With Jean-Marc, though, something new was happening and he couldn’t account for it. Jean-Marc wasn’t better ­looking or sharper or smarter than some of the men he’d gone out with since discovering his ­homo­sexuality; in many ways he was even less mature, like some belated adolescent who would venture into the adult world but never actually manage to become part of it. But it was precisely the way he expressed his immaturity, his ­self-restraint, too, which he’d given proof of during those first few days when they’d been seeing each other without sex, usually so inevitable in their circles, getting in the way, his very special way of treating Mathieu not as spoils of war to be consumed as fast as possible in case he disappeared on some whim, but as a privileged partner to be treated ­carefully, that touched Mathieu, even though he’d seen it all before. But all this attentiveness, though it was considerable and Mathieu appreciated it tremendously, didn’t explain his desire to be with Jean-Marc, despite the tiresome tirade over dinner that normally would have sent him running.

Jean-Marc was talking again, but his voice was softer now. Mathieu allowed himself the pleasure of thinking that it was because of his hand on the sleeping man’s neck. Which made him suddenly aware that for the first time in his life, perhaps, he felt not superior to, but stronger than his ­partner, that he could, if he wanted, have the power to transform a life, shake up an existence, “protect” someone as he so often wanted to “protect” his child: in a word to love someone who truly needed him. Until now he had left men because he wouldn’t allow himself to be loved; this time he wanted to stay, so that he could love. He sat up in bed and lit a cigarette, very cautiously to avoid waking Jean-Marc. Was this love or condescension? Was he being patronizing? Was he going to play daddy with Jean-Marc as he did with Sébastien one weekend in four? Or was he simply afraid to acknowledge that he was on the point of throwing himself into something tremendous, something incomprehensible, that he wasn’t yet ready to face? Were his superiority and strength an act he was putting on to conceal from himself the state of dependency and weakness into which he felt he was sinking? For a very brief moment he was tempted to get up and run after freedom as he usually did, not looking back, not allowing himself any regret, his arms stretched out towards other episodes, other meetings that he’d make sure would lead nowhere, would be free of pain, bland and totally innocuous.