I don't know why Charlie kept coming to me; I was no help. I offered advice, but it was never constructive. I was concerned that I would let something...slip about the two nights Sheila and I had slept together in her bed.In return for his sharing with me, I told Charlie some things about my own early home life. But again, like hiding my attraction to his mother, I left out the serious stuff, like coming home early that day to find Dick on top of my sister and stabbing the son of a bitch with the. The room wasn't that busy and nobody had caught my attention so, against my better judgement, I accepted his request. As it turned out, it was one of the best decisions I've ever made. We spent the next 20 minutes or so chatting about nothing in particular, anything too sexual he avoided or steered the talk away. I'll admit that I was becoming somewhat frustrated so I decided to change tack and be more direct. "What are you into? Are you top or bottom?" I asked. "I'm easy, what about you?". ”A loud bass laugh came from the other end. “In a pig’s eye! If you’re Superman, I’d prefer Lex Luthor!”“Harlan, how they hanging?”“Just like always, one below the other. You just getting up?”“We’ve already been out to breakfast. We just got back.”“Well, drive on up. I’ll meet you out at the main gate. Half an hour,” he said.I looked over at my wife “Make it an hour. Half an hour to drive and half an hour to get Marilyn out the door.” I hung up and turned to Marilyn. “Let’s put everything away. Kin hardly think o’ eatin’.’ ‘Well, you’d better git an appetite for tonight. Bren’s fixin’ ya somethin’ special.’ He shook his head. This was part of the price of living in a small town: everybody knew what was going on, and what everybody else was doing. There was never serious judgement, just the simple friendly harassment that flavored everyday life. Crossing boundaries of propriety was punished by ostracism, and though many minorities got a share of unthinking prejudice left over from the.