you'd rather live in an apartment?"

"I'd rather stay here, if you can stand having me around."

Mrs. Hartley smiled. Now that the most important thing had been settled, she went on to the next most important thing. "Have you thought yet about where you'd like to work? I hear that Mr. Hastings in the shipyard's legal office is retiring, so perhaps there'll be some room there." "Perhaps. But I still don't want to work for a corporation. Have you seen Herb Hoyle lately?"

"As a matter of fact, I was just talking to him last night. Iran into him over at the Mackeys. Naturally, I told him you were coming back to town. And he was very enthusiastic. He said that if you were going to stay, he'd be more than happy to take you on as a junior partner, provided you could pass your Virginia bars. It sounds like a wonderful opportunity."

"It is a wonderful opportunity, Mother. Good old Herb. That's one firm I'd be proud to join anyday."

"Well, you just hop right over there, and you talk with him. Incidentally, Herb Junior has just graduated from U.Va., and he's going pretty I steadily with Bitsy Sullivan. You remember Bitsy, don't you? No, guess not, since her family's only been here less than two years. Anyway, she's a darling girl and just perfect for Herb Junior. And wait a minute. I'll bet the Hoyles invite you over for dinner. Oh, I hope they do, because then you can meet their youngest niece Beth, who's staying with them for the summer. I'll bet you'd like her. She's not very pretty, and she wears glasses, but she's very vivacious and lots of fun to talk to and... why, I'll bet you'd really have a good time with her. And then there's another girl I'd like you to meet-Linda Gresham. A friend of Daisey Sanbut samino's. She's a widow and probably a few years older than you, she's so sweet and a real beauty, and just dying to be taken places." Mrs. Hartley was about to describe another eligible girl, when for the first time she noticed the necktie her son was wearing. She had been nagged by its familiarity, and now she remembered it, It was the striped red and black tie that Rick Leveridge had given to Glenn for Christmasoh, nearly five years ago, yet it seemed almost brand-new. Mrs. Hartley gazed at it in silence.

Glenn wrinkled his brow, his bewilderment obvious. He started to say something, but then the bewilderment vanished and gave way to realization. He gave her a sheepish, painful smile.

"Yap, yap, yap," said Mrs. Hartley. "How I do babble on!" Slowly, almost hesitantly, she finished her drink, and then she smiled back at him, but said nothing.

mattachine REVIEW

BOOKS

OUR BISEXUAL HERO

ALWAYS LOVE A STRANGER, by Roger Davis. New York: Hillman Books (paperback original), 1961. 160 pp., 354. Reviewed by Noel I. Garde.

This is really another of those run-of-the-mill, undistinguished but quite readable and enjoyable homosexual novels appearing as paperback originals. The proper market for the book has been greatly jeopardized by the incredibly inept and supremely idiotic cover which shows a venemous girl alongside the caption, "An affair with a stranger is always dangerous-but hers was a passion that knew no fear." With equal ineptness, the inside blurb refers to the hero as "Johnny" instead of "Mark."

Actually, this is another one of those stories about the bisexual hero on the fence, most similar perhaps to Dean Douglas' Man Divided (Fawcett Gold Medal, 1954). Will his heterosexual success with the heroine suffice for a permanent break with his homosexual past and its continuing lures? The heroine, in 'no way resembling the female on the cover, is a very "nice" young married woman driven almost to a nervous breakdown by her unsatisfying sex life-put quite bluntly by the author, "her husband's premature ejaculations before she's come." As a result, she is led to do what she'd never have thought herself capable-i.e., meet an attractive young man in a bar and end up in bed with him.

The attractive young man being our bisexual hero, his problems, of course, turn out much greater than hers. He's had a passionate affair with a fellow-serviceman, and more recently has enjoyed a status as kept trade for a rich bitch of a queen. He'd be giving up nothing sexually, but-oh, that easy life! Well, the complications of the plot involve Janet's attempt to deceive her husband and persuade Mark to break with Paul, only after which will she get a divorce.

The unusual and imaginative twist in this book is an outgrowth of the odd love-hate relationship between Mark and his rich bitch lover, Paul. When Mark threatens a break, Paul first attempts to blackmail Mark by a threat to tell his parents their son's a kept homosexual. Then he offers a deal: If Paul will be permitted for once to be the one who does the breaking, and Mark will only wait a few months, then Paul will make a "generous settlement" when he finally throws Mark out. Mark can't re-