guy I am. That I can make him burn, set him on fire! Yessirree! Set him on fire. . . old aunty that I am, may be . I can still do this to anyone I please .. even a kid... just because he is young, just because he is attractive. just because he's got his pick of anything he wants. . . and I don't! Yeah, sure. That's the answer. The real sweat of it, isn't it? Love? Sick love hell! Lust! A sick old man's lust! And that's about it.

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love

Assuredness, whatever was left of it, wobbled, cracked. The boy began to burn, dark murk swirled up, the young man was suffocating. He wanted to cry out, "Let me out!"

Then the young man's thoughts coyed around his mind . . . but had he been really attracted, sexually attracted to this man? . . . or flattered . . . But it wouldn't take, he couldn't make it stick . . . He was a kid-just a kid after all . . . as always he had been-as ever he was . . . and a liar . . . How long was it going to take him to grow up? How long? Of what was he really afraid? Of what did he really panic? . . . the concept the concept forming, formed, unbidden . . . of what was he terrified? Homosexuality that he knew he had already accepted? Of sex? What about sex? He tried to back up, but too late . . . he skidded, could not stop, over the top, and down sickeningly down rollercoaster thoughtslide Dad! Dad! Oh! My God! The male prick! The

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real male prick! Adult Erection! Dad! My God! Father!

Trying to make this kid! This baby . . . what gives with me? What a hell of a filthy thing . . . what a hell of a filthy trick to play, to try to play on him... What am I trying to prove? That I'm young? . . . that I'm not an old man yet?

For Christ's Sake! Wake up!

Instead of chasing after him, I should be looking for a doctor, or a headshrinker! And another twisting, writhe against the spike.

Oh, God, can't I be in love with him? Can't I have it-feel it just once again? Can't I be in love just once again? Can't there be an exception? Can't this be it?

His mind telling him no, there wasn't. This wasn't. Cruelly insistent that he was merely trying to clean up a nasty situation with a romantic label . . that he was only trying to lie himself out of it. . . that he knew right from wrong. Pointing out in the bargain, ruthless logic! that he had been well enough satisfied, contented, in the past, without this

He turned his head to look at the man beside him. Enough . . . satisfied enough. . . until now . . .

Then why in hell am I trying to spoil it all now? Why can't somebody give me a good swift kick in the ass long about now!

But the deeper part of himself, of urges, of all desires, where the seeing is blind, as insistently replied, I want him! I want him! I want him.

How long is it going to take me to grow up? How long? . . . to accept whatever I am . . . whatever there is to be accepted . . . the young mind of the young man expletived, my God! am I all fake! Will I never really be?

No, this is no exception! You Goddamned fool! A kid twenty-five years younger than yourself? Exception! Who's kidding who? Surely, not yourself! You're old enough to be his father! the mind heartlessly derided; the heart desperately cried, old enough to be his father!

He projected, once more, the young man so clearly that he seemed to be there, really, before him, just beyond the windshield, just as though he could

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