"I love you" is the first line of the play's first soliloquy, which begins with the narrator's declaration of love for his lover. He tells the reader that he first fell in love with the man because of his looks, but that he has changed his mind since then. He says that the man's "distinct smell" has made him uncomfortable, and he has had to cover up the smell with cigarette smoke. The narrator says that he loves the man for his "ability to confess his feelings" and his "kind of you" , but he adds that he is older than the man, and that his "weird fetish" makes him uncomfortable.