companionship. But he no longer had them, and would have to settle for sex.

With each passing day, and with each passing man, Doug became more depressed. After four days he stopped going to the bars. On the night of the fifth day he finally let himself go and laid across the empty bed and cried for twenty-three minutes. Tears came in a flooding catharsis that washed the leaden feeling from his stomach. On the sixth afternoon, he sat on the sofa. He had given up hope of ever forgetting Bill. He sat now, remembering everything. He had to remember, no matter how much he didn't want to. He couldn't keep from it.

"I want him," he said to the barren walls. "God help me, I need him. I love him. Oh, Christ, I love him."

Tears welled behind his eyes, and he remembered Bill. The jockey shorts he wore. The tender little way he had of lying in bed at night after sex, holding him, caressing his thigh, patting it occassionally as if he were comforting a child.

Doug remembered the night they had come home drunk after a party somewhere. He had shed all his clothes and gotten into the shower. A few minutes later Bill, naked except for his socks, got in with him.

"You're crazy," Doug had said.

"Here, lemme wash yer back," Bill had answered. Doug gave him the wash cloth, and he soaped his back, rubbing it slowly and drunkenly. Then he sat down on the floor and soaped his buttocks and thighs and calves.

"Turn round," he said. Doug turned, and he worked his way back up, soaping his legs and groin and stomach. After the water had washed the soap away, Bill took a buttock in each hand and drew him close and kissed his stomach, then laid his cheek against it.

"You're crazy," Doug said.

He sat now and remembered that, and tried not to cry again. The memory of things. Bill. The sight of him shaving in the morning, and the scent of his Lilac Vegetal. The ungodly things he put on baloney sandwiches-like chopped olives and sour cream-and ate with relish. The smell of his hair. The texture of the skin on his back and shoulders. The feel of his sex in his hand. The poetry he wrote: "A boy once offered me his love/Faintly smiling and holding it forth with tender hands."

Suddenly the door opened, and Bill was there. He stood looking down at Doug with a question on his face. Without hesitating, Doug jumped up and ran to him, grabbing him with such desperate frenzy that he staggered back a step. Doug held on for dear life, crying and kissing him and speaking his name. Bill's arms went around him.

Late that night they lay together. Bill's hand was again between Doug's thighs, caressing and patting. Bill was back. His skin and hair and sex were back. The poet-the lover-had returned.

"You don't know what hell I went through without you," Doug said, gently running his hand over the continually amazing and comforting texture of that magnificent broad back.

"I went through hell," Bill answered. "I never fully realized how much I love you and need you."

"I love you. I love you more than anything."

"I'm sorry I went away. I'll never do it again."

"I love you."

They kept saying it almost all night long.

one