Free The Married Man by Edmund White

that dangerous? Julien had held their erect penises close together in his hand, but surely that wasn’t “at risk” behavior, as the pamphlets called it. Or was it? Anyway, the disease took months or at least weeks to declare itself, didn’t it?
    Of course the unconscionable thing was that they were both involved in a deadly game Austin had already lost and that Julien didn’t know he was playing.
    Usually Austin could forget the virus but it kept ringing back like a bill collector on the phone, calling at all hours, insisting upon its claim.
    “Why don’t you stay home tomorrow? And I’m sorry about the rich dinner.”
    “But I love pike in a
beurre nantais.”
    Austin thought he should say it was veal, but that would destroy the illusion they both fostered that Julien, as a Frenchman, knew everything about food, wine and fashion. And because Austin felt guilty about his continuing silence on the subject of his HIV status he couldn’t bring himself to irk Julien in any way. He was pleading with Julien to forgive a crime he’d not yet confessed. He’d heard of men who’d gone on a killing spree when they’d found out their lovers had infected them. If Julien was just a nice married man gambling with gay sex, shouldn’t he know the stakes? The stakes that he’d already accepted, all unknowingly?
    Austin made an appointment with his doctor for Julien. They went to see him together. The office was just across the street from the Buttes-Chaumont, that vast park for the working class that Napoléon III had benignly inserted into a former quarry. Now, of course, theworkshops and the little villages of workers’ cottages on the streets leading off the park housed up-and-coming artists and photographers—Austin knew a gay
couturier
who’d filled his cottage with medieval kitsch (shields, tapestries, suits of armor). Even so, the neighborhood felt forgotten and Austin had no idea why Dr. Aristopoulos lived and worked there. His
cabinet
was up three flights, a cheerless suite of dim rooms, unmatched chairs, a student’s lamp and a coffee table covered with last year’s magazines and more recent HIV brochures. Somewhere in the neighborhood, no doubt, Dr. Aristopoulos had found a comically hostessy receptionist, a woman in her fifties who wore puffy dresses and had dyed her hair an egg-yolk yellow and who walked around in very high heels, bowing and welcoming the skeletally thin AIDS patients as though to a Pensioners’ Ball.
    When Julien came out of his appointment he was red in the face and almost cross-eyed with anger. As they were escorted to the door by their bobbing, tripping, smiling hostess
(“À bientôt, messieurs!”
she sang out in a fruity voice), Julien said nothing, but on the dark stairs, smelling of the
concierge
’s salted cod dinner, he hissed, “But he’s an idiot!”
    “But why?”
    “He wanted me to have the test.”
    “The test?” Austin asked stupidly.
    “The AIDS test.”
    “Why?”
    “Because he’s worried about my acne and my cough and that wart I have on my penis.”
    “But that’s absurd. Unless …”
    “Yes, it’s absurd!”
    “Unless you had a lot of sex with men these last few years.”
    Julien didn’t say anything. When they were outside he took Austin by the elbow and steered him across the street and into the park. Two Indian women in saris were pushing strollers in which solemn, brown-faced babies were propped up like gingerbread men with big sultana eyes. The mothers were conversing so loudly that they reminded Austin how most Parisians whispered.
    Had Julien not responded because he was irritated that Austin—and probably Dr. Aristopoulos—had asked him direct questions about his sex life? Or did he think the test cast doubts on his honor?
    “I have to tell you something,” Austin blurted out. “I’m HIV positive. Don’t worry that you might have—from me….”
    “No, no, of course not,” Julien said as a polite reflex. “How long have you