“The history of Ireland is a history of blood,” David interjected.

“Oh yes, I’m sorry I forgot about how Henry VIII conquered Ireland,” Ralph replied.

“Of course you would,” David said, and the contrite look on Ralph’s face endeared him to me even more. Even though I recognized David’s peevishness as jealousy and felt bad about it, I couldn’t help but feel tickled at the idea that the rhetorical battle between these two men was for my benefit. David excused himself as Ralph and I ended up talking for most of the evening.

At the end of the night and with wine-stained lips, Ralph asked me which way I was going, and I told him I planned to catch the Charles Street stop on the T.

“I live on Charles Street. I’ll join you.”

As we began walking, I wanted to be sure I knew what would happen, but I had been sure before and it didn’t turn out the way I planned. So I just followed Ralph’s leather dress shoes through the dark paths of the Boston Public Garden, so romantic at night with its footbridge over a large pond, and up one side of the Commons until we reached the top of his street with its iron lamps out of the nineteenth century. I had the sudden sensation of walking with a gentleman friend in a bygone era, when us being seen alone together would itself have seemed intimate to an observer.

“Do you wanna come up?” he asked when we got to his apartment, which was on the second floor above a leather goods store.

I nodded and followed him up the stairs to his tiny one-bedroom with redbrick walls on two sides, where he took my hand and led me to his bed, where we finally kissed for the first time.

“It took you long enough,” I said. As we struggled out of our clothes, I decided to tell him something else, something I usually didn’t tell people until it was too late. “Just so you know, I don’t really like anal sex.” I omitted the part about not having had anal sex at all.

“It’s all right,” Ralph replied. “We’ll do it like the Greeks.”

He got on top of me then, and we stared into each other’s eyes as we rubbed our bodies against each other. I hadn’t known this was how the Greeks did it. I felt comforted to learn that sex between men like this not only had a precedent but had been how men had sex at the dawn of Western civilization. In the throes of passion, I imagined myself as an athletic Greek youth, learning what I needed to know from an older man.