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since tomorrow was Saturday. “Of course!”
    A walk up the front steps. Keys.
    Rickie poured two whiskeys, small and neat, which was what Philip had asked for—Chivas Regal. “ Prost ,” Rickie said.
    “ Prost ,” Philip echoed. He and Rickie sat on a large white sofa, elegantly sagging and comfortable, its cotton covers clean.
    “Yes, very handsome—your friend,” Philip remarked, looking at the photographs on the walls. “What—what work did he do? Or was he still in school?”
    Rickie sighed. “Petey was studying photography—but not as an apprentice. And other subjects too—literature, English, European history. Oh, Petey was interested in so many things!” Rickie had suddenly spoken loudly, so he reined himself in. “I feel sure he would’ve—decided about his life within a year. Maybe photography. He was only twenty.”
    “How long ago was it—that he died?”
    “That he was stabbed. Six or seven months now.” Rickie drank. “January the twelfth.”
    “Not so long.”
    “No.”
    Philip glanced toward Rickie’s fireplace, and back at him. “Rickie, do you remember about four years ago—when we all got so drunk at a party here and took off our clothes and danced and—somebody dared us to run up and down the street !” Philip’s voice cracked as he laughed. “And some of us—were dropping our clothes in the street. Remember?”
    Rickie did remember, as if it were an old fuzzy photograph, that he himself had gone out and collected all the garments he could see in the street and brought them back here, and left them in a heap, shoes, trousers, shirts. He must have gone out at least twice to collect it all, while some fellows slept or wandered about singing, he recalled. “Such lovely days—and not so long ago.”
    “ No! ” Philip agreed. “May I?” He meant the whiskey.
    “Of course, Philip! No, not for me. Well—just the least bit.” Rickie held his glass.
    Philip poured himself a small one. “I wish I—could make you realize that you’re popular. Everyone likes you. It’s always been so—ever since I’ve known you.”
    Rickie laughed. “All of six years, maybe?”
    “Longer. Oh, I’ve seen—oh, never mind.”
    Seen old photos of him, maybe, Rickie thought. Yes, sure, he had been tall, slim, and handsome at thirty, thirty-five. He had known some of the fellows at the party tonight when they had been hardly seventeen.
    “What is it? Afraid of AIDS? I haven’t—”
    “I thought—” Rickie stopped in confusion. “In case you haven’t heard—via the grapevine—I’m HIV positive. I heard—”
    “ What? Oh Rickie!”
    “Yes. My doctor— Well, I had the bad news from him a few weeks ago.” Rickie sipped, swallowed with difficulty. “Not something I like to tell everybody, only somebody I might go to bed with, and anyway since Petey—there’s been no one.”
    “No, I hadn’t heard.” Philip was still frowning his sympathy. “But you know—well, you can live years —decades.”
    With a sword over your head, an ax at your throat. “Sure, I take B-12 and my doctor says I’ve a good supply of—the white corpuscles to—to fight infections.”
    “These days everyone’s doing safe sex, anyway, HIV or not,” Philip said more cheerfully. “You know, Rickie, you’re the first fellow I ever went to bed with?”
    “Re-eally?” Rickie, half incredulous, sought rather drunkenly for something to say. He couldn’t recall the first time he’d gone to bed with Philip. There had been, Rickie knew, several times, but he was vague about those too. “Well-l,” Rickie said, thoughtful.
    “I brought some—condoms,” Philip said, showing reluctance to utter the word.
    “No. It’s for your own good.” Now Rickie was the elderly schoolmaster. He meant it, deep down. Philip was healthy, and he should not take chances. Rickie got up unsteadily. “Now I have to go to bed, Philip. God knows what time it is.”
    Philip stood up, polite. “Twenty past two,” he