The story is based on real events that happened in the Middle East during the eighties. For several reasons, I would not be able to use the real names and give the exact location of the facts in this story. The first is that it is not my story, I am writing it on behalf of my friend Gabriel (not his real name). He requested the story to be told in a way to protect him and everyone in the story. We are both from the same country in the middle east, that do not accept homosexuality.Second, too many of the people about whom I'll write are still living and well known, and they would definitely not appreciate the fact that things regarding them were made public. Some of them, moreover, are still very powerful and could also make him pay dearly for the truth to come out.Another reason is that he is not interested in having a scandalous book, he just wanted to tell me his life story, the reasons why he lived it in a certain way and. And for me, I don't want it be so because of a morbid curiosity around famous names, that of my family (as the first), but because the content is interesting and the style, I hope, valid.When he told me his story, he used the real names. I wrote it exactly as he said it, then, I substituted fake names for them, and here I faced the problem of what names to use. I don't like the use of asterisks or of fancy names, so I used random English names instead of the original Arabic names. Besides the personal names, I also had to change all those details which could make certain people recognizable, without altering the substance of the facts, as for instance the names of the places.It has not been so easy, but I think I succeeded rather well. I also had to change some dates and other details, but I always did it so that the sense of the tale of his life was not altered. He had to live with a bundle of secrets which grew increasingly heavy and he felt the need to tell them to somebody. So, he chose me, as a friend. He was not asking my sympathy, even when I was offering him.After all he always have been lonely, even if, always surrounded by so many people, possibly even too many. There is no worse loneliness that the one you can feel when physically you are never alone, or almost never. Who knows how his life would have been if he was not born into his family but in another?He was not unhappy with his life. The temptation of the "if"s at times is strong, if he was born in another family, if he was born in another land, if he was born in another time. or also, if he didn't meet that person, if he didn't make that choice, if he reacted differently in that situation. if, if, if. But he perfectly knows that they are idle questions, absolutely useless.His life went in this way, for good and for bad. A life that he doesn't know how much more can continue, five seconds, five weeks, five years, or. he doesn't know what life has in store for me. On that point, he was like me. That is what bonded us, and that is why he told me his story.