. . . and there was that one winter afternoon, after I left the hotel on Montmartre, because sometimes after I would see the other boy, the French boy Alex from the university and the bleak graffiti-splattered classroom building on Rue Censier, then everything would seem more strange than ever, sometimes I wouldn’t go right back to the apartment on Rue Broca, I mean I couldn’t go back there right then and just talk and try to act naturally around Billy, and it was the same for me that afternoon after I was together with the French boy up on Montmartre, and I suppose a better way of putting it would be that I really couldn’t face Billy, I couldn’t face him just yet after having spent the afternoon with Alex in another one of those one-star hotels where we did go in the afternoon . . .

 

 

 

Photo: Haahr via Flickr