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Diagnosis 25 ThinkingofBleeding I’m doing the dishes. There’s this really sharp knife. I don’t know, perhaps I’ve had a bit too much to drink with dinner, perhaps I’m just too eager to show the friends who, as ever, have given me such loving and unquestioning hospitality that I’m trying to help out. Blood everywhere. All over the sink, the faucet, the dirty dishes—­ everywhere. I freak out, of course, but they seem to be OK with the whole gruesome incident. “Fuck, I’m so stupid,” I say.“It’s the knife that’s stupid. I’ve always hated that knife,” Nico replies. Blame the knife. The elegance of that man! I’m feeling ashamed and he’s feeling guilty. Within two minutes, the place is cleaned up, and Guillaume has tightly dressed my hand. Of all the things that gay men inherit from their mothers, some are actually quite practical. Then we sit down at the kitchen table. The gushes of blood, it seems, have triggered a flow of words. I don’t remember the details of what we talked about that night, only that we talked about it, and that although the big news was no longer so new and no longer so big by then, we had never really discussed it until the red, red blood on the white, white sink made it impossible to look away. Something had to come out and out it came. Gushing. ...

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