time and again, the little nudge. I've felt your hand brush my leg, but very accidentally, of course! You're all the same! And you're no damn different than all the rest. Christ! How you disgust me! Groping groping... with all your dirty little groping lust... but clever enough-clever enough, not to do enough to make anything of it, really, but enough . . . enough enough . . . Old boy, let's get on with it! . .

"I've got to take a piss."

As the younger man hove himself from the bar stool, the older man had his time for wondering, that time had run out on him for further hedging. Put up or shut up? he wondered . . . is this his move? he asked himself, do I dare make a move now myself? . . . should I follow him? If I make no move now, I'll be safe. Do I really want him? Do I like being alone? How many chances do I get not to be alone? Do I want this enough to take the risk?

If I don't make any 'first moves', what risk is there to take? If I don't do anything first, but just let him see that I am available-willing-for whatever -if he has anything in mind . . . What a Hell all this is!

Most likely he is as frightened of me as I am of him. What the hell is so wrong with love-love of any kind-that it's a crime? I suppose hate, indifference, coldness, contempt, neurosis, loneliness, and all the rest of it, is better?even insanity—alcoholism . . . Why shouldn't he think I am a cop . . . if I am so suspicious of him?

What is this world we live in? What's so horrible about two men preferring one another instead of wanting a woman? What's so almighty in how you have an orgasm?

Yes, I like this guy. Maybe he's a hustler; maybe he isn't. But what if he is? What's so terrible in that? And that's entirely a personal matter between him and myself. In reality, what in hell do I care if he is? If he is kind . . . I need him. . . he might be just a nice, lonely guy down on his luck. He didn't object when I touched him. He might even like me . . . if I'm going to move, I

must move now.

But is anyone ever worth the risk?

But urges urging him urged him off the bar stool and propelled him, weary legs and hesitancy, to the rear of the room and through the door designated MEN.

He was still standing before the long trough urinal, the young man. He had taken a long time to relieve himself. He did not look around when the old man entered, or look at him now that he stood beside him. But now the young man began an elaborate play of draining himself. He made sure that he was unmistakably showing himself off. Now the older man began his part of the game, as elaborate as a dance, with the greatest feigned indifference and deliberation not to notice, concentrating religiously upon his own function. But the young man's play continued too long; to such a duration of time that there could be no mistake of his intention. The old man looked at last and tried feebly to make his looking as unobtrusive as possible. Then he lifted his glance to see the younger man observing him with an expressionless face. The old man smiled weakly, flushed, and looked away, immediately, down at himself.

The young man put himself in order, zipped up his fly, turned away from the urinal. The old man finished and turned around. The young man, butt supported on the rim of the wash bowl, in an easy sprawl, was staring at the old man with a serious, studying, hooded look. The old man did not move, bird stare, hypnotized, no word, a catch in his throat from expanding pulse. As a tableau, it held between them.

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