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“Don’t tell me, Otis. Don’t tell me if you’re going to leave me. I don’t want to know. You’re my man. I know that, and I love you.”
    I pushed her away and stood up. I looked into her eyes for a long moment.
    Then I said softly, “Hon, that’s the problem exactly. You’re in love all right, but not with a man. Dorcas, I’m a low-life faggot. A big, black, ugly nigger with a deformed dick fucked me in a filthy attic until he passed out.”
    Her mouth popped open. She froze like she was having a stroke. I saw the shock anguish in her eyes and knew I was going to break down. I went to the closet and got my suitcase and threw it on the bed.
    She shook the bed in convulsions of weeping. My tears blinded me as I packed the bag and slipped the gray suit over my pajamas. I took my car key and Mama’s door key from the ring of mortuary keys and touched Dorcas on the shoulder. She sat up on the side of the bed and rocked as she held my hands against her face.
    She wailed, “Oh! Otis, don’t go. You were wrong about my despising you. I’m just confused and forgive me for saying it, but I’m so relieved that it wasn’t another woman. Otis, darling, that was the only time with a man in the year we’ve been together, wasn’t it?”
    I pulled my hands away and picked up my suitcase.
    I said gently, “Dorcas, last night was the only time since I’ve been with you. But I’ve had guys on the brain all along, even when we sexed, so I could stay hard. I love you, Hon. But I can’t stay knowing that you know how sick and weak I am. Since we were kids, something has always turned up to keep us apart. I guess we shouldn’t be together.”
    I kissed her on the cheek and turned away. She followed me down the hallway to the door. She hugged me around the waist and pressed her face between my shoulder blades.
    She pleaded, “Stay here with me. I won’t ever again ask you to marry me. I love you enough to help you get well. You weren’t born that way. Together we can . . .”
    I pried her arms loose and faced her.
    I said tenderly, “I wish I was good enough to marry you. You’re still pretty. Some high-class guy will come along to make you happy.”
    I started down the stairs to the street door.
    She said sorrowfully, “I’ll never want anybody but you. Otis, I’m going to wait for you. Please promise you’ll come back to me.”
    I opened the door and said, “You’re breaking my heart, but I can’t promise you that. I have to get my mind together. Dorcas, you can’t know how terrible it is to be the way I am. No matter what happens, I’ll never forget how sweet and wonderful you’ve been to me.”
    I slowly shut the door to her crying and went down the sidewalk to the Plymouth in a storm of tears.
    I drove to a medical building at Sixty-first Street and Cottage Grove Avenue on the Southside. I went up a flight of stairs to the office of an old doctor who had formerly practiced on the Westside.
    He examined me and found a ripped anus and a traumatized sphincter. He injected a local anesthetic and took four stitches. He gave me pills for pain and sleep and told me to come back in several days.
    I went to the Plymouth and sat there confused, not knowing what to do or where to go.
    I drove across the intersection and parked in front of the Evans Hotel at Sixty-first Street and Evans Avenue. I went to the desk and checked into a fourth-floor room facing Sixty-first Street.
    I sat in a chair by the window in deep depression until twilight lit its lavender lamp. I called room service for vegetable soup and a Denver sandwich. I felt better after I had eaten.
    I got pajamas and a small transistor radio from my bag. I took a pain pill and lay across the bed and tried to untangle the snarl of my life. I stared at the ceiling and listened to sentimental music for quite a