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peering at everyone through her window curtains. I don't know. Maybe she's blind. Maybe the police will be in here in five minutes."
    Yet all we do is talk, Larken thought. Six homosexuals, some married and some not, all lonely for another man to talk to and love, but we scarcely even socialize.
    Larken wondered what it would be like if they suddenly decided to pair off. It was hard to think of any of these men sexually. But Jake was pretty nice-looking, dark-haired, short and trim in a T-shirt and slacks. And Alfred was rugged in a kind of nondescript way, big without power. Paul was definitely the least imposing of the group. He was its founder and leader, but he was half-bald and very overweight.
    Paul went up to Larken and extended his hand. "I'm sorry," he said. "I've even forgotten your name."
    "Lark," came the reply as they shook hands. Paul's face clouded, and Jake chuckled. "I mean 'Russ,'" Larken quickly added.
    "Come on, boys," said "Terry," guiding them into the living room with a hand on each shoulder. "Let's conspire."
     
    Dear Elaine,
    You had the most wonderful reunion with three of your classmates this afternoon. A gossip lunch. You remember Sally Lankston. Made the All-State Cheering Squad because she had the most spectacular breasts in Santa Ana? Anyway, I thought so. Last time I saw her, she was engaged to a Quaker from Whittier. She's a hooker now—afternoons, when her husband's at work. She loves it. I asked her how she got through a date with some coarse galoot, and she said it's no problem at all once you realize that all men are the same. Because what distinguishes people as people is their feelings, and of course men don't have any. So what's the big deal?, she says.
    And Marjorie Thomas was there—that sort-of-troublemaker who ran around with bikers and greaseballs? Marjorie said that Sally had a pretty good theory going there, because a woman's approach to love-making had many variations, whereas men were strictly "Shove in and spend."
    Sally said, "Absolutely," nodding her head over and over just the way she used to do. Remember how she would say "Absolutely" at least once every two minutes?
    Marjorie will only wear men's clothes. Suits and so on. And her hair looked great chopped short like that, straight black hair flopping around to just below her ears. I offered her one of my cigarillos, but she said she prefers a substantial cigar, and only after dinner.
    Sarah Wild was there, too—my dearest friend at Santa Ana High. Boy, has she changed! Swears like a trucker and looks you right in the eyes to speak her mind and she killed her husband. She says it was an accident. He had bashed the car up putting it in the garage, and Sarah said, "Well, that's so typical," and he got offended and impossible, the way men will. So she clonked him on the head with the skillet in which she was going to fix a chili dinner, and he sort of died. So, after dark, she dragged him out to where the car was stuck into the side of the garage and put him in the driver's seat. Then she cooked the chili and ate it and called the cops. So they think he got killed in a car accident.
    Sally said that was probably the best way out for all concerned. "A clean break," she called it. "Absolutely." And Marjorie asked if she could go through his closet.
    It was really nice seeing the girls again, even if I am making the whole thing up—because I have been thinking a lot about them, about what they look like now, and even dreaming of them, of having long talks and taking naps with them.
     
    Larken was hardly listening to the Meeting. He kept getting distracted by that guy in the park, going over the conversation and trying to see where he had made the wrong move. Some of the queens at Jill's claimed that you could get anyone as long as you played it right. Larken didn't believe that. But there was, he was certain, a science of cruising, a discipline, and if he could only reckon it he wouldn't have to go home alone all the