"Come on up, I'm all out of beer."

"God, what a mess!" he moaned, trying to sound aggrieved. "You know, if I wanted a beer shampoo, I would have asked." But despite his complaints his grin gave him away, and Pat, in high glee, sat watching his supposed discomfort as Chuck washed the beer from his arms and chest, sipping his own can of beer as he watched. Soon, though, he joined in, washing Chuck's back carefully, and finally, as a peace token, he started feeding him sips of beer, each taking turns drinking thirstily until the can was empty.

While Chuck soaped himself, Pat rose, stretched, and lazily began to take off his own things, emerging tall and smoothly muscled from his dusty work clothes, a young man whose love of hard work in the sun had given him a hard-muscled and imposing body. He was pleasantly conscious of Chuck's languorous stare, for Chuck loved Pat's powerful dark beauty; and when the phone rang in the bedroom Chuck watched him amble in to answer, casually dressed in his T-shirt. And when Pat returned a few seconds later Chuck still watched grinning with pleasure.

"Pat, you look just like a little boy wandering around half dressed." Pat slipped the shirt over his shoulders and head, and climbed into the

water.

"Where the hell are you going," Chuck yelled. "I'm not through yet."

"Now just take it easy-it's more fun this way. The Greeks did it, or the Romans," he went on learnedly, standing imperiously over Chuck who, distracted, found himself losing interest in the protest. "They even had a public bath that everybody used.

"Then they must have had a bigger tub." He slid back to make room for Pat who lowered himself easily into the water.

They laughed together as they thrashed about, trying to get comfortable, finally managing to sit facing each other with legs entangled awkwardly. Pat's mischievous grin led Chuck to wonder whether bathing à deux wasn't old stuff to Pat, but what did it matter? Thus united, they sat smiling happily at each other, like a strange, yet comely primordial creature, able to keep their balance only by firmly gripping each other's flanks.

"So this is how the Greeks took baths!"

Pat laughed and squeezed him in sheer good spirits. "Not quite, but it's fun isn't it?"

Strangely, Chuck's throat tightened, and not daring to try an answer he just nodded vigorously, and smiled. But his feelings frightened him, for Chuck believed a man gives his love as he gives his seed-impetuously, carelessly entrusting it with any who seek him out in his resting place, but like that seed caught by another male, the love cools even as it is given, and is dust long before the lonely one who sought it so eagerly. And though nothing could be more binding than the affection which united the two friends now, he felt that he who sought to preserve this happiness consciously, or to nurture it, only weakened himself and the love as well. So, reluctantly, he drew back from Pat's arms, and asked casually, "Who called?"

Pat released him with the despondency of the frustrated, grumbling as Chuck scrambled up from the water.

"Say, come on-you didn't answer my question. Who called?”

Scrubbing himself with unnecessary energy, Pat tried to answer lightly: "A boy."

"Well, who?"