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When I wrote of Gatsby in my published novel, I told no falsehoods, only omitted a few small truths.
There were scenes which I felt the world should not be privy to- I say that, and yet here I am, revealing them now. I suppose the time feels right now; time to bare my last kept secrets to the world, so that I may finally be rid of Mr Jay Gatsby.
The first scene actually doesn't concern Gatsby at all; it instead involves one Mr McKee from the party Myrtle held, before I had even met Gatsby. While his wife and the other party goers were busy attending to the blood erupting from Myrtle's nose, he sidled over to me, a look in his eyes that was both familiar and damning.
"My wife will stay for another... few hours, I suppose. She doesn't like to leave Myrtle when things like this happen. Would you be so kind as to... accompany me back to my apartment?" He stepped closer, so I could smell the liquor on him, bitter and sharp. His voice was a mere murmur in my ear, "I often find I can't sleep alone."
It was rather a shame the elevator boy was with us on our journey down- McKee was too full of whiskey to resist toying playfully with the head of the elevator lever, running his hand down the shaft as though the cold metal beneath his fingers was full of flesh and sensation, and pulsed as his hand caressed it.
"Keep your hands off the lever." The boy caught the motion in the corner of his eye, and shut it down.
"I beg your pardon, I didn't know I was touching it," he flashed his eyelid at me, so quickly I almost missed it. But I didn't.
As soon as we stepped through the door, he pulled me into a kiss, fixing our lips to eachother, my fingers running through the coarse, black hair at the back of his head, as though I were searching for something golden and tantalising buried within.
We undressed eachother, clumsy with drink and blind with lust, fumbling with buttons to remove the clothes that bound our sensuality. I am ashamed to say my underpants got rather lost in the fray, and I have not seen them since.
But soon they were no matter, and I felt his skin, sweet and hot to the touch, against my own. I took him then, on top of his wife's choice of cream cotton sheets, causing the silver springs below us to creak luxuriously with each lustful thrust of will.
Afterwards, he showed me photographs he had taken from Long Island, granulated shots of white seabirds and queer looking people strolling through streets, blurred slightly by movement, while some Cole Porter song played on the wireless.
"They're lovely." I told him politely.
"I could photograph you, if you would want me to. Just as you are, stood there- just over there- by that lamp- the light's much better there..." He got up to gather his camera and, before I could say anything otherwise, had positioned me just where the light caught my naked body best, and, with a sharp click, had forever preserved me for print.
"I'll send a copy to you, when I've had one developed."
I checked the old clock on the dresser, and, to my surprise, a full hour had passed since my arrival.
"Won't your wife be home soon? I ought to be going," I said, beginning to pull on the clothes strewn across the floor in puddles, which I hoped belonged to me.
Mr McKee looked up from his camera, startled.
"Oh, yes... I suppose you ought to be- here-" He scribbled something on a scrap of paper on the dresser, and handed it to me as I made my way to the door. "Telephone if you ever want your picture taken again, will you?"
"Sure,"
I never did telephone.
I only mentioned in passing where I first really met Gatsby- in the First Division, during the war. At the time, I didn't know he was Gatsby- he introduced himself to me simply as 'Jay', and to him, I was only 'Nick'. There was something of a party held for the men, in the dance hall of a grey, little French village, and that was where we first spoke.
"Excuse me, do you have a light?"
I turned around at the tap on my shoulder to see him standing before me, holding a cigarette and smiling that same reassuring smile.
"Oh, of course- here-"
I fumbled in my pocket for a box of matches, and struck one against the side of the box, causing a soft flame to leap into life.
"Thanks, old sport." He took a drag. "I'm Jay, by the way,"
"Nick."
He shook my hand firmly.
"Have a drink with me, won't you?"
"I'd be delighted."
As I have found often happens, it ended up being quite a bit more than just one drink, and much of the night that followed is forever lost to the fogs of inebriated memory that lurk dimly out of sight in the mind, and are never quite close enough to glimpse- mostly the middle section, before we began to sober up a little. Perhaps my knowledge of this is a detriment to my character, but the contents of the war had warped everyone's perception a little, and made a man far more inclined to drink.
We didn't talk about ourselves or our lives; until he asked me if I had a girl back home.
"No, no... I was seeing this girl before I left, but I broke it off when I was sent out- I wanted to anyway- all she wanted to talk about was marriage..."
He looked at me curiously.
"Don't you want to get married, Old Sport?"
"Not to her." I replied, and changed the focus of the topic to him, "What about you? Do you have a girl at home?"
"I did." Jay's eyes seemed to loose a little light.
"What happened?"
"It doesn't matter... she married somebody else- look, do you want to get out of here, Old Sport?" His change of subject was obvious, but I let it slide.
"And go where?"
As it turned out, 'where' was the wrong question; I should have asked what he wanted to do.
But, as I lay beside him, both of us nude from the waist down, I cannot say that I recall being preoccupied with not asking that- I was rather more interested in the lips which touched my body so tenderly, and the hands which explored my skin with such deftness and expertise.
Perhaps it was the liquor talking, but I cannot recall ever being so blissfully happy in my intimate encounters than that night. Gatsby showed me parts of my body that I did not know could feel pleasure- but, with fumbling ecstasy, felt more than all of the rest of my body ever had.
When I woke the next morning, my lower half still bared to the cold dawn light, Jay was gone.
I wouldn't speak to him again until the party at his house, years later, but I would glimpse him every now and again, as one did in the war.
I was so sure I would never see him again, that I didn't really allow myself to think about him.
Strange how things really turned out.
At his party, when we met again, I could hardly believe my luck. The only images I could conjure in my mind were of that night, and hearing his voice again brought back memories I wasn't aware I had. We spoke about the party, mostly, and the people there, and every time he laughed, the glistening lights seemed a little more beautiful.
Of course, that was before I knew who the party was for.
Gatsby was infatuated with Daisy. We shared only two more intimacies after meeting again, the first on his private beach after the first party I attended. The smell of the brine from the languid waves marinated into his skin with his own, tender scent, and made a heady lovechild that I could only describe as the smell of summer passion. He moved his body more leisurely than before, knowing he was no longer shackled by the confines of military time and duty, but free the share his body as he pleased.
But throughout, I know he can only have been thinking of Daisy, for as much as he loved my body, my passion, and my company, he loved the idea of Daisy more.
The second time was the night of Myrtle's death. He longed for his mind to be taken elsewhere, and I provided my hand to take it, drawing him to feel my wanting for him, pulsing through my skin and milk white bone, and searching for the same in him.
But that night he felt colder than he had before, and in the heat of climax, he cried;
"Daisy!"
After that I had to bring the affair to a close, knowing he felt married to her.
But I do believe he loved me, at least in his body, for a while. Or perhaps I was just a naive distraction from the tolls his fantasy took on him, waiting conveniently next door, for his next whim to indulge my blind heart.