Narcissus

[The story that follows this warning is completely fictional. The characters and situation are entirely imaginary, as are the explicit descriptions of consensual sex between adult males. Nonetheless, if you are too young to read about imagined sex acts or offended by homosexual erotica, please do not read further.

[The story is also long, nearly 80 pages or 38,000 words. If you download it, you can decide where to take a break as you read. I hope you will enjoy it and respect its copyright, held by the author.

[Thank you. Park517@aol.com]

Most of you know him. A lot of you dream about him. You stroke yourselves and imagine his long, cool fingers wrapped around you. Or you picture yourself gripping him. Almost everyone who has seen him -- even if only in that famous, infamous photograph -- wants him. You do. You know it. You don't have to be ashamed. He is stunningly beautiful. Forever young, fresh, enticing. He is a vision to love. I did love him. More fool I.

He was no vision when I saw him first. Just a distraught kid rushing up to my car in the nearly empty parking lot at the Storm King Arts Center an hour or so up the Hudson from New York. We had been shooting in the meadows there since early morning. Some weirdo designer's spring line of ugly, metallic hot pants and mini-mini-skirts that looked almost good on the stick figures of the anorexic models. Posing them against the sharp edges and glinting surfaces of the Calders and the David Smiths and the Noguchis had been Giacomo's idea. A good one as usual. The fact that it created hideous lighting problems on a day of mottled September sunshine was my nightmare, not Giacomo's. Somehow, things got worked out, but the stream of crises kept me much too busy to pay attention to the models or notice the few men whom Giacomo imported into his fashion work as hunky foils for the fragility of the women.

So I didn't recognize the boy as he ran up to my car and, panting for breath, begged, "please, please" for a ride back to the city. Except that he acted desperate, he seemed a pretty ordinary number, chinos and an NYU sweatshirt and that long hair -- his was brown and tousled -- that Giacomo likes on guys. I gestured for him to get into the car. He was just one more thing for me to clean up, a small chore like all the other ones that had kept me on the site an hour or more after the talent had piled into limos and vans and left.

"Thanks a lot," he said, after he slid into the passenger seat. "I'm Herb." He put his hand out. "Herb Regenwasser." (No, that's not his real last name. But it's close enough.)

"Simon Moore," I said grumpily, giving him a quick, cool shake. "What happened to your car?"

"Oh, I don't have a car. I came up in the minivan from the agency, but when they didn't need me any more, you know, I walked around to look at some of the sculpture. Did you see the Henry Moore? Fantastic!"

I hadn't, but he didn't wait for my answer. "And I was so tired, I just lay down under a tree for a catnap, and when I woke up everybody was gone. Everybody but you. You're really a life-saver." He began to gush. "I've got to read for a part tonight, and if I'd been stranded there, I'd have missed the audition and, you never know, it could be a big break for me. I really owe you, Simon. You're great to give me a lift like this."

He gave me a huge smile, and I saw why he was a model. When he lit up, his hazel eyes flashed little specks of gold and he broadcast a knock-em-dead charm that turned an everyday nice-looking face into heart-stopping handsome. Suddenly, he wasn't a nuisance. He was a challenge. I smiled back. "Actors in distress are my specialty," I said. "Have I seen you in anything?"

("I'd like to see you in nothing," was what I was thinking. "I'd like to give that sweatshirt a lift and then lift off your pants and lift your legs up in the air and plow your baby-smooth ass. And have you wrap that incredible smile around my cock. That's what I'd like." I have these dirty thoughts. I can't help it. But I generally keep them to myself.)

"You mean like in a play?" Herb was trying to decipher my words, not my mind. "Not unless you come to student productions. I'm at Tisch. For a master's. I was Mercutio last spring, and I'm understudying Algernon now."

"Next stop, Kowalski?"

"Where?"

"Who, not where. Stanley Kowalski, `Streetcar Named Desire,' Brando's first big break on Broadway. Don't they teach ancient history at that school?"

"Brando's not ancient history. But I couldn't do his roles. I'm too thin."

("And too literal," I thought. "And ignorant. Kids! They think the Earth was created yesterday.")

"So what's the role you're auditioning for? Obviously not Falstaff."

He laughed. He did know a little something. "And not Prince Hal, either. No, it's for a late-night sitcom on cable. A little raunchy. I'm reading for the part of a gay guy, and I'm kind of nervous about it. See, I don't know what it's like to be gay. I don't even know anybody like that, and I'm not sure what the producers really want."

("You," I thought. "That smile. They're going to want you on the casting couch and in their swimming pools and their beds and their arms. The way I do.")

"Well, you couldn't be gay," I said, "not with your name."

"Regenwasser? I've been thinking of changing it."

"Herb," I explained. "Herberts aren't gay. Or Alberts, or Bertrams, or Huberts. If there's a Bert in the name, the guy is straight. Moore's 37th rule of sexual orientation. It's like parents can take out an insurance policy when they name their sons. Call him Jason or Oliver or Randy, and you're taking a big risk. But Bertrand or Egbert or even Burton. No sweat. Guaranteed grandchildren."

"I was named for my grandfather." The kid was giving me a puzzled, intent, serious look. "I don't think my parents knew about gays. They still don't. They're Mennonites and pretty old-fashioned. If I get the part, it won't matter. They don't have a television." He paused, and his stare escalated a couple of notches, just shy of the point where the rays dart out of Superman's eyes. "Simon," he asked, "how come you know about gays and names and the theater and everything? I thought you were a lighting technician."

("Hey! He noticed me at the shoot. I'm going to have to wear this orange sweater more often.")

"I'm Giacomo's number one, all-purpose assistant and footstool. I do lighting and I do scheduling and I do logistics and I make sure he takes his pills. And I've studied literature and art history and photography and I even go to the theater sometimes. And I'm gay, so you're wrong."

"Wrong about what?"

"You said you didn't know anyone who is gay, but you do. Me. How do you do, Mr. Regenwasser. Welcome to my car and my lifestyle."

He smiled at me again, and I nearly drove the car off the Palisades Parkway. Now I wanted his lips on mine. My dick could wait. Though not too long. Sunlight coming in through the passenger-side window fell on his thighs and turned the tan chinos to cloth of gold. He was a wet dream in a seat belt.

"Simon," now he was back to giving me the once-over. "Is it that big a deal?"

"Is what that big a deal?"

"Your lifestyle. Being gay, I mean. I really meant it when I said I didn't know anybody like you. I mean, maybe I do, but I guess I'm not very curious about other people, so I don't know if someone is gay or not. And it would help if I knew, wouldn't it?"

"Help who?"

"Help me, of course. With the audition tonight. I want to be convincing. That's what matters."

"You want me to tell you the secret of being convincingly gay? Is that it?"

"Would you? That'd be fantastic, Simon. I won't tell anyone else. I promise."

"Herb, kiddo, grow up. There isn't any secret. It's not a club with passwords and handshakes. It's just ... (I was having trouble.) Well, you could think of it as just an extra added attraction that some guys have and some guys don't. I do. You don't. There isn't any way to hand it over."

For a couple of seconds he looked disappointed, but then his face lit up again. "But you could teach me, couldn't you, Simon? How to act gay, I mean. I'm just going to be acting. I learned how to fence so I could do Mercutio. Can't I learn how to be gay?"

"How much time have we got?" I was trying to be sarcastic, but it didn't register.

"The audition's at eight, and," he checked the cheap digital watch on his wrist, "it's almost 4:30 now. And I ought to change clothes, so maybe three hours, tops. Do you have time, Simon, to give me a lesson? I'd really appreciate the help."

He was like a needy puppy, and I'm a sucker for puppies. I took him to his place first, a rundown brownstone off Tenth Avenue in the 50s where he said he had a room in an apartment owned by a nearly bed-ridden old lady. I waited in the car while he dressed -- black jeans, white button-down shirt, V-neck blue sweater, terminally uncool -- and then drove him to my pad in SoHo. It's half of a loft that had once been a ballet school, and Herb was riveted by the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that still covered most of one wall. He froze in front of them and then started trying out poses. "Simon, this is a fantastic place," he was gushing again. "Fantastic! I've never seen myself this way. It's like a dream. I can try out any gesture, any expression I want and right away I can know if it's right or wrong. Where I live all I've got is a bathroom mirror, and the light there is awful. But this... this is just fantastic."

I was amused by his fascination with the mirrors and with himself. It was almost childlike, and so was he. That innocence might entertain me, but it was probably not what the producers would be looking for at the audition. "`Fantastic' is not gayspeak, Herb," I said, "at least not for mirrors. We can use them, though, for your crash course if you still want it."

"Oh, yes, Simon, please." Since he couldn't tear his eyes away from the sight of himself, I improvised my lesson. "Pretend you're walking in a strange neighborhood, Herb. It's 3 a.m. Your car broke down. It's a rough part of town. A lot of the streetlights are out."

His shoulders rose; his arms clamped against his body. He crouched slightly and started to flick his eyes sideways."

"You hear footsteps," I continued. "Behind you. Maybe more than one set. They're getting closer. What do you do?"

He paused, straightened up, turned around and stuck out his hand. "Hi," he said. "I'm really glad to see you. I need some help."

"No, man. No," I cut him off. "Wrong. You've just been knifed, robbed and left for dead. What planet are you from, Herb? Did you grow up in some flyspeck town where a crime spree was kids tipping over outhouses at Halloween?"

"How did you know, Simon? Is it that obvious?"

"Sticks out a mile, bubba, but you can get over it. I did."

"You're not from the city?"

"Now I am. Originally, Nowheresville, Nebraska. But I don't think I could find my way back any more. And I wouldn't want to. It was not exactly a great place to grow up queer. Where did you escape from?"

"Iona, Michigan. Actually my dad's farm is outside Iona, but that's where I went to high school. Then I got into Wartburg, it's a Lutheran college in Iowa, and I did some acting, and I got a scholarship to Tisch. I've been in New York a whole year, Simon. I thought I was fitting in."

"Not if you think you should hold out your hand to someone who's about to mug you."

"Well, what should I do? Run? Scream? And what does being mugged have to do with being gay, anyway?"

"Fear and impotence. There's no good way to handle a mugger, Herb, at least not by yourself. Give him your money and show him that you're not a threat and pray he isn't in a bad mood. Being gay is the same. You're always expecting to be mugged, psychically at least. There are lots of ways to handle it, but none of them is good."

"Have you tried martial arts classes, Simon? Karate? Kung fu?" He started to strike poses in front of the mirror again. Tough guy poses. He was quick. I'll give him that.

"You don't get it, Herb. I'm not explaining it right, I guess, but it's about attitude. Somewhere in between Mr. Rogers and Bruce Lee is where most gays live most of the time. Outside our caves, we just naturally assume that we'll get into some kind of trouble. Maybe just a dirty look or a dirty name. People are going to be embarrassed to get too close to us, and they show it, and that hurts. Or another gay guy will put you down because you're not beautiful enough or young enough or willing enough to play his game his way. Or at the very worst you're going to get the shit kicked out of you by a drunken bunch of yahoos from Queens, and if you stay out of that kind of trouble, there's always AIDS."

"You're exaggerating, Simon. Aren't you? It can't be that bad, not all the time or even most of the time. Aren't there groups you can join, people who'll stick up for you?"

"Sure. And who else needs groups like that? The Mafia? Cops? Reformed drunks? Laboratory animals? The hated and the vulnerable, that's who. Herb, it's when you're on your own that the risks are highest, and most people, most of the time, are on their own. So you develop defenses. That's what you need to take into the audition."

He just looked at me. Concerned, sort of. I thought he was worried for me, and that was nice. But not Herb. He was worried about himself.

"How can I learn all that in just an hour or so?" He gave his watch a nervous look. "I've never felt that way. I try to get people to like me. Some people, at least. To want to help me out, you know? What do you do when somebody hates you?"

"You pretend, Herb. That's all. You act. What you want to do for a living. You put on an act. You can try the high camp thing, for instance."

He gave me a puzzled stare.

"Camp it up. Roll your hips like a woman. Bat your eyes. Swing an imaginary purse. Blow the bastard a kiss as if you find him sexy and as if he was putting the make on you. That confuses the shit out of most of them and gives you time to stroll around the corner and start to run like hell."

Herb tried to mime my instructions into the mirror. He got the kiss right, very come-hither, but effeminacy wasn't his thing. ("That's all right," I thought. "I don't mind bottoming now and then.")

"There's another approach that might work better for you, Herb," I said tactfully as his wrist went impossibly limp. "But you have to be quick and really confident to bring it off. You fight back, see, but just with your mouth. You show how smart you are and, if you handle it right, you get them laughing with you or even a little scared of you."

He looked dubious. "I'd rather go with the karate, Simon. I really would. I'm tougher than I look."

"I bet you are, but are you going to flatten everybody who casually insults you? Do you wear your black belt on the subway? I don't think so. No, you have to draw the toughness up from inside and then put a casual, confident mask over it. No," he was scowling at himself in the mirror, "No, Herb, it's not a `Don't mess with me' look. It's more snakelike, quietly coiled but ready to strike."

The scowl softened but the menace in his posture didn't. "Too much, Herb," I counseled. "You're not the playground bully. You're just a guy who's got a chip on his shoulder that no one else can see. Edgy. You expect trouble and you're ready for it, but you're not asking for it. Do you get the difference?"

"I don't know. Like George Hamilton in `Love at First Bite'?"

"Missed that one." I winced at the thought of that pretty-boy lightweight. "But he usually overdoes his character, presumably to make up for not having any of his own. No, think Alan Alda but less frenetic or Bruce Willis as a slum priest."

"Calm, collected," Herb was back at the mirrors, "but seething inside. En garde!" He leapt forward flourishing an invisible light saber. I was getting nowhere, fast. I took him by the shoulder and pushed him into the kitchen.

"Sit down, Herb. A beer? A Coke?" He took a glass of water. I took the other stool. "Herb, I don't think I'm helping you at all."

"Oh, no. You are. It's just that I've never tried a really modern role. Even if I don't get the part, you're teaching me a lot. I didn't realize gays had to be so aggressive."

"See, that's what I mean. You've misunderstood because I haven't been able to explain the idea clearly. You really have to live it yourself before you begin to understand who you are and how to deal with the world. And my way is just mine, not necessarily anybody else's. I just try to be ready all the time for shit to happen."

"And does it?"

He had me there. "I guess not. Not as much as it did before, when I was a kid, at least not to me. Do you know who Barney Frank is?"

"Nope. Who?"

"A congressman from Massachusetts. He's a liberal Democrat and a very witty speaker. And he's gay, not that he was open about it until a kid he was living with was caught hustling."

"What's wrong with hustling?"

"A hustler is a male prostitute. You really don't know about gay life, do you?"

"I told you, Simon. I'm sorry. My life is school and my jobs. I guess I hustle myself so hard that I haven't any time to learn important things."

"I didn't mean to criticize you, kid. Sorry. Not your fault. I just assume that gays are so fascinating that everybody secretly wants to know all about us. Where was I?"

"Barney Frank."

"Right, I heard him tell a story about a man walking around the Boston Common waving a cudgel. A cop came up and asked him what he was carrying, and he said it was an elephant stick. It kept elephants away."

" `But there aren't any elephants here,' the cop said.

" See?' the guy said. It works.'"

Herb chuckled. "And you're saying that being always tense, always on guard works because you haven't been trampled by an elephant."

"It works for me, Herb, but we're all different. You'd probably be a very well-adjusted gay." I stood up. "You've got to go. Look, I'll give you one piece of advice that actually might be of some use. Smile. Smile a lot. You're a good-looking guy, but when you smile, you're dazzling, and that's really what the television types are going to be looking for."

He stood too and smiled. "Am I really?" he asked.

"Really what?"

"Dazzling?"

"God, yes. Now get out of here. Let me know how it goes."

"I will." We walked to the door, Herb giving the mirrors a couple of his smiles on the way. We shook hands. He thanked me for rescuing him and for tutoring him and "for everything. I won't forget, Simon, I promise." And then he was gone.

I went back to the kitchen and got the vodka bottle out of the freezer. One shot, two shots. I'd make it through the night. I knew I'd never hear from Herb. All I had to do was forget him. It wasn't easy.

Still, two nights later when the telephone rang, I assumed it was the usual telemarketer. My "Yeah" implied that I not only knew where the caller lived but that I planned to come over and beat him silly.

"Simon, hi. Simon, it's me, Herb."

I grunted.

"Put down the elephant stick, please," he said. "I called to thank you. I've got good news."

He'd gotten the part.

"I smiled them half to death."

They liked him. "They say they're going to rewrite to give my character a bigger role. Isn't that great?"

I said it was. Then came the kicker.

"Simon, now you really have to help me. I need to learn lots more. They're not going to start production for a month or so, and when they do, I want to be the best actor on the show. Will you help me? Please, Simon, I really need help, and you're so good at explaining things."

I pretended to hesitate. I pretended to myself that the kid was a pain and a waste of time, but the truth was I hadn't been able to forget him. What the hell. "OK, Herb, OK. When do we start? Where are you now?"

"Across the street." He paused. "Simon, the thing is ... well, the old lady I told you about where I lived. Like, her son put her in some kind of home. She didn't want to go, but he wanted the apartment. He and his girl friend and her kid moved in, and they made me leave. I didn't have a lease or anything."

"So, have you got a place to stay?" Why did I ask? Why should I care?

"Simon, there's this guy, a student, and I heard he was looking for a roommate, but he's not at home so I don't know and I wondered..." his voiced trailed off. I wasn't about to make it easy for him. I waited. "Well, what I wondered was could I sleep at your place till I find him or something else? I don't need a bed. The floor's fine. I have a sleeping bag. And I'll try not to be any trouble. I'm sorry." Was that a choke in his voice? Real? An acting trick? "Simon, I don't know anyone else to ask."

I waited again. He's a kid, a straight kid. He's just using me. Like everybody else. "Come on up, Herb," I said. "You can have the spare room."

In the minute or two before he rang the bell, I wondered if I'd lost my mind. I hadn't let anyone in my life since I was 26 and Harry walked out on me -- to get married, for shit's sake. That was six, nearly seven years ago. I've had my share of careful, casual sex since then -- I'm no male model, but I'm fit and reasonably well hung and I've got staying power -- but I do one-nighters, not pajama parties. And now I was about to have a roommate who was gorgeous and innocent and completely off-limits. I had to be crazy. I almost ran to open the door.

"Simon," Herb came in carrying only a bulging backpack and that smile I'd tipped him to. "Simon, you've saved my life again," he burbled. "I promise not to get in the way. You won't know I'm around, and I'll get another place just as soon as I can."

I put up my hand. "No problem, Herb. Mi casa... I'm glad to see you. And congratulations, it's great that you got the part. If I had some champagne, we'd celebrate."

"Oh, I don't drink. My parents would disown me. Besides, I should take you out. Your coaching did the trick."

"Your smile, I'd bet."

"Whatever. Simon," he suddenly took my arm. "Simon, can I hug you? I'm so happy, and I want to share it." He didn't wait for permission. He put his arms around my back and squeezed me to him. He was stronger than I'd thought. All those karate lessons, I guess.

"Hey," I said, not my usual, articulate self. "Hey, kid, Herb, let's not get too physical here. I'm not really into hugging."

"I'm not either. It's just that you're my best friend now. And everything is looking so good for me, and..."

("Suffering Jesus! Was he about to cry?")

"... and it's really all thanks to you. I just want you to know how I feel about you and everything you've done for me when you didn't have to do anything. And..."

("Those are tears. Now what do I do?")

"Herb, Herb," I patted him on the back. "I wouldn't have done it if I didn't like you. I like you, kid. I'm glad to help any way I can. Someday, I'll be able to say I knew Herb Regenwasser, the big star."

"Oh, yeah. That's another thing. I've got to change my name. The producers must know your rules, Simon. They said that Herbert is definitely not a gay name. So will you help me? Help me decide who to be."

("My love," I thought. "You could `live with me and be my love and we will some new pleasures prove...''')

I snapped myself out of it and showed him the spare room and the bathroom and found sheets, towels and extra keys to the building and the apartment. I told him I'd had a long day, which was true, and that I was too tired to make much sense, which was only partly true. The truth was I wasn't making sense to myself, and I was afraid of betraying my confusion and the yearning -- not just desire -- I was feeling. I said good night and promised that we'd talk seriously in the morning.

I was up, as usual, by seven, but the only sign of Herb was a note on the kitchen table. "Simon, thanks. I got a good sleep, but it's milking time. See you tonight." He'd signed it "Farm Boy," and I immediately decided that should be his stage name: Farmer, maybe Tom with an aitch, Thom. Thom Farmer -- simple, wholesome, all-American, but memorable because of the extra letter and just a little ambiguous.

Herb liked the suggestion when he came in that evening with the rest of his belongings, but he improved on it. Thommy Farmer, "because even though I'm 22, I'm a kid. That's what you call me, isn't it?" he asked. We were having supper -- his treat -- at a little Vietnamese place I like, and I was learning all about Herb -- his favorite subject -- from Herb. The youngest of three children and the only boy, he was raised by strict, hard-working, church-going, sugar-beet farmers. He showed me a picture of his over-weight, weather-worn parents: Grant Wood crossed with John Waters. "The thing is, I always knew I was different from them. I love them, and I'd never hurt them, but I just had this feeling all along that I didn't belong in that life."

"You can use that. In your role, I mean," I said to him. "It's what gays feel, too, when they're young and trying to sort things out. We know we don't fit, not in the family, not in school, not in the community. The strain of having that kind of secret can be awful, and some kids crack. Some kill themselves because they haven't got anybody to help them through it."

Herb looked shocked. "I'd never do that. I can't even imagine being afraid to live. Not when you're young and anything can happen."

"Can you imagine being so ashamed of something you've done or something you are that you want to disappear? Disappear forever?"

"Like running away?"

"No, because you can always come back or be found if you run away. I mean being so afraid of what your family and your friends will think of you that you decide it's better to be dead than to be around when they find out the truth."

Herb put down his fork. His face contorted. Tears came to his eyes. I thought I'd overdone it, but he owed his anguish to a chili in his beef with basil. I tried to get him to drink some of my beer, but he waved it away. ("I'll never get him drunk," I thought. "Which means I'll never get him in the sack.") It was some time before he could speak.

"Well, it matters a lot what people think of you," he whispered at last. "I understand that. But what matters most is what you think of yourself. That's the way I think. I mean, as long as you don't hurt anybody else, why can't you be happy being whatever you are as far as sex is concerned? Sex isn't that big a deal after all."

It was my turn to choke, but not on the food. An incredibly handsome, apparently healthy young man telling me that sex was no big deal. Then the light dawned. "Herb..." I started to ask.

"Thommy. Remember? I'm Thommy now."

"Yeah, sorry. Thommy, tell me. Are you a virgin?"

He blushed deeply. It made him even more luscious. "It depends," he finally answered, "it depends on what you mean by virgin."

I couldn't help it. I laughed. And then I laughed some more. The boy just stared at me, confused at first, then upset, then angry. He put his napkin on the table and started to get up. I grabbed him by the wrist. "Don't..." I wheezed. "I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you. I promise, kiddo. It's just..." I snorted and gasped. "It's just... you sounded like Bill Clinton. It depends on what you mean..." I sat up straight and tried to be serious. "Forget about sex, then. Have you ever been in love?"

He blushed again but not so fiercely. "Sort of, I guess," he answered. "In college, there was a girl in the theater group. We went out a lot. We... we did things. We fooled around, but not all the way, you know. She was a Christian, too. We believe the body is the temple of God."

I made a supreme effort and kept a straight face. ("Yes, yes," I was thinking. "And I'd like to worship in your temple.") But I didn't say that. What I said was probably worse. "You know what your problem is Thommy? You need to get laid."

"And I'm the man to do it," a skin-head in tight, faded jeans, a black-leather jacket, multiple gold hoops in both ears, slapped me on the shoulder, pulled a chair up to our table and sat down. "Super Queer to the rescue," he put his hand out to Thommy. "Simon can talk the talk, but he's getting a little long in the tooth and, let's say, slow on the uptake."

"Go away, Eldon," I said. "Far away. We're having a serious conversation. Unless you've been talking to your proctologist, you wouldn't know what a serious conversation is. Thommy is an actor. He's asked me for advice about a role. And he's straight. Not your type. Don't you have a therapy group you should be at? Assholes Anonymous or something?"

"Top or bottom?" Eldon ignored me and turned to Thommy.

"I'm sorry," the kid said. "I don't..."

"Your role, dude. I'm the direct type. Is Simon coaching you to fuck or get fucked? It's sort of a major career decision."

"Oh, no," Thommy was flustered. "It's not like that all. Simon helped me get a part in a sit-com, and since the character is gay, I asked him to explain some things to me. About what it's like..."

"It's been so long, he's forgotten what it's like. Simon's all shriveled up. He called the police two years ago to report that his prick was missing, and his ass has more cobwebs than a haunted house."

Thommy was beaming. "He's the kind you told me about, isn't he Simon? Quick, confident. Fights back with his mouth. Do it some more, please," he leaned toward Eldon. "You're good. Are you a writer?"

"He's a parking-lot attendant, kiddo," I said angrily. "He deals stolen hubcaps on the side. He's a loser. Pay the bill and let's go home."

"Together?" If Eldon hadn't shaved off his eyebrows, they would have risen. "You two live together?"

"Just for a few days." Thommy explained his housing situation, my generosity and, again, my guidance to the mysteries of the gay personality.

Eldon turned serious. "Look, actor boy, I apologize. I thought Simon the Sour was just trying to put the moves on you and that I could save you from a fate worse than death. But if he's brainwashing you, that's even worse. There are a million different ways to be gay. Simon only knows one. He knows how to be bitter, how to be a wiseass, how to turn people off. But he doesn't know how to love, how to give himself. Lots of gays do. I hope you find one."

Eldon pushed his chair back, swiveled out of it and disappeared. Herb got the check and paid it. We left, but out on the street, he stopped me. "It's all right, Simon," he said. "It doesn't matter if you're not a loving person. You've given a lot to me, and I like you the way you are."

"Thanks, Herb," I mumbled. He didn't correct me. "I should explain about Eldon."

"No, you don't have to," the kid said. "Except tell me where he's from. He has your accent."

"I have an accent?" I was not amused.

"Yeah, sure. Midwest, flat, something like mine. It's very hard to lose."

"Thank you, Henry Higgins. Okay, Eldon and I talk alike because we grew up together for a while. He's my step-brother. His mother married my father. And we've never liked one another."

"Does he really park cars?"

"No, he does something in advertising. All I know is he has a fancy salary and a sad little boy friend I think he beats up."

Herb didn't speak for the rest of our short walk home, but in my kitchen, getting himself a glass of water, he shut off the faucet and turned to me. "Simon, you asked me about my love life, so I hope I can ask you. Why don't you have a boyfriend?"

"You heard Eldon."

"But I don't believe him. I don't believe you want to go through life alone."

"Everybody goes through life alone, Herb."

"Thommy. Please, Simon. After all, you named me." He smiled. As usual, I felt my defenses crumbling. "I know you think that most people are alone most of the time. You said that when we first talked."

"I didn't realize you were taking it all in."

"I'm a good student, Simon. But to learn, I have to ask questions. Are gays more alone than other people? Are you alone because you're gay? Is it so hard to find another man to be with, really be with?"

"It's hard, but it's not impossible. What's impossible for me is to keep a lover. I had one. I lost him. And, Thommy, I'm sorry, but I don't want to talk about it. It still hurts. Good night." I left him in the kitchen and went to my room, undressed, got into bed and tried to sleep. I didn't do very well.

An hour of tossing and turning was enough. I got up and headed to the kitchen, to the vodka in the freezer. On the way, though, I heard noises. I found Herb -- no, Thommy, I caught myself -- doing crunches in front of the mirrored wall. He had unrolled his sleeping bag and lay on it dressed in just a pair of gym shorts. A light film of sweat made his torso and ridged abdomen shine. His shoulders were broader than I had thought and his thighs more muscular. I had expected that his body would be beautiful. I had not imagined it would be perfect. I must have gasped because he looked up and saw my reflection behind his.

"Oh, Simon, I'm sorry." He really looked upset as he scrambled to his feet. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"You didn't, Thommy. I couldn't sleep. I was just going to get something to drink and then I saw you exercising. Go ahead. Finish." I started to move back to the kitchen, but I couldn't help myself. "Thommy?" I searched for words. "Thommy, kid, do you have any idea how beautiful you are?"

"Yeah, sure," he said. It was as if I'd offered him a potato chip instead of my adoration. "I'm very handsome. I know that, but I won't always be this way, Simon. I've got to make it work for me while I can. And I've got to work to stay this way. Does it bother you, Simon? Am I too good-looking?"

He was so matter-of-fact about it. Maybe he couldn't realize how much he turned me on. "That's like being too rich or too blond," I tried for a light tone. "I don't think it's possible to be too good-looking, at least not in my book. Youth and beauty and sex appeal mean a lot to gay men, Thommy, and you've got them all ... in spades. You might scare off some women who'd see you as competition, but to a gay man, no, you're not too good-looking. You're a dream come true."

"Does that mean that you'd like to make love to me?"

"Jesus, Thommy, what kind of a question is that?"

"I thought it was an obvious one. Somebody has to show me what gays do, and if you like me and I like you, why shouldn't you be the one? I like you, Simon. I trust you. I'd be glad if you'd teach me."

Why did I hesitate? He was offering me exactly what I'd wanted since he first smiled at me in my car coming back from the Storm King shoot. But now I didn't just want to hump his ass. I wanted his heart. I wanted him to want me.

"Thommy," I tried to change the subject. "Shouldn't you make it with a girl first? So you have some basis for comparison?"

"But I don't want to do things like that with a girl I don't love, and I'm not in love with any girls."

"You're not in love with me either."

"But I like being with you, Simon. You're my best friend. Please." He took my hand and drew me toward his sleeping bag. The minute he touched me, I got a raging erection. I sleep in my underwear, boxer shorts that are on the baggy side, and I realized that my cock was pushing its way to freedom through the opening. Thommy realized it, too.

"That means yes, doesn't it?" he giggled nervously as he looked down my front. "Can I see it all? I've never seen anybody hard like that."

I had never expected him to be so aggressive. The first time I had sex, I remembered, I was scared witless, and all I could do at the beginning was fumble with my equally inexperienced partner. I hadn't dared look at his tool until he suddenly came in my hand and I thought he was pissing on me. Now, here was Thommy, a virgin at 22, so brazen or determined or something that he was already guiding my drawers down over my hips and letting them fall to my ankles.

He whistled. "God, Simon, it looks so strong. See?" He turned me to face the mirror. I am as interested in my equipment as any other male, and I've always liked its heft and responsiveness, but except for shaving my balls at regular, hopeful intervals, I don't spend a lot of time eyeing my crotch. Now though, Thommy had his fingertips on the underside of my shaft so that he could display it like some blue-ribbon exhibit at the county fair. The truth? I was completely turned on by the way I looked and by the way the boy was handling me. If he had stroked me just once at that point, the mirror would have gotten badly spattered. I was that close.

Fortunately, Thommy needed both his hands to undo the drawstring at the waist of his shorts. And he was having trouble. Maybe he wasn't as cool about all this as he seemed.

"Can I try?" I asked.

He smiled, a little embarrassed, and nodded and put his hands at his sides as I worked on the knot he had made. When it came loose, so did the shorts. They dropped to the floor, and the two of us stood naked facing one another. I was still hard. He wasn't, but checking him out, I could imagine that his cock, more than four inches soft, would easily be as long as mine and probably thicker. It looked magnificent and adorable at the same time. So did he. I cupped his head in my hands and pressed my mouth on his. His lips were cool, firm and unmoving. I pulled back.

"Kissing is part of making love, Thommy. Can we try again?"

"Kiss me some place else, first, please, Simon. My neck or my ears maybe. I need to get used to being touched that way."

I could have told him to kiss my neck or my ears. I should have told him to kiss my ass, but I didn't. Then and there, I let him take charge. I was so enthralled that I stopped being the Simon Moore who always calls the shots. Instead, I became a worshipper in the cult of Thommy Farmer. I was the first. I do have that distinction, but it doesn't make my surrender any less abject.

Nibbling at his ears, lapping the taut, satiny skin of his throat, dropping my head to tease his nipples with my lips, I kept waiting for some response from the rest of his body. Finally, as I scoured his chest with my tongue, wiping up the slight, salty, delicious coating of sweat, I felt his back arch as he pressed his body against my mouth. He even made a little noise, almost a moan of pleasure. I put my hands on his hips to brace myself as I sank lower to explore his navel and, looking down, saw that he was stiffening and swelling. Then I looked up, hoping for a signal from him, a gesture, anything that would tell me that he liked the way I was touching him. Thommy, though, was completely absorbed in watching both of us in the mirror.

When he noticed my unhappy surprise, he put his hand gently on the back of my neck. "Please, Simon," he said. "Please don't stop. This is just great. I never imagined..."

He didn't tell me what he'd never imagined. He just told me, in effect, to go on doing it while he observed the play from a certain distance, accepting my tribute to his body as if I owed it to him. The thing is, I went along. I accepted my role as second fiddle. No, that's not right. I didn't just take the part he chose to have me play in our erotic pantomime. I rejoiced in it. I sank to my knees on his sleeping bag and reverently took the tip of his awesome, lengthening cock between my lips. I kissed it. I bowed my head and I worshipped Thommy's beauty and his aloofness and his sex. I hadn't felt so happy in years.

What's more I was making the kid happy. I could tell. His cool spectator self may have been engaged only on the level of curiosity, but his body didn't need guidance. As his prick turned into a thick, drooling rod, his hips began to dance back and forth pushing him farther along my tongue and then drawing steadily back till my lips just held the flaring, rosy head. To make sure I wouldn't lose contact, I wrapped a couple of fingers around the base of his shaft and began, with my right hand, to caress his nuts. They were a nice size but basically ordinary, almost the only thing about him that was. His sac was hairless. In fact, most of his body was smooth. The brown hair in his crotch was silky but sparse, and when I managed for a second or two to envelop his rod completely and mash my nose up against his pubic bone, I inhaled a sweet, fresh tang that added to my intoxication.

As I played with his balls, Thommy changed his stance, widening the space between his legs to give me, I guess, more road room. He also pulled his cock completely out of my mouth, turning himself slightly to present his full, priapic profile to the mirror. "Am I very big, Simon," he asked, "or about average?"

I looked up at him, bewildered. "Don't you know, kid? Haven't you ever looked at yourself before?"

"Yes, but never like this. Never standing up and seeing my whole body naked. Never with a man next to me. Simon, am I bigger than you?"

"I think so, baby. I think so. But it doesn't matter. You are just incredibly beautiful, and I want to have you. Please, Thommy, let me suck you. You like it, don't you?"

He bent down, took my hand out of his groin and lifted it to his lips. Then he blew my mind by taking my index finger and sucking it into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it and releasing it. "My girl friend used to do that do me," he confided, "and it drove me nearly wild. What you're doing is a thousand times better. I love it, Simon. I love you for doing it."

That was all I needed. He had said, "I love you." Screw the context. I was a goner. I drew his penis back into my mouth but I kept the finger he had moistened free and used it to probe between his legs.

"What are you doing there, Simon?" I had his attention, but I was also making him nervous.

"Relax, lover," I let his wet cock slap me between the eyes. "I want this to be wonderful for you. I know what I'm doing. Just relax and let me in."

He hesitated a second and then gave way. I found his lovely, hot opening and pressed against it, then in it.

"Oh, Simon!" it was a little shriek. "Oh, God. You're inside me. It feels so weird, Simon. Are you sure...?"

I was sure. I went deeper, and as I did, I recaptured his dick and drew it far into my mouth. And I didn't let it go. Sure, he did some pumping, almost involuntary, but I collapsed my cheeks around his shaft so that the wet friction enclosed him everywhere and I got my finger where I wanted it, on the tight knob of his prostate, and I pressed. And he screamed and poured himself out into my mouth in one hot, gooey spasm after another.

"There," I thought joyfully, "there, I bet you didn't see that in the mirror, baby. I bet your eyes were closed and your head was thrown back. And I bet you're going to be mine from now on."

Two out of three isn't bad, I suppose. Nursing like an infant on his warm, still-solid cock, I felt his hands come down hard on my shoulders. "Let me go, please," he whispered. "I can't take it. I've got to sit down."

I freed him immediately and put my own hands up to hold his narrow waist as his legs buckled and he dropped onto the sleeping bag and into my arms. His head bowed toward mine, and I thought that at last he wanted to kiss me, even with some of his peppery spunk coating my lips and dripping onto my chin. But his lips didn't head for mine. They came to rest, quivering, on my chest. His forehead hit my shoulder. His arms went around my neck, and he began to keen like a banshee.

I hadn't a clue. I couldn't have hurt the boy. On the contrary, I had given him his first taste of one of life's larger, though brief pleasures. He should be exultant and passionately grateful to me, crying -- if at all -- from joy. Instead, he had balled his fists and was pounding me with them on either side of my neck, hard enough to hurt, not hard enough to incapacitate. I grabbed his wrists and held him off.

"What is it, Thommy? Why are you mad at me? What did I do to you?"

He burrowed his face deeper into my clavicle. "Not you, Simon. Them." The words were muffled but fierce. "All of them. Liars! Shits! I hate them!"

Curioser and curioser. "Who, sweetheart?" I asked. "Who lied to you? About what?"

"Everybody. My dad. Our minister. Teachers. My girl." He raised his head and looked at me, cheeks shiny with tears, an angry hurt in his streaming eyes. "They all ... they all said sex was for animals, that it was not nice, that it was dirty unless you were married. And I believed them." He started to wail again. "I don't even touch myself there except to wash. I didn't know... Oh, God, I've missed out on so much. I hate them all!"

He had to be putting me on. A model, a would-be actor, a boy who could coolly weigh his own beauty and what it could do for him -- and he didn't know anything about sex?! It wasn't possible. But it was. His fury and anguish were too real. He had been tricked, and he was mortified. Uncle Simon to the rescue. I tightened my embrace around his heaving back and drew him into my body.

"Thommy, lover," I murmured into his ear. "Calm down, honey lamb. I'll teach you about love. We'll make up for lost time. I love you, Thommy. I'll make you happy. That's all I want. To make you happy."

He stopped sobbing, but he kept his head down, pressing into me. "Oh, Simon," he moaned, "you're so good. You give me so much."

"No, baby, no. The other way. You've brought love back into my life."

"Then, Simon..." he hesitated a long time. "Simon, would you show me how to make real love? Would you let me fuck you, Simon?"

At that moment, with him clinging to me, after I had declared my passion for him and my promise to make him happy, what the hell could I do? I had sprung the trap on myself, and Thommy was now nailing my skin to the wall. The fact is, I don't much like being on the receiving end of a fuck. It always hurts, at least at the start, and unless the guy plowing you is really caring and considerate, you feel like a piece of meat when he pulls out, used and soiled. But if I wanted to keep Thommy -- and there was nothing I wanted more -- I had to oblige him.

"Sure, baby," I said. "Sure, you can fuck me whenever you want. However you want. Wherever..."

"Now?" he asked.

"Are you ready so soon?" I marveled.

He pulled out of my grasp and drew one of my hands into his crotch. "See?" he said, grinning like a little boy who had just caught a big fish, "I'm ready. Oh, Simon! You are the best thing that ever happened to me." He wrapped my fingers around his thrusting, pulsing cock. And then he kissed me. He put his lips on mine and he pushed our mouths together as if he wanted to seal us forever. I melted into him. He loved me the way I loved him. Life was going to be wonderful from now on.

Breathless, I finally broke away and started to get up. "Where are you going, Simon?" he asked. "I'm ready now."

"I have to get some things, kiddo. A condom for you. Some lube for me. You are bigger than the average bear, and it's been a long time since anybody..."

"Where are they?" God, he was eager. And, as he scrambled to his feet, I saw that he was also stiff as a tire iron. "Tell me where to find them, Simon. I'll do it."

"In my bedroom, in the table by the bed. Where the reading lamp is."

He took a step and then turned back and took my wrist. "Simon, could we do it on your bed? That would be really nice. And then would you let me sleep with you? It would be so great if you would hold me while I went to sleep. And when we wake up, I could do it again."

"I... I don't have a mirror there, Thommy, and you like to..."

"Yeah, but we can do it with the mirrors some other time, can't we? This time, I want to concentrate on doing it right, not on how I look. Or," he let go of me, "does it bother you, Simon, to have me in your bed? If it does..."

It was my turn to weep. The tears that welled up in my eyes, though, came from joy, from astonishment, from gratitude. "Thommy," I clutched him. "Thommy, I have wanted to have you in my bed almost from the first moment I saw you. You're my angel, my dream. I just can't believe that you want me..."

"Oh, but I do. A lot. How can you doubt it?" He put my hand on his cock. "Herby wants you, Simon, real bad."

In my bedroom, Thommy knelt on the bed and watched me with delight as I unrolled a condom over his Herby and smoothed it tight. Then he watched with curiosity as I spread gel on my fingertips and pushed them into myself. Then, gently but with determination, he pushed me onto my back and, still kneeling, spread my legs apart and put his hands under my buttocks to raise my ass to meet his cock.

"This is the way people do it, isn't it, Simon? Not like farm animals?"

"Yes, lover," I breathed. "Yes, like this. But take it slow, please, at first."

He didn't have any technique, though. Just urgent, fiery need. He guided himself up against me and then pushed and pushed hard and then harder and then he was in and he didn't stop till he was all the way in. I know I cried out. But either he didn't hear or he didn't care.

"You're so hot, Simon," he exclaimed as he corkscrewed a little inside me. "This is even better than your mouth. It feels fantastic." And he began to pump. He did start slowly. But it was more out of hesitation than consideration for me. And it didn't take him long to feel confident. He was in the driver's seat, and he drove and reversed and down-shifted and gave it the gas, all the time with my butt fiercely in his grip so that he was moving me around on his cock and up and down in his hands, and I was just warm flesh for him to use. At first, it really did hurt, but when he found a kind of ragged rhythm to his thrusts, I began to give myself over to his power and his desire and to want him to go on and on.

His eyes were closed and his mouth open, and his breathing was ragged, but I didn't realize that he was on the verge of climax until I saw a blush creep up his neck and into his cheeks. When it turned his sweat-beaded forehead crimson, he yelled out -- "Cammy!" was what I thought he said but it could have been "coming!" -- and even through the latex, I could feel him swell and spurt and spurt again deep inside me. Just as quickly as it had risen, the blood drained from his face. A huge smile replaced it. "Simon, Simon, Simon. That was the best! Just awesome, Simon. Now I know. And it's all because of you. You are so great to me."

As the words rushed out, his diminished organ slid free, and he lowered my butt and then himself to the mattress. He pulled my arms around him and wiggled his behind against my crotch and went instantly, childishly, fast asleep. Wham, bam, sweet dreams, ma'am. At least I could hold him. And I could reach down and slip the condom off him. And I could cry, cry for the joy I felt at having this vision of beauty in my embrace and cry for the hurt he was inflicting on me by using me without caring for me. I loved him, so it didn't matter. I loved him, and I would find a way to make him love me. Silently, I cried myself to sleep.

When I woke up, we were no longer embracing. Thommy, with his hands locked in his groin, was curled on his side, facing me. He looked enchanting, irresistible. I didn't want to wake him, but I had to touch him. I leaned over and let my lips just brush his forehead, then his eyelids. He whimpered lightly and stirred, rolling onto his back and letting one arm fall to his side while the other moved up to lie across his chest. He was hard again, a rampant column jutting out of his crotch. I inched my way down the bed until I could bend and lick at the flushed tip of his cock. It twitched slightly as I worked, but Tommy seemed oblivious. To test him, I tongued the sides of his shaft and then took his glans between my lips.

"Oh, yes, Simon, do it, please." The boy was awake, ready to be pampered, to be served. I squeezed hard along the ridge of his penis, pulling him up into my mouth and then sinking my mouth down around him and back up and down and up and down and then a squeal and I was filled with that hot brew of his, tasting slightly of the chili pepper and the basil from our supper the night before. I couldn't swallow much in the position I was in, so lots of his semen flowed back out onto him, down him, into that thin, silky covering of his pubic patch. And I followed right along with it, lapping the stream back up as his prick softened and came to rest on his testicles.

When I looked up, Thommy was looking down at me, faintly disturbed. "Do women do that, too?" he asked.

"I wouldn't know. Some, I guess. Why?'

"Well, doesn't it taste, I don't know, icky?"

"Not yours, kiddo. Everything about you is delicious. I bet your toes even taste good."

"I wouldn't know." He laughed. I thought he had no sense of humor, but I was wrong. He could joke, too. I adored him.

"I adore you, baby." I slid up along his body and pushed my face toward his. "Can I have a good morning kiss?"

"I think I ought to brush my teeth first, Simon. My mouth might not be all that delicious."

He meant my mouth, of course. Fastidious little shit. Innocent little dream-boy. I adored him. I kissed his chin. I kissed his right nipple. I tried not to cry again the way I had last night.

"Would you like a shower?" I asked.

"You can go first, Simon."

"We could do it together. I'd love to wash you."

"You would? Well, that would be great."

So I bathed him and I toweled him dry and I made him a healthy breakfast and he left for his classes and I sat down and cried. I would never reach him. I might hold him, but I would never possess him. And I wanted him desperately. He was so beautiful, so capable of love and of adoration. I would give him both. He would give me... What? His well-mannered gratitude. The solid feel of his cock in my mouth, in my ass, in my hand. Yes, I thought, I'll settle for that. I dressed and went to work.

I got home late. Okay, I had a couple of drinks on my way. I wasn't polluted or anything, just morose, the way I get with some alcohol in me, the way I can be without any alcohol at all. Thommy must have been watching for me from the window, because when I pushed open the door, he was standing in the hallway without a stitch on, holding a bunch of red roses (I hate red roses, but how could he know?) over his crotch and smiling a silly grin. He handed me the flowers and kissed me on the lips. He made me stand still and quiet while he got me as naked as he was and then he led me to the kitchen where he'd set the table for one. He had a candle burning and a nice-looking carry-out meal from the deli and once he'd gotten me seated and spread a napkin over my crotch, he picked up a guitar from a corner and began to play for me. It was Giuliani, so lovely that I started to cry all over again.

"Don't, Simon, don't." He came and knelt by me and stroked my knee. "I want you to be happy. You made me so happy. I just wanted to do something that would please you, to show you how thankful I am to you. Please, eat, before it gets cold, and then I want to wash you the way you did me and then I want to make love to you again. Please be happy with me."

"I've never been so happy," I moaned. "Thommy, you can do anything with me you want. Anything. You can't be half as happy as I am. I'm in love with you, Thommy. I feel like a schoolboy around you. I just want to look at you, to have you near, to be able to touch you. Will you let me do those things?"

"Only if you eat your supper. It's brisket of beef in some kind of mustard sauce and glazed carrots and potatoes mashed with turnips. I've been keeping it warm for you. And there's pecan pie for desert."

"Where did you get the money? And for the beautiful roses?"

"I borrowed some from a friend. Simon, that doesn't matter. I'll have money in a little while. And anything I have is yours. I'm yours. You made me into Thommy Farmer."

I ate. He played a little more. He'd taken up the guitar in college, he said, and he was still taking lessons. He took lessons in everything. We drank coffee together, and he took me into the bathroom and poured bath salts into the tub and scrubbed me as though I were a child which got me very turned on. "I don't think I'm as big as you are, Simon." Drying me, he fisted my erection, and I shivered with excitement. "Come to the bed," he put his other arm around my waist, "and let's measure them. Would that be okay?"

We mashed our bodies together, and Thommy decided that I was probably longer and that he was probably thicker. He got out the lube and coated me with it and, in a kind of businesslike way, jacked me off. "I want to see what it looks like, Simon, when you have orgasm. How much there is, how far it goes, where it lands. I don't know those things, and I want to know."

I showed him how to play with my nuts and I got him to put a finger in me and massage my prostate while he was massaging my prick, but even so I felt mostly like an exhibit, an overgrown, anatomically correct doll. When I came though, with the first blast arcing high and dropping onto my collarbone, Thommy was riveted. "Wow! That is awesome," he gushed as I gushed. "It is just so powerful, Simon. You're really excellent like that. It makes me want to fuck you till you do it again."

"Actually, I'm a little sensitive, Thommy. From last night, you know."

"Well, I'll use lots of this stuff." He held up the tube of K-Y. "And I'll do it from behind. That won't hurt, will it?"

"No, of course not. I want you, Thommy. I want you in me."

First he got a washcloth and cleaned me up. He even kissed the tip of my nose while he worked, and when I put my hands up and pulled his face to mine, he let me kiss him and for a few seconds push my tongue between his lips. "Do you want to suck me, Simon, to get me hard?" he asked. "It's just so good when you put me in your mouth. And you like doing it, don't you?"

I nodded. The happy, hopeless cocksucker. He stood next to the bed and drew my head to the edge to service him. He was already somewhat aroused, and it was easy to take him between my lips, to tongue the moist surface of the purpling bulb and tickle my way around the corona. "Will girls do this for me, Simon, do you think? Won't they be afraid?"

"Thommy," I let his cock slip free. "Thommy, I don't know any more about girls than you do. But if someone loves you, she or he will do anything you ask them. Look at me."

"I am. You're really nice looking, Simon, do you know that? I wish I had a line of hair like this," he ran his fingers from below my navel into my pubic thatch and curled a couple of hairs there around his thumb. I went instantly to rigid attention. That particular caress gets me every time.

"Oh," he said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you started since it's my turn now."

"It's okay," I said. "It'll go down."

"But what if I masturbated you while I fucked you? Would you like that, Simon? I mean, if you would, I can do it again. It was good for you, wasn't it. Before?"

I admitted that it had been good. He smiled, content, and opened a condom packet for me to dress him with. He smeared gel on my fingers and watched me slick my cleft and then he had me crouch on the bed on my elbows and knees while he entered me from behind. I winced at the pain, but he just put his arms around me, pressed his chest against my back and took hold of my cock. He screwed me then with a lot more sophistication than the night before, building up an overpowering rhythm of dominance from a very slow start to a pounding, excruciating, high-volume finish when his grip on my cock was so fierce I thought he'd rip it from my body as he came and came and came.

I didn't. He hung, panting, on me for a full minute until he was soft enough to pull himself away. He took the condom off by himself and then held it up to examine. "That doesn't seem like so much," he grinned, "but it took forever to come out of me and it was wonderful, Simon, incredibly wonderful, while it lasted. Thank you. I loved it." He dropped the used rubber on the floor and rolled into my arms. "Can I sleep with you again, please? I feel so good when I'm with you and when I wake up and find you making love to me. I don't have classes tomorrow. It's Saturday. We could do things together, couldn't we?"

I agreed that we could, and he went out like a light. I watched him for a while, almost unable to believe the magnificence of his body and the childishness of his sleeping face. Then I crept out of the bed, picked up the condom and flushed it away, cleared up in the kitchen, put his roses in a vase that I brought back to the bedroom and drew a sheet and blanket over him. I slept in the spare room, sniffing for his scent on the sheets he had used, hugging his pillow to my stomach and dreaming of Thommy, on his knees, begging to taste my cock, imploring me to top him, to control him, to take possession of him.

When I woke up, though, he was the one standing, and as I looked up at him bleary-eyed, I was the one who wanted to crawl and plead. "Why did you leave me, Simon?" he pouted. "I thought you would sleep with me and kiss me awake like yesterday. I thought you liked doing that for me."

"I do. Oh, baby, I do." I sat up and wrapped my arms around his waist and lowered my head to his crotch. "I was just afraid of being so close to you, Thommy. I was afraid of losing control. I want you so badly. I want you every minute."

"Well," he giggled, "it looks like you've got me now. Go ahead, if you want, lose control. I don't mind."

I pulled him onto the bed so that he was sitting naked on my chest and I pretended not to want to take his firm, questing dick into my mouth. He laughed a little at the game and ran his finger over my lips. "Suck that for me then, Simon," he commanded. I shook my head and kept my lips sealed. "Are you ticklish, Simon? I bet you are." He reached backwards and grabbed my sides and began to pinch me lightly and then to run his fingers up and down, and I started to giggle and then to squeal. As soon as my mouth opened, though, he slid himself into it.

"Now!" His tone was triumphant. "Make me happy, Simon. Show me how you love me."

I showed him. I raised him up so that his crotch was directly over my face, and I threw my head back and swallowed him up, all the way to the hilt. Let him see what a pro can do. As I held him well into my throat, I also pressed a fingertip against his anus. This time, he didn't question me. He wiggled his way onto my probe instead, sighing deeply as the finger passed into his rectum and found his prostate.

"Make me come, Simon!" He had closed his eyes. His chin pointed at the ceiling. I released him from the back of my throat and slid wetly up and down his shaft until he went rigid with delight. The blush this time began somewhere near the center of his chest and flashed upwards along his throat into his hairline. As it did, his cock emptied itself into me, and his sphincter convulsed around my finger.

"Oh, God, Simon," he moaned as he began to come down, "that was the best. You make me feel so good, Simon." He combed his fingers through my hair and brushed it off my sweaty forehead. "It just seems so perfect," he said looking down at the way his sex flopped on my lips, "as if I was meant to fit into you like that and you were meant to take me like you do. Isn't it lucky for both of us that you gave me that ride? What if we'd never met? I'd still be Herb Regenwasser, the kid who didn't know anything."

"And who would I be?"

"The funny, sad man with the elephant stick."

"And who am I instead?"

"You're the man who loves Thommy Farmer." He wiggled his hips to rub his balls along my chin. "And everything about him. You're a loving man now, Simon, aren't you?"

"I'm a man in love, that's true," I sighed. I put out my tongue and licked at his sac. He responded with a satisfied little grunt. "I do love you, Thommy. I wish you loved me a little."

There. I'd said it. I'd begged him the way, in the dream, I wanted him to beg me. He gave me a surprised look.

"But I do love you, Simon." He clambered off me and slid down beside me on the narrow bed. He laid his face next to mine. "I love you for teaching me so much." He put a hand on my chest and stroked it casually. "And for caring for me and helping me and for making me see what a great thing sex really is. But I'm not gay, Simon. You know that. I'll always be a Herbert. I love you because you're my very best friend, but I won't give up girls so that I can be just with you."

"What girls? You don't have any girls. You haven't ever had a girl."

"But I want to. And I will. Thanks to you. Oh, Simon! I owe you so much. That's a kind of love, isn't it?" He gave me a chaste kiss on the neck. "I don't want to hurt you, Simon. I just have to be honest. That's all."

"I understand, Thommy." I did. I knew all along that there was no hope. Then why was I crying? He put an arm under my head and pulled it onto his shoulder.

"Simon, please." He patted me. My back and then my buttocks. "Simon, don't cry. I promise, you can make love to me whenever you like. I want to stay here with you as long as you'll let me. Isn't that enough? Doesn't that show how I feel about you? How I depend on you to be my friend?"

"I guess so," I wailed. "Thommy, I don't want you to go away. Not ever. And you can have me whenever you like." All between sobs. "I'll do anything you want. You don't have to love me. Just don't leave me."

I clung to him, and the nice thing is, he clung to me. Finally, I got myself under control.

"Anything I want?" He grinned at me.

"Absolutely anything."

"Good. I want a shower, and I want it with you. And a big breakfast. And more lessons, please."

"Yes, sir. Your word is my command." I grinned back. It would be all right.

The shower was better than all right. I washed him first, and when it was my turn, he did my back and he scrubbed between my ass cheeks and then he pressed against me so that I could feel his erection pushing my buttocks apart and went to work on my cock and balls. He played with me, loose feathery strokes and then a tight, soapy fist and, as I got hotter and harder, he drew my body back into his and sort of dry-humped me as he brought me off.

"You learn fast, kiddo," I said when I recovered the power of speech. "You must be at least a little bit gay."

"Maybe." He had bent down to wash my legs and feet. "But I don't think so. I like touching you, Simon, and having you hold me, and I really like having sex with you, but it's because I know you can't resist me. And I can't resist me. That makes us alike. And when I have your penis in my hand, it's as though I were doing it to myself. So, of course, I want it to be good."

"But when you held me just now, you got hard, Thommy. Unless you're gay, you shouldn't react to another man that way. You don't seem at all uncomfortable being naked with me, for instance, or with my naked body."

"It's a nice body, Simon." He stood up and poured some shampoo into his hand and began to wash my hair. "You could do with some more regular exercise, and you ought to stand up straight, but I like your body. I like using your body, to tell you the truth. The reason I get that way with you is that now I've found out about sex, I want it all the time. And you're the only person I know who will always help me out. Won't you?"

I nodded. I was speechless. I'd never heard anyone be so frank about his desires, but Thommy had swung 180 degrees from thinking his genitals were shameful to thinking that the world, or at least Simon Moore, existed to get him off. He had been naïve before, and he was still naïve but in a sexually aroused way. I had created a monster, and he held me in the palm of his hand.

He really did. After I'd washed his hair and we'd dried each other, he came back into my room because he said he wanted to watch me dress. "Gay men dress just like straight ones, Thommy," I joked in embarrassment. "One leg at a time."

It turned out, though, that he wanted to see the kind of clothes I wear. Boxers, for the record, and mid-calf socks and jeans that have been faded in the right places and that hug my ass. "Are you making it stick out like that on purpose?" he asked, pointing at my crotch.

"My basket, yeah. Some people call it a package. It's what other men look at almost first and if you've got a nice one, you want to show it off. The same goes for the butt. If you're cruising, that is."

"Are there really cruises that only gays go on?"

"So they say. But that's not what cruising is. Thommy, can we have breakfast? I need some coffee. Your boy-toy needs a fix."

He leered and laughed. "Boy-toy. That's really funny. Simon, would you mind not wearing a shirt this morning? I want you to be able to see your tummy."

"Whatever you say. But if you're going to stay nude like that, you can bring me breakfast in bed. If not, I'll be in the kitchen."

He went and dressed in a tracksuit and trainers and demolished the eggs, sausage and muffins I put in front of him. "Would you make pancakes for me some day, Simon?" More an order than a request. "And oatmeal, too, please? I love breakfast. It's my favorite meal." He must have seen that I took only toast and coffee, but Thommy was a human bulldozer. He carved up the landscape to suit himself, and I was just part of the landscape.

He did help with the dishes. In his way, he had good manners. He also had a one-track mind. The inquisition began with the subject of cruising. Then clothes, then ways that gay men identify one another, who makes the first move, how they establish sex roles and preferences, where they meet. I felt as though I were conducting a seminar and that Thommy should be taking notes. He was certainly absorbing every word I said, and after a while I worried that some of my glib answers were misleading him.

"Thommy, you've got to remember what Eldon said the other night in the restaurant. There really are a million different ways to be gay. I can't stand Eldon, but he's right about that. The character you're going to play ought to be very masculine because you are, but being masculine doesn't mean that you have to wear leather or hate opera or have a hairy chest and big balls. And being gay doesn't mean being effeminate or finicky or having great color sense or an obsession with penis size. It just means that you love men the way most men love women."

"Well," he reflected, "that may be part of my problem. I've never been in love."

"I guess I can't help you there," I said.

"You could, I think, if you wanted to, Simon." He picked up on the bitterness in my voice. "You could tell me what it's like. You've been in love. What did you feel?"

"Needed. I felt needed. Can we just leave it at that?"

"I need you, Simon." He took my hand in both of his and stroked the knuckles a little. "Is that why you say you love me?"

"It must have something to do with it, but basically, it's chemical. You are the best-looking man I've seen in years, and you're young and vigorous and you act kind of innocent. When you smiled at me in the car that first afternoon, I fell for you. Now, I can't get up. I'm so scared of losing you I don't act like myself any more. So, I guess that means I need you a lot more than you need me."

"Are you angry at me?"

"At myself. For being a fool. That's another thing. You don't have to be gay to be self-destructive, but it helps. Now go away, kid. School's out."

"Not quite, Simon. Please." He stood up and pulled me to my feet. He drew me out into the hall to his beloved mirrors. Stationing himself behind me, he made me square my shoulders and then look at my reflected image. My good points in his appraisal were my eyes ("That's almost a Paul Newman blue," he said.), my thick lashes, the silver flecks in the hair on my temples, the suggestion of a dimple in my chin, the width of my shoulders and the lift of my butt. "But you've been letting yourself go, haven't you?" He poked at the thin roll of flab that lapped a little over my belt. "And you walk with your head down a lot. We've got to do something about that."

"Are you going to be my personal trainer, Thommy? Why do you want to fix me up, anyway? Isn't my asshole tight enough for you?"

"Oh, Simon, don't. Don't." His arms circled me and pulled me back hard against him. "You've helped me. I want to help you. Please let me try. Don't hit me with the elephant stick. It hurts."

"But it works. You don't see any elephants, do you?'

"Or friends. I don't see the friends you ought to have. I don't see the lover you ought to have."

"He got married and moved to Texas."

"But that happened a long time ago, you said. Don't you want anyone else in your life?"

"I have you."

"But I'm going to have girls and get married and move to California and be famous. You don't want to go through the unhappiness twice."

"When you're in love, Thommy, you only think about happy endings."

"All right. We'll think one up. Meantime, will you come to the gym with me and get some exercise this morning?"

"Which gym?"

"At NYU. It's nice. Well, it's crowded, but it's free."

"If you're a student. I'm not. You go ahead. I have to clean this place."

"No, I will. I know how to clean. And you can exercise right here. Do push-ups and crunches, like I was doing the other night. Then we can go for a run."

He got his sleeping bag, sat me down on it and watched while I started. Then he brought me a couple of dumbbells and gave me a routine for using them. "And watch yourself in the mirror," he said. "It's more fun that way." I lasted maybe 30 minutes, finishing up with some push-ups, as I listened to the vacuum cleaner he was guiding around different rooms. When I went into the kitchen to get a well-deserved glass of water, he was scrubbing the sink and the countertops.

"You look better already." He put his palm on my chest. "You're sexy when you're sweaty. Will you come running with me now?"

I agreed. I think I would have agreed to climb Mt. Everest if he had asked me. But I regretted it. Thommy set a tough pace, and even though traffic thinned as we moved into the nearly deserted financial district, I was constantly afraid of losing him as we jogged. Finally, I called it quits and limped home. I rested and went out and did some marketing. Thommy appeared three hours later. He'd had his run, and he'd been to the gym, and he glowed. He wanted another kind of exercise, but I thought that if I let him screw me whenever the idea occurred to him, I really would turn into his boy-toy.

"Could we save it till later, Thommy?" I asked. "What if we went out for supper and a flick? They're showing the Brando movie I told you about, `Streetcar,' and you ought to see it to see how beautiful he was once and also what a great actor he was even then."

"And you'll make love to me afterwards?"

"Promise."

We had an indifferent Italian meal, Dutch treat, but the film made up for it, even though Thommy was more excited by Vivien Leigh than by Brando. Walking out of the movie theater, he was imitating her breathy lament about depending "on the kindness of strangers" when I heard someone behind us calling my name. I turned, surprised and then delighted to see Zeke Kaplin, one of the first friends I'd made in New York and still one of the closest. I had introduced him to his partner, Barry Delaunay, six years earlier. They had clicked instantly and, I thought, forever. But now Zeke was pushing through the small crowd toward me with a striking-looking companion, black-haired, tall and slender. Handsome despite a very obviously broken nose, he also seemed, as Zeke tugged him along the crowded sidewalk, to be looking, almost frantically, for an exit. His eyes darted around. He swiveled his body this way and that, and when Zeke let go of him to embrace me, the other man took several backward steps as though to distance himself as much as he could.

"You look familiar, sir," I said to Zeke, pretending to push him away, "Very like a friend I had once who disappeared to Polynesia and may have been eaten by cannibals. Ezekiel Kaplin was his name. He used to call me quite often. There is an unusual resemblance, although your skin is a good deal darker. Perhaps you've heard of him. A financial analyst? Bon vivant?"

"Okay, Simon, okay. You've made your point. I'm a shit," Zeke was smiling but a little bit contrite. "I'm really sorry, but we've only been back less than two weeks, and work has been hell, and Barry's been on the road and the General Assembly ... well, you know." He hugged me again. "God, it's great to see you. Are you going to forgive me?"

"Not immediately, but soon." I laughed. "What's this crap about the General Assembly? And where's Barry?"

"The General Assembly? I just threw that in for the hell of it. Barry's with a client but we're going to meet him later. I'm glad you like my tan. You do like it, don't you? And it's all over. You don't need clothes in the South Seas, Simon, and you should've seen some of the cannibals. Positively edible. We've got photos. Rob loved them. Oh, you've got to meet Rob." He swiveled around, looking, I assumed, for the man he'd had in tow.

Spotting him -- kneeling to tie his shoelaces and, I guessed, to make himself invisible -- Zeke grabbed his friend by the elbow, pulled him to his feet and pushed him toward me. "Simon," he said. "I'm returning a favor. This is Rob Andelman. We were, uh, fraternity brothers in college. He's just moved to New York to run that radio and TV museum. Rob, this is Simon Moore. He knows everything about everything. And he's an eligible bachelor."

Zeke's patter suddenly ground to a halt. His eyebrows arched. Obviously, he had finally noticed Thommy standing a little behind me.

"Oh, Simon," he stammered. "I'm sorry. I didn't know... Should I know? Have you...? Christ, he's awfully young." That was a whisper, but a pretty audible one.

I shook Rob's hand. "It's nice to meet you." It was. He had incredible green eyes and a firm handshake. "Welcome to New York. I'm sorry you've fallen into such bad company, but it's a big city. It's one of the risks you take."

Rob smiled, a little tentatively, but still it was a smile. His teeth were perfect. "And here's someone who'll be in your museum pretty soon," I went on. "Thommy Farmer, Rob... I'm sorry. I didn't catch your last name."

"Andelman. Glad to meet you. Both of you. Thanks, Simon, for warning me about Zeke. He was an okay guy in college, but that was a long time ago. People change."

Zeke was dancing around the three of us looking for an opening. Finally, he just pushed his way in and took Thommy's hand. "I'm Zeke Kaplin, and you're out of sight. How are you going to get into the museum? As a statue?"

"As an actor," I answered. "Thommy's got a part in a new sitcom. I'm giving him some pointers on the role."

"Let me guess," Zeke was, as usual, in a mischievous mood. "You're the star quarterback, but you really want to paint and play the flute only a lot of college coaches are offering you athletic scholarships and your little sister needs an operation."

I started to reply, but Thommy beat me to it. "Trombone," he grinned, "not the flute. Actually, Mr. Kaplin, it's a sitcom not a soap opera, and I'm supposed to be gay, but I'm straight, and Simon is teaching me how."

"To be straight?" Zeke feigned astonishment. "That's not really his strong suit."

"No. To act gay. Until I met Simon, I didn't know anybody who was gay, so he's helping me learn. We talk about it a lot."

I kept my mouth shut. I hadn't imagined Thommy could be so discreet. But Zeke wasn't buying. He turned to me.

"That's the biggest load of bullshit I've heard this week, Simon. You don't expect me to believe that you have lured this gorgeous kid into your web by pretending to be a mentor for young actors. Come clean. How did you trap him?"

"It's a short and not very romantic story, Zeke," I said. "I gave him a lift and some advice and a bed in the spare room when he was evicted. And he's promised to name all of his children after me. Where is Barry and when can I see him?"

"At the River Club, making a pitch to an unsuspecting developer from Omaha, but we made a date to meet at the Third Circle. I'm showing Rob the sights. He's a country mouse."

"Boulder is not the country. Even an effete Easterner should know that." Rob was smiling but not warmly. "And I'm not running the broadcasting museum. I'm going to be an assistant director. Zeke always had a tendency to embroider. Some things don't change."

"Truth is so dreary," Zeke vamped. "As far as I'm concerned, improving on it is a kind of public service. And, speaking of which, I need a drink." He put his hand on Thommy's upper arm. "Come on, stud, let me take you and your awe-inspiring biceps on a field trip to a gay watering hole. We'll go find Barry and booze and the boys in the back room. Simon, you and Rob can cover our rear."

"In your dreams," I said. Thommy gave me an inquiring look, asking silently if I really wanted to be part of this excursion. I debated the point, also silently, and decided I did. Thommy ought to see a gay bar. I wanted to see Barry. And, to tell the truth, I wanted to find out more about Rob Andelman. Zeke said he was "returning a favor" by introducing Rob. Zeke was one of the few people who knew me well enough to be a matchmaker, and there was something about his "country mouse" friend that did attract me. I make it a rule to stay out of noisy bars, but some rules are made to be broken. I nodded to Thommy, and the four of us set off.

It was only a 15-minute walk, and I had to keep an eye on Zeke, who was trying to grill my protégé. Still, I managed to coax some information out of Rob. He'd been teaching communications -- history and theory -- in Colorado and had put together a History Channel documentary on early television news coverage. It had landed him the New York job. He'd never lived in a big city, he admitted, and he was having trouble adjusting to the openness of Zeke and other gays he saw. "You don't have to hide in Boulder," he said. "There's a community, of course. But it's not like here, not so obvious, not so out front. I guess I'll get used to it, but it's going to take time."

"Don't rush it," I said. "The truth is that most of us, even in New York, lead the usual lives of quiet desperation."

"Not you, though." He gave me an appraising look. "With your looks? And Zeke has told me you've got the quickest mind he knows."

"As you said, Zeke embroiders on the truth." I don't know what I would have added, but we'd gotten to the Third Circle, and it was no place for exchanging confidences. The bar area was jammed. A Saturday night crowd of men on the prowl, lots of them beginning to wonder -- even before eleven o'clock -- if they were going to get lucky or go home alone, again. The vibes were bad. I didn't want to be there and, judging by the pinched, white look on his face, Rob didn't either.

Zeke, though, was in his element. He managed to get beers for Rob and me, a Stoli on the rocks for himself and, wearing an expression of amazed disgust, a Diet Pepsi for Thommy. He searched the crowd for Barry and, not finding him, put a proprietary arm over Thommy's shoulder just as a hunter-gatherer in a studded leather vest was about to move in on the boy. "I bet you're a terrific dancer," he yelled into Thommy's ear.

"I've had lessons," my innocent admitted. Lamb to the slaughter. The next thing I knew Zeke was propelling the two of them into the maelstrom of frenzied bodies in the next room. Rob and I backed ourselves against a wall and tried to talk. Impossible. We gave up after a couple of rounds of cupping our ears and shrugging our shoulders in hopeless incomprehension.

With conversation impossible, I let my eyes wander around the room. It was the usual New York gay-bar mix, almost no one over 40, almost everyone dressed to impress, whether in Armani or muscle shirts. Heads glistened with enough styling gel to hold up a Seven-Eleven. Gold rings hung from many ears and a few noses. Most of the men were actually pretty ordinary looking, some even homely, scrawny, overweight, geeky. But here and there an Adonis stood and preened, letting himself be adored by the lesser mortals. Harry had been like that. He was as beautiful in his way as Thommy, and I had worshipped his looks right up to the moment when the Dallas heiress bought him out of my bed. I shouldn't be such a sucker for physical beauty, but I am, and the more I looked at Rob Andelman, broken nose and all, the better-looking he got. "Do you want another beer?" I yelled in his ear, flourishing my empty bottle in front of him.

"No, thanks," he bellowed back. "Could we go outside?" He gestured toward the door. I nodded enthusiastically, and we elbowed our way to the sidewalk.

"Whew!" I shouted.

"You don't have to yell now," Rob grinned his relief. "But whew! is exactly right. I guess I'm getting old, but I can't take the noise or the crowd any more. Tell the truth, I never liked being with a whole bunch of other gay guys, with everyone on the make, everyone trying to one up everyone else. I guess I'm not the alpha male type. I like quiet things."

"Such as?"

"Chamber music. Hiking. Cooking for a few friends. Rereading my favorite books. I know that sounds pretty pathetic, but it's true. I like being fairly self-sufficient."

I was instantly suspicious. Too good to be true. "Has Zeke been talking about me to you?" I asked edgily.

"No. Well, yes, a little, but Zeke talks mostly about himself. You know that. Why do you ask?"

"Because Zeke once put a personal ad in the paper saying that he had a friend who was looking for someone who liked his pleasures quiet. I was the friend, and I was furious. Fortunately, only a couple of weirdos answered the ad. One of them was into handkerchief gags. What's weird is that I'm a chamber music freak. I cook very well in small amounts, and I've read David Copperfield six times. I don't hike, though."

"Why not?"

"I'm a city mouse. For outdoor thrills, I jaywalk. And I don't think I have the stamina for long walks uphill with wolves nipping at my heels."

"They're really very shy animals," Rob put on a lopsided grin. "And I bet you'd do fine on the trail. You look pretty fit."

"That's Thommy's doing. He decided today that I need more exercise. It's just an afterglow."

"Well, it looks really good on you, Simon." He paused, bashfully. "Is it all right if I call you Simon?"

"Please. Do you prefer Rob or what?"

"Rob. Short for Robert. But I never felt like a Robert, somehow. Simon, excuse me if I'm prying, but are you and Thommy, well, are the two of you involved?"

"An honest answer? I'm involved. He's not. He actually is straight, and I must be entering my second adolescence. I have this ridiculous crush on him, and I let him walk all over me. Rob, this is just between us. Okay? Please, don't tell Zeke."

"Don't tell Zeke what?" A familiar voice spoke over my left shoulder, and a familiar finger goosed me. Hard.

I knew it was Barry. He had come to be almost as complete an extrovert as Zeke, no longer the outwardly reserved, inwardly seething architectural student I had met so many years before when we both reached for the same mango in a Korean grocer's display. Each of us had felt the same, nerve-jangling sexual spark and acted on it almost immediately. (My apartment was just a block away.) Afterwards, a little frightened by the intensity of our coupling, we somehow agreed never to do it again. It seemed too dangerous to go that high, like trapeze artists without a net. Instead, we became close, good friends, at least until Harry took over my life and I brought Zeke and Barry together. Now I had to pretend that I wasn't as glad to see Barry as I always was.

"Don't tell Zeke," I whirled on Barry, "that I'm having his lover sent to Rikers Island for unprovoked assault and lewd conduct on a public thoroughfare. It would just encourage him to take that hunky actor off the dance floor and home to bed."

Barry turned a rewarding shade of pale, but only for a few seconds. Then he hugged me tight. "You got me, Simon. You always can. God, it's great to see you. Hi, Rob. Was I right or what?"

"I think so," he said. He blushed and looked away.

"I know so." Barry sounded triumphant. "The minute I met you, I thought of Simon. How did you two get together so fast and what have you done with the Wall Street wonder?"

"He's inside," I gestured behind me, "dancing with the genuine, all-American twink I took to the movies where we ran into Zeke and Rob. The kid is sort of my pupil and, uh, roommate."

Barry gave me a strange look. "Twinks are not your type, Simon. What's going on? God, a boy can't leave town for a well-deserved vacation without the world going to pieces. Rob is your type, Simon. Zeke and I have already decided everything."

"You picked the caterer?"

"We've advertised for bids." He hugged me again. "Oh, Simon, I've missed you so. We had such a sensational time. It was beautiful beyond belief, and I've learned to dive, and I've decided that my next building is going to be just like a coral reef."

"I'm not sure that underwater dwellings are the wave of the future, Barry," I said. "Although growing gills again might be a good thing for the human race. Of course, it would mean no more shower sex."

He giggled. "Well, I admit, I've got a few details to work out, but, Simon, let me tell you, getting fucked in the middle of a school of tropical fish ... Well, it makes you want to have a very, very big aquarium."

"You and Tiberius."

Barry didn't get it.

"The Roman Emperor," Rob explained. "He was a dirty old man who used a grotto on Capri for his orgies. Lots of little boys, supposedly."

"I didn't claim the idea was original," Barry said defensively. "But for the right client...," he trailed off. "I'm going to go rescue Zeke," he declared. "Then we can go somewhere quiet for coffee. Okay? You two stay put."

He disappeared into the Circle. Rob looked at his watch, then at me. "Will you make my excuses for me?" he asked. "I'm really sorry, but I'm being picked up before dawn to go fishing in the Sound, and I've got to get some sleep."

"Dress warmly," I said. "Don't worry, I'll calm the Bobbsey Twins down."

"Simon?"

"Yeah."

"Simon, what if they're right? About you and me, that is. I'd really like to see you again. Is that okay to say?"

"Only if you mean it. I'd like to see you, too. Things are a little, well, uh, weird right now, uh, because of Thommy, but still, we could have a meal sometime and, I don't know, talk about the Roman Empire."

Rob laughed. "Let's. Talk about weird. Tiberius and then Caligula. How can I get in touch with you?"

I scribbled out my numbers. He had a business card. We swapped. We shook hands. I held his for an extra second. "They often are," I said.

"Are what?"

"Right. I think it will be fun finding out if this is one of those times."

"I think so, too. I'll call." He walked away.

It was definitely one of those times that I wished I still smoked. A cigarette can make you look decisive or, at least, preoccupied. Standing alone in the eager, purposeful human traffic outside a Village bar, I had the feeling that I looked like I was cruising. Instead, I was trying to sort and rank the very surprising feelings that came as I watched Rob disappear and as I waited for Thommy to come out and claim me. I had promised him sex, and I knew he'd keep me to my word. He'd be all pumped from dancing, sweaty and irresistible, and I wanted to feel him deep inside me. But I wanted Rob, too. In a very different way. The question was: could I have them both?

When Zeke and Barry appeared, but without Thommy, it looked like I would get neither. "Your heartthrob," Zeke chuckled naughtily, "is the toast of the Circle. He's been taken over by some other acting students, and I can imagine the role they're offering him. At any rate, he said to tell you he'd see you at home later. So let's go to the senior citizens' center and get a nice, soothing cup of herbal tea."

We got a cab and went uptown to their apartment, where they distracted me with pictures of Bora Bora and the yacht they chartered and the hunky crew who, in fact, were generally clothed but definitely edible. And the minute I yawned and checked my watch, they switched the conversation to Rob. "He's too good for you," Zeke declared, "way too smart and nice and considerate. You'd just take advantage of him because you're such a brute, Simon."

"Gee, thanks," I said. "Why did you want him to meet me in the first place?"

"Well, he might be a good influence on you," Barry chimed in. "He needs someone to take care of him, and you need to take care of someone. Simon, isn't it time for you to rejoin the human race?"

"Can I afford the dues? That's a pretty mean remark, Barry. I don't think I'm such a monster. I'm just choosy about the people I hang out with."

"Come on, Simon. You're not just choosy. You're almost a hermit. We're the people you hang out with, us and maybe half a dozen others -- tops. You won't get close to anybody because you think you'll get dumped again. That's no way to live, never taking any chances."

"You don't know how I live, Barry. You don't know as much about me as you think. Just because Thommy is young..."

"And straight," Zeke interrupted. "You said so yourself."

"He's straight?" Barry gasped.

"Yeah," I said. "Don't you have any straight friends?"

"Not with looks like his. Not sharing my bathroom. My God, Simon, don't tell me you're just being nice to that gorgeous kid and not getting it on with him."

"I'm not telling you anything. It's none of your business. But I will tell you that I liked Rob and I hope I'll see him again. Why did you say he needs someone to take care of him?"

"We think he should tell you that himself," Zeke answered. "If you don't scare him off."

"Don't scare him off, Simon," Barry chorused. "He's real. He's special. Make an effort."

"I will," I smiled. "Thanks, guys. I know you mean well. But don't splurge on the caterers yet. While you two were neglecting me, I seem to have complicated my life a little. In a nice way. Sometime, maybe, I'll tell you all about it. Right now, though, it's past my bedtime."

Of course, it wasn't sleep that I wanted. On the long cab ride back to Soho, I fantasized about finding Thommy naked in my bed, about him waking to pull me into his arms and to beg me to take him, to make us one. When I got home, of course, the apartment was dark and empty. Nearly two in the morning. Where the hell was he? My innocent farm boy. I imagined him the central figure of an orgy in the back room at the Circle. I imagined him writhing blissfully in the arms of his fellow students from Tisch. I imagined him lost to me. I took a hit from my reserve of liquid comfort in the freezer, undressed to my shorts and went to the bathroom to piss and brush my teeth.

As I was rinsing my mouth out, I heard a door slam. The next thing I knew Thommy, shirtless, giggling, a little red-eyed, holding his shoes in one hand, was in the bathroom door. "Oh, Simon," he blocked my way out, "I feel so weird. It's great, Simon. Have you ever had marijuana, Simon? My friends had some, and they shared it with me, and," he burst into near-falsetto laughter, "they said it might make me horny, and they were right. See, Simon," he dropped the shoes, grabbed my hand and pressed it against his fly. He was hard, hard and huge, and, as usual when he touched me, I got an erection, too. He saw it.

"Have you been smoking, too?" he snickered. "Sure looks like it. Let's fuck, Simon. If you help me get these pants off, we can do it right here. And then we can go to your bed and do it again. I bet I can. I sure need to, Simon." He pulled my boxers down and started to push me down, too.

"No, Thommy. Cut it out. Take it easy. Not like this. Not like farm animals."

"But I am a farm animal, Simon," he laughed uproariously. "And so are you. Look at your prick, Simon, waving around like that. You want it bad, and you want me to give it to you, and I'm going to. Undress me. Now. Come on." He put his hands on my shoulders and pressed hard.

I pushed him away and backed off a little myself, pulling my shorts back up my legs. "Thommy, I don't like you like this. I'm not just someone you can fuck whenever you want to. I care about you. I care about us. You go ahead and take a quick shower, maybe a cold one. And then come to bed, and we'll make love. It'll be nice."

"We'll make love some other time." He was suddenly very cold. "Simon, I want a fuck. If you won't play ball, I'll go back to my friends. They wanted me to fuck them, but I said no. I said I have someone who likes me a lot and who knows how to make me happy. Now, tell me, Simon, are you going to make me happy or should I go make them happy?"

I know what I should have done. I should have pointed him to the door and out of my life. But I didn't. I couldn't. I stripped off my shorts, and I got down on my knees and pressed my mouth into his crotch. As I pulled down the zipper on his fly and undid his belt, I heard Thommy chuckle. He ran his fingers through my hair while I drew his jeans down his legs and licked at the clinging briefs he was wearing.

"You love me a lot, don't you, Simon?"

"Yes, Thommy. Too much."

"You're funny, Simon," he giggled. "Don't you know how lucky you are that you have me to love? It can't be too much, like you said. I'm special. You said I was your angel, your dream. Doesn't that mean that you love me all the time, all the way?"

I just nodded. I hooked my fingers into the waistband of his underwear and lifted the cloth free of his straining erection so that I could have him completely naked.

"No, Simon, say it. Say how much you are in love with me. Say you belong to me."

I looked up at him. He wasn't laughing or even smiling. Oblivious to my feelings, he just wanted me to lay my soul on his altar, a human sacrifice for him to consume whenever he felt like it.

I took his cock in my hands. "Thommy, I love you and every part of you so much that I have let you change me. Loving you has given me a new life, and so yes, I belong to you now, because you've made me a different person. I'm your lover."

"Well, good. Then I think you should show it. Go ahead, lover, suck my cock. Really suck it."

I did, and he mewed, a funny, high-pitched sound that I'd never heard him make before, when I moved my tongue around the flaring edge of his streaming cockhead. When I ducked underneath to massage his balls with my lips, he groaned and then stepped over me so that he held my head between his thighs in a gentle but possessive vise. "You're incredible, Simon," he stroked my shoulders lightly. "I bet those guys I was with don't know half the things you do. And they just want me because of the way I look. You really get off on making me happy, though, don't you, Simon? You'd do anything for me, I know it."

I was too busy lapping at the taut, bumpy flesh of his sac to answer him. I tried to pretend, even, that I hadn't heard him, that he hadn't defined precisely the degree of his ownership of me. But he had. It was true. Nothing mattered more than keeping him and his fresh, straightforward, confident beauty close to me, close enough to touch as I was gripping his fantastic buttocks, close enough to smell, as I was inhaling the sweaty reek of his crotch.

I don't think he read my mind, but he showed clearly who was in charge. He stepped back, freeing my head, and then guided his cock between my lips. "Suck me some more, Simon," he commanded me. "You really are good at it. I bet I'll never find a girl who loves my dick the way you do."

I really went to work on him with my tongue and my lips and the pressure from my hollowed-in cheeks. He was right again. I did love his magnificent, thick, penis. I loved its weight and warm mass in my mouth. I loved the feel of his balls slapping against my chin. I loved the spunk I wanted him to feed me. But Thommy had other ideas.

"That's enough, Simon," he said. "I want to come in your ass, and I'm just about ready." He took my hands from his butt and lifted me up. "I've decided though that we won't do it here. Come on out to the hall. I want to see what it looks like in the mirrors this time. And you'll be able to watch, too. I think it'll be neat." He giggled and patted my behind as he pushed me ahead of him.

I didn't protest. The first time I had knelt to serve him had been in front of the reflecting glass. That had turned him on, and I was so excited by the act itself that I would have gladly done it on a bed of coals. If he wanted to repeat the thrill of performing for an audience, for himself, I had no objection. I just wanted him in me.

Out in the corridor, he looked around and disappeared into the kitchen to bring back a four-legged stool. "If you just bend over some and hold onto this," he said, "you won't have to put your hands on the floor. It'll be nicer, don't you think?"

"Whatever you want, Thommy. Whatever. But you need a condom. You want me to get one?"

"I'll get it." He went to my bedroom and returned with the packet for me to open.

"How about the lube?"

"Don't need it. I'm going to open you up with my fingers." He put two of them on my lips. "Get them wet, the way my girl friend used to do. Make them slick enough to get you ready for me."

I started to say something about how his big cock would hurt me, but his fingers pushed their way into my mouth and silenced my complaint. I washed them busily, noisily, even enthusiastically, not to dull the pain they would inflict but to connect myself to Thommy in a way he would like. His girl had thrilled him by playing with his fingers. Maybe, doing the same, I could earn some affection.

But that was not in the plan. The plan was for Simon to give Thommy a ride. It started out at a slow walk, once he'd moved his hand from my face to my ass and once he'd pushed his way into the opening that his fingers widened. I groaned in genuine pain as the widest part of his rod skewered me, but Thommy was too concentrated on the spectacle in the mirrors to notice anything but the composition of our two naked bodies.

"Look, Simon, look!" he urged me. "Shift your butt a little more over this way. Yes, like that! God, isn't that great?" He was relishing the symmetry of his flat belly joined to my rounded ass by the rigid cylinder of his prick, the potent thrust of his body into my supine one, the graceful columns of his legs between my two splayed limbs. He loved it. "Oh, Simon," he exulted, "this really is a trip. Don't we look great together like this, you making me happy, me giving you what you want? It's like a Greek statue, isn't it?"

The Greeks weren't prudes, but I think they drew the line at pornographic sculpture. I didn't care to debate the point just then, though. "Please, Thommy, don't stop," I whimpered. "Come all the way in. Please."

"Sure, Simon, sure. I know you like having me fuck you. And I like it. You've got a really hot ass. My first," he thrust deeper. "My only," he withdrew an inch. "So far, at least," he sank in as far as it was humanly possible to go, and I squealed as he wrapped his arms around my waist. He held me like that for a while, no doubt taking the time to appreciate our reflected coupling. My eyes were shut tight as I tried to adjust my mind and body to the surrender of both. After the pause, Thommy brought his hands up from my waist to curl them around my shoulders. His torso weighed on my back, his chin on the top of my spine.

"Fucking really is beautiful, isn't it, Simon?" Thommy was admiring our images again. "I don't see how people can think that sex is dirty. This is just so awesome. I wish you had set up your camera. That's what I wish."

"I'm sorry," I grunted. "I didn't know we'd be having a Kodak moment. Please, Thommy, just do it. Get it over with. I'm not getting any younger."

He snorted, amused. "I like it when you're funny, Simon. I don't think I could make jokes if someone was doing this," he pumped in and out a couple of times, "to me. But I guess I'll never know. Because I'm a Bert." Another thrust and partial retreat. "And Berts aren't gay. One of Moore's laws, right?"

"Yeah." I was getting past the pain, into the pleasure of prostate massage. "Yeah. Thommy, right there. Please. Again."

"It's good for you too, Simon? That's great. Maybe I should let you do it to me someday. But, being a Bert, I can't go for that. Only gays get fucked. Isn't that a law, too?" By now he had established a rhythmic escalation to his penetration, and his sentences came in shorter and shorter bursts as his strokes speeded up.

"Well, there are exceptions," I really didn't want to talk. I wanted to concentrate on what Thommy was doing to me, on the feel and sound of his flesh driving against mine, into mine. "Straight men who are just curious. Who want to try it once."

"So there could be exceptions for Berts, too." I couldn't see his face but I could hear a gloating note in Thommy's voice. I nodded, but I didn't answer. And he didn't push the point. What he pushed was his cock, deep and deeper, harder and hotter until I felt his body stiffen against me and his dick swell inside. "Oh, Lord," Thommy yelled, "sweet Lord, so good, so good!"

Then it was over, and he lay limp and panting on top of me, not withdrawing, only shrinking a little, barely conscious in that state of suspended bliss that can come after orgasm. I tried to wriggle away, but Thommy stopped me by grabbing my penis. "Wait a minute, Simon, wait," he said. "That weed was good stuff. I think I can come again. Let's try anyway."

Thank God, he didn't want to repeat the same position. Instead, he moved us very slowly, very cautiously, still joined, to the kitchen stool. He perched there, raising me into his lap, hauling my legs over his thighs and drawing my back tight against his chest. For a while he just toyed with my balls and my cock, bringing me erect in his fist, absolutely helpless to do anything but his will. Then he began to jiggle, thickening again, steering upwards into me. And watching every move in the mirror, even though most of what was visible was my body, jouncing up and down on his. He spit into his palm a couple of times and folded his hand around my dick, first in a caress, then in a warm, tightening sheath that rose and fell as my butt lifted and sank.

"Open your eyes, Simon," he breathed into my ear. "Look at us. Isn't it good? Don't you see how incredibly sexy you are, we are? Look at how your nuts have tightened up and how big you've gotten. Do you love me, Simon?"

His face in the mirror was red, sweaty, but still he was beautiful. I took in the tableau vivant he had created. It was ugly, lewd, riveting. "Yes, Thommy," I gasped as he pumped me, "oh, yes, I love you. You are wonderful, amazing. I adore you." And as I shrieked those last words, I erupted in his grip, geysering my ejaculation onto my chest and then his fingers and, in the spasms of release, bringing him off as well.

"Wow!" he exclaimed. "Oh, Simon, wow!" He put his lips on my neck and then nibbled my ear, making me writhe as his cock slipped out of me at last. "That second time was fantastic. Messy, maybe," he wiped his sticky fingers on my thigh, "but still fantastic. I'm going to have to get more of that weed."

"Once was enough, Thommy," I said, freeing myself. I was suddenly, irrationally furious at him and at myself for submitting to him. "I love you, but I can't take any more of this... this...of being nothing but a plaything." I stood in front of him, fists clenched, getting angrier with every word I spoke. "It's all so one-sided, the sex and the feelings. I'm just someplace warm and wet for you to put your cock. And you don't care if you hurt me. Hell, you don't care for me at all. All you care about is yourself and the sight of yourself in the mirror."

My anger surprised me, but it stunned him. He tried to speak, but no words came. His hands fluttered at his sides and then rose to try to hold me while he gathered his wits. But I broke his grip, turned away and headed back to the bathroom where it had all begun less than an hour before. I ran hot water onto a cloth and scrubbed my face and then my chest and legs. I tried not to think about my explosion of temper, about what it would mean. I just wanted to sleep.

But he was in my bedroom. A huddled mass of misery on the floor making gruesome choking noises that I quickly identified as sobs. I crouched down next to him. "Don't Thommy, sweetheart, don't," I murmured, pulling his crossed arms apart so that I could lift his head from the floor. "I shouldn't have said those things. I don't want to hurt you."

"But, but, Simon," he blubbered, "you let me hurt you. You didn't stop me. I didn't know. I didn't think... I thought you liked it when I made love to you."

"I do. When it's love. But what you did just now wasn't about love. You were showing off, mostly for yourself. You handled me like some blow-up doll, not like a lover, not like a friend, even. I think I've taught you all I can about sex. Or all I want to."

He pushed himself into a kneeling position and, eyes streaming, to his feet. He hadn't even taken off the condom. It dangled, obscenely heavy, from his penis. I stood, too. "Then I guess I should leave, Simon, shouldn't I? You don't want me around anymore, not now, now that you've got a Bert who's gay."

"What are you talking about?"

"About Rob. His name is Robert, isn't it? And that makes him a Bert. And you and he ... Well, your friends have it all figured out. It's pretty obvious you don't need me. I'll move out tomorrow, Simon. If that's okay." He started toward the spare room. And suddenly the light dawned. He was jealous. He had been punishing me for being unfaithful to him. Which meant that he did care for me. I grabbed him around the waist.

"Don't leave me, Thommy. I don't have anybody else, not Rob or Robert or anyone." I was choking up. Fear? Self-pity? Genuine love? Probably all of the above. I only knew that I had to have Thommy in my life. I hugged him hard to me and began to cry in earnest. That set him off again, and suddenly we had fallen together onto the bed, our arms around each other, weeping a mixture of anger and regret and unarticulated emotion onto each other's shoulders.

Soon the fit passed. I reached for some tissues on the bedside table and gave a couple to him. I dried my own eyes and ran a caressing hand down his front. "May I?" I asked, fondling him and gently stripping off the condom. I got up, took it to the bathroom and flushed it away.

He was right behind me, again blocking my way to the bedroom. "Will you forgive me, Simon, please?" He was trying not to cry, but his hands were clenched until, tentatively, he put them on my shoulders. "You have been so great for me, and I don't mean the sex. I mean the teaching and the loving and just that you act as if you care what happens me. I've been awful to you tonight, but I didn't mean to be that way. Please, be my friend. Please," he tipped his head up to mine, "please don't stop loving me." His lips caressed mine, then locked on and his tongue darted into my mouth. He dropped his arms to my waist and drew my body tight to his. The kiss ended.

"Say that you'll forget the way I acted tonight and what I did to you, please, Simon." He was hugging me, almost desperately. "Simon, you're the most important person in my life. I never want to hurt you. I never will again."

I managed to loosen his hold and took one of his hands. "Come on, baby," I said, "let's go to bed. We need to get some sleep before I fix you the big breakfast you said you wanted."

He lit up. "You mean it, Simon? A really big breakfast?"

I smiled. He kissed me again, and when we got into the bed, he nestled in my arms, pressing his butt into my crotch. I began to stiffen. "It's all right, Simon," Thommy murmured as he felt my arousal. "That means you still like me. You can hold me like this all you want. It's all right. I owe you. I owe you so much." His voice drifted into silence and both of us into sleep.

I woke up aching from the physical and sexual exercise Thommy had put me through. Aching and heartsore, too. It was going to be hard, maybe impossible, to bury the angry words, to withdraw my threat to stop the sex and his threat to move out. We were such an odd couple, anyway, not just because he was straight, but because he was straightforward, simple, open, and I am scarred and devious. He had a disciplined mind, but it was secondary to his physical being. I thought of my wit and wits as my best assets. He was certain of his attractiveness and his future. Until I met him, I was going nowhere and sometimes backwards.

In the darkness of my bedroom, I could feel the warmth of his body and summon up images of its beauty. I smelled his health, his youth, his maleness, and I craved him, not just his sexual strength, but his uncomplicated wholeness. I started to put a hand where I guessed his thigh was, but I pulled back. That kind of intimacy would be hollow. I had to find another footing for us, and it couldn't be in bed. Or not just in bed.

I slid off the mattress, tiptoed to the bathroom and, with only a frayed old robe around me, to the kitchen. My Saturday marketing was waiting, the oatmeal to be made from scratch, fresh eggs, fat sausages, flour for pancake batter and plump blueberries -- wildly expensive, out of season -- to go in the batter. It took time to get everything going, but just as I put the coffee on and got ready to wake Thommy, his hands slipped over my eyes.

"Guess who."

"Robert Redford?"

"Close," he chuckled. "Good morning, Simon." He stepped in front of me and took my hand. He was dressed in sweat pants and a ratty button-down shirt and had the damp hair of someone who has just showered. He was clean and sparkling and unsure of himself. "Simon? About last night? Can I say something?"

"Your breakfast is ready. Let's eat. We can talk later."

"Please. I've got to say this now. I thought about it in the shower, and I want to say it right before I forget the words." He was suddenly so young, so obviously uncomfortable that I only wanted him to go back to being his easy, confident self. I nodded my okay.

"What I did to you last night was terrible," he said. "And it was all my fault. I can't handle alcohol, or at least I'm never going to try, and I can't handle dope either. I hurt you, and I'm really sorry. And I don't want to do that ever again. So I think you were right and we shouldn't have sex any more. You're my best friend. I love you for that. I really do. And we don't need to ... we don't need to do those things any more."

"You don't want me to touch you?" I could hear the hurt and the astonishment in my voice. "You won't sleep in my bed? We can't shower together? I thought you liked sex, Thommy. I thought I pleased you."

"But it's one-sided, like you said. I see that. I thought you wanted me, but you were just being nice and loving, and I took advantage. I really like sleeping with you, Simon. When you hold me, I feel safe and loved, and that's wonderful. But we shouldn't get naked together any more. If you let me stay, I promise to wear pajamas or something. Would that be all right?"

He was so earnest, so without guile. I thought the idea of living together like monks was terrible, but the most important thing was not to let him go. "It's a bargain," I said. I put out my free hand. He took it. I pulled him to me. "You didn't say we couldn't kiss," I smiled at him.

He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me soundly, chummily, sexlessly. "Thank you, Simon, thank you. You know so much about love. Thank you for teaching me. And thank you for making breakfast. It looks great."

So we kissed and made up and began to drift apart. Thommy was oblivious. He wolfed down the food, praising and thanking me between mouthfuls, but I suspected that in his own mind, he was off to new adventures and new conquests. I was a book he was closing. After he cleaned up the breakfast dishes while I sipped my coffee, he came and put his hands on my shoulders and kissed the top of my head.

"I'm going to take some dirty clothes to the laundromat, Simon, and then I'm going to meet the guys from Tisch, and we're just going to hang out. I don't know what time I'll be back. What are you going to do today?"

"I hadn't made any plans. I may call Zeke and Barry."

"What about Rob?"

"He went fishing." I tensed. "Thommy, would it make you happy if I didn't see Rob? I don't have any feelings for him. Not the way I do for you. There's nothing there for you to be jealous about."

"I'm not jealous." The reply was too quick to be completely honest. "I thought he was okay. Quiet, sort of. And I don't have any claim on you, Simon."

"But you want to sleep in my bed. What if Rob was in it, too?"

"Would you do that?" He seemed really shocked.

"I've made love with two other men at the same time. Gays do that now and then. It can be fun."

"You're teasing me, aren't you? You mean you'd be sucking me while Rob, or somebody, was humping you? How could that feel good?"

"Trust me, Thommy. It can. And maybe you'd be the one giving head while Rob or I fucked you. You could be Lucky Pierre. You might like that. Being the center of attention."

He was blushing. I'd punched a button. He may even have been a bit aroused, but he wasn't going to admit it.

"No, thanks," he tried to sound firm. "Look, Simon, I meant it about sex. It's going to be better if we cut that out. And if you are in bed with someone, you can just tie a handkerchief on the doorknob. That's what guys did at college to keep their roommates from barging in. I can always sleep in the spare room. I don't mind."

On that note, he was out the door, and I was alone. I dressed and went out myself to pick up the Times and came back to find the light blinking on my answering machine. The message was from Thommy: "Hey, Simon. I hope you're out for a run. That's why I called. To remind you to exercise. It'll make you feel better. Have fun."

I swore at the machine, but of course Boy Wonder was right. And at least he cared enough to nag me. First things first, though. The Sunday paper is a ritual for me. I start with the arts and theater sections, then the fashion and gossip, then the book review and, my special treat, the crossword in the magazine. If I got all the clues, and sometimes I did, I knew my mind was still working on all cylinders.

That day, by God, I solved the puzzle in about 45 minutes and felt Olympian. Until I remembered my duty to Thommy. What he didn't know was that I used to exercise, almost religiously. I even owned a Stone-Age rowing machine that I had stashed under the bed in the spare room when the will to fitness lost out to the boredom of going nowhere backwards. I went into Thommy's room and was not surprised to find it neat as a pin. I was surprised to find a note scotch-taped to the seat of the machine. "Go for it, Simon!" I read. "Exercise makes you sexy. Love, Thommy"

I set the damn thing up in front of the mirrors and went at it till I was sweating like a horse and actually getting into a rhythm that didn't make me feel sexy, but did make me feel good. I put the apparatus back and decided I had earned a shower and a decent lunch, but after I toweled off, I lay down for just a few minutes and woke up only when the telephone jangled. I was disoriented and when I saw my bedside clock -- four fifteen -- I was astonished. I had slept nearly three hours.

Groggily, I lifted the receiver and mumbled something into it.

"Simon?" came the reply. "Simon, is that you?"

"Yeah. Last time I looked." My usual, charming self.

"Simon, I'm sorry. This must be a bad time. I'll let you go."

"No," I said. "Wait. Who is this?"

"It's Rob. I didn't mean to bother you, but I've got a problem, and you said that you cook, so..."

"Rob? Rob, as in last night? You said that you cook. What's the problem?"

"Fish," he laughed. "Fish I caught today. Bluefish, and I've only ever cooked trout, and somehow I don't think this thing can just be sauteed."

"I think you're right. Have you got a poacher?"

"Somewhere between Colorado and here. But not on me. What about broiling?"

"You can. A little butter on top, tinfoil underneath. Not too long."

"Tinfoil?"

"On a cookie tin."

"Three strikes. I'm out. Thanks anyway, Simon. I'm sorry I bothered you."

"You didn't bother me. The truth is I had a workout that seems to have led to a kind of intense nap. But I'm awake now." I paused. "Rob, I have a poacher. And tinfoil. Would you like to come over for a cooking lesson?"

"Oh, that's imposing too much."

"Not if you bring the fish."

He did. And some golden beets and bread and cheese and a bottle of Vouvray and a box of Godiva, a welcome-to-New-York present from his secretary. I got out the vodka and poured us each a stiff drink.

"Another welcome-to-New-York ritual," I said, raising my glass. "She must have the hots for you. Those are pricey chocolates."

"He," Rob gave an embarrassed smile. "He's 23 going on 11. It's like having a crush on the teacher. I don't know how to handle it, but I have to do something. Office romances are a disaster."

"Is he cute?"

"That's part of the problem. He's adorable. Not butch, like that gorgeous boy of yours, more, ... more yielding sort of. But totally off limits. I did that once..." he frowned and stopped. "By the way, where is your boy? I've got enough fish for the Sermon on the Mount."

"Rob," I nearly snapped at him. "Thommy is not my boy. I wish. He lives here, but that's it. I admit that it looks pretty strange, but the kid thinks he's straight. I told you and Zeke that. And I. Well, I haven't been able to change his mind."

"At least you tried," Rob smiled.

"Wouldn't you?"

"In a flash."

I laughed. "Well, I guess we have something else in common. Like chamber music. And cooking. Which maybe we ought to start doing."

It wasn't an elaborate meal, but it was good, and we had a good time preparing and eating it together. I felt something I rarely experienced with other gay men my age. I felt at ease, not on trial. Rob and I swapped snatches of life histories, discovering that we were both orphans with overbearing older sisters whom we avoided as much as possible. "When I got divorced," Rob said casually. "Ramona even sided with my wife. I never had a chance."

"Is that what Zeke and Barry meant about you needing someone to take care of you?" As soon as I said it, I groaned at my own clumsiness. It must have been the second vodka or the third that made me blurt out something so personal.

"Did they say that?" Rob looked angry and hurt. He put his head in his hands for a moment and then looked squarely at me. "Well, shit," he said. "It's true. I'm totally fucked-up. I loved my wife and I lost her. I have a baby son I'm not allowed to go near. I love teaching and I love the mountains, and I'm stuck in an administrative job in a filthy city. I didn't want to be a queer, but I am. And I'm alone." He paused and then stood up. "Simon, I'm sorry. I've just spoiled a really nice evening. I ought to go before I do any more damage."

I got up quickly and put my hand out to bar his way. "Please, Rob. Please, don't go yet. I didn't mean to pry like that. It's just," I hesitated. "The thing is I really like you. And I'm alone, too. And being alone is awful. Just awful."

"It is," he whispered. He took my arm and pulled it to his waist. Then he put his other arm over my shoulder and drew me into a hug. We just stood there half in, half out of the kitchen, in a silent, awkward embrace, both of us fighting tears and winning, both of us scared of the way we'd opened up to each other, so quickly, barely acquaintances, hardly friends.

Rob spoke first, drawing a little apart but still keeping his hand on my back. "What if they're right?" he smiled. "Wasn't that what I asked last night?"

I let my hand drop to his butt and pulled us close again. "They often are," I said. "Wasn't that how I answered you?" I grinned crazily. "I guess this is one of those times. But we don't have to tell them, do we?"

"There isn't anything to tell. So far." He was grinning, too, and I couldn't resist. I kissed him. He tasted of Godiva. He kissed me back. "I think I'm hungry," he dead-panned.

"But we just ate." I was a little slow.

"Not that kind of hungry." He licked his lips and beamed at me. "I'd like to sample the Simon menu. The house special."

"You would?" My repartee was leaving a lot to be desired. "I mean, you would? Oh, my God, Rob, would you? Could we? Now?"

"Do I need a note from home?" he laughed. Then he took my head in his hands and kissed me, first on the mouth, then on my throat and around my ear, and he bent my head down till he could reach the back of my neck. My knees wobbled, and I grabbed him around the waist to steady myself. One of my hands went down the back of his jeans.

"I take that as a yes," he said. "Do you have a bedroom or are you a kitchen-floor kind of guy?"

"I can go either way." I tried for a light tone, but my voice wavered. "I think I left the sleeping quarters over here." I gestured expansively down the hallway, remembering too late that the bed was a rumpled mess and the sweaty clothes I'd worn on the rowing machine were mounded on the floor.

"Cozy," Rob murmured as he surveyed the room. "But those shorts of yours look like they need company. My jeans, for instance. Your jeans, for instance." He started to unbuckle his belt, one of those wide, tooled-leather, faux-cowboy things. I put my hand on his.

"Could I do the honors, Rob?" I asked. "I'd kind of like to discover you for myself."

"Sure." He put his hands at his sides. "Simon, I'm nothing special. I'd like to be. For you. But you'll see, I'm just ordinary."

"Can I decide that for myself?" I had opened the belt and undone the top button of his pants. My fingers worked up his shirtfront, and when it was unbuttoned, I pulled the sleeves off his arms and pressed my mouth to the fabric of his tee shirt over the right nipple. I could just feel its nub harden. Rob gave a tiny whimper and twitched in my arms.

"That's so nice, Simon." One of his hands began stroking my neck and up into the hair on the back of my head. "I'd forgotten what it's like to have someone's lips on me there."

"Has it been so long?" I asked as I drew the cotton tee over his head. Except for a clump of thick black hair on his sternum and a thin column rising from his navel, Rob's lean torso was hairless. The hair in his armpits, though, was dense, and the scent that rose from them as my tongue trekked across his chest was wonderfully male. He was sweating already, and we'd barely begun. I was delighted.

"Long," he moaned. "Oh, God, Simon, please stop. Let me get your clothes off before I lose control."

"There's nothing wrong with losing control," I said. "We're consenting adults. But go ahead. I thought you'd never ask."

I was only wearing a sweatshirt, jeans and sandals, and Rob had me out of them in short order, leaving me just my boxers for covering and his hands, stroking my chest, my sides, my arms, for warmth. His mouth was busy, too, nibbling again at my throat, teasing my nipples and then gluing itself to my lips as his arms surrounded me and pressed our upper bodies together.

"There," he breathed as the kiss ended. "Nothing like a little busy work to stave off spontaneous combustion." He stepped back and appraised me. "You are a really good-looking guy, Simon. Those shoulders, Jesus! You know, if Paul Newman had your eyes, he could have been a big star." He laughed. "Do you mind jokes with your sex? It's just that I'm really nervous."

"Don't be. Please, Rob. Let the first one be on me." I pushed him gently backwards to sit on the bed and then knelt on the floor to pull down his jeans and then the boxer briefs against which his erection was straining. He was right. His cock wasn't special. It was perfect. Six inches or so and maybe a little thin, but it fit right into my mouth as though the two were yin and yang. He gasped.

"Simon!" It was a muted shriek. "I'll come if you do that! I can't hold it!"

I wanted to tell him that that was the whole idea, but I didn't want to open my mouth to speak. Instead, I clamped down hard and pushed his legs wide apart so that I could put a finger on the yielding outer surface of his hole. That pressure was nearly all it took. His beautiful, hot, hard penis pulsed against my tongue and then erupted. I held on till the last spasm, hearing him shout in wordless release, feeling his hands clamp around my head and inhaling the delicious reek of his crotch. Slowly, slowly, I let him begin to withdraw from my mouth, but as he did, I tongued his shaft and then the head.

"Oh, don't!" he yelled from above me. "It's... I'm so sensitive. Oh, Simon!" He scooped me up onto the bed to lie next to him and started to kiss my body as he scrabbled at my underwear. "Simon, you shouldn't have done that. It was incredible. I'm not usually so quick, so gross. I'm so sorry. I want to make it up to you. I've got to. Now."

"Soon, baby," I said, rolling onto him and pinning down his arms. "Soon, but not right now. Right now, I just want to hold you. And if you like, you can hold me. Rob, I loved having you come like that. You needed it, and I really liked helping you. You are special. Special to me, from now on."

Those startling green eyes of his got suddenly moist. He freed his arms and wrapped them around me. "Simon," he said, "despite appearances, I'm not an easy lay. Not usually. But I felt something for you when we met, and I feel a whole lot of things for you now. I hope you meant it."

"Meant what?"

"That I'll be special for you." The eyes overflowed. "I really need to be special for someone again." He pushed his forehead into my shoulder. "I have to tell you something awful," he moaned.

"No, you don't." I stopped him. "Rob, you beautiful man, there couldn't be anything awful about you." Still, I had a terrible thought. I'd swallowed his seed. What if he was sick, contagious? You aren't supposed to get it from semen, not usually. Still.

"No, it's awful," he insisted, "but it's funny, too. It's about the fish. I didn't catch it. I didn't catch anything. I bought it. Just so I could get you to help me cook. I played a trick on you. I'm sorry." He started to laugh nervously. He looked at me and laughed harder. I don't know what expression I had on my face. Surprise? Relief? Probably puzzlement.

"Rob," I tried to snap him out of it. "Rob! Damn it. Listen to me. There's nothing to be sorry about. That's the nicest thing anyone's done for me in a long time. I'm really flattered. "

He was giggling now. "You should be," he gasped. "It was a very expensive fish."

That set me off. We were like kids, screaming with laughter, as though we'd smoked some really fine Jamaican weed. And when we'd exhausted ourselves, I started us up again.

"You really didn't have to go the trouble," I chuckled. "Didn't Zeke or Barry tell you? I am an easy lay." Rob rolled over to muffle his hilarity in the mattress, and through my own guffaws, I eyed his butt. It was exquisite. I put a hand out and stroked him. He stopped laughing.

"Simon, do you want to fuck me?" There was something tentative in his voice.

"Only if you want me to, sweet man. You've got a great ass, Rob. Yes, if we're going to make a habit of telling each other the truth, yes, I would truly love to fuck you. You've done it before, haven't you?"

He nodded. "And it hurt?" Another nod. "It can happen. It doesn't have to." I took his hand and guided it through the fly of my boxers until his fingers closed around my cock. It wasn't completely soft, but it wasn't erect either. I let him bring it to life.

"You're pretty big, Simon," he ventured, not letting go. "But I don't want to be a coward. It's just, well, it's been a long time since anybody did that. Not since college, actually, not since Zeke. I spent the next ten years or so going straight, being straight, I mean. I was a different kind of coward. And some things still scare me."

I started to speak, but Rob put a finger on my lips. "No, Simon, let me finish," he said. He let go of my penis and lifted my legs to pull my shorts completely off. Then he grasped my dick again and bent his head to lick me with gentle, thrilling swipes of his tongue. "Most of all," he stopped the moist massage and looked up at me. "I'm scared of finding someone to love and then disappointing him and turning him off. I'm scared that if you put yourself into me, it'll hurt, and I'll show it, and you'll stop, and we'll be washed up before we start. Does that make sense?"

"Some," I said. "But what if I like hearing you scream while I pound your ass?"

"Then I'd be really, totally wrong about you. And I don't think I am." It was a question.

I grinned. "No, in the sack, I'm just mild-mannered Clark Kent. I don't get off on pain, mine or anybody else's. So I'm not going to hurt you, because then I'd lose you, and, believe me, I don't want to lose you." I kissed him. "Rob, baby, I do want to make love with you, but there are lots of ways we can do it without having it hurt. Let's just stick to mutual pleasure. What are the things you like to do?"

"Other than cooking and hiking and chamber music and good books, you mean?" He grinned enormously. "I like looking at you. I like seeing the way your left eyebrow goes up and the right one just lies there. I like hearing your voice. I like your lips and the way they taste. I like running my fingers through your hair. I like holding you in my arms. I like that a lot, Simon. You seem to fit right into me. And I'd like sucking your cock. Is that what you had in mind?"

"How would you like it if I did you while you did me?"

"A lot. I'll try not to disgrace myself this time."

He didn't. At least, not in the same way. Hot and urgent though he was between my lips, he was also lavish and energetic and creative between my legs. The way his tongue worked my balls and the flesh behind them, I thought he was taking inventory of my erogenous zones, and when he began to manipulate the head of my dick between his lips, I was the one afraid of losing control. It turned out, though, that his skill and enthusiasm had their limits. When he tried to take me deeper into his mouth, he began to choke. He tried a second time and failed again.

"I'm so sorry, Simon," he withdrew his own cock from my mouth and sat up. His voice was anguished. "I'm hopeless. I have a gag reflex that's like a hair trigger. And I've never learned..."

I put a hand on his shoulder. "Rob, how many men have you been with?" I asked.

"Zeke. That was in college. Kevin, the bastard who broke up my marriage. Three others. One-night stands." He was sobbing. "Oh, Simon, I wanted it to be right with you. I want it so much."

"It will be right, baby. I want it, too. I just didn't realize that you..."

"That I'm clumsy and spastic and ignorant." He was trying to be light, but what came through was embarrassment and a kind of fear. I drew him down onto the bed and tried to be consoling.

"Rob, you don't have to be perfect at everything."

"I don't think I'm perfect at anything, Simon." He clutched me. "I'm a lousy lover. Karen used to tell me that all the time."

"Karen?"

"My wife. My ex-wife. When she found out about Kevin and me, she said that explained everything. Then she threw the pot that fractured my nose."

"And what happened to Kevin?"

"I'd already broken that off. That's why he told Karen. For revenge. Or maybe he hoped he'd get me back. I don't know. I haven't spoken to him since."

"Rob, I bet you could be a wonderful lover if you loved the right person. You just need to take some time."

He was silent. I ran my lips over his cheek. "You know, I think I might have some openings."

"Where? For what?"

"In my tutorial schedule. For fucking lessons and sucking lessons and loving lessons. I'm not a bad teacher"

"You've been teaching that gorgeous boy? Thommy? Isn't that his name?"

I decided to stretch the truth. I nodded and smiled enigmatically.

"But if you've got him, why would you want me?"

"He isn't gay and, besides, I don't think he goes for chamber music."

Rob grinned. "Simon, could I try again?" His fingers closed gently around my cock. "Even if I can't take you all the way, I'd like to show you how I feel about you."

"Sure." I started to scoot around so that I could get my head back to his crotch.

"No, Simon, please." Rob was up on all fours, straddling and immobilizing me. "Let me just concentrate on you."

He crawled backwards until he was kneeling between my legs and then lowered his head till his mouth came to rest on my penis. He fondled it between his lips with predictable results, and when it was up and saluting, Rob surprised me. He took my legs and raised them at the knee to go over his shoulders. Then he put his hands under my butt and lifted it, too, so that my testicles dangled enough that he could attack them with his tongue. He drew each of them into his mouth for a prolonged, warm, exciting bath. My cock waggled between my belly and his forehead until he lowered me to the bed and delicately pulled the shaft upright to his mouth.

"Simon, you're beautiful, but you are big."

"Flatterer."

"No, I mean it. Both. You are beautiful, but I've never sucked a cock as ... well, as meaty as yours, and I don't breathe all that well since Karen rearranged my nose, so I'm really going to just have to, sort of, basically jack you off into my mouth. I wish I could swallow you up, but you'll see, I'm pretty good at masturbation. Lots of practice." He ducked his head, a little shame-faced.

I propped myself up on my elbows. "Rob, don't apologize. Don't be ashamed. Please, make love to me any way that's good for you, any way you want. It's making love that matters. It's the only thing that really matters."

"But you have to prove love, Simon." He shook his head. "It's not just words." He began to lick at my shaft, covering it steadily with his saliva, and occasionally swiping at the tip of my cock with his broad, wet, wonderful tongue. I shivered. It felt so good. I spread my legs further, and Rob understood immediately. He wet an index finger and began to probe me. I moaned as he slipped inside and, at the same time, wrapped his fist around me and began, gently at first, to pump my erection.

"Oh, God," I whimpered, "do it, Rob. Do it, baby."

He increased the friction and the tempo and put the head of my dick between his lips, circling it with his tongue, caressing the underside and coddling the tip in his warm breath. His finger, too, pushed deeper into me until a wave of heat surged fiercely from my prostate. I shouted and writhed and came and came and came. "Jesus!" I yelled. "Oh, sweet Jesus! No more!" Rob was still at it. "For god's sake, no more!"

At that moment, though I didn't see it happen, the bedroom door swung open and Thommy lunged through it. "Simon," he yelled, "Simon, are you all right?" I opened my eyes and saw him pull up short, his jaw dropping. "Oh, Shit!" he said. "Shit! I'm sorry. I thought... I didn't..." Retreating blindly as he spoke, he crashed against the open door and rebounded back toward the bed.

Rob was looking at me in horror, some of my cum dripping on his chin. I reached out and cleaned it off him with a finger. "Rob," I said, trying to pretend indifference, "you met Thommy last night. Thommy, you remember Rob. Did you want to join us, kiddo? You're a little overdressed."

The boy looked horrified. Rob who had been scrabbling to pull a sheet over himself relaxed and joined the game. "We were just warming up," he giggled. "Why don't you come on in, Thommy? You're halfway in as it is. Come on, we can make room for a hunk like you."

"Simon," the kid cringed away from us. "Simon, I heard you shouting. I thought you were in some kind of trouble. Simon, you didn't put a handkerchief on the door." He was almost babbling. "Oh, God, I didn't know you had... had company. I'm so sorry. I'll go." He spun around and fled.

It was my turn to be sorry. I hopped out of the bed and into my shorts and out the door. I found him in the kitchen, shaking as he tried to pour a glass of water. "It's all right, Thommy," I put a hand lightly on his arm. "It's okay. It's my fault. You're right. I should have let you know. I just forgot about handkerchiefs. We shouldn't have made fun of you. I apologize."

"It's not that, Simon," he turned to me, and I saw that his beautiful face was splotchy with blushes. "It's just ... well ... you move so fast. You said this morning that Rob didn't mean anything to you, and then the two of you were ... were doing it ... in our bed. And you ..."

"'Our bed'?" I was genuinely surprised by the pronoun. "It's my bed, Thommy."

"But we've made love in it, and," he burst into tears. "I thought you loved me, Simon." He wrapped his arms around me and wailed. "I thought you were going to take care of me, but you were lying there naked with another man sucking you off, as if I never existed."

I couldn't have been more surprised if I'd found Madonna in my kitchen declaring her passion for me. Thommy, who had convinced himself and me that he was irrevocably heterosexual, seemed to be laying claim to my love, to my body, to my bed, to me. It didn't make sense, and I told him so.

"I agree. Things with Rob happened kind of fast," I said, "but to the best of my recollection, you declared yourself sexually off limits to me just this morning. We were going to have a nice friendship with occasional cuddling, the way I understood it. You could have owned me, Thommy, but you said you didn't want to. Besides, you can have anybody you want. You don't need me, and I need somebody. Maybe it will be Rob."

"But I do need you. I need you a lot." He clutched himself as though in pain. "You've made me who I am. You can't just dump me for some skinny dweeb. I need you to hold me when I sleep so that I'll be safe."

"Safe? You're not in any danger, Thommy. You're on your way to being famous and successful. Nobody's trying to hurt you. The whole world is going to love you."

"What makes you so sure of that?" His voice was plaintive. My self-assured young idol had feet of clay. "You're the first person, the only person, who said he loved me. Cammy never said it, and my mother and father just don't say things like that even if it's what they feel. But I guess it's easy for you. You can talk about love and not mean anything." He tried to pull himself together, but it was too much effort. He slumped onto a stool and buried his head in his arms.

I bent over him, stroked his back and whispered, "Baby, I do love you. I really do. Let me send Rob home, and we'll talk. We'll work it out."

He didn't look up, didn't answer me, but I left him there anyway and went back to the bedroom. Rob was dressed and curious. "What was that all about?" he asked.

"I can't believe it, but it looks like he's jealous. He thinks I don't love him."

"Do you?"

That stopped me for a couple of seconds. "Up to a point. On a physical level, yes," I answered. "He is incredibly beautiful, and I go for beauty in a big way. Emotionally, too, I care about him because he sometimes seems so innocent, almost an endangered species. But I don't want to give him the rest of my life." I looked at Rob, hoping he'd pick up the cue. He didn't.

"Last night I told you that I have a crush on him and that I let him walk all over me. Well, a few hours afterwards, he did it again. It wasn't nice, and this morning he apologized and said we shouldn't have sex any more. And I agreed. Now I can't figure out what he wants."

"When you do," Rob ran his hand through my hair. "Will you let me know?" He kissed me. "Simon, I'm counting on those lessons you give. I had a wonderful time tonight. I really hope we can get together again. Soon. Just the two of us."

"That's the way I'd like it." I walked him out past the mirrors to the door and held him for a few seconds. "I had a wonderful time, too, Rob. Thank you for being patient with me. I'll call as soon as I can."

Expecting to find Thommy still in the kitchen, I was surprised to find that room and the spare room empty. Instead, I found him stripping my bed. "What are you doing, kiddo?" I asked.

"I don't want to sleep on dirty sheets. I'll take these to the laundromat. I'll pay."

"Why would you want to sleep with me at all? Thommy, I don't understand. I really don't. Do you want to punish me? Is that it?"

"Is it so awful to have me in bed with you?"

"No, of course not. What's awful is that you won't let me touch you, not really touch you. You want me next to you but you won't let me make love to you. I have needs, too."

"Yeah, and you have Rob to take care of them. I bet he's good, at least for a Bert."

"Thommy," I said, "you're being a real prick, and I don't know why. But just leave the sheets where they are. There's nothing wrong with the bed in the other room. I think you'll be more comfortable there."

He actually whimpered. "Please, Simon, oh, please. No, no." He started to reach for me, but wound his arms around himself instead and bent over slightly as though he had a stomach cramp. "You don't understand. I'm so scared." He crumpled to the floor, pushing his forehead into the mattress. "I'll be good," he whined. "Just don't make me be alone. Please, Simon, oh, please. If you love me."

I was dumbfounded. Also suspicious. The boy could put on an act. I still thought that he might have conned me so that he could move in. But I had never suspected that he was afraid of anything. If he was pretending, he was giving a first-class performance. I sat down on the bed and stroked his disordered hair and the back of his neck.

"Thommy," I started. "No, kiddo, you're going back to being Herb for a while, Herb from the Michigan sugar beet farm. Do you hear me, Herb?"

He nodded.

"Okay, then. I love Thommy like a lover, but I love Herb like a younger brother, and I want to help him. If you're hurting, I'll try to make it better, but I can't if I don't know what the problem is. Sit up here and explain how you can be scared. In my book, you've got nothing to be scared of, nothing at all."

The boy lifted his head and looked up at me. "If I tell you, Simon, will you promise not to laugh at me? And not to tell anyone else so they can laugh. Nobody, not Rob, nobody."

Suddenly, he was 11, maybe 12 years old. The blotchiness of his face had subsided, but there were still tear tracks on it, and he looked as if he should blow his nose. I reached for the Kleenex on the bedside table and handed him a couple. He hoisted himself from the floor to sit next to me. "Promise?" he asked again.

"I promise, Herb. Whatever it is, no one will ever hear it from me."

"Thank you, Simon." Kind of prim, formal. He took a deep breath and stared across the room. "Before you let me move in with you," he pushed the words out slowly, "I kept having this awful dream. But now I don't. When you're next to me, I don't dream at all, and so I can handle the rest." He stopped. I waited. He wouldn't look at me, but he wouldn't go on, either.

"That's not enough, Herb." I rested my hand on his lower back. "What's the dream about? And what do you mean, `handle the rest'?"

"Getting eaten!" He yelped and swiveled away from me. "It hurts, and it goes on and on. People eating parts of me, my ears, my fingers, sometimes a whole arm, or they scoop out my eyes. And I can't stop them, Simon. I feel the teeth, but it's as if I'm dead. I can't move or speak or anything. And sometimes, I only wake up when all of me is gone."

He swiveled again, but this time right into me. His arms went around my neck and he seemed to want to crawl into my lap, a very frightened little boy. I held onto him until he stopped shuddering. "Jesus, Herb," I finally said, "nobody would ever laugh at a nightmare like that."

"But you won't tell. You promised."

"I won't. Kiddo, have you had the dream a long time?"

"It started in college. But it's gotten worse here. Sometimes ... before you... before you showed me about love, it was every night."

"Have you thought of seeing someone, a professional?"

"I did. There are counselors at NYU, but the guy just told me that I had typical, mild castration anxiety and I should try to get laid and the dream would go away."

"Maybe he was right. Sex can do funny things to your mind. And no sex, well, I guess it can, too."

"But Simon, it isn't about sex. In the dream, these people never touch me down there. They just want to chew off parts of me and take them away. It's what happens to me a lot with real people. I don't understand it, but I can handle it."

"Whoa there, Herb. Hold up. What happens to you with real people."

"They try to take parts of me, too. All kinds of people. I try to be nice, but it doesn't stop them. It's as if they want some of me to rub off on them."

"Who? Give me some examples."

"It happens all the time. People wanting me, wanting me real bad. Sometimes, it's even sort of fun, like all the gay guys who wanted to dance with me last night. But usually it's awkward or worse. The old lady I used to live with, for instance. She'd have me come sit by her bed and just hold my hand and look at me. It was creepy, like she thought I could make her young again or something. And at the audition, too."

"They made a pass at you?"

"No, it wasn't about sex. At least, I don't think so. The head producer was a woman, and she thought I was gay. Otherwise, why was I trying for a gay part, right? But she wanted me to tell her all about who I was, where I came from, what I wanted to do, and every time I'd say something, she'd say that was just the way she was, too, or had been, or wanted to be. She didn't even stay in the room when they made me walk around in my underwear, but she was trying to soak up my life, I guess, so she could take it home with her. It made me real uncomfortable."

"But it's flattering, too, Herb, isn't it? It means you have an appeal -- sex appeal, little-boy appeal, whatever. It gets people on your side. Professionally, that's got to be great for you. I don't see why you can't just enjoy it."

"What's going to happen when I lose it, Simon?" He had stopped clutching me, but now he took both my hands in his. "Do you think about that? I think about it all the time. Simon, all those needy people. They drain me. Some morning, I'm going to look in the mirror, and all the juice will be gone."

"Herb, do you remember asking me if I thought you were too good-looking?"

"Yeah. That was just before we did it the first time."

"Why did you ask that question? Do you think it's sinful to be a hunk?"

He smiled. Kind of a thin smile. "I had a grandmother," he said. "She was always telling me, `handsome is as handsome does.' She never thought I'd amount to much. She said I was vain, that it wasn't healthy to care about myself so much."

"Is she in the dream?"

"No. Well, I don't know. They -- the people who chew me up -- don't have faces, at least not faces I can make out. They're just people who want part of me."

"And you don't want any of them?"

"I don't know them. How could I want them?"

"Who do you want, really want?"

He cringed. "Oh, Simon, this sounds awful, I know, but I don't really want anybody. Except you. You've been wonderful to me, and you're not like the others. You give, but you don't take. Eldon was really wrong about you."

"Eldon?"

"Your brother, step-brother. Remember? He said you were bitter and that you didn't know how to be loving. But that's not true. You've been totally loving with me. I wish I could be that way."

"What makes you think you're not, kiddo? I couldn't feel this way about you if you weren't lovable. When you gave me those roses and that meal, that was incredibly nice and romantic."

"I was thanking you, Simon. And then, remember, I fucked you right afterwards. I try to pay for what I get, Simon, but I take. I don't give. Not the way you do. You feel love. I don't feel much at all except when people try to squeeze me. That's how I think of it. Then I feel nervous."

"Maybe you just haven't found the right person yet to love, Herb. But you will, I promise. What about your girl in college? Didn't you love her?"

"Cammy? I tried. Sometimes I thought I did love her, but I guess she was mostly protection. She kept the other girls away. And I told you, she wouldn't really make love with me. She said we had to wait. I'd get excited and hoping, and then she'd stop everything. I guess that's when the dream started. What does it mean, Simon? How will I ever get rid of it?"

He had released my hands and had put his own under his thighs. He was hunched over, miserable. I leaned into him and kissed him on the neck and stroked his back. "Herb, sweetheart, I'm good at some things, but I'm not a psychotherapist, and you may need one."

"Do you think I'm crazy?"

"No, baby, absolutely not. But something about yourself is making you unhappy. And I'm surprised. I hadn't guessed that you had any problems at all."

"When I'm with you, Simon, the problems kind of go away. It must be because you love me even though I'm not good, not the way you think. This morning you asked me if I was jealous of Rob. Well, I lied to you. I am jealous. I'm scared of him. He can give you all kinds of things that I can't. Not just sex. You and he know the same things and probably like the same things. Are you in love with him, Simon?"

"I think I could be. I like him a lot. But I don't love him the way I love you."

"But you and he had sex, and he was sucking you. I saw. Doesn't he make you happier than I do?"

"Being in love isn't the same thing as being happy, Thommy. I can't help myself around you. I think you know that. I think you use it to get what you want from me, and it doesn't matter. I still love you."

"You're right, Simon."

"About what?"

"That I know how you feel about me and that I use it. See, I know that's an awful way to act. I do know. I try not to be so selfish. But I am. I just am. I can't help it." He raised his head so that we were face to face. "I guess my grandmother was right about me. Simon," he stared out into the room again, "how can you like me when you know what I am?"

"You're not that bad, kiddo." I laughed lightly, trying to turn our talk away from his pain. "You let the old lady hold your hand, didn't you? And you cleaned the apartment. And you're trying to make me shape up, leaving little notes in odd places."

"You found it? Did you use the machine?"

"I did, and you know why?"

"Because what I wrote made you laugh?"

"No. Well, it did, actually. But I worked out today because of the nice things you said about me and because -- this is going to sound weird -- I want you to admire me, to approve of me. I love you, Thommy, and I want you to love me."

"You called me Thommy."

"I think Herb has had enough of a workout for one night, don't you?"

He stood up and pulled me up into a bruising hug. "You're wonderful, Simon," he said. "I wish... I wish ..."

"What?"

"I wish you were my brother. Then I'd always have you when I needed you."

"Always is a long time, but you have me for now, till something better comes along. That could be a long time, too. Don't you think we should get some rest, so we'll be ready?"

He hugged me again. "You know what else I wish? I wish I could make jokes the way you do."

"It's a gay thing," I grinned, "and you're a Bert. Too bad."

We both slept well that night, cuddling without caressing, as though an invisible bundling board connected and separated our bodies. Tommy was up before I was, and I found him toweling himself dry in the steamy bathroom.

"Did you leave any hot water?" I asked.

He looked guilty. "Isn't there always hot water?" he asked. "This is New York."

"I was just teasing. How are both of you this morning."

"Herb and Thommy?"

I nodded.

"We're both great, but Herb has to skip breakfast or be late for class. Bye, Simon," he kissed me lightly between the eyes. "I'll see you tonight. But late. I've got a catering job."

I watched his beautiful, naked butt go out the door and briefly fantasized that some day, some night, it would be mine.

Not that night, though. He crawled in next to me long after I'd gone to sleep and was fully dressed when he brought me a mug of coffee in bed the next morning. "Hi, Simon," he smiled, "it's a beautiful morning for exercise. I've set up the machine for you in the hall."

"And I suppose you're going to stand over me with a whip, counting cadence, like in a Roman galley."

"If you like," he grinned. "I've got a few minutes."

"If I shape up to suit you, can we go back to making love?"

That embarrassed him. "Simon," he said after a few awkward seconds, "we agreed, didn't we? I don't ever want to hurt you the way I did before. And you don't want to hurt me, do you?"

He was so achingly sincere that I was mortified. "I'm sorry, kiddo." I swung out of the bed. "Of course, I don't. Let me brush my teeth, and I'll report for calisthenics."

That gave him an idea, and in the hallway, he had me do push-ups and jumping jacks before I could row. Once I was on the machine, he squatted beside me. "I've got to go, Simon, but I wanted you to know something. I want you to shape up, but it's not to suit me. It's for you, mostly, and some for Rob. I've been thinking about it, and I think he'd be good for you."

"Gee, thanks," I muttered. "What do you plan to do about sleeping arrangements?"

He leaned over and kissed me casually. "We'll just have to get a bigger bed, I guess." And then he was gone.

He could joke after all, I thought. God forbid that he was being serious. Still, I was going to have to find a way to stop him from using me as a security blanket. I needed advice and, though I didn't really need the pretext, I called Rob to suggest dinner. He couldn't cook, he said. His freight from Colorado still hadn't shown up, and I didn't want to fix a meal. We ended up in a family-and-formica Chinese joint in Murray Hill, his neighborhood.

"This is glamorous New York, Simon?" Rob was smiling but skeptical. "Where the elite meet?"

"The fried bean curd is three-star," I reassured him. "And General Tsao's shredded pork never fails. Besides, it's quiet."

"And not exactly a gay hangout, I'd guess." Rob's glance took in the elderly couples, the solitary diners, some clumps of budget-conscious tourists. "I thought our first date would be candlelight, damask tablecloths, gypsy violinists."

"This doesn't count as a date," I smiled. "It's more like a counseling session. About Herb."

"Who's Herb? Have you been holding out on me, Simon? I thought we agreed not to have any secrets." He was grinning. I wanted to kiss his entrancing broken nose, but the waiter came to take our order just then, and I didn't want to shock him or the clientele. I explained about Herb being Thommy and the other way around and about his fear of sleeping alone. I didn't tell Rob the details of the nightmare, only its effect on the boy.

"So he wants you to be his big brother and save him from things that go bump in the night," Rob summed up. "That's sweet, and, of course, totally manipulative. But you already know that, don't you, Simon?"

I assented with a nod. "He admits it. He says he knows it's wrong to use people. But he really does need me, Rob. I can't just toss him out."

"You mean, you don't want to let him go. Isn't that it?" His green eyes darkened, but with a kind of toughness, not sympathy. Rob could be light and quicksilvery, but, I was discovering, he also had a no-nonsense, cut-to-the-chase manner in reserve. I stiffened. He'd put me on the spot.

"He's going to go." I know I sounded defensive. "Someday. On his own." I knew that was true, but I had never put it in words even to myself, and the truth hurt. "But you're right, Rob. The truth? I'd like to hang on to him a long time, even knowing that he uses me, even though I'll never have sex with him, even though I'm afraid he's going to screw things up between you and me. How...?" I had gotten to the question I really wanted to ask, but before I could ask it, the waiter and our food arrived.

We were both hungry and both appreciative. The cooking really was first-rate, but as we ate, we chatted only about trivial things. The fortune cookies came, and Rob cracked his open. "Damn," he said, "I always get this kind of shit. `You are a helpful person and well liked.' Why don't I ever get a fortune that promises me vast wealth or a killer prick?"

"You must go to the wrong Chinese restaurants," I said. We both laughed. "We'll try someplace more upscale next time."

"With gypsy violinists?"

"And candles and damask tablecloths," I giggled. I put my hand across the table and caressed his. So what if we shocked the waiter or anybody else. "Rob, you are a `helpful person,' but you're more than that. You're fun. You're great-looking. You're smart, and you're wise. And your cock is perfect, as far as I'm concerned. And how," at last I'd gotten to the question I'd wanted to ask earlier. "How do you think we should go from here?"

"We could walk. My apartment is just a couple of blocks away."

"That's not what I mean."

"I know, Simon, I know." He put his hand on top of mine and stroked my fingers. "I told you, I joke when things get serious. It's a defense. It means I'm scared."

"Of me?"

"No. Of course, not. I'm just scared of depending on anyone else for my happiness or having somebody depend on me. I was happy with Karen. I really was. And I destroyed that. I'm afraid of doing something just as stupid again."

"How else do you think you can be happy? You can't be happy with just one hand clapping unless you're a Zen master, maybe. Believe me, I know. I've been trying to fool myself for years that I don't need anybody else. But I do. I need to love someone and I need someone's love. I'd like it to be yours, Rob. I really would."

His other hand came across the table and reached for my free one. I met him halfway. We gripped and just looked at one another. It seemed to me his eyes were on the verge of leaking. But I'm not sure. My vision wasn't 20-20 either just then.

"Simon," Rob broke the silence. "Do you remember the other night saying that you give loving lessons?"

I tried to remember. I succeeded. "Yes," I answered. "Loving lessons, among others."

"I'll need a lot of them," Rob tried to smile, but didn't quite make it. His eyes had gotten very moist. "I'm a slow learner." The smile appeared.

"And not an easy lay. I know. You told me. That's all right," I grinned. "I like challenges. When would you like to start?"

"Shouldn't we get some gypsies?"

"No. That can wait."

"Then why don't we try walking to my apartment now? I think I can get that far even though my knees are a little shaky."

"So are mine. Maybe we should call a cab."

We paid the bill. We added an almost vulgar tip. And we walked. And walked. And walked. We passed the door to Rob's place at least three times, but somehow the need to open up, to tell each other everything about ourselves kept us from going in. If our bodies touched, it was accidental, just shoulders or elbows rubbing. Physical desire, although I felt it every time I turned and looked at his strong, just-off-kilter features, was somehow secondary to the need to spill my soul into Rob's and to receive his in return.

On our fourth pass under his building's awning, though, Rob pulled me to a halt. "I'm getting hoarse," he said, "and so are you. I could make us some disgusting coffee if you'd come up, and if we put brandy in it, you won't notice how bad the coffee is."

"What if I came up and we didn't have coffee?"

"Would that count as a lesson?"

"Well, there are some things you can do indoors that wouldn't be right in the street. Not where you could frighten the horses."

"It's the last thing I'd want." He produced a key and opened the door. "Come on, Simon. I'm ready for a lesson."

Actually, we were both ready. I would have stripped him in the elevator if there hadn't been another tenant, a stereotypical blue-rinsed virago complete with a yappy Pekinese, riding with us. Even so, Rob barely got his door open before my hands were working on his shirt buttons and belt buckle as he dragged me down a short hallway into the spartan bedroom. By then, he was shuffling, his pants around his ankles, his jacket and shirt pulled back and down to his elbows.

"You can't rape me, Simon," he swiveled into my arms and pressed himself against me, "because I'm not going to resist. But can I have a kiss first?"

I answered him the right way, wordlessly, by locking our mouths together and jamming my tongue between his lips. My hands, though, kept busy with the task of removing his jacket and shirt so that when he broke the kiss -- "I have to breathe, lover, and my nose doesn't work right" -- I could lower my head onto his broad, bare chest and attack one nipple and then the other with warm, wet, adoring strokes. He moaned a litle and squirmed in my arms, but his fingers managed to undo my belt and zipper, push my trousers over my hips and steal through the fly of my boxers to curl around my cock.

Instantly, it began to swell. Rob felt the movement and moaned again. "Oh, God, Simon, the feel of you. It makes me want you so much. I want to take you, but I want to give myself to you, too. I'm not making any sense, I know. But I want to belong to you and I want you to belong to me."

"That's what I want, sweetheart." It was my turn to moan as his fingers cupped my testicles. "You're everything I want, everything I could ask for."

He took his hand out of my crotch and put it on my cheek. His other arm went around my waist. "What I want is for you to fuck me, Simon," he whispered. "Now. Please. I mean it. I want you, all of you, inside me."

I started to say that I didn't want to hurt him, that I knew he was scared, that touching him, feeling his warmth was enough for me. But for once in my life, I kept my mouth shut. I just nodded and kissed him, and somehow we both got out of our shoes and the rest of our clothes, leaving them puddled on the floor, and into his narrow bed, face to face, belly to belly, our erections pressed together, our lips nibbling at each other's ears and throats and cheeks.

"Have you got a condom, Rob, and some lube?" I finally asked. "I didn't bring anything. I didn't know that we ..."

"I didn't know either, but I hoped. So, yes, I got some stuff after work. But Simon? Simon, it would mean a lot to me if you didn't feel you had to wear one of those things. I'm clean. I know you are, too. And if we're going to be making love for years and years and years, I want to start out without anything between us. Could you?"

I thought for a second or two about the risk. I have always tested negative. I have always played safe. Herb had been a virgin. And I'd made him wear protection anyway. "No condoms," I agreed. "You're wonderful, Rob. Amazing. Beautiful. I love you. I'll do anything you want, any way you want." I hesitated. "But I insist on one thing. Lube."

"And lots of it. Lots and lots." He groped around on a nightstand I hadn't even noticed. "This says it's spermicidal. I guess I wanted the drugstore clerk to think I was straight."

"Oh, baby, are you so scared still of what people think? People you don't even know?"

"Some, Simon. But scared isn't the right word. Too strong. Nervous, uneasy, embarrassed. All those. And when I'm with you, none of them."

"Then we ought to be together all the time." I coated my fingers heavily with the gel he had handed me. "Rob, you have to promise me that if anything I do hurts you, you'll tell me right away. Promise?"

"I promise, but as long you go slowly, lover, I know it won't hurt. And I really want this to happen. It will make me part of you."

I entered him one finger at a time and very slowly. I knew I wasn't hurting him because his erection didn't deflate, and I watched his eyes for signs of fear and pain and saw none of them. I passed the tube back to him and got to my knees, displaying my urgent need to him without shame, so that he could slick me up outside as I was doing to him inside. He took my organ in both hands and, for a while, just held it.

"Do I pass inspection, sir?" I joked.

"Oh, yes," he whispered. "Your body is just like the rest of you, beautiful and strong." He drew my penis to his lips and gently licked the tip. "I'm so lucky, so lucky." He spoke so softly I could barely make out the words. "Simon," he suddenly sat up and put an arm around my neck. "Kiss me, please, and pinch me. Hard. I want to make sure I'm not dreaming."

"You're not." I kissed him, and I pinched his ass. Hard. Really hard. He squealed. "See? You're wide awake, and so am I. As I recall, you asked me into your bed so that we could fuck. Are we going to do that, or are we just going to talk?"

"What if we did both?"

"I'm the strong, silent type," I said, pushing him onto his back. "Also greasy. And ready. Are you ready, baby?"

He nodded, a lightning flash of anxiety in his eyes, but he grasped his ankles and spread himself wide underneath me. I replaced his hands with mine. "Put me in you, Rob. Slow, easy. We'll do it together."

We did. God, he felt good! Not just tight and hot and velvety, but wanting me, needing me. Once, only once, he whimpered, but it was not from pain. My strokes were gentle, longer and deeper, but not urgent or sharp. "Does it hurt, baby?" I was puzzled. "I'll stop."

"No, Simon. Don't stop, not now, not ever. I'm just so happy. I haven't been happy like this in so long."

Neither had I. I told him so as we lay, afterwards, with our arms around each other, nuzzling and nipping and kissing like young lovers frightened and astonished and ecstatic over our discovery of one another. I told him again when I put my lips around his elegant, slim member, and he tried to stop me. "You don't have to, Simon," he stroked my hair. "There'll be other times."

"But this time is special. It's the first time we made real love. I'm just getting you ready to take me the way I took you."

"Just suck me then, please. I haven't got the staying power for the kind of treatment you gave me. You have so much to teach me. Do you mind?"

"Teaching you? My schedule is completely free. I told you. Or it was free. Rob, I'm like you. I haven't been happy this way in years and years. I didn't think I'd ever feel real love again, but I do. For you. Just for you." I buried my face in his groin so that he wouldn't see the tears I felt coming. As he came erect, he also rolled first onto his side and then onto his knees so that he straddled me and, immobilizing my head in his hands, passionately thrust himself deep into my mouth. He was taking control of me and I, usually the arch control-freak, surrendered completely, joyfully to his desire, his rhythm, his need.

"You swallowed it all," he said a few minutes later after his probing tongue had replaced his cock between my lips.

"Hunger," I grinned. "Chinese food. You know."

"Do you think that's why I'm a little tired? Simon, could we just hold each other and maybe nap for a bit? And then make love again? Or, if you're really hungry, I have some cheese and crackers and yogurt and grapes. Unless I ate the grapes."

"I'll settle for `thou, beside me in the wilderness.'" I pulled him into my arms. "There's no one I'd rather nap with."

But it wasn't a nap. It was a deep, almost instant, immobilizing sleep. From which a terrible, liquid rumbling woke me. Rob snored. He sounded like a very large, very old dog choking on a bucket of phlegm. It was awful, almost a death rattle, and I shook him to make it stop.

Awake, he went into denial. He'd never snored. I had just had a bad dream.

"Next time," I snapped. "I'll bring a tape recorder. Rob, trust me, you were snoring. It worried me. That's all." I caressed his neck and leaned over to kiss him. Then I saw the illuminated dial on the bedside clock. Two twenty! "Oh, sweet Jesus," I bellowed. "Rob, look at the time! I've got to go!" I shot from the bed and began groping naked around the floor for my shoes and clothes.

"You're not mad at me?" Rob turned on the bedside light and joined me on the floor, trying to help me find my things.

"I will be unless you give me back my underwear. You don't have some sick fetish for boxer shorts, do you?"

"These?" He had retrieved them from the foot of the bed. "The only reason I'd keep them is to get you to wear briefs. You'd look really sexy in those, Simon. Or in nothing. Maybe I should just keep all your clothes. Then you couldn't run away from me."

I snatched the shorts from his hand, pulled them on and then my trousers. I got my shirt nearly buttoned when I realized I'd done it wrong. I swore at myself. Rob stepped in front of me and pushed my arms to my sides.

"Let me do it for you, Simon." His voice was calm, but his look was hurt. "I'm sorry my snoring upset you so much. If you say I snore, it must be true. But Karen never told me, and she bitched about everything else."

"It's not you, Rob. And I'm not running away. It's the boy. Herb. I told you, he's afraid to sleep by himself. He must be frantic, wondering where I am."

"Telephone him, then. Sing him a lullaby. Simon, I need you, too."

That brought me to my senses. I stopped dressing. I started undressing. I began by undoing the buttons Rob had just done. I leaned over and kissed him. "No more than I need you, lover," I whispered. "You can have all my clothes if you want and for as long as you want. Don't worry. I'm never going to run away from you. Never."

Rob waited until I was as naked as he was and then he wrapped his arms around me and pressed his cheek against mine. "I love you, Simon," his voice in my ear was hoarse. "I haven't said that before because I wasn't sure how you felt about me. But now I'm sure. And it's just wonderful."

It was. Wonderful and wondrous and amazing and marvelous and astounding. We loved each other. I was in love with Rob, and he was in love with me, and everything in my life was transformed. I could see ahead, and the view was ... Well, it was wonderful.

Except for Thommy. As Rob and I lay together on the bed again, silent in the joy of an embrace that was more loving than lustful, I debated telephoning my apartment. If the kid was asleep, though, I'd wake him, and he'd be annoyed. If he was awake, he'd give me a full blast of his desperation and make me come to him. He wasn't my lover. He wasn't my child or my brother. I didn't have to keep him. I had to cut loose.

Rob must have read my mind. "You don't have to call him, Simon," he said, his hands busy with the taut muscles where my neck and shoulders joined. "He'll make it through the night without you. You've given him so much, now he can stand or sleep or whatever on his own."

Rob was right. When I got back to my own apartment just as the sun was rising that morning, I dreaded finding an indignant, wounded, red-eyed Thommy waiting for me. But the place was empty. The answering machine light, though, was blinking. I punched up the message.

"Simon? It's me. Where are you? It's late. That's why I called. I'm at a party, see, and I've met someone. And, Simon, well, I don't think I'll get home tonight. I hope you'll be all right. I'll see you tomorrow. `Bye."

"Someone?" Now I was angry. What kind of someone? Someone who would take my place? Someone who would take him away from me? How could he be so casual? So mysterious?

I stewed all day at the office, waiting for him to call. He didn't. I phoned Rob to tell him what had happened, and he laughed cheerfully. "I was right," he chuckled. "He's on his own. And so are we. Are your feelings hurt, Simon?"

I admitted it. I hated being dumped the way Harry had. I hated it even though I had Rob to love. Even though Rob loved me. Even though he told me had been to a doctor about the snoring only I could hear. And he was going to have a "procedure." On his nose. Because when Karen broke it, she did a really good job of fouling up his breathing, too. "I love you, baby," I told him. "I'll get ear plugs."

"I don't want to snore," he answered. "And I love you. What are we doing tonight?"

"I'm making supper. Then we're making love. Or maybe not in that order. At my place. Seven o'clock?"

"I'll bring some wine," he chuckled, "and ear plugs."

It wasn't that easy, of course. When I got home with the makings of dinner -- pasta primavera, veal chops, arugula and romaine for the salad, mangoes for dessert -- I found a note from Thommy on the kitchen table. "Please stay up till I get home, Simon. Something wonderful has happened. I have to tell you." Which meant Rob couldn't stay the night. Or maybe even make love. No. I'd put a goddamn handkerchief -- hell, a towel -- on my bedroom door. Or I'd lock it. Or both. Whatever it was he wanted to tell me could wait till morning. He'd slept one night without me. He could make it through another.

Supper, in fact, did come second. Rob came first and was embarrassed. "I need more lessons," he said, as his cock wilted between my lips. So I tutored him a little on technique until I wilted, too, between his lips. Then, for the longest time, we just hugged and laughed and kissed. We cooked and ate supper in our underwear, and in the unflattering light of the kitchen, Rob stilled looked delectable. He was not a "skinny dweeb," as Thommy had said. He was elegantly slim. From hiking in the Rockies, I guess, he had impressively muscular legs that held his firm, inviting butt at just the right, rounded angle.

"Coffee, tea or me?" I asked when we'd finished cleaning up.

He pretended to debate the question. "You, I think," he grinned. "I want to see if I'm learning anything. Actually, Simon, I want to see what it's like to have your ankles around my neck and you at my mercy. Just as a lesson, of course."

"Then, I suppose we should do it in front of the mirrors."

"Not the first time, please." He put his arms around me and pressed against my back so that I could feel his excitement. "Lover, it's my fault that we are joking about this. I think we do that because we are still afraid of our feelings. Both of us. I shouldn't have talked about having a lesson. I should have just asked you to trust me, to let me love you, to give me your body the way I have given you my heart. Forgive me?"

I turned around to kiss him. While his arms held me at the waist, my hands cradled his head. When our lips separated, his tongue flicked out to catch a tear rolling down my cheek. "Don't, Simon, my love," he murmured, "don't cry. There's nothing wrong, is there?"

"No, nothing." I squeezed him to me. "It's just that I realized that I'm no teacher. You are." I could hear the choke in my voice. "You're teaching me to let go, and I never thought I could. Thommy called me a `loving man' once, but we made a joke of it. Now, I think I could be loving for real. And I owe it all to you."

"And maybe a little bit to Thommy, too," Rob suggested mildly. "He got you in the mood for love. Which is where I am now." He took my hands off his waist and put one hand in his. "Come on, lover. I want to make love."

I would like to go on and recount the transports of passion that we experienced that night, the heat and the pressure and the slipperiness and the spasms of release. But, as I said, it wasn't easy, of course. It might have been, except that as we left the kitchen, I heard the front door open. "It's Thommy," I whispered to Rob. "Run. Get dressed. Act casual. Quick!"

As he disappeared down one end of the corridor, Thommy appeared. With someone in tow. "Simon," he said, his huge, gorgeous smile dazzling me as usual. "Oh, I'm so glad you're home. I want you to meet..."

"Hold it," I snapped. "I wasn't expecting company. Let me get decent. Give your friend a drink." Unhappily conscious of my droopy boxer shorts, I whipped down the hall and into the bedroom so fast that I collided with Rob.

"He's brought someone with him," I gasped as I tried to separate my clothes from Rob's. "I don't believe it. The nerve. It's as if...

"This were his home," Rob finished. "And it is, Simon. You should be pleased that he feels that way. He's not ashamed, and you and I shouldn't be either. Those are my socks, I think. Calm down, lover. Let's go out there and meet his friend and be sociable. Or orgiastic." He looked at my bed. "Will it hold four of us?"

"How can you be so cool?" I had found my socks. I had found my trousers. I had found the buttons on my shirt. I started for the door.

"It's easier when your fly isn't wide open," Rob chuckled. "Although, if you're trying to make a good first impression..." He reached for my crotch and zipped me up. "Come on, Simon. I'm dying of curiosity."

So was I, but I was also nervous, upset and more than a little scared. Thommy could be a bull in a china shop, so direct and undevious that he wouldn't even recognize the damage he did if he shattered my fantasies and my world. I sensed that he was about to do both.

I was wrong. The friend he'd seated in my living room was a handsome, middle-aged woman so beautifully dressed that she made my furniture look ratty. "Simon," Thommy was beaming, "Simon, this is Mrs. Vestring."

"Julia," she said, "please." She put out her hand, and I barely resisted the impulse to bend low and kiss it. "Mr. Moore, Thommy has told me so much about you and all the help that you've given him that I just insisted on meeting you to thank you. I thought he was my discovery, but he's told me that the honor is yours."

"Uh-oh," I thought, "Truman Capote, here we go." She was Patricia Neal in "Breakfast at Tiffanys," and I was going to get the eccentric, misfit Audrey Hepburn role, but without a happy, rain-soaked ending. She'd get Thommy. I'd be lucky to be stuck with a cat.

Behind me, Rob coughed discreetly. "Excuse me, " I blushed, turned, turned back, totally off my usual, debonair form. "Mrs. Vestring, this is my friend, Rob Andelman. We weren't expecting..."

"Vestring?" Rob's voice rose in inquiry. "Are you related to Artur Vestring."

"Only by marriage. He's my husband."

"He's the chairman of my board," Rob was genuinely excited. "He's my hero, not to mention my boss."

"You're the young genius he just hired from Colorado? He raves about you."

It was Rob's turn to blush.

"Mrs. Vestring, I mean, Julia, is my producer," Thommy to the rescue. "She was at the party where I worked last night, and she asked me to drive her home, Simon. To Greenwich. Wow! is all I can say. And I stayed out there, and we talked all night about the show and about my part, and we had the first rehearsal today, and she gave a party afterwards for all of us, the cast and the crew..." Julia put up a glittering hand to stop him. The glitter was all from one ring. Harry Winston, I thought. Maybe Bulgari.

"Sweetheart, Mr. Moore and Mr. Andelman..."

"Simon," I said, "please."

"Rob," said Rob.

"Wouldn't you like a drink?" I asked. "Coffee? Thommy doesn't seem to have been a very thoughtful host."

"I don't drink," he said. "I forgot. I'm sorry."

"You're forgiven," she laughed lightly. "Could I have a glass of wine? If it's no trouble."

"Vouvray?" I asked, remembering Rob's unopened bottle from our first dinner.

"Perfect."

I hustled off to the kitchen, beckoning Thommy to follow. "What's going on?" I whispered to him. "Are you sleeping with her?"

He looked astonished. "Simon, they have a whole guest wing out there. With a Jacuzzi. You should see it. Besides, she's married, and she's old. Not as old as her husband, I guess, but he's wonderful."

"For God's sake, he's a legend. One of the great directors. At least, he was. What do you think she wants from you, if it's not your body? Remember your dream?"

"Simon, your elephant stick is showing. Until I told her the truth, she thought I was like you, gay, you know. No, it's not sex. She said that she likes discovering talent, and I have it. She said my smile lights up a room. She just wants to help me. The way you have. I really like her."

We carried the wine and glasses back into the living room. Thommy got himself a soft drink. Julia and Rob were deep in conversation about his museum. Her questions were intelligent. Her sympathy and interest were clearly engaged, and Thommy and I were just observers, walk-ons. Julia, though, noticed the awkwardness and effortlessly expanded the conversational circle to draw both of us in. I found myself talking about Giacomo, whose work she knew, of course, and Thommy chimed in with a story about working once for a photographer who made all the models wear masks -- male ones for the women and vice versa -- so that their features would not interfere with the drama of the clothes. The client eventually rejected all the photos as kinky but dull.

"Well, young man," Julia said, "I don't imagine you'll have that happen to you again any time soon. If you work as hard as I think you can, you'll probably be in Rob's museum before you know it."

My eyebrows arched. "That's what I said when I introduced them," I blurted out. "But I was sort of joking, and I don't think you are."

"Not for a minute," she answered. "Speaking of which," she looked at her watch, "it's late, and I have to get home. Simon, this has been wonderful. You are everything that Thommy said you were and more. He's very lucky to have you as a mentor, and I hope you don't mind if I join the fan club."

"He is lucky," I agreed. "But so am I. He's taught me a lot, especially about friendship, and now he's given me a new friend. I hope we can get together again and draw up the by-laws for the club."

She laughed as she got to her feet. "What about weekend after next? Could you and Rob bring Thommy out to Greenwich on Saturday and stay the night? Artur isn't very mobile any more, and he desperately needs an audience. If you could put up with it, we're having a few people in for lunch on Sunday. Mostly has-beens, but with you young people there, we could talk about the future for a change."

I thought of pretending that I had to check my engagement book, but instead, I stammered a delighted acceptance. So did Rob. Thommy took Julia down to her car, and when he returned, I was still sitting, slightly stunned, inhaling the last traces of her perfume and holding onto Rob's hand while we both tried silently to measure the miracles that were going to transform our lives.

"She really liked you," Thommy was back. "Both of you. And so do I." He drew us up from the couch and into a fierce hug. "Simon, isn't she amazing? Isn't life wonderful? Thanks to you. It wasn't an elephant stick, after all, was it? What you have is a magic wand. I love you, Simon. I owe you everything."

And they lived happily ever after. That's the way it should end, isn't it? Actually, it's close enough. Thommy was a small-scale, small-screen hit when his show finally went on the air. He graduated from Tisch the next spring straight into a powerful Off Broadway role and into the arms of a no-nonsense girl who liked Rob and me well enough to share Thommy with us at regular intervals. After the meeting with Julia, Rob simply moved into my apartment. He got his nose fixed, too. The snoring stopped. Thommy kept the spare room and sometimes brought us breakfast in bed. His dream stopped. Real life kept him too busy and happy, and when he and Sharon moved to Los Angeles and his screen career took off, with help from Artur and Julia, he even found he could laugh about the photograph.

The "famous, infamous photograph" on the Internet, of course. I'm the one who took it. He'd been asked to provide some new publicity shots for the Off Broadway show, and he begged me to take them. We used Giacomo's studio, and when we were done, Thommy asked if I would let him do some erotic poses just for Sharon and for me. "So you'll always have something to remember me by."

I think it's a wonderful, honest picture, but it was never meant to be on thousands of websites. I must have left a print behind in the studio. Some sneak must have stored it away and then, after Thommy's first big movie hit, put it up on the Net to migrate from one celebrity porn gallery to another ad infinitum. Thommy even says it has helped him in a way. "Now, anybody who wants a piece of me can get it, and when they bite, it doesn't hurt. I owe it all to you, Simon. I owe everything to you."