"The private rooms have first aid," Beau said.

He led me into the room, both of us in white robes, though the arm of mine had developed a dark red spot. It hurt, but physical pain never bothered me much. Work through the pain, like my high school football coach used to tell us in the weight room.

The room itself was quiet and peaceful, rather Zen. Lit candles occupied the surfaces of the room providing a hint of lavender to the air. It smelled fresh and clean. "I suppose these rooms are where the sex happens," I said.

"Yeah. They frown upon sex in the sauna just because it's harder to clean the wood. Here, the surfaces wipe clean or can be removed and thrown in a laundry machine."

He pulled the first aid kit from the wall. "What have we got in there?" I asked.

He handed it to me and I looked inside. Nothing too fancy. Some cotton balls, gauze, hydrogen peroxide, and some standard issue bandages. I brought out the peroxide and poured some onto a cotton ball, then applied it to my wound and felt the sizzle.

Beau looked on in fascination as I continued to disinfect the wound.

"I don't get it," I said. "You have everything you could ever want. You're safe. Why don't you just stay in the palace until this thing blows over?"

He took a cotton ball from the first aid kit and handed it to me as I tossed out the old one. "Because I shouldn't have to."

"No, you shouldn't have to, but I shouldn't have to lock my car or put my money in the bank. There are bad people out there and we need to take proper precautions."

"Have you talked to many people here?" he asked. "Have you met people here? We don't have bad people in Aldonia. This is a new thing. And if bad people want to come in and hurt us, that's their problem. I'm not okay with changing my way of life on account of a few bullies trying to scare me into submission. Let me tell you something," he continued. "It's no fun being a prince."

"No fun?" I asked. "None at all?"

"Okay, well, some fun. But it's not normal fun. When I was young, I told my father I wanted to go camping. My dad said okay and took me camping. Except it wasn't real camping. We had servants there who set up a generator and built the tent for us. The tabloid photographers were surrounding us the whole time and the chef cooked us a five-course meal. It wasn't camping. It was living outdoors for a while. And it wasn't even much of that."

He paused for a second, self-aware, as if he realized he'd been doing all the talking.

"You ever go camping as a kid?" he asked.

"All the time," I said.

"What'd you sleep on?"

"The ground. In a sleeping bag."

"They brought in a queen-size bed. It's not my fault that I'm so sheltered. I didn't want it this way."

I finished up with the cotton ball. "Wrap the gauze around the wound."

"You bet," he said.

"It was all artificial anyway. My camping as a kid I mean."

"How do you mean?"

"We had a nylon tent, sleeping bag to keep us warm, mini-propane tanks to cook. You look at a bear, that thing's living in nature. Has to find its own food, shelter. The closest I came to that was in Iraq."

He finished wrapping the wound. It wasn't great, but it was tight enough to stop the bleeding. I'd been shot before and this wasn't anything special. I got up and started looking around the room. I liked the idea of a sex room, as opposed to the shady motels we had in the states. This place was bright, cheerful, and clean. It was the kind of place I might have taken Jane. We don't have places like this in the US. The closest we had was a luxury hotel. This was like a luxury hotel you didn't spend the night in. And, while hotels gave you small soaps and shampoo as a free courtesy, this room provided tiny packages of lube and a variety of condoms, ribbed, extra thin, studded, glow in the dark, and all sorts of flavors.

I'd been lonely since Jane left me for Erik but being in this room was the first time I'd felt alone. I wished I had someone to share it with.

"What was that like?" Beau asked.

"Sorry?"

"What was it like being in Iraq?"

"Iraq," I said. "Was real life. You go around in the world, in the states, at least, and you bump into someone, they usually say, 'Excuse me' and that's that. Maybe if you're unlucky, you've got a real bastard and they try picking a fight, so you say you're sorry and move on. What I mean is, everywhere else, everybody either wants you alive or doesn't much care about you. Even if you tried, it's tough to get anyone to want to hurt you, let alone kill you."

I became lost in the story, thinking back to the time, which felt like forever ago. It was hard to explain how the guy living a peaceful existence in an apartment in New York was the same one dodging bullets and fighting for his life. Other problems seemed to pale in comparison.

And yet, when I thought of the worst pain I'd ever felt, it was seeing Jane and Erik in my apartment holding hands, sitting me down, and having a talk. In a way, thinking about the time in Iraq was a nice escape from the thoughts of my life in New York.

"In Iraq, it was a different story. All things being equal, the generals and the strategists want you alive, but they don't actually care. If you die in Iraq, you're either one of a few and they call it a victory or you're a faceless victim they chalk up to collateral damage. Those are the people who are on your side. The ones who are supposed to be your friends."

I remembered going through mission briefings and wondering what the risks were. They never told us what the odds looked like ahead of time. Part of me thought it was so we wouldn't know but another part of me thought maybe they didn't know.

"But then you've got the bad guys. And they're not so much bad themselves as they are soldiers fighting on behalf of the bad guys. They want you dead. Why? Because we want them dead. The people that would truly miss you if you died, they're on the other side of the world, seven-thousand miles away. If something happens to you, you don't get to say goodbye to them. You wake up every day knowing you may never see them again."

I’d lost my train of thought.

"What I mean is that Iraq is real because everything is dangerous. It's one-hundred-and-twenty degrees outside and you have to carry an eighty-pound backpack. Back at home, you have climate-controlled cookie cutter homes with artificial grass and the biggest thing you have to worry about is how much green paper you have in a piece of tanned cow hide you keep in your pocket."

I remembered who I was with. "I suppose you don't need to worry about that."

"That's my point," Beau said. "I saw my life flash before my eyes last night, when that guy was coming after me. And what I realized is, it wasn't much of a life. I'm not saying there weren't good moments, but they were all sex. Sex is the only life I've ever had. The only part of my life where I wasn't told exactly what I needed to do and when."

I was seeing something in Beau that I remembered seeing in Jane, he was sheltered. There was a common idea that sheltered people weren't very interesting. It wasn’t entirely true. It was more like sheltered people never got an opportunity to be interesting.

"The only exception was last night. It was the first time I've felt alive with all of my clothes on. And today in the sauna, well, I didn't have my clothes on, but it was a new experience. I could have died in there. Look at my hand," he held it up in front of my face. It was shaking. "I'm still feeling the rush."

"It's the adrenaline," I said. I grabbed his hand and steadied it, then put it against my chest. "You feel that? My heart's still racing from it. It's the fight or flight hormone. Do you run towards the bullet, or run away from it? You put somebody in a situation like that, you see what they're really made of."

"How did I hold up?" he asked.

"You did the right thing both times. You ran the first time and you stayed put the second."

"I trusted you could keep me safe."

His hand was still on my chest.

"Your pulse," he said. "It's speeding up."

I felt it. I couldn't quite explain it. The room was relaxing. There was no danger. I felt safe in here. Yet my pulse was quickening.

Then I placed the cause. Beau was causing it. Him in his robe, open enough in the front for me to see the shimmer across his chest. I looked at his face. His eyes, the same as his mother. The same as Jane's. My heart fluttered.

Adrenaline doesn't just get triggered during life or death situations. Right now, for instance, I felt it flowing through my veins.

Why? What was it about him that was causing it? Even though he was a man, he was just the type I usually fell for. The kind of person who seems to have everything but is still missing something. And I knew I was the something he needed. Even if he didn't know it yet.

So that left me with the question, what kind of guy was I? Was I going to run towards the bullet or away from it?

I knew the answer.

I took Beau's trembling hand and moved it towards my face where it grew cold. His breath quickened, and I moved my mouth against his fingers.

"Kurt..." he said. Just one word. Just my name. It could have meant anything. It could have meant, "Kurt, this isn't the time," or "Kurt, this isn't appropriate."

Or it could have meant, "Kurt, keep going."

I looked into his eyes to read him. Those deep, intense eyes. His smooth face and perfect teeth just waiting for an excuse to smile. His luxurious hair slicked back to reveal more of his face.

It was happening. I wanted him bad.

Cheryl told me how to handle this, just use your words. It's not like in the US. The only way to find out what he wanted was to ask.

"Beau..." I said. "I think I want to kiss you."

It was a second that passed. Two at most. That was in real time. In my mind, an entire lifetime passed while waiting for his response.

He opened his mouth, the lips I wanted. The lips I didn't realize I even could want until this evening. I wanted to explore this side of myself and I wanted him to take me on the journey.

What if he said no?

He didn't.

"Do it, Kurt. Kiss me."

I kissed him. I kissed a man. I felt his body against mine, through the robe. He leaned me against the table and climbed on top of me in one move.

We released the perfect kiss and he looked toward my arm. "I'll be careful," he said.

"Not too careful."

"No," he said. "Not too careful."

And we leaned our heads into each other and kissed again.