On Beacon Street, traffic was packed into a heated whole. From a tall window in the cool of her studio, Mary Williams gazed down at it with a sadness that had to do with other things. When she turned to the man behind her, the endless brow of his shaved head shined in her face. With a smile, he stripped down to his Jockey shorts and tensed his stomach into curling muscles, which he displayed challengingly. “You can’t hurt me here. I see the punch coming, I can take it every time.” “Why would I want to punch you?” she said. “You’d be surprised those who’d like to.” She watched him flex his arms, the muscles ropes, not a bit of him wasted. His presence was pronounced and emphatic, which made him seem taller than he was. His nude head was the bone handle of his body. The only evidence that he was approaching sixty was the netted skin around his deep-set eyes, like the wingscape of butterflies. “Where’s the fag?” he said, and she stiffened. “Don’t call him that.
