The scene opens with the narrator describing his first time having sex with a "deserving" young man. He is overcome with emotion at the sight of the young man's gentle hands. He realizes that he is in for a rude awakening when he hears the boy's voice, which he assumes is that of the chairman of the committee. The narrator is so overcome by emotion that he cannot bear to look at the boy. He curses the boy for being so gentle, and he curses himself for being such an idiot. He tells the boy that he will not see him again. The boy, however, does not believe him, and the narrator, realizing that he has offended the boy, tells him to forget about the incident and to treat it as an "accident." The young man, who has forgotten to tell the committee chairman of his plan to build a new house on the site of the old one, realizes that the noise of the fan is the sound of someone else's work. He asks the boy to repeat the sound to him, but the boy refuses to repeat it to him. Instead, he tells him that the sound is a knock at the door and that he must go to work on the new house.