You have to move very cautiously in a canoe, and I did. Somehow, I got into the center, facing Mitya over a thwart, and awkwardly leaned in to kiss him while I undid his belt and zipper, drew his trousers and shorts down to his ankles and began to stroke his hot, heavy cock. It rose almost instantly, and I pushed him up and backwards so that with him kneeling and me crouching, I could get my lips around the inflamed head and use my tongue to advantage. The arrangement was uncomfortable, though, and as soon as Mitya was completely, fearsomely erect, I retrieved a condom from my pants pocket and unrolled it over the slick length of his organ. We made no conversation, no light, loving expressions of desire. It was as though both of us just wanted to get it over with, to penetrate and be penetrated. We were not making love. We were making a poor joke, and I was to be the punch line.

As soon as the condom was in place, I handed Mitya a tube of K-Y, carefully stood up, turned around and undid my trousers, pushing them and my briefs down below my knees. Then I knelt again, facing the stern, put my arms out along the gunwales of the canoe to steady it and myself against the coming assault, and presented my ass to Mitya. Once, at Christmas, my grandmother had served a suckling pig. The servants carried it around the table on a huge platter to be inspected, and as I felt Mitya's hands pushing my shirttails up my back, I imagined that I must look something like that pathetic animal. Only I didn't have an apple in my mouth, just a naked butt sticking up in the air ready to be greased and skewered.

"Your behind is too beautiful, Yves." Mitya was fondling my right buttock with one hand and bringing the other through my crotch to caress my nuts and my very scared, very soft prick. "It is the back part of a man, not a woman, but it is like a statue's in a dream, a statue of marble that is so warm it could be alive and so perfect that only a god could have made such shapes." His fingers splayed around my balls, and his thumb rested on my hole. No, not rested, pressed, pushed, insinuated, hurt.

"Please, Mitya," I moaned. "Put some lube on me, a lot of it, on me, in me, and on yourself. You are very big, and I haven't done this with anyone for a long time."

"Of course," he answered, lifting both hands off me, but lowering his upper body across my back. "I will not to do you hurt, Yves." His breath whispered along my neck, and his lips tugged gently at my ear. "It is only that you are so very fine and this is such a special thing you are doing for me with your body and with your love. I want every moment of our making of love to be as long as life itself. I do not want us to be hurrying."

"Well," I tried for a practical, no-nonsense tone, but the words came out with an eager, I-want-you-in-me kind of sensuality, "we haven't got much time, Mitya. I mean, I really want this to last, too, but dinner, you know… oh… oh." He had somehow squeezed gel onto his fingers, and now one of them was in me, and he was so expert and in charge that I found myself melting.

Not all of myself, exactly. One part of me was very definitely, very suddenly solid, and his other hand found that part and stroked it, and I began to forget about dinner and to forget how scared I had been. I did want him in me, and I humped back on his finger which suddenly had become two fingers, and all without any hurt. "Oh, Mitya, you are getting me all hot." Now I was whimpering with lust. "I want to feel you. I want to ride that huge cock of yours. I want you to take me, Mitya. I want to belong to you. Just fuck me, stud, fuck me!"

And he did. At least, technically. His fingers pulled out, and his shaft pressed in, and I opened to him. "All the way, Mitya," I begged for it. "All of you. In me. Yes. Oh, so goo…"

And then it was over. No. He didn't climax on a single stroke. He just shouted and yanked back, hard, slapping at something, yelling, in Montenegrin, I guess, and very loud. Not as loud, though, as the wail of the siren across the water. I had told my mother not to use it again, but either she forgot, or someone else did the supper-call duty that night.

Mitya must have forgotten, too, that the siren wasn't announcing a bombardment, just a meal. He panicked. He tried to dive for cover, but he only succeeded, quite literally and quite abruptly, in rocking the boat. Suddenly, we weren't in the canoe any more. We were in the water. Which was cold, but not very deep, it turned out, because we had drifted into the reeds while we were preoccupied with each other.

The canoe had turned completely over, but it was easy to get it upright again, or as easy as it could be with your soggy pants weighing you down and your bare feet in slime and dead fish floating all around you and into your face. What wasn't easy was to get Mitya back in. He held the canoe while I sort of rolled up and into it, but when he tried the same maneuver, we almost tipped over again. I couldn't position my weight as a counter to his, and after the third try, he muttered something angry in his language, stood up in chest-high water, grabbed the prow of the canoe, and started pulling me behind him toward the shore. As he went, he also scooped some of the floating fish out of the water and back into the canoe. He retrieved a paddle and a rod and reel, too, and once the water was only knee-high, he pushed himself over the bow and into the seat he had had before. I had managed to keep all my clothes, except for the silly hat, but below the waist, Mitya, had only his undershorts.

Without a word, he turned the canoe for home and began to paddle in furious, deep strokes. I just sat in the stern and watched and shivered a little bit, until we were almost at the dock. "Mitya," I said. "Slow down. We have two problems. The first one is what happened to your pants? The second is what do we tell everyone. Why did the canoe tip over?"

"We must to tell the truth, Yves," he answered. "It is always the best to tell the truth so that you do not have to hold memory of what is false."

"You can't be serious, Mitya." I tried to imagine my parents imagining the scene. I imagined Tommy laughing at me. "You don't really want us to say we were having sex and got carried away and upset the canoe. Do you?" Maybe he did.

"That is one truth. Yes. But it is also of some truth that I hit at a mosquito and the big noise came and I slipped on dead fishes and I fell over in fear, and you were not on your balance because you were standing up fishing, and so the canoe upsetted itself."

"I love you, Mitya." I said. Now I was full of admiration. "You are now a true Canadian." I chuckled and then stopped. "But where did your pants go?"

"I took them off because in the water dead fishes got up my leg, and then in the dark, I could not to find them. Yes?"

"Find the dead fish or the pants?"

"The pants. We have some of the fish." He resumed paddling and brought us alongside the dock. Tommy was standing there. "You're late," he said. "We were worried."

"We had an accident," I said as I stepped onto the dock and turned to help Mitya up. "But we're all right now, and we saved some of the fish. Mitya is an incredible fisherman. We just need to get dry clothes. Please, tell everybody to start. We'll be there in a few minutes."

"I guess incredible is the right word." Tommy was smirking, but his voice was flat. "That's quite a catch."

I looked where he was looking, and I saw what he was seeing, and I knew he now thought he knew what had really happened. He would never let me forget.

Tying up the canoe and scooping the fish out of it, Mitya paid no attention to modesty. His sodden undershorts still clung to him. Except for the fly. It gaped, and as he stood up again, his cock -- still encased in the condom -- dangled through the opening, shining like some monstrous, silvery eel, its latex wrapping glistening in the moonlight.

I was mortified. There was nothing I could say, and I was sure that even in the dark, Tommy could see me blush. I pivoted away from him and began to run toward the cabin, toward a warm shower, clean clothes and a chance to pull myself together and face Tommy again with some degree of nonchalance.

I never made it. I don't know what I tripped over or what my head hit. I don't even know how I got into my bed or why, when I woke up, the room was bright with sunlight, and I was wearing hideous striped pajamas that didn't belong to me.

"They're Larry's." The voice belonged to my sister. "We knew you'd disapprove. That's why I've been waiting for you to wake up. How do you feel?"

"Fine," I said, sitting up. "Oooh!" I lay back down again. "Except for my head. It weighs a ton, all of a sudden. And, maybe you could turn down the drum music. It's kind of loud."

"That's from the concussion, Yves," Ceci patted my hand. "The paramedics said that if you still throb after 72 hours, we need to bring you in. But they didn't think you were really badly hurt. Mitya didn't either. And your ankle is barely swollen anymore."

"How long have I been not really badly hurt?" I didn't know which ankle was barely swollen, and I didn't dare lift my head to look.

"Just about 38 hours, I guess. It's after ten o'clock."

"Sunday?"

"Monday."

I tried to understand. Mitya and I had gone out in the canoe on Saturday evening. That meant I'd been dead to the world for a day and a half. I was badly hurt, really. I could have died. And I had to pee.

"I have to piss, Ceci. Something fierce. Can you sort of help me get to the bathroom?"

"Nope. You're not supposed to stand up for another 12 hours at least. We bought you some of those diapers for old people. I'll just help you put them on, and then you can do what you have to do." She started to reach for the drawstring on the pajama pants. I slapped at her hand, feebly. And she started to laugh.

"Don't tease me, Ceci," I moaned. "I really have to go."

"Which is why I have this for you." She held up a jug, a kind of thermos with a wide mouth. "Do you want me to hold it for you?"

"God, no! I'll manage. Just go away and tell the priests and the undertakers that I'll live. I think."

"They'll be really disappointed, but okay. And while I'm at the house, I'll get you some breakfast. Tapioca okay? I think that's what the doctors said you should have first. Then cream of wheat, or maybe it's the other way round."

"You are hateful." She knew I couldn't stand those bland, gooey breakfast foods. "I don't think I can eat anything, anyway. Just leave. I'll go back to sleep for a while."

"No," she was suddenly quite serious. "Going back to sleep is a bad sign. I mean, Yves, sweetie, you're not supposed to need more sleep for a while. Rest, yes, but stay awake. I mean it, Yves. Promise?"

I promised. She left. Moving cautiously and keeping my head pretty nearly still, I managed the business with the jug pretty well, and that made me feel better. When my mother came in with a big tray of real breakfast, even if it was herb tea, not coffee, I smiled at her. Which made her cry. Which told me I'd really been in some danger, but I pretended not to notice the tears, and she pretended she just had hay fever.

It went on like that all day Monday, with Ceci, Odette and my mother taking turns at keeping me awake, feeding me - liquids mostly - and aspirin, and all of us acting as if I had never been in danger and wasn't anymore anyway. Finally, around 11 at night, they let me get up and go to the bathroom. I was a little dizzy, but holding on to Odette's arm, I made it. I would have rather fallen on my face than try to use the bedpan she threatened me with. I also made it back to bed and was allowed at last to sleep. Tuesday morning I got to the bathroom on my own and even took a shower before my keepers showed up. By afternoon, I was out of bed, out of doors and out of danger.

Still, my mother wouldn't let me drive back to Montreal until Friday, and only then because her sister-in-law, Tante Marie-Cecile, was making her dreaded, compulsory annual visit, bringing, of course, her sad, homely daughter. Both women saw me as the spawn of Satan. I was just as fond of them. So I was pronounced officially healthy and given the keys to Rosinante, which had been kept hidden all week long.

The city was hot and muggy, but I was really happy to be heading home and really, really looking forward to finishing what Mitya and I had started in the canoe. In my bed, we wouldn't be attacked by mosquitoes or scared by sirens going off. I had decided that I would tell Elaine she had to move out. Mitya and I would be a real couple. Of course, he'd have to work hard as a medical student, but that would give me time to paint and really get serious about sculpting. I didn't understand everything about him, but I understood that he loved me and wanted me - my mother told me that he had called Sunday and Monday to make sure I was all right - and I knew I had been good for him. I had helped him get over his tragic love with Rifat. Now he could love me, and I was totally ready to love him.

I wasn't ready, though, for the Dubois twins, who appeared out of nowhere as I was unloading the car. They wouldn't let me carry my bags or even the sacks of fruit and vegetables I'd bought at a roadside stand. "Mitya told us," Luc said

"that you'd been hurt," Jean-Pierre finished the sentence.

"He said we had to take care of you," Luc explained as he put a hand under my elbow.

"And we're going to," insisted his brother, taking the keys from my hand, opening the door and holding it for me as though I were an invalid, or a woman, or something.

"Look, guys, I'm fine," I protested as they convoyed me into the all-purpose main room. "I'm completely recovered. If it were cooler, I'd go 'boarding with you and prove it. You're really nice to do this, but I can take care of myself. I really can."

I looked around. Something was different, but I couldn't figure out right away what had changed. The twins were smiling. "Maman," they chuckled, and I realized what was unfamiliar. Everything that could shine did. The neatness was terrifying. A vase of flowers on a table by the easel said, "Paint me. Make me last forever."

"Your mother," I said to the boys.

"She loved the picture of us."

"She cried. That's how much she loved it."

"Yves," Luc led me to the refrigerator. "She cooked some things for you."

Jean-Pierre opened the door. The shelves were overflowing. A whole roast chicken. A ziggurat of squares of corn bread, a bowl of baked beans laced with chunks of lard, a huge meat pie. "That's a tourtiere, isn't it?" I was astonished. "I thought your mother only made that at Christmas."

"But you made August into Christmas for her," Luc said. "Can I go tell her that you're home? She wants to thank you. And I think she has baked something else."

"Well, she can't bring it unless she agrees to eat it with me and with you two. We'll have a banquet tonight, a home-coming party." Mitya will have an appetite, I thought. "God knows, I can't do justice to all this food all alone. Luc, will you ask her for me?"

"Sure," he said, already halfway to the door. "I'll see if she's home. I'll be right back."

As I closed the icebox, Jean-Pierre put his hands on either side of my head and pulled me into a kiss. "Hey," I protested. "I told you, Jean-Pierre, I'm in love with …"

He kissed me again and then, giggling, let me go. "That's just a friendly kiss," he said. "Because we're friends, and because I wanted you to see that I know how." He grabbed my hand. "Oh, Yves, you were so right. And it's - no, not it, he's-- so wonderful. And kissing makes everything wonderful."

"What happened? What do you mean, everything? Have you been …?"

"He - well his name is Claudio - came to me first. At LaFontaine, the park. He wanted me to help him with some moves. On the skateboard. But then we sat and talked. He's from Toronto. His family just moved here this summer. And he said he'd really like to get to know the city if I would show him the parts I liked best. And I did. That was the next day. And then we went to a movie. And the day after, we went swimming. And walking home, he said what a great build I had. And I told him he was really good-looking. He must have had lots of girls. And he just smiled and shook his head. But I knew he liked what I'd said, because he said I was the first person, except for his mother and his grandmother, to say anything nice about his looks, and he hoped I really meant it because he wanted to look like me. He said I looked like Brad Pitt, except tall."

"Well, you do, Jean-Pierre," I cut into his breathless account. "I would have said Ryan Phillipe, but it doesn't matter. You are definitely hot."

"That's what Claudio said, and then he asked if I had a girl friend. And I told him the truth."

"What did you say? You didn't tell him you were in love with me? Did you?"

"No, no. I stammered but I got it out. I told him that guys turned me on, that I thought I was gay, but I'd never been with anyone or done anything. And I said that I'd understand if I made him want to throw up, but I couldn't help it. 'I fell for you the first time I saw you.' Those were my exact words. 'I don't love anyone but you.'"

Jean-Pierre was trembling with the effort of remembering what must have been an agonizing moment of vulnerability. But the memory had left joy in his eyes.

"And, Yves," he whispered. "It was all right. Claudio just looked at me for a bit and then he said I was brave, so brave. He said he had been so scared of telling anyone how he felt, but he felt the same as I did. We were on the sidewalk, but there was an alley there, and he pulled me into it and behind a restaurant dumpster or something, and he kissed me. He kissed me, Yves, and I kissed him back, and he put his hand under my shirt and I put mine on his neck, and I didn't want it ever to end."

"Have you…?"

"No, not yet. We don't have any place to go, and we can wait. I think we can. It's enough," he hesitated, "well, almost enough, just to have this secret of loving him and him loving me back. His parents are going away next weekend, and they've said it's all right for Claudio to stay with Luc and me, so maybe we can have some time together without anybody around.

"Don't you think Claudio is a beautiful name, Yves? And it fits him. He is so beautiful. And I'm so happy," Jean-Pierre wrapped his arms around me. "You're happy for me, Yves, aren't you?"

"Of course, I am. Falling in love for the first time is like flying to the moon. You just float out of this world, and all you have to do to steer is stretch out your hand to touch his, and you go together into the dream. It's like Peter Pan taking the kids to Neverland."

"And you go on loving forever, don't you?" Jean-Pierre was beaming. "Just like you said last week, about you and your friend, your first love. Right?"

Forever? I didn't want to bring the boy down, but Tommy had pushed me away, and I had let myself be pushed, and I honestly didn't know that I wanted to go back or that I could. "You always have the feeling of love," I tried to soften the uncertainty I felt, "but you may not always have your first love as your lasting love. Life can get complicated. But maybe you'll be lucky, Jean-Pierre. It can happen."

"It will," he was still alight. "I know it will. It's too wonderful to lose."

I was going to agree and say something profound about loving and about being in love, but the noise of Luc coming through the front door brought me and Jean-Pierre back to earth. I got busy emptying out my farm-stand treasures onto the kitchen counter, while the boy hunted through kitchen cabinets for the right bowls. Luc, being the bearer of glad tidings, paid no attention to our diversionary tactics. "La mere says she would like very much to eat her food at your table," he grinned. "Can we come at 7:30?"

"That would be perfect," I said. "It will give me time to clean up and rest." And, I thought, to clean Mitya up in the shower after a hot day on the construction site. "You guys have been great, but I can take care of things now. See you later." I shooed them out the door.

While I was setting the table, I couldn't help thinking how much I owed to Mitya. I have always liked myself. Well, almost always. I am outgoing and generous and sensitive to other people. Most of the time. But with Mitya, I had given more of myself than I'd done with anyone except Tommy a long time ago. I had helped him deal with his tragedy and if I hadn't completely overcome his grief with my love, I knew that with time I could and I would.

And together he and I would help Jean-Pierre. The kid had no idea how tough things were going to get for him. I wondered if he'd told Mitya anything. I wondered if he understood that Mitya and I were lovers. Probably not. He was too blinded by his own love to notice anything or anyone else.

After I finished getting everything ready for the meal, I thought I'd go upstairs and unpack, but I noticed that the boys had left my portfolio on the floor by the front door. I took it to my work space and remembered that, while I was recuperating, I'd done a drawing - really, a caricature -- of Mitya as a fisherman with a mermaid on his hook and a very angry god Neptune behind him brandishing his trident at the oblivious mortal. I thought it was funny, and I propped it up on the easel where Mitya would see it when he came home. I also took the other work I'd done at the lake out of the carrying case, but as I was putting things away, I realized the portrait sketches of Rifat were missing. Someone had taken them. It had to have been Mitya. He still longed for that boy. I had a lot of work ahead of me.

Searching, I did find the very suggestive nude drawing that I'd drawn of Mitya's body, particularly of his cock and balls. I took it out and wondered what to with it. If Mitya had seen it, he might want to talk about it, and I didn't want to admit to him how much of my feeling for him came from the lust that showed in this sketch. Even if I said I'd torn it up, I'd have to say why. If he hadn't seen it, and after all, I had sort of concealed it, it would be better to get rid of it before he did.

On the surface, it was just a body. I had purposefully not put a head, much less a face, on it. I was actually kind of ashamed of it and also more than a little turned on by it. It reminded me of Mitya's overpowering sexual allure. I had wanted to make love to him from the first minute I saw him. Not just because he was grieving, and I hoped to help him heal. No, because I wanted his body, too, maybe even more than his heart. And I had gotten his body and had given him mine, or at least I had been willing to give it to him there on the lake. And I wanted more. The drawing showed me what I wanted and how badly I wanted it.

I'd keep it. I'd hide it in a chest in my bedroom which he would have no reason to open. God, I hadn't had sex in almost a week! I was getting hard just thinking about Mitya naked in my arms, putting my hands all over him and my mouth. Maybe we could have a quickie when he got back from work. Before the boys and their mother came for supper. Damn! Why had I invited them? I didn't want to eat. I wanted to fuck.

And where was Mitya, anyway?

The answer was waiting for me on my bed upstairs. Not the sexy, warm body I wanted to find and wrap myself around. Just a brown paper bag torn to make a ragged page covered with awkward handwriting. I had never seen Mitya's penmanship, but this example proved that someday he would be a successful doctor. The writing was just this side of illegible with lots of spelling mistakes. But the message was clear: he had left. He was gone.

"Dearest Yves," the note began. "I am not hear and I will not be again for sum time that I cannot now say. My father has become vary sick and I must to go to him with spede. My brother has made me a plane tikket, and Tommy and your unkle have ayded very much about permit for me to come back when I can. If I can. Please to thank them for everything.

"How can I thank you, Yves? I cannot. You have bin my heeler. You have made my hart hole once more. You have made me possibel for love when I thot love would not be in my life ever at all. I will make evary trying to come to you soon, but if I do or if I do not, you must to know how I will all times have you in my heart.

"Golden dreams, Yves, my loved one. Mitya"

"Please do not to mind that without to ask you I have took your deep pictures of Rifat. They mean very much to me not just for being of him but also for being of you."

That was all. He was gone. I felt deserted, empty, hopeless, alone. I sprawled face down on the bed and cried. What would I do without him? Who would help me?

I stopped the tears and sat up. Who would help me? I knew. I found my cell phone and punched the familiar buttons. Everything would be all right.

"Clumsy! You've probably dialed the wrong number. If you haven't, leave a message. We'll see what happens." Sirens whined. Cymbals clashed.

"Tommy!" I yelled into the tiny mouthpiece. "Tommy, pick up. Please. It's Yves. You have to be there. I need you. Desperately. Tommy, I beg you."

But he didn't pick up. Maybe he was already on his way over. He knew Mitya had gone. He knew how I'd be feeling. Of course, he would come. I needed him so much. Of course, he would come.