Chapter One

"I may be falling in love," Alden said as we sat drinking coffee in the kitchen of his Connecticut house at Brookside Farm.

"Again?" I asked flippantly.

Alden, who was six two, well built, with black hair and eyes and who generally resembled Sean Connery in his Dr. No role, gave me an irritated look. He always wanted to be taken seriously when he spoke of shivers of his heart.

"I met him at the Annex Bar two weeks ago; we clicked right away, and since then we have been together four times at his apartment, just off Sutton Place. He's blond and well built, and the sex is good. He pinches and hits me too much, but I think I can break him of that without much trouble."

This was the first I'd heard of John Cooper, Alden's new lust-object.

"Would you like to meet him?" Alden asked. "We could all have dinner this Friday before he and I go to his apartment."

At the Friday dinner, I saw that John lived up to his billing. He was quite handsome and intelligent, and he seemed decisive, forceful, and sure of himself. In response to my questioning, he gradually revealed that he was a composer, had been studying with Aaron Copland, and the previous year the New York Philharmonic had premiered one of his short works. He seemed to be a rising star. I could see why Alden was attracted to him. Alden told me that John was more than a student of Aaron's; he had been his boyfriend—the intensity and duration unspecified by Alden, who also said he thought the affair was winding down.

Later that year, Alden, by then really in love, moved