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Bastien turns red. Finally. Finally something is seeping in through that thick wall of denial.

“You offered them your romantic history,” I tell him. “You volunteered to prove you don’t date veterans. You handed over the names of your exes to demonstrate that you’re not attracted to the wrong kind of man.”

“I was trying to—”

“I know what you were trying to do. You were trying to survive. And in order to survive, you accepted the premise that your sexuality needed to be defended. That there was something to disprove.” I reach across the bed linens and take his hand. “Baby boy. Do you understand what I’m saying? You walked into that room and played by their rules, and their rules said: a gay man who works with young men is a suspect. Prove you’re not a predator. Prove your desire isn’t dangerous. Prove you’ve never wanted someone you’ve helped.”

Bastien swallows. He takes off his glasses with jerky movements and sets them on the nightstand, and then turns back to me. He doesn’t look at me, though.

“And you did it,” I continue. “You performed innocence by showing you keep your work and your sex life in separate boxes. By showing you’d never be attracted to a veteran. By showing you’re one of the safe gays who doesn’t let his eyes wander toward the men in his care.”

“That’s not—I wasn’t—”

“I know. I’m not angry at you.” I tighten my grip. “But I am angry. I’m angry at a system that made you think that was necessary. I’m angry that you sat in that chair for four hours and it never occurred to you that the questions themselves were wrong. That you shouldn’t have to prove you don’t want to fuck your research subjects just because you’re gay. And yes. I’m really fucking angry with them for fucking you up so much that you were afraid to be with me when it could have been survivable.”

Bastien puts his hand to his chest. He swallows again. He blinks rapidly.

“Straight men work with young women all the time,” I say. “Straight men mentor and counsel and research and coach young women, and no one asks them to hand over a list of their girlfriends to prove they don’t have a type. No one asks them if they had feelings for a student who developed a crush on them. The assumption isn’t that their heterosexuality makes them predators-in-waiting. But you? You walked in there already apologizing for being gay. Already trying to prove you’re not the monster they think you are.”

Bastien tries to say something, but then he nods, twice.

“And it worked. That’s the worst part. You debased yourself, and it worked, and now you think that’s just how it has to be. That’s the cost of being a gay man in a position of authority.” My voice shakes with rage. “That you’ll always have to prove you’re not grooming someone. That your compassion will always be suspect. That if a young man trusts you, it’s evidence that you manipulated him.”

He tries to pull his hand back. I tighten my grip, so when he turns away, it’s not very far, and it’s not for more than a second before he looks at me. “Go on,” he says in a tight voice.

“Whitman. Your lawyer. The translator. Three other committee members. Six other people watched Chen do this to you, and not one of them said ‘this line of questioning is discriminatory.’ Not one of them shut it down. Your lawyer only woke up once to push back in the most lukewarm way possible. They just let it happen.”

“They might not have noticed—”

“They noticed.” My voice comes out hard and flat. “They just didn’t care. Or they agreed with him. Or they figured it wasn’t their fight.” I pull the folder back toward myself and flip to a page near the end. “How many other gay researchers has Chen done this to, do you think? Over eleven committees and eight years?”

“I don’t know.”

“How many of them didn’t have a lawyer who dug up the complainant’s litigation history? How many of them just took it? Believed they deserved it? Let their careers end because they thought the suspicion was reasonable?”

“They asked me about patterns.”

“That was not the scope of this fucking committee!” I shout. “Ultra vires! Ultra vires, motherfucker! You are charged with this thing. The question is not, have you done these fifteen other things? The answer is yes or no. Anything else is a witch hunt. Do you think I don’t know what that looks like?”

Bastien balls his free hand against his mouth and looks at the bedspread like it needs to be analyzed and inspected.

“You’re filing a complaint against him,” I say. “This is not about vengeance. It’s about what he’ll do to the next one.”

“Levi—” He looks up at me. His eyes are starting to swim.

“Non-negotiable.” I say it hard and flat.

Bastien takes his hand out of mine and gets off the bed. He goes to the window and stands there with his back to me for long enough that I start to feel it in my chest.

“You don’t get to decide that,” he says. He doesn’t say it loudly. “It’s my research and my name and my visa, and you don’t get to decide it for me in this hotel room.”

“Bastien—”

“No. I’ve listened to you because I asked you to. Let me finish.” He turns around. “Whitman shut him down. Twice. It’s in Ronald’s own note, and you read it, because you told me you read all of it. She stopped him and he changed the question and she stopped him again. That’s not six people watching and saying nothing. That is one woman doing the only thing she could do in that room where she still has to work with this same asshole on Monday and she can’t afford bad blood today.”

I don’t say anything, because he’s right and I knew it and I built the case anyway.

“And the translator, yes. It was vicious, and I noticed, and I sat there. You want to know why? Because you’re right. The man who objects is the man who is difficult. All it takes is one scene and you’re that guy at every conference and committee meeting for the next twenty years. You have never had to decide that in your life.” He stops. He is breathing hard. “I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m saying you weren’t there.”