Faggots

by Larry Kramer

When the beat thumped into crescendo and glissandoed into an open plateau, Timmy, vaguely aware that his crotch was fuller than usual,—he’d never got a hard-on while dancing in his bedroom—thought to himself: I might as well show them what I really can do, and spun away and performed a few graceful and intricate steps and turns which he had perfected in that bedroom, never imagining he’d be showing them off quite like this, including the mock hesitation both arms right left right right that he’d noted some kids using on a Don Kirshner TV Rock Special, and this caused Paulie to duplicate the movements, and now they were dancing together—Durwood tried but couldn’t get the tricky hesitation right—Paulie and Timmy, looking like, though they would never have heard of them, young Tony and Sally de Marco, which one Tony?, which one Sally?, in and out, arms over and down, touch hip, touch hip, down down over and back. Paulie’s eyes closed, his own crotch running over, and Timmy’s eyes closed, and they instinctively touched chests and bumped groins and whirled about to collide asses and then knock hips, right and left, and as Rose Tundra droned on and upward, their own movements became slower and their gestures tiny and delicate, weaving a spell for the coming moment of climax and ending, neither one realizing that their sweat was comingling, just that it had been a good brotherly get-together and workout that would remain as a nice memento of Timmy’s first High in the big city, wh...