tony was facing, but foremost in his mind was that he now had the solitary consolation of knowing he’d been wrong about Tony taking up with another man. His dining companion was likely the pet finder, a woman Dan pictured as being stout, with boisterous red hair and garish makeup.
He chose the shirt the supermarket clerk had admired, and when he stepped outside, the air seemed especially close, as if it’d been boiled, the bleached-looking sky singed with a hem of crimson.
The Creature Comforts’ car was in Tony’s driveway, a hybrid model with depictions of cats and dogs above the slogan: “24 Hours a Day! Taking Care of Your Loved Ones As They Cross the Rainbow Bridge.”
He wiped his shoes on the doormat, then went inside, hearing an aria on the stereo.
A young man and a young woman stood in the center of the living room. The woman told him he’d arrived just in time, her coworker assuring Dan that Lulu wouldn’t feel a thing.
“Your buddy’s with him upstairs. He’s been medicated,” he whispered. “Want to join him?”
Dan shook his head, and the young woman gave him a sympathetic look. She leaned toward him, and even with all the flowers in the room, Dan could detect a medicinal scent.
“This is our third home-visit today. But that doesn’t make it any easier for us or for you.”
Dan glanced at the fireplace mantel. Tony hadn’t removed the pictures of him, the ones of them together, and the gifts Dan had given him, all there among many photographs of Lulu.
Tony walked slowly down the stairs, wearing a dark suit. He’d lost weight, and it showed in the shoulders of the suit, and in his wrists, a prominence of bone and veins. He was holding Lulu in his loveseat, the cat cocooned in a red fleece blanket, his head lolling. Dan had expected Lulu’s eyes to be closed, but they were wide open, the pupils dilated.
Dan began to move toward Tony, but stopped short of touching him for fear that the gesture might seem too intimate.
“He looks better than I expected,” Dan said, and it was only then that Tony acknowledged his presence with a nod.
The Creature Comforts workers placed some of Lulu’s favorite toys on the antique oak table, and then motioned for Dan to join Tony in front of the fireplace.
Dan wondered if his trembling was noticeable. He looked down at Tony’s shoes, bright and polished, but his socks were mismatched. And as he stood there, the two young people facing him and Tony, he knew that he should pay attention to the words of comfort they were reciting, but he was eager to hear Tony’s final remarks to Lulu.
“Ready?” the woman asked.
“I don’t want to be alone,” Tony said, and closed his eyes as the woman administered the injection. Within seconds, Dan saw Lulu’s head flop down.
He felt superfluous moments later, when Tony sat down with the duo, signing forms, and discussing how they’d handle the cremation and the urn for Lulu’s ashes. He watched Tony politely walk them to the door. “You carried out your duties in a way befitting Lulu. Dignified. Your kindness is most appreciated.”
Then Tony sat on the sofa. “This is the time when we could have us a good cry, or raise a toast to Lulu, but I feel, I don’t know, depleted, cored out.”
“You’ve been in shock,” Dan said, sitting beside Tony, “but you look fine, better than I expected.”
“And you, my dear, look wasted. Is there something you want to tell me?”
The aria was still playing, and Dan thought of the oddness of the moment and of so many moments at airports, doctors’ offices, restaurants, even at his investment firm, when people enacted everyday human and intimate dramas to theme music. The real and private things had to be shouted, or remain unspoken. He could not say that he’d been happy or unhappy living with Tony. He’d felt comfort, possibly contentment. Why was that something to dread?
“I’ve been taking stock of my life,” Dan began. “I’m afraid.”
“Welcome to the club.”
How easy it was to let Tony take the upper hand. Would anything be gained now by confessing to Tony that he’d deposited Lulu in the backyard?
“Companionship offers consolations,” Tony said.
Dan wondered if Tony meant him, Lulu, or both.
Then Tony talked about the people who’d lost everything in the recent fires, and how he’d been spared catastrophe. “I have my home and a job that sustains me. Free meals, and the opportunity to sample many dishes and many establishments. I might even try to extend my range, you know, going to out-of-town places, maybe even going national.”
Dan was surprised by Tony’s optimism, as if Tony believed that a long and bright future lay in store. A lie. A lie, he thought.
“Well, that’s over,” Tony said. He stood up, and when he turned his back on Dan, Dan felt a cold sensation in his spine. It was time for him to leave, but he remained on the sofa, noting how stooped Tony had become, his shoulder blades evident as he picked up Lulu’s loveseat and toys, and seemed uncertain of the next step.
“Let’s put everything right back in the bedroom,” Dan said, his voice sounding unnecessarily loud and bold. “No need to take drastic measures now. Why not ease into it, removing his things when you feel ready? No need to rush. You have a long life ahead of you.”
“I don’t think that I can ever trust you, but we can all use a little sweet talk.”
Dan followed Tony up the stairs, and it might’ve been the sight of Tony bearing the loveseat, and wearing mismatched socks, that made him feel inexplicably hopeful, as if he and Tony were boys, a lush and generous future ahead of them, both of them postponing, at least for a while, the reverent behavior others might expect on such a solemn occasion.
“Good,” Dan’s lover had said when Dan had returned to the bedroom after depositing Lulu in the backyard. “Now, I’ve got you all to myself. I want to lick every inch of you.”

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Leslee Becker is the author of the short story collection The Sincere Café (Mid List Press, 1996). Her stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, and Boston Review.