The class is going badly.

  “C’mon, ladies, knees up!” Joel shouts over the thump of the disco music.

  Thanks to Jane Fonda, aerobics is the biggest exercise craze to hit the US in years. Joel’s afternoon classes at Ladies Only Gym are the city’s most popular – a recent newspaper poll voted him one of San Francisco’s Best Bets of Summer, 1982.

  Joel knows the women in his classes not only appreciate his encouragement, but feel safe in his presence. He’s not on the prowl like the other male instructor, a straight slab of beef Joel hears them secretly call Hands. Also, Joel makes them feel good about their bodies, which the morning instructor, that skinny snoot Rachel, most assuredly does not. And though he’s more feminine than most of his clientele, the straight ones swoon at his dark beauty nevertheless. Joel in a spandex unitard is spectacular.

  But today something is off.

  An unexpected and powerful rainstorm swept in this morning, ensuring the class is only half-full. Even the lights are listless, flickering whenever Joel tries to build some momentum.

  “Okay, let’s GO!” he barks, replacing vigor with volume.

  But he’s so tired. What’s off is him.

  Maybe it’s the storm affecting him.

  Or maybe something else entirely. Is it his imagination, or is he fluish?

  He’ll know tomorrow, when the test results are in.

  Fear gnaws at his insides like little mice.

  “Move those arms!”

  It’s that damned funeral that’s got him off balance, is all. On his walk to the gym, he got stuck in the rain with no umbrella, waiting to cross Eureka while a group of mourners entered St Mark’s. Young men, mostly; under different circumstances he would have cocked an eyebrow, offered up his dazzling smile. Instead, he avoided their eyes, grazed his fingers along the gate as he hurried by – whispering a quick tocca ferro like his Italian grandmother taught him.

  Tocca ferro. Touch iron for luck.

  As though luck alone can save him; save them all.

  “Let’s do this, ladies!” But his voice sounds apathetic, and his students droop accordingly.

  When they first read the words “gay cancer” on a flyer last year, his friend Jerrod said, “Death by dick? Yes, please!” Every single person at their brunch table laughed. But by the time it was renamed GRID this past spring, Jerrod was dead, and everybody had stopped laughing.

  Five weeks ago, the New York Times called it by a brand-new name altogether.

  Next, Murray, Kenneth, Winston, onetwothree. Then: Simon, who said he’d never get it because he only slept with good-looking men. Everyone at their table that day, in fact, except him and Vihaan, who’s now in hiding and won’t return Joel’s phone calls.

  He’s been to more funerals since May than in his preceding twenty-seven years, and it’s only September.

 “Ladies!” He claps to the beat, something, anything, to restore some semblance of routine.

  He is aware now of every minor ache and pain. Checking his lymph nodes is as regular as breathing. Each time he pulls on his clothes, Joel imagines they’re the slightest bit looser. He hasn’t had sex in over two months, his longest drought since college; everyone’s too scared.   

  Joel shakes his head, releasing the negative thoughts like a dog flicking off water.

  Just then Brenda dashes in, her wet umbrella dripping on the blonde wood floor. She’s lugging a car seat with her infant son strapped inside. “Sorry, couldn’t get a sitter!” Everyone breaks formation and crowds around, cooing. Joel can’t compete with all those oohs and aahs.

  The lights flicker a few seconds, teasingly, before shutting off with a decisive zap. From the stereo, Donna Summer’s voice turns bass, then melts like butter. In the near-darkness, the women collectively groan in defeat.

  Or is it relief? Surely they can feel his incompetence today.  

  Sudden lightning throws a flash of blue through the barred windows, so quick that when Joel blinks, he sees afterimages of the women’s Day-Glo leotards.

  Everyone tenses, waiting; except Brenda’s baby, who laughs joyfully at the show. The thunder rumbles, and someone in the dim light says, “Three seconds.”

  “It’s close,” says someone else.

  The sky is a pearly pale gray. The shadows on the floor from the window’s safety bars look like a prison cell. Something in his chest clenches, and Joel pushes the window open to distract himself. The oily-sweet smell of rain rushes in. The air tingles with damp, and he shivers.

  Is he sick?

  Down the block, a moving sea of black umbrellas. The funeral has let out.

  Will this be his friends a few months from now?

  Joel looks away quickly, shamed by the brightness of his clothing, the cling of the fabric to his muscles; shamed by his aliveness, by the vanity and delight he takes in his body.

  The last time they spoke, Vihaan said the move from disease to epidemic was caused by their laughing at it over brunch. “We didn’t take anything seriously, and look what happened.”

  Joel gazes up at the rainy sky. He remembers something else he learned from his grandmother: Breve orazione penetra.

  God hears small prayers.

  So he closes his eyes; so he whispers, “Please.”

  When he turns from the window, the women are standing in a loose cluster, watching him uncertainly.

  One of them says, “Should we stay?”

  “Ladies,” he answers, “I think the weather has other plans. See you next week.”

  They laugh, thankful, and gather up their belongings.

  “Be safe!” he calls as they go.

  Finally alone, Joel grips the bars and watches the black umbrellas. Sudden lightning cracks right outside the window, so close he should feel it on his skin.

  But he doesn’t. Touching iron, and not even a shock!  

  Tocca ferro.

  Maybe this is the sign he’s been waiting for. The sign that says he won’t get sick; he won’t be next.

  Not even a shock, imagine that.

  Joel breathes in. The air is cool and full of luck.