In the last few months, Jared had started to underline
certain phrases he came across in Aldington’s History
of European Chess that he felt described his relationship
with Nathan. He marked the phrase ‘through a jaundiced
eye,’ for example, because it reminded him of the way
that Nathan looked at the world—with a kind of haughty
surveillance that Jared hopefully imagined that others saw
in his own expression as well. A person more closely acquainted
with the true meaning of the phrase might have seen that Jared’s
misunderstanding was related to his equally mistaken conviction
that a refined sense of taste is somehow justification for
acting like an arrogant asshole.
Nathan was attractive to Jared precisely because he exhibited
such accomplished haughtiness and was not protective of
his methods. Nathan was brilliant and possessed consummate
charm; Jared, in spite of his ill-conceived notions and
an occasional lapse in diction, was an eager understudy.
A case in point was his talent for chess, which, at Nathan’s
suggestion, they had recently adopted as “the thing
to do” every Sunday afternoon. Nathan had convinced
Jared that the game was imbued with a kind of regal glamour,
and that whoever unraveled its mysteries would naturally
achieve mastery in other milieus—classical music,
French philosophy, single malt scotches. Developing a certain
savoir faire on the chessboard elevated a man above
what Nathan was fond of calling “the plane of the
plain.” It didn’t take long to convince Jared
that chess was merely another domain that the two of them
could finesse together.
It could as easily have been something else. Nathan might
have suggested, for instance, that henceforth, Sunday afternoons
would be spent sipping Valpolicello on the back
porch, with Billy Tipton blasting through the kitchen windows.
Jared would have understood that a conspicuous display of
certain musical tastes served just as well to demonstrate
superiority.
Nathan recognized that Jared had an inborn propensity to
be a snob, and found it uncomfortably erotic, especially
because Jared was susceptible to outrageous suggestion.
Nathan, on the other hand, didn’t mind playing any
part with the appropriate demeanor, since he knew deep down
every pose was one he could drop. At heart, he was as plain
as the boy next door. He knew pretense for what it was,
and was able to enjoy it from a distance, and even to encourage
it if it helped him attain his own ends. Such subtlety would
have been lost on Jared, who was an attractive but irritating
dilettante. Nathan knew that the way to manipulate a Narcissist
was through flattery, and that a man who prided himself
on being self-taught was especially susceptible to the compliment
of being included in a conspiracy.
Hence, Jared could be talked into anything, however absurd,
provided it was draped in an exclusive cloak. Chess was
perfect because it possessed the mystique of genius and
had an undeniably ancient pedigree. It was not enough to
simply play, though; one had to study the game. Nathan hinted
that what separated the true aficionado from the dabbler
was a familiarity with the jargon—the exotic names
of the standard openings, the casual use of the proper French
phrases “j’adoube” and “en
passant,” and tropes associated with “strategy”
versus “tactics.” Once Jared had it in his head
that a little extra knowledge of the game informed the ranks
of its truly elite, Nathan knew he would embrace it with
predatory zeal. A few months before, Jared had started collecting
philosophy texts when Nathan had dropped a hint that conversational
fluency in metaphysics would be indispensable at the sort
of parties they would be attending. In their conspiracy
of tastes, chess was an especially fertile domain.
The simple truth was that Nathan purposely played most
of their chess matches well below his abilities, in order
to keep Jared aroused. Often at some point in the middle
game, Nathan would contrive to lose a piece, or let a pawn
pass, often crippling his game so much that recovery was
hopeless and would allow him to lose convincingly. Victory
had a predictably narcotic effect on Jared, though Nathan
was careful not to let him win too often. When the games
were close, Nathan enjoyed breathing in the scent of Jared’s
perspiration. Their games tended to drift from the drawing
room, where the chessboard sat atop its marble stand, to
the darker chambers of the apartment.
In spite of all the saws about how winning wasn’t
everything, and that even a lost game could be played well,
Nathan knew that a chess game was like a break-up: someone
walked away a winner, and someone walked away a loser. He
thought of this zero-sum simplicity as the culmination of
all the competitive tendencies that had led him into this
experiment with Jared in the first place. Now he waited
patiently through three games that he cleverly handed away
with backward pawns and botched gambits. He wanted this
to build to a perfect climax, and for that he needed Jared
freshly charged and swollen with pride in his victories.
Then, like the heartless Sherman on the verge of Atlanta,
Nathan moved effortlessly from one field of battle to the
next.
With the force of habit to back him, Nathan reached past
his pieces to move with all the power of seduction he could
muster. Moments later, he breathed huskily into the back
of his adversary’s neck as his own flesh strained
against the borders of foreign land. With unparalleled devotion
to his task, he took control, yielding only when he felt
he could move about in this new territory without resistance.
His body was the bow of Achilles, and he strained until
his hamstrings ached.
He surprised himself by renouncing the coup de grace;
instead, he withdrew. The smile on his face as he did so
was as gravid and palpable as the darkness all around them.
Still doubled over like a worm nudged by the spade, facing
finality, Jared spoke weakly.
“Why did you stop?”
Nathan, master of all he surveyed, gave an answer worthy
of Empedokles, triumphant at the pleading fumarole of Mount
Etna.
“Checkmate,” he said.
© 2004 Aaron Parrett - Contributor's
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