That night at the straight bar, Gabe finally came over to Sean and gave him a kiss.

"I want to go home," said Sean. Gabe looked off to his friends. That hurt Sean; he quickly added, "You can stay if you want, Gabe." Gabe seemed surprised by those words. He looked at Sean for a moment, pensively.

"I'll go," Gabe said, suddenly, like a little kitten.

Outside, the whole universe seemed to pour its coldness onto the city.

Inside a cab, Gabe said to Sean, "Max's lover just went into surgery. They discovered brain lesions they didn't expect. He went in because of hemorrhaging. They think its toxo, CMV or KS." Sean hugged Gabe. Gabe became restless and said, "I don't want to go home, yet."

"You're tired."

"Let's go to The X Lounge."

Gabe stopped the cab and paid the fare. The X Lounge was filled with guys, mostly Gabe's age. A black light made the phantom graffiti on the wall glow like specimen under a microscope. The music was heavy.

Sean caught Gabe dipping into the backroom - where guys were making out and masturbating.

There, Sean kissed Gabe's neck and opened his shirt. He kissed Gabe's nipples. Belt buckles scraped the cement; and men moaned. Finally, Gabe and Sean came on the floor.

They hugged and kissed, then buttoned up and took a taxi home.

In bed, a twilight hour arrived. Sean and Gabe kept waking up and falling back to sleep, out of sync with each other. Sean was certain he had caught Gabe wiping away some tears. At one point, they did open their eyes at the same time and held each other. Gabe said, "If they can mobilize so quickly against Iraq, why couldn't they have mobilized faster against this infection I have? If more had been known about it a few years back, I might not have it, now."

Sean shivered and realized, while staring at the morning moon, how insignificant human life often seemed not only to an ambitious nation like Iraq, but also to an ambitious nation like the United States.