"I see," said Don. He sat down and really looked at Chuck for the first time. He was attractive, in a gauche way, tall and sandy-haired. Certainly not an object for terror.

"Do y'mind if I have another wine?" Chuck asked.

"Help yourself. Well, now that you're here, you might as well tell me about yourself."

By the next time he saw Ken his reprimands were only half-hearted. He had meant to give him a mighty blasting, to point out the danger of his action. But Chuck was so nice, so simple and likeable, that Don almost felt a kind of gratitude toward Ken. All he said was, "What do you think I'm running here, a flop house?"

Chuck was more predictable than the mercurial bartender. After an evening with Ken, evenings which somehow now became fewer, Don welcomed Chuck's relaxing dullness. He didn't respond much to the music and the poetry read aloud, and after a couple of weeks Don met Chuck openly, spending hours with him in bars, anesthetized to the furtive gossip that accompanied their appearance.

His relations with Ken and Chuck were innocent, he told himself. He had no physical contact with either. He had done nothing to be ashamed of. Yet... Only when he awoke from deep sleep, his defences down, did he begin to feel the faint prickles of doubt and apprehension. When an evening of music, or drinking in the bars was finished and Chuck was gone, Don was aware of a bitterness toward Ken for casting the spell that had reopened closed doors, reawakened desires he did not want to feel. The disenchantment had been gradual and painless, but he felt weak against the necessity of ever closing the doors again. He had never questioned Ken's withdrawal, sensing, without actually knowing, that the answer might destroy him. Also, in these defenceless moments, he could not explain Chuck to himself. Ken, despite his complexity, or perhaps because of it, had been easier to equivocate. He had secret needs and reaches beyond his mundane lite. Chuck had not need for the music, the talk of books and art.

But, in the light of morning, when his mind had reset and reorganized its barricades, he arose and went off to work, humming in pleasurable anticipation of meeting Chuck for dinner at six.

One night, five weeks later, Don read until midnight, then gave up waiting

for Chuck to appear. He went to bed but couldn't sleep. He had just switched on the light and reached for a cigarette when someone knocked at the door. An enormous young man smiled at him drunkenly and said "Hi! I'm a friend of Chuck's. Is 'e here?"

"No he's not here," Don replied, annoyed. "I was in bed." The young man swayed forward and braced himself against the door-frame.

"Oh," he said, "I thought maybe he was here."

"Well, he's not, and if you don't mind," said Don, starting to close the door, "I'd like to go back to bed."

"Wait a minute, honey," said the other, an ugly note creeping into his voice. "Don't be like that. Can't you ask a fellow in for a little while?"

Don was frightened as he had never been in his life before. He was no possible match for this alcohol-emboldened brute. Sparring for time, he said, "I don't know you, do I? What's your name?"

"Jus' call me Duke. Never mind about the rest. C'mon, let me in, huh? I'm not feelin' so good. He swayed again, and Don, fortified by desperation, lunged at him and pushed him clear of the door, closed, and locked it. Then he stood there, his head pounding and the perspiration dripping down his body. On the outside, Duke slammed his fist against the door once and shouted, "For a goddamed queer you're pretty goddamed snooty!" Then Don heard the crunch of gravel under receding footsteps.

Stumbling blindly across the room, he fell on the bed and wept.

17