A Matter Of Life And Sex

"INTRIGUING ... AFFECTING ... With moments of poignancy and sly humor, Moore offers gripping set pieces and deft turns of phrase." -Publishers Weekly "Impressive ... devastatingly frank in probing gay experience and the vacuity of middle-class family life." -Kirkus Reviews "Very impressive ... an exceedingly powerful literary performance." -Booklist "An intelligent and no-holds-barred story of homosexual life ... has extraordinarily raw authenticity." -The London Sunday Times "A troubling triumph of AIDS writing ... at once unflinchingly honest and honestly non judgmental." -The Advocate "Rendered with unflinching precision ... rivets the attention like a fatal accident witnessed in inexorable slow-motion ... breathtaking ... There is unnerving power and pity in this stark amorality play." -Paul Russell, author of Boys of Life "Tackles most of the unreassuring images of gay life head-on, and makes them real with a distinctive mixture of rawness and sophistication ... Oscar Moore's hero ... is an Orton of the AIDS era who needs no Halliwell to bring him to destruction." -Adam Mars-Jones, co-author of The Darker Proof OSCAR MOO RE was born in 1960 and was educated at a variety of London schools before going on to Cambridge University. Since 1982, he has worked as a journalist, contributing under a variety of names to The Times, Punch, The Evening Standard, 1-D, Time-out and The Fred Magazine (an offbeat magazine where A Matter of Life and Sex first appeared in excerpts). This is his first novel. OSCAR MOORE A MATTER OF LIFE AND SEX ® A PLUME BOOK PLUME Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson St~eet, New York, New York 10014, US.A. Penguin Books Ltd, 27Wrighn Lane, London W8 5TZ, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Vieroria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcom Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3&2 Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand Penguin Books Ltd, Registe~ed Offices: Harmondswonh, Middlesex, England Published by Plume, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc. Previously published in a Dutton edition. Fitst published in G~eat Britain in a hardcow:r edition by Paper Drum and in paperback by Penguin Books Umited, under the pseudonym Alec F. Moran. Fitst Plume Printing, June, 1993 4 3 10 9 8 7 6 s Copyright C Oscar Moo~e, 1991 AD rights ~eserved ® REGISTI!IU!D TltADI!MAIUC-MARCA REGISTRADA UBRAilY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBUCATION DATA Moo~e, Oscar, 1960A matter of life and sex I Oscar Moo ~e. p. cm. ISBN 0-452-27006-5 I. Title. [PR6063.0642M38 1993] 823'.914-dc20 92-40930 CIP Printed in the United States of America Without limiting the rights under copyright ~eSCrved above, no pan of this publication may be ~eproduced, sto~ed in or introduced into a ~etrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, ft:COrding, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. PUBLISHER'S NOTE This is a work of fiction. Names, charactets, places, and incidents either a~e the product of the author's imagination or a~e used fictitiously, and any ~esemblance to actual petsons, living or dead, events, or locales is enti~ely coincidental. BOOKS All! AVAILABLE AT QUANnTY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PllOMOTE PllODUCTS Oil SEilVICES. FOil INFOilMATION PLEASE WlliTE TO PREMIUM MAilDTING DIVISION, PENGUIN BOOKS USA INC., 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YOilK, NEW YOilK 10014. To James, for all his help, and Patrick, for all his love. CONTENTS A Death Without Permission I I: TWO WHEELS TO PARADISE 5