Bill, a young gay man living in California, returns to Boston in the summer of 1987 to visit his old college roommate and briefly lover, David. He, David, and their buddy Lou drive to Provincetown for a week's gay vacation, where the old ties of friendship among them deepen. But their good time is threatened by increasingly volatile personalities and a growin AIDS epidemic encircling them in an ever tighter grasp.<br><br>Their emotions explode one evening with the unexpected arrival of George, whose added presence brings to a head the simmering anxieties, fears, and resentments these friends have long harbored but have not openly shared. Will their friendships fall apart? Or will they discover a deeper love that binds them together?

Maid Service

“A party, didn’t you hear? Une orgie. There are these two guys from Brattleboro, doctors I think, who throw these tacky affairs every now and again. There are rules. You have to take your clothes off upon arriving, and there’s only safe sex. Pas des fluids. But the spread is fabulous, so to speak. High tea sandwiches, you know, with cucumbers. Little crab cakes and petite fours even. Ludicrous. Naked antique men standing about worried about dropping crumbs on the equally antique Oriental rug when they’ve just—”


“Do I know these guys?” Bill interrupted, miffed but also relieved that he hadn’t been invited.


“Do you? I wonder. We call them the Honey Bears. I forget why.”


Chapter 11