She had to laugh. What else could you do? It was much too late in their lives for this kind of giddy flirting and already the afternoon had been much too long. She could see the reflected glare of the late sun, golden and vulgar, in a mirror near the entrance of the lounge. How could I possibly have spent six years buried under the weight of this louse? she thought.

But the truth was, she’d begun to feel a little golden and vulgar herself, and she was suddenly struck by the realization that he meant it, that somewhere in his heart, amidst the gridlock of self-absorption and sexual obsession, he did miss her. She felt something flare up inside her, not lust, but recklessness and power. If I were drunk and stupid and young and spiteful enough, she thought, something truly regrettable might happen here.

“Janey?” he said, so softly she could barely hear him. “Tell me the truth. You’ve missed me, haven’t you?”

“Oh,” she sighed. “Maybe a little, when I’m especially full of self-loathing.”

“Will you see me again, later in the week?”

“For what? What possible reason could you have for wanting to meet me?”

“To talk. Who else am I going to talk to?”

“They have these wonderful things called shrinks,” she said, “people who sit in little rooms and do nothing but listen to other people talk. You pay them by the hour so they’re not allowed to participate or pass judgment. They’re listed in the Yellow Pages under EARS.” But as she said it, she was wondering how many of her carefully arranged plans she’d have to cancel to meet with him at whatever time and whatever place he wanted.

Four

Cry Me a River

1.

One of the more dubious advantages of being a homosexual is that people will tell you anything about themselves. You don’t even have to ask. Show up at a dinner party with a companion of the same sex and by the end of the evening, you’re almost certain to find yourself backed into a corner, listening to a whispered, alcohol-soaked confession of a love affair with a sister-in-law, a wedding day infidelity with the bridegroom’s best friend, or a secret addiction to sedatives or cheesecake. When Desmond was younger—he suspected it was during that burst of optimism and self-confidence that burned brightly between the rush of revealing his secret sexual inclinations to the world and the disappointment of hearing that everyone already knew—he had a number of flattering explanations for this. Gay men are good listeners; gay men are sympathetic; gay men are trustworthy. More recently, he’d come to realize that people are eager to spill their darkest secrets because they assume that all homosexuals live in a swamp of moral ambiguity and are therefore in no position to pass judgment.