In Majorca, jet-lagged at the airport, Nathan bought a one-liter bottle of Tanqueray, and then, after an hour’s drive, their van stopping in a small, possibly medieval town, a second bottle of gin, soda water, limes. They drove farther, another half hour, the sea beside them, before reaching the house. The house was isolated, far from town, on the side of a cliff that plunged into water so clear that from the terrace Nathan could see fish swimming at the water’s base.
There was a woman waiting for them. She took them through the house, each room all sparse white walls, wooden beams across the ceiling. She had all seven of them cram into the bathroom, where she demonstrated flushing the toilet. It was how one usually used a toilet. She said, “This is very important. One flush.” The woman lingered, untrusting, then left them keys.
They had rented the house for a week, after which they would fly on to Tel Aviv, arriving on the second day of Pride.
Nathan tried to nap in his room. The others slept. Nathan wished he had an Ambien. He imagined the discreet white disk of one, then, failing to sleep, took out his MacBook and began to stream an Éric Rohmer film he had misremembered as being set in the Mediterranean but, watching, realized was set on the beaches of France’s other side. Somewhere between the protagonist being filled with longing and the protagonist being filled with more longing, Nathan opened Grindr.
He saw someone else from the house, blocked them, turned over on the bed, and browsed, each square on the screen a different body, each one tens of kilometers away.
The seven of them had flown in from Melbourne, where, on Friday nights, after eating and showering and douching with his body crouched over the shower tiles, Nathan would dress and then go to one of the other’s apartments, which would be more or less the same as Nathan’s apartment but with a substantially wider balcony. There, Nathan and his friends would laugh, drink, then open small ziplock bags and take—swallow, snort, or shelve—what was inside, let whatever substance it was hit, feel high or low, something strobelike in between, then, all together, head to a club.
At the club he would speak repetitively. “Yes, yes. I feel it.” He would wait in line for a toilet stall, then,
