doing? At the thought of himself, of old men who chased after the young, who had to have innocence, or seeming innocence, or whatever, to sauce up their failing senses, to get the lead out of their flabby sexual responses, the force of their wills . . . his will now . . . made him twist embarrassed, angrily. God! Sick! It's come to this!

God, wasn't it? So simple.

Panic . . . panic . . . panic, yes, panic . . . Why? Yes, why? Panic! The young man felt so foolish, stupid, never so foolish before in his whole life. you made yourself available . . . you got picked up, you found the man . . . available . . . you made yourself available, didn't you. you . . . to him . . . that's all there was to it, wasn't it? to him . . . so simple . . . God, wasn't it?

Wasn't that all there was to it?

Then, why this?

The evening, all it had contained, the three of them, warm comradery was draining away like a broken artery emptying him. Like something bleeding to death deep inside him, something close, kinship, normal . . . he was near to crying . . . nothing would ever be the same again with him. He knew it, nothing would ever be the same again. No matter how it turned out now. No matter how he decided. It was too late. Something safe was ruined, broken, gone forever... something good . . . clean. . . normal. . . .

Jesus Christ! How he hated that Goddamned word! Normal! "normal!" Goddamn the treacheries of the human mind!

He wanted to reach out to caress the head of the man, to love him, to be made love to by him . . .

But I can't... I can't . . . whispered a far echo deep inside him. Why? But why not?

Was there anything in life more desired than this? Sexual fulfillment at last. . . the young man pushed, trying to ask, to answer himself. How many dreams, fantasies, erotic fairy tales he had lived in private of this event; his entire adventurous masturbatory flights focused bright and he blushed in the dark.

Crawling over the surface of disgust, the man picked at his own mind with reluctant fingers of self-searching. What's the motivation? What got into me? What's the drive? I've never needed such a thing before.

God! I'm just another impotent old queer! Another old aunty!

He felt like vomiting.

I love this kid? I'm in love with him? How absurd! The thought sickened him. What am I doing to him? What in the Name of God am I doing to him? What have I done?

"Do you want to come home with me?" the man had said. Of course, he did; then why couldn't he?

If he could just be honest about it . . . and why couldn't he? That he had lied; that in bed, the man would find out . . . experience . . . what experience? Experimentation, playmate diddling a highschool boy-experimenting ... and he recoiled, the words implied... he had lied. He had lied, why in hell had he lied?

The snake coiled around the man, embrace of his own sexuality, and self-loathing of everything else about himself. What do I really want him for? Okay. The truth . . .

I lust for him. That's what I really want him for. To prove what a great