He winced under the light. There was a broad cut across his right cheek, clogged and dirty with blood. A purplish patina of blood could be made out on his black throat. Beneath a shabby old cardigan the upper right side of the pink silk shirt I had given him was soaked in blood, its new colour itself bleeding through the rain-wet material. I felt frightened again, unwittingly involved in something bad. There was something repulsive and careless about him, his nose clogged with bloody snot and his eyes tired from crying (though he tried to disguise this weakness with a mutinous look). But at the same time he was utterly defenceless: everything about him spoke of need.

We went upstairs. I felt relieved that no one was in the main part of the house. He followed me wearily, the wet corduroy chafing his thighs; I looked down hastily at the turn of the stair and saw his blurred brown footprints on the carpet.

In the flat, I helped him take off his clothes. He groaned and ached as I pulled his arm back to slide the shirt off. ‘My fucking shoulder, man,’ he half-shouted, and I passed my trembling fingertips gently over his back and he breathed in suddenly when I brushed a bruise that was mysteriously welling up in the blackness of his skin. He was shivering and chilled, his lower lip hanging miserably. I pulled off his shoes and stood them on the doormat, becoming more practical, concerned only with immediate necessities. At the same time he grew more passive and inert. I pulled down his zip and tugged his tight, rain-slimed corduroys and his little briefs down over his ass and thighs; he managed to lift each foot as I pulled the wet, resisting trousers off, kneeling in front of him and glancing at his shrunken cock and his scrotum shrivelled up tight with cold and fear.

I propelled him to the bathroom and sat him down before attempting to clean and dress his wound. It was very painful, but he said nothing beyond the occasional ouch.