"If you want to place a call, please hang up and dial again," the telephone told Lewis. He wanted to make a call, all right, but he knew what would happen if he did. Same thing as the call he just made--he'd say Barbara's name and she would hang up on him. That just put the capper on a wonderful day, he thought.

He sat on the edge of the lumpy motel bed, holding the receiver until it began to scream in his ear. Slamming it back into its cradle, he swore under his breath.

After what had happened here last night--and then in the Box this morning--he wanted nothing more than to be able to run home, back to Barbara, back to the life that, if it wasn't great, at least was predictable. He wanted to kiss and make up, to have a wife again instead of the virago who had thrown him out, to forget all about Tim Bayliss and what they had done in this very room not twenty-four hours ago.

He knew better than to dip his pen in company ink, he thought angrily. To let himself get caught the one time he slipped--and with a man-- well, that was plain stupid. Jumping on Bayliss like a horny schoolboy was bad enough. But doing it in the Box? That had to win an award for stupidity. Now here he was, stuck in this cut-rate motel room, with an ache in his loins for the one thing he wouldn't let himself have.

Damn Bayliss, and damn Barbara too. And damn himself for making everything so fucking hard. He was going to pretend none of this ever happened. He was going home tomorrow, whether Barbara liked it or not, he resolved, popping the top on one of the warm beers left over from last night. And tonight, he was damn well going to sleep.

"How's the Lutz case coming?" Kay Howard asked him first thing the next morning.

"Fine, Sarge," Lewis answered through gritted teeth. His plan for today--for pretty much forever, as far as he could see--was to fly low, not call attention to himself, not do anything to piss off the Sarge, and stay as far away from Bayliss as he could.

"You and Bayliss find out where he was before he died? Anybody see Platt doing anything suspicious?"

"Uh. . .we're gonna get to that today. I'll start right now, if you want." He made as if to get up from his desk, but Howard shook her head.

"You and Bayliss work on it together. I want to know what Harry Lutz was doing that made someone want to shoot him full of morphine."

Lewis bit back a retort. Howard wanted him to go on a wild goose chase? All right. He'd go. But he sure as hell wasn't taking Tim with him.

"You close this case, then you can partner with Kellerman again," she told him.

'That's it, Sarge. Say your piece and walk away,' Lewis thought bitterly. He hated a case to turn from a dunker into a stone cold whodunit. He especially hated this case. In spite of what Bayliss thought--in spite of Howard's order to cut the man loose--Lewis was still convinced Virgil Platt had killed his friend.

But without hard evidence, they'd never prove it. The syringe that killed Lutz might, or might not, be one of the six they'd found on their second trip to the scene; the bottle they had found on Platt might, or might not, match the glass fragments in Lutz's head. Until they got the lab results back, or found someone who could tie Platt to the morphine--or both--this case wasn't going to go down, and Howard knew it.

Lewis watched Howard absently twisting her hair into a knot as she walked away, head up and back ramrod straight as usual. What was going through her head right now? He was still surprised that she hadn't gone straight to Gee with the news that two of his detectives were more interested in each other than in closing cases; he'd have thought she would be glad to use something like this to give him hell.

He rose abruptly and stalked into the break room. Standing in front of Bayliss, who was absorbed in the morning paper, he cleared his throat.

"What?" Tim was never at his best until the caffeine began to circulate.

"I'm gonna go out, talk to a few people about Platt and Lutz. See if anyone remembers seeing anything unusual."

"You want me to go?"

"Nah. S'okay," Lewis said, more gently than he had intended. "I can handle it."

"Okay." Bayliss turned back to his paper.

'Go away, Meldrick, go away, go away,' Bayliss chanted inwardly, pretending to be absorbed in the classified ads until Lewis turned to leave. He didn't want to look up at the other man, didn't want him even to suspect what he had been thinking about.

He couldn't have said how long he had fantasized about Lewis, never dreaming that anything would ever happen between them. Meldrick was a straight arrow, a fellow officer, a married man--not one of the anonymous male figures Tim's imagination so often conjured up. He would never be able to touch him, he knew. He had had to be content with the fantasy, until. . . this.

Their first kiss had been an accident. He had to do something to stop the fight, before he lost control of his temper and hurt his friend. He had only wanted Lewis to back off for a moment. When, instead of pulling away, Meldrick had slid his tongue into his mouth, Tim was so stunned that all rational thought had fled. All he knew was that one taste of forbidden fruit had left him wanting much more.

He had given Lewis a chance to back out after that--had given him several chances, the way he saw it--but every time, Meldrick had given in after only a token resistance. Bayliss didn't know whether to be overjoyed or appalled: overjoyed, because he was getting what he had dreamed about for so long; appalled, because he had no idea where this was leading.

Then, yesterday, in the Box, it had all seemed so clear. Meldrick wanted him, wanted him badly enough that he couldn't restrain himself. It was true, Tim had baited him into it, but Lewis had succumbed to desire instead of giving him the beating he had half expected. And then it all fell apart. He was sure that this was the end. Lewis would never come near him again, not if it meant risking their sergeant having something she could hold over his head.

He stared blindly at the columns of print in front of him for a few more minutes, then shook his head angrily. This wasn't getting him any nearer to closing the Lutz case. He folded the paper neatly and stood up. Time to go be a cop, instead of a mass of raging hormones. If he couldn't do anything else for Meldrick, he could at least do that much.

Lewis strode up the steps of the branch library and shouldered the door open. A teenage girl stood behind the front desk, picking up books and setting them lackadaisically on a cart, bouncing to the beat of whatever was coming through her headphones. He cleared his throat to get her attention.

"What?" the girl said, still swaying in time to the music.

Lewis thought briefly of Miss Holtzhauser, the Gorgon who ran the library branch in his old neighborhood. She'd have slapped those headphones off before this girl knew what hit her. He pulled aside his jacket to reveal his badge.

"I'm Detective Lewis, Baltimore Homicide. I need to talk to someone about two of your customers." He tried to hand her the pictures of Lutz and Platt, but she shook her head.

"I don't got nothing to do with no patrons," she told him. "Just shelve the books, that's all I do. You need Mrs. Ling."

"You want to go get her for me?"

"She on her break." The girl turned away from him with an insolent wiggle.

A tall, elegantly dressed woman stepped into view, hastily wiping her hands with a paper towel. "Karita, how many times have I told you to put that thing away when you're working?" she asked wearily.

"'Bout a hundred," the girl replied sullenly, removing the headphones. She pushed the cart toward the rows of bookshelves nearest the counter, grumbling under her breath.

"I'm so sorry," the woman said. "May I help you?"

"You run this place all by yourself?" Lewis asked, glancing around. He didn't know much about libraries--on the rare occasions when he had time to read, he generally bought a paperback at a newsstand--but he vaguely remembered that Miss Holtzhauser had had an army of underlings to do her bidding.

"There are four of us on staff," she told him. "Budget cuts. We make do with volunteers--like Karita--so we can stay open longer hours. But you're not here to listen to my problems," she said, indicating his badge.

Once again, Lewis introduced himself and brought out his pictures. "Have you seen either of these men in the past few days?"

The librarian gazed thoughtfully at each picture in turn. "I don't know their names," she said, "but they're regulars here. Nice quiet gentlemen, not like some of our homeless patrons. This one"--she tapped Lutz's picture--"is very interested in our computer. He spends a lot of time on the Internet. His friend reads the newspaper from cover to cover, and when he's finished, they leave.

They're not in trouble, are they?" she added, a concerned look on her face. "I can't imagine either of them doing anything wrong."

"When was the last time you saw them?" Lewis asked, ignoring her question.

"About a week ago," she answered, after a moment's thought. "They had another man with them. I thought that was odd."

"Odd. How so?"

"I wouldn't have picked him as someone who spent a lot of time around homeless people," she said slowly. "He didn't seem to want to get too close to them. But he was very interested in what the one man was showing him on the computer. If I remember right, they were there for well over an hour. The other man was becoming impatient; I do remember that."

"Can you tell me anything about him? What did he look like?"

"I saw all this in bits and snatches. You know how it is when you're busy--you notice things out of the corner of your eye. As long as they weren't getting into a shoving match over the computer. . .They didn't kill him, did they?" she asked suddenly. "You said you were from Homicide."

"Not as far as we know. It's one of the homeless men. . .he was found dead a few days ago."

"Oh, the poor man. Which one?"

Lewis silently indicated Lutz's picture.

"I'm so sorry to hear that. He seemed so nice. May I make copies of these?" she asked, reaching for the pictures. "I'll show them to my staff. Maybe someone else can help you."

It was pretty much the same story everywhere, Lewis thought as he went over his notes in the squadroom. The clerk in the liquor store, the nuns at the soup kitchen, even the bums in the park--they all said the same thing. Virgil and Harry were quiet, nice; even gentlemanly, as one of the nuns had said. Even when they were drunk, they kept to themselves, never caused trouble. You never saw one without the other; they covered each other's backs, keeping away from the drug dealers and the mental cases. A few people remembered seeing them with another man recently, and marked it as unusual, but no two descriptions of the man were alike. He was white, and younger than the two homeless men; that was all Lewis knew for sure.

"Okay, so maybe we got the Reverend," he said aloud. They'd have to run this guy down; looked like Platt had been telling the truth, or at least some version of it, about the stranger. And if they could prove the other man had given Platt the morphine--or had killed Lutz himself--then this case was down.

"Talking to yourself, Meldrick. That's a bad sign."

He looked up to see Mike Kellerman standing over him, one side of his face drooping as though he'd had a stroke. They were all experts on that now, thanks to Pembleton, he thought.

"Where you been, Mikey?" he asked, concerned.

"Emergency root canal," Kellerman said indistinctly. "They gave me so much novocaine, I still can't feel my tongue. Been high on painkillers for two days."

"What you doin' here, then?"

"Jus' came in to give Gee my doctor's note," he slurred. "Can't come back to work till they do another root canal. Can't eat, can't have a drink. From now on, I am Mr. Dental Hygiene. I don't ever wanna do this again."

"How long till you're back?"

"Couple of days.you won't even miss me." He tried to smile.

"You look like shit. Go on, get out of here."

Great. Even if they closed this case five minutes from now, Lewis wouldn't get his partner back until the dentists were through having their way with him. And Lutz wasn't all they had on their plate, not by a long shot. It was a typical Baltimore summer, hot and angry, and the result, as usual, was a board heavily inscribed in red. Well, he had plenty to keep him busy until Mikey came back.

He'd start by going over what he'd learned with Bayliss.

He'd have to do it sooner or later, he thought, standing up and stretching. Might as well be now.

"Hey, Bayliss," he called out. "You want my interview notes?"

"Sure," Bayliss replied, without looking up from the pile of paper on his desk.

Lewis walked over and dropped his notes on top of the pile. "Looks like Platt could really be our man," he said casually. "A couple of people mentioned seeing him and Lutz with another guy, someone who didn't look like he belonged with them. He could be Platt's connection for the morphine."

"Yeah. Okay." Bayliss still wasn't looking at him. Lewis glanced down at what was occupying the other man's attention. It looked like a stack of photocopies: military records, newspaper clippings, photographs; nothing that looked much like police work.

"Whatcha got there?" he asked, mildly curious. "Doin' your family history on company time?"

"It's just some stuff on Lutz's background. Turns out he really was a war hero. All that stuff Platt told us about what happened in Italy? It was all true. He got the Medal of Honor for carrying Platt on his back, under fire, down a mountain to a battalion aid station--and then going back and rescuing four other guys. They had him over here selling War Bonds for a while after that."

"You find anything less than fifty years old on the guy?"

"Mercy had a file on him. He'd been in their ER a few times."

"Who'd he put down as next of kin?"

"Virgil Platt."

"Between the war and now, nothing?"

"I'm waiting on Social Security. That'll give us where he worked.if he worked." Bayliss paused for a moment, idly flipping through the papers. "You know, the thing that gets me is how somebody can just fall out of sight like that. Seems like all he had was Virgil Platt."

"Yeah, he dug hisself an awful deep hole to hide in. No family, no nothin'."

"It makes you wonder what he was hiding from, doesn't it?"

"Makes me wonder how you go from bein' a war hero to bein' a dead homeless guy."

"He made the wrong choices, I guess. Like everybody else." Bayliss looked up, an unfathomable expression in his eyes, but Lewis had already turned away. He didn't need to hear about wrong choices. Not when he had one sitting right in front of him.

Lewis hauled his suitcase up the stairs to the apartment he'd once had all to himself; the place that had begun to feel more and more like Barbara's territory. He dropped the suitcase in the living room and went looking for his wife. Passing through the dining room, he noted absently that something seemed different. Suddenly, he stopped short and looked at the wall that had been empty since one memorable blowup, months ago. "Hey, hey, Teddy," he said to the picture. "Nice to see you back."

"Barbara! Hey, Barbara!" he called. "Where are you, baby?" Then, through the bedroom doorway, he saw Barbara's suitcase lying open on the bed.

"Barbara?" His voice had gone soft. "Honey?"

She came out of the adjoining bathroom, hands full of what Lewis privately termed "female stuff"--bottles and boxes and jars, most of whose uses he didn't understand.

"Meldrick," she said flatly.

"What's up? You going on a trip?" he asked tentatively. "Somebody sick?"

"No, nobody's sick. I'm just. . .going away."

"Going away where?"

"I'm going to stay with a friend for a while."

"Why?" He sat down on the bed, moving aside a pile of clothes to make room.

"Look, this is your place, not mine. It isn't fair for me to throw you out just because I don't want to be around you."

"You don't have to go. Whatever it is, we can work it out."

She laughed harshly. "Like we've worked things out before? You sleeping on the couch, me throwing you out for looking at me cross-eyed? No, Meldrick. I have to go."

"Come on, Barbara. I know we ain't exactly gotten off to a good start, but I want to make things right. Whatever you want me to do, I'll do. You don't have to leave."

She tucked each bottle and jar carefully into a makeup bag, as though making sure everything was neatly packed was the most important job in the world.

"I just don't think I can live here anymore," she said slowly.

"Why? What'd I do that was so bad you have to leave?" He waited impatiently through a long silence, dreading her answer.

"I never should have married you. It was a mistake."

"What are you sayin'? You don't love me?"

"No, I don't," she said gently. "I'm not sure I ever did."

"Then what'd you marry me for? Huh?"

"I don't know. You were so nice. . .it seemed right. I thought it would be okay if I gave it time."

"But it's not."

She closed the suitcase gently over the last of her clothes. "No. It's not. I'm sorry."

"Just tell me why," he pleaded, taking her hand as she reached for the suitcase. "What's so bad about what we have?"

"Nothing. Everything. I don't know," she said desperately. She shook his hand away. "Just let me go."

"Do you want a divorce?" he asked, in a low voice.

"No.I just want some time. Look, Meldrick," she said, setting the suitcase on the floor and turning to look into his eyes. "This is not about you. This is my problem. Let me sort it out."

She picked up her bags and was gone before he could marshal up a coherent thought.

He should be angry, Lewis told himself later. But what was the point? He probably deserved this. It wasn't like he had exactly been faithful to Barbara. But what the hell did it matter, anyway? He'd thought it was too good to be true when she said she would marry him.

'Barbara was giving me my place back,' he thought suddenly, 'putting Teddy back up there. She's gone for good. . .this sorting out her life thing is bullshit.' Once again, he wondered what had made her decide to leave so abruptly. Was it him? Did she know somehow what he had done?

"No," he said aloud. It was like Tim had said: sometimes guys just did it with guys when they couldn't get a woman. And that certainly applied to him, didn't it? Barbara had cut him off, and Tim was right there. . .

Even as he thought the words, he closed his eyes almost involuntarily, remembering the first time Tim kissed him. He imagined the other man's lips on his; soft, almost liquid, even as they crushed against his mouth. Truth was, he'd been so shocked at first, he hadn't even put up a fight. Then, when things got serious, he hadn't wanted to. He had wanted more, and he still did. He still wanted Tim, even after what had happened yesterday. Especially after what had happened yesterday. And the night before, at the motel. . ."oh, yeah," he murmured, feeling a stirring begin in his groin as he pictured Bayliss, sprawled on the bed, naked and pleasuring himself. He wanted to give Tim that same pleasure, he realized; wanted to touch and taste and learn Tim's body as well as he knew his own.

Suddenly, "This ain't right," Lewis admonished himself. He couldn't stay here all night thinking about this, even if he wanted to, which he didn't. He was supposed to be at the Waterfront right now. If Tim came in. . .well, he'd cross that bridge when he came to it.

Bayliss looked up blearily from the piles of paper surrounding him. It was long past shift change, but he had so much information to go over that the changeover had passed by unnoticed. The fax from Social Security had finally come through; reading it, he found that Harry Lutz and Virgil Platt had both worked at Procter and Gamble until they had been downsized a few years back. Neither one had been married, as far as he could tell; neither had children. With their military pensions, Social Security, and the pittance each got from the company, they should both have been able to live decently, if not well. There was no reason for either one to be living on the street.

But they had been, and for a long time--ever since P&G cut them loose. It was a mystery within a mystery. 'Lutz should have been even better off than Platt,' he thought. According to what he'd learned today, Medal of Honor winners got a special pension. Where was the money going? Liquor? Women? Were they in hock to a loan shark? Any of those would explain a lot.

They would have to bring Platt in again and run all this by him, but it was too late tonight. If he dragged him out of the shelter Social Services had found for him, Platt would forfeit his bed for the night. It could wait until morning, Bayliss thought sleepily. He'd see if Lewis thought he was on to something first.

He had successfully managed to push Lewis out of his thoughts for the last three hours, but now everything he was trying to avoid came rushing back. It had felt so right to touch him, to lavish on him the tenderness for which Tim so rarely found an outlet. But if Meldrick didn't want him, he would leave him alone. He would never force anything on him. All Bayliss wanted was to be able to tell him so.

He felt a sudden surge of anger: at Lewis, at himself, at the whole situation. Why did everything he touched fall apart in his hands? The first time he'd acted on his attraction to a man, and he had managed to screw things up royally. And as for telling Lewis, forget it. 'I'll be lucky if he doesn't sell his share in the bar after this,' he thought despondently. 'He can hardly say two words to me. How can we be partners?'

Bayliss thought briefly of going down to the Waterfront, of trying to have it out with Lewis. But what good would it do? The best that could happen would be that Meldrick gave him the cold shoulder; the worst, that everyone would find out what the two of them had been up to.

No. He would go home, try to get a good night's sleep, and hope that tomorrow things wouldn't seem so bleak. He shuffled the papers into a neat pile and trudged out of the squadroom, down the long flight of stairs, out for another lonely night.

"Meldrick! Am I glad to see you!"

Lewis paused in the doorway of the bar. That note in Munch's voice could only mean trouble.

"Why's that?" he asked cautiously.

"Can't I just be happy that one of my partners in this den of iniquity has finally decided to come in and work his shift with me?"

"Sorry I'm late, Munch. I got held up with some stuff at home."

"No problem," the older man said, gesturing expansively. "As you can see, there's not exactly a crowd."

Lewis walked around behind the bar. Munch was leading up to something, he was sure.

"So you won't mind if I cut out early," he continued.

"What for?"

Munch indicated a well-endowed woman, probably half his age, nursing a frozen drink at a back table. "Abby, there, would like to see some of the sights of Fell's Point."

"Including your place?"

"Possibly. But what really matters is that her mere presence intoxicates me. And as we both know, a drunken bartender could lose us our liquor license."

"You're so full of shit, it ain't funny." If he let Munch go, he'd be trapped. Nowhere to run if Bayliss came in. On the other hand, the man would be useless for the rest of the night if he stayed. . .

"Yeah, go ahead. Take off. I'll close up."

"Thank you, Meldrick. We'll name our first born after you. 'Meldrick Munch.' How's that sound?" Munch was already rounding the end of the bar as he spoke.

"Hell of a name to wish on a girl," Lewis called after him.

"Last call!" Lewis shouted half an hour before closing, hoping the patrons would take the hint, drink up and get out. The night had been uneventful--no visitations from Bayliss--and he wanted it to stay that way. He planned to lock up and leave on the heels of the last customer. Munch could damn well count the receipts in the morning.

Just then, the door opened, sending a cloud of steaming night air into the bar. Kay Howard drifted in with it, looking curiously at Lewis as she tried in vain to subdue the hair that framed her tired face.

"Meldrick," she said softly. "Thought this was Munch's night to close up."

"He took off early. What can I get you?" Great. The last person he wanted to see tonight. He would almost rather it had been Tim.

"The usual's fine."

He drew a beer from the tap and set it in front of her as the last customer paid his tab and left. "I'm closing in a minute, Sarge."

"I know. Just stopped off for a nightcap." She sipped her drink in silence for a few minutes as Meldrick wiped down the bar.

"So whaddya do, Sarge, keep tabs on who's working here when? Ain't that a little above the call of duty?"

Howard looked up, visibly bringing herself back from wherever her thoughts had taken her. "A good sergeant knows what her detectives are doing at all times," she said, sounding like the rule book come to life.

"Oh, yeah? Then how come you didn't know what was going on in the Box the other day?"

She was silent for a moment. "Maybe I did." She took her wallet out and laid her money on the bar as she got up to leave.

"No, Sarge," Lewis hissed. "You can't just leave it like that."

"I think I'd better."

He strode around the bar and blocked her path. "I know what you're thinkin', and it ain't true."

"What am I thinking, Meldrick?"

"That Bayliss and me. . ."

"That Bayliss and you what?"

"That we gay. And that ain't so."

"I don't care what you are, as long as you close cases. There something you want from me, huh? Want my blessing?" She picked up her glass and drained the last drops of her beer.

"No. I wanna know why you bein' so. . .understanding. This ain't like you, Kay. You been pretty much by the book since you got that Sergeant in front of your name. Something on your mind?" He took a deep breath. "'Cause if you're saving this for blackmail or some shit like that, forget it."

Howard glanced up at him, a thoughtful expression crossing her face. "That hadn't occurred to me, Meldrick. But thanks for the idea." She sidestepped him neatly and headed for the door. "I'm out of here."

Lewis wasn't going to let her go that easily. He reached out and took her arm, pulling her back to face him. "Then what _had_ occurred to you?" he asked harshly.

"Nothing, Lewis. Nothing." She smiled, a little nervously, and swallowed hard.

"Don't look like nothin' to me."

"I. . ."

"Matter of fact, you look like you swallowed a box of crickets. Somethin' on your mind, Sarge? Somethin' you wanna say?"

"Let it go, Lewis." She tried to shake his hand away, but he tightened his grip on her arm and leaned in close.

"Let what go? You said it was nothin'. Was it nothin'. . .or somethin'?"

Kay opened her mouth to speak, but before she could utter a sound, he had closed the distance between them. She thought he was gay? He'd show her. He pulled her to him roughly, inhaling her sweet scent, tangling his fingers in her hair. His lips came down hard on hers, echoing the anger in his last words.

After a shocked moment, she responded in kind, curving her body to his and sliding her hands around to clasp his back. But as his tongue began to force its way between her half-parted lips, she pulled away and backed hastily towards the door, knotting her hair up as she stared at him in consternation.

"Somethin' I said?" he asked her huskily.

"Something I saw you do." She was gone.

Meldrick sank onto one of the barstools, holding his head in his hands. His whole life was going to hell. Kissing Bayliss, losing Barbara, now this thing with the Sarge.this was crazy. And what did Kay mean, something she saw him do? She thought he was gay. That had to be it. She was letting him go, giving him some kind of permission to be gay, even though he could swear she wanted him.

All this over not being able to keep his pants zipped around Bayliss. Barbara probably knew. . .hell, Howard was probably on the phone with her two minutes after she caught them in the Box.

He knew it was ridiculous even as he thought it. He knew deep down that Howard wasn't the type to rat out a fellow police. She had kept her mouth shut about the situation between him and Bayliss--even though it was probably almost killing her, he thought bitterly--and she would keep her mouth shut about this. He had to believe that, or he might as well turn in his badge right now.

So all he had left to worry about was himself. If he pretended nothing had ever happened, Bayliss would go along; he'd seen that today in the squadroom. Tim didn't want to be tarred with the gay brush any more than he did. Everything would go back to normal, and that was good.

Then why did he feel so bad?

He heaved himself off the stool, locked the door, and set about closing down the bar. The routine settled him down a little. Why couldn't it all be like this? You line the bottles on the shelf just so, make sure the money tallies with the checks. You go to work, you do your job, you come home and your wife's waiting for you. No surprises. That was the way he wanted it. No jokers in the deck.

'Somebody musta dealt me a whole hand fulla jokers,' he thought ruefully. He knew he couldn't just close the door on what he and Tim had done. 'Be honest here,' his thoughts went on. 'You care more about never bein' with Tim again than about Barbara leavin'.' He'd known it was over between him and Barbara for weeks. He could have accepted the fact that he was attracted to another woman. Hell, he'd even tried to force it, with Kay. But it wasn't going to work. He had to have this out with Bayliss--now, tonight--before he would be able to rest easy. If Tim was having second thoughts, that was fine. He'd take that as a sign: neither of them was really gay; it was just one of those things that happened. But he had to know.

Sleep rarely came easily to Bayliss, and tonight was no exception. The one night he wanted to pull the covers over his head and forget for a few hours that Meldrick Lewis ever existed, and all he could do was lie there and watch the clock count off the minutes until morning.

He thought he had come to terms with this a long time ago. He was attracted to men; he hadn't doubted that in years. If Meldrick wouldn't come near him again, there were plenty who would. He'd made a few trips to Washington in the last year or so, far enough away for him not to worry about being discovered hanging around in the gay enclave of Dupont Circle. He had made tentative forays into one or two of the bars: he had sat, nursing a drink and watching the men who drifted in and out, but had always left abruptly at the first sign that someone might be interested in him. Someone always was interested, he thought with a faint glimmering of pride. But the time never seemed right.

No. Scratch that, he thought angrily. He had been afraid of the consequences if anyone found out. What if he ended up being raped, robbed, murdered? What would his family say? What would Gee, or Kay, or Frank think of him then?

But now, luck, or fate, or something, had dropped Lewis right in his path. Kay had seen them together, and had claimed not to care. He had discovered that holding a man in his arms, kissing him, touching him, was everything he had dreamed it would be, and the fact that he had discovered this with Lewis, the object of his fantasies for so long, made it even better.

Oh, there was no hope for it. He wouldn't sleep tonight. No matter where he tried to steer his thoughts, they always returned to the same point: Meldrick's lips on his; his hands on Meldrick's body; and then, the fear in Meldrick's eyes when Kay discovered them clinging to each other in desperate passion. He had to do something to put that image out of his mind. There was only one thing he knew of that was guaranteed to relax him at this point. Rolling off the bed, he reached under it for the box he kept there, away from prying eyes, and pulled out a videotape. If this didn't do it, nothing would.

Lewis stood in front of Tim's door, trying to control the pounding in his chest. Taking a deep breath, he tapped lightly on the door. Maybe Bayliss was asleep. No, he thought, knocking harder, it didn't matter. He had to get this over with.

"Who is it?"

"It's me, Meldrick. Lewis," he stuttered out. The door swung open. At the sight of Bayliss, his heart thudded wildly. "Can. . .can I come in?"