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"Sorry if I’ym But sweet Jesus it’s cold in here And I have no idea where the goddamn thermostat is"

"Oh?" I say, stuck, then try to nod "I yestures with his head-"in the base myself to be more casual "That’s so coolback to the co a Diet Coke to his lips "You’re lucky you’re here-Bruce is cooking tonight" He turns back around "Hey, you want so of croissants in the kitchen somewhere and if Bentley didn’t drink it, maybe some OJ left"

Pause "Oh, that’s okay, that’s okay I’ vacantly

"You want a Bloody Mary?" He grins "Or maybe some Visine? Your eyes look a little red, my friend"

"No, no" A pause, a shy s, barely "It’s okay It’s cool"

"You sure, guy?" he asks

"Um, yeah, uh-huh"

Expelled his first terhes started hteen to skyrocket froht sensation This was followed by beco Armani’s favorite model and then various million-dollar deals, suo Boss ad where Bobby was flipping off the ca line "Does Anybody Really Notice?" below him in red neon letters, and then the historic Calvin Klein co vacant and coughing while a girl’s voice-over whispered, "It will co-opt your ego," and when GQ still ran models on the cover, Bobby’s face was there endlessly, dead-eyed and poised He was the boytoy in two Madonna videos, the "sad lost guy" in a Belinda Carlisle clip and shirtless in countless others because he had a set of breathtaking abdo attention to the torso, and he was probably thehis career he walked thousands of runways, garnering the nickname "The Showstopper" He was on the cover of the’ Smiths’ last albureat press, which always pushed the notion that beneath the drifting surfer-dude ihes was "alert" and had a "hest-paidthe 1980s because he siht-after look, the perfect body His calendar soldthe winter of 1989, which here he said, not at all defensively, "I know exactly what I’," and then he more or less just vacated the NewYork fashion scene-all this before an, before I was known as Victor Ward, before I an to take shape and started to expand-and then the occasional grainy photograph of hiazines (Bobby Hughes attending a consulate party in Milan, Bobby Hughes standing in the rain on Wardour Street dressed in Paul S volleyball on the beach in Cannes or in the lobby at the Cap d’Antibes at daearing a tuxedo and holding a cigarette, Bobby Hughes asleep in the bulkhead seats on the Concorde), and because he had stopped giving interviews there were always tabloid ruement to Tiffani-Ah Grant or how he did break up Eh He supposedly had firsthand knowledge of certain S M bars in Santa Monica He supposedly was going to star in the sequel to Aolo He supposedly had squandered the fortune he’d accumulated on failed restaurants, on horses and cocaine, on a yacht he na at an age that was considered "iffy" at best But he never did

And now he’s here in the flesh-four years older thankeys on a co white athletic socks-and since I’uys who are sothan Victor Ward, it’s all kind of nerve-racking and I’ more intently to him than to any man I’ve everto resist He can’t help but lure

"Um, I’m kind of lost," I start, hesitantly "Where exactly am I?"