Until three o’clock the following afternoon, when he began an eight-hour shift at the Grip, he was free. This sudden freedom, after three hectic months, made him extremely restless. He ought to work on his thesis, or go out and investigate more gay life for it. He still hadn’t been to the Baths or any back-room clubs, and his experience of bars was limited to a few in the Village. But that wasn’t what he wanted tonight. Paul’s words that last day of school kept coming back to him. He suddenly found that he did care, he cared very much. But at least he didn’t have to worry what students would write about him on bathroom walls for the next three months; for the next eight months, unless Boyle changed his mind. Boyle might be right. Look at Mirella Trent: one class this term, and that one a seminar for advanced students, most of whom were doing fieldwork, lectures at various other universities. Mirella Trent was on easy street. He showered and then moped for the next hour, telling himself he was being foolish to waste a good night off, the first in months that he wouldn’t be at the Grip, at Eric’s, or working on his thesis.
