Whitman had the right idea. He wanted to be remembered as the gentlest lover. Hell, I just want a chance to be a gentle lover once in awhile. What's wrong with that?

I hum poetry to myself.

"I see the young men come and go Talking of Michaelangelo

Flinging phalli to and fro

Shouting 'hey nonnie, nonnie'."

Who wrote that about the women and Michaelangelo? Eliot? It doesn't really matter, I suppose. Chopin really was born in 1810, you know. Poor thing. George Sand was an old bitch who treated him horribly. And even her kids kicked him around.

The boy-the lover-starts snoring again. I let him go to it. He could scream in his sleep and I wouldn't care.

"Shhhh-pooh," he whispers. I answer with a little intimate nod of approval. He's naked. I touch his skin. Oh Christ. Oh God. What if I had this peace every night? What if I were always as happy as I am now? There would be no end to the things I could do. I could write great works, do fine deeds and grab God Almighty by the shirt-tail and shake him down out of heaven. What if I didn't have to act all day?

"Hey, Dale. When ya gonna get married?"

"Oh I don't know. When I have to, I guess."

"Har, Har, Har."

Oh the hell with you. Women are all right, I guess. But I'm afraid of them. I admit it. And I believe in vampires and werewolves, too. I've never seen any in real life, but I've seen them in movies. And they're damn well bloody awful. And I believe in them. And I'm afraid of them, too. You put me alone in an old house by a graveyard in full moonlight and see how fast I go to pieces.

"Sgnaah-fhtt," he says now. I need you boy. I need this every night of my life. I want to be with you for always and always.

Sex? Well, I like it, but intimacy is more important. You'll need one as much as the other. It seems to me that the boys who cruise the city streets are looking less for sex than for a chance to touch and be near another man. They want to love them and hug them and be tender with them. They want to be at peace. I'm at peace now. My lover reclines at my side, and I kiss the fingers of his hand, and compose odes to his magnificence. He is warm, he is firm, he is gentle and powerful and here.

You know what I saw once? A great, muscular farmer, with a loving wife. and six fat kids, leaning on a hoe handle in the middle of a field of cotton while a butterfly perched on his forefinger. And if he knew that I saw him then he would be ashamed. But he shouldn't be. I've always wanted to tell him that.

Children are the only real people. A little boy pulls up a little girl's dress and is enchanted by what he finds. A child of three has her hand slapped over a cookie jar and screams a war cry of pure selfishness. A puppy dies, and its four-year-old master has his first encounter with absolute finality.

Something happened to me once. A straight boy and I were out in the yard, doing nothing in particular. He whispered something into my ear (I've forgotten what, but it was something like "Let's swipe some of my dad's whiskey"). Anyway, after he got through whispering he kissed me lightly on

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