Ken Gregory

Julian Marks is a highly successful, middle-aged Black gay novelist. While he enjoys immense public status, influence, and achievement, he privately wrestles with severe loneliness, regret, and the hidden costs of his visibility. The story explores intimate relationships and the personal truths people spend lifetimes trying to outrun.

Adam, a white man in his late 30s, is visiting his Black ex-lover, Peter, who is dying of AIDS in a DC hospital. The year is 1993. Also in attendance is Cherie, a Black lesbian naval officer who is Peter’s best friend. The two listen sympathetically to Peter’s complaints about how his “Christian” family has abandoned him until a nurse arrives to give Peter medication. While waiting in the hospital cafeteria, Adam and Cherie, meeting that day for he first time, compare notes about the course of Peter’s illness. This leads them to a terrible discovery. Adam, in particular, is confronted with a choice that, while still in shock, he doesn’t know how to handle.

In the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.