‘How convenient for you. How. Fucking. Convenient. But at least they tried before they gave up on me. Unlike you. At least that can be said in their defence. They gave me a chance, you might say, even though they suspected, long before they caught me with some gay porn magazines. That’s more than you ever did. Right?’

No answer.

‘Right?’

Luna looks like she’s weighing her words. Then, almost inaudibly, she says,

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What was that?’

‘I’m sorry.’

Slightly louder now.

‘So, you’re asking for forgiveness. You know what, I don’t believe you.’

‘I understand you’re having a hard time, Billy, and that part of that is my fault. That’s what I’m asking your forgiveness for.’

He laughs.

‘But there’s no forgiveness to be had. My parents made that very clear. Not for people like me. The Bible says so, they told me. Unnatural. Revolting. God cries, they said.’

Silence.

‘And yet, they tried to cure me. Said it was a disease, that I could get better if I just wanted to. Would you like to know what they did to me?’

Luna doesn’t answer.

‘They prayed. Got their pastor involved and prayed. Every morning and every evening. Yes, I prayed, too. Begged God to let me become someone else. But it didn’t help. So they sent me away, tried conversion therapy. Do you know what that entails?’

‘I think . . .’

‘I was about fifteen, hadn’t even had sex yet. Just wanked off to those bloody magazines. A whole summer, they tried. Drugs, threats, electric shocks, prayer, the whole shebang.’

‘Billy . . .’

‘When I got back, I was broken, but still not cured. I screamed at them that they had to accept me for who I was. That not even God could change me. That I was unnatural; it was their own fault for bringing me into this world. If my blood was impure, then so was theirs. And that’s when I found out the truth.’

Luna is crying now. Her eyes fixed on Billy while tears and snot run and drip because she can’t wipe her face.

‘That’s when they told me they didn’t have my impure blood in their veins. That I was adopted. And that it was no wonder I turned out the way I did, considering who my real mother was. A slut who travels the world flaunting herself for money, they said. A whore who preaches Satan’s message. I had evil blood, they said. Your blood. I was no longer their son.’

‘If I’d known . . .’

‘Then what? You would have done what? Come back and rescued me? Made sure I didn’t have to support myself by riding the ferries back and forth, sucking off Danes, Swedes, Dutchmen, and Brits who were turned on by fifteen-year-old boys? You would have rescued me?’

‘I would have, Billy, if I’d . . .’