The Marble Quilt Read Online Free PDF

“adored” Wellington, and that he thought Wellington “adored” him. He says that when he came down with the mumps, Wellington climbed through the window, undressed, and got in bed with him. They stayed together half an hour. Then Wellington departed “‘as he had come, an undiscerned road,’ by the window.”
    The rest (in particular the arrival of the housekeeper) is speculation, invention, perhaps even impudence on my part, since what I want to show up is the irony that lies behind Bosie’s inclusion of this episode in a work intended specifically to
repudiate
charges that he was more than a coincidental homosexual. Indeed, Bosie seems to see the episode with Wellington as yet one more example of the ordinary, virile boyhood he enjoyed before he met Wilde, who corrupted him. No, he says, I am not the rapaciousbrat whose greed and rage brought down the genius giant. On the contrary,
he
was the devil,
he
seduced
my
greatness. At heart I was just a normal boy.
    Of Wellington, he remarks in conclusion, “I look forward to being a boy again with him in Paradise one day not very far off. (When you go to heaven you can be what you like, and I intend to be a child.)”
The Infection Scene
    Precedent: in
Philosophy in the Bedroom
, the Marquis de Sade’s usual assortment of libertines are having a fine old time buggering and encunting and whipping one another, when Madame de Mistival barges into their playroom. She has come to demand restitution of her daughter Eugénie. The sudden arrival of this righteous interloper cannot, of course, be tolerated, and as punishment Madame de Mistival is raped, both anally and vaginally, the service rendered by a syphilitic valet.
    Sequel: San Francisco, the mid-1990s. Two young men—their names are Christopher and Anthony; one is twenty-two, the other nineteen—move in together. They are powerfully in love, each convinced that he has found, in the other, the great, the only true friend he will ever know, the friend without whom his life can have no purpose. They cherish the reading (Dennis Cooper at A Different Light) that brought them together, worship the author under whose dark influence their story began. This was three months ago. In the meantime, because their friends might disapprove of their moving in together after such a brief courtship, they’ve taken to saying they’ve been “partners” for more than a year. And why not? They
feel
as if they’ve known each other for decades. Three months seems too brief a term to contain such abundant happiness. Theirs is the rare, the distinguished thing.
    Oh, how they delight in each other! Before they met, neither had much hope for anything. But now a future in which peace and passion go hand in hand seems to be opening out in front of them. In the normal course of events their relations would become fractious, their passion would grow stale, they would cheat on each other, part, not speak for years, meet again, and wonder at their rancor and folly. But the normal course of events is not to be followed. Not in this case. There is an interloper present. Both of these boys come from difficult homes; Anthony, the younger of the two, from a disastrous one. When he was sixteen he ran away. An older man took him in, offering shelter and drugs in exchange for sex. The older man begged Anthony to let him fuck him without a condom. On several occasions Anthony, blitzed out on ecstasy, relented. Now he is seropositive. Christopher is not. One will live, the other will die. To Christopher, this condition is intolerable. He will not let his friend die alone. Anthony has no symptoms, nor has Christopher ever witnessed the ravages of the disease. Like many of his age, Christopher is so scorched by despair that for him the prospect of “dying together” takes on romantic connotations, seems pleasant and cozy, like sharing mumps. Anyway, his life so far has given him few other