The lighting in the bar is low, even though the sun hasn't set yet. On the wall are pictures of naked or half-naked men in various poses, showing off their biceps and abs and thighs. Philippe heads straight to the ancient counter, where an old white guy and a much younger brown man are waiting. "Armand and Palesh here will take your orders and your questions. We'll continue our walk at 5:30."

Vincent looks at Edwin and his little group of friends. "Do you all want to sit? We can order and go to the terrace." Edwin glances around the bar. There's not much space to sit. Half of the room is a dance floor, there's a row of bar stools along the counter, and one couch against the wall around two tables. Outside, it's much roomier, though chilly. Edwin sits next to Vincent, Sabine and Jules at the other side of the table, and Roos at the head of the table, between Vincent and Sabine. Now that they're sitting, they're less in their own world and turn to Edwin again.

"So, Edwin, has the walk been what you thought it would be?" Sabine asks.

"It's interesting," Edwin replies and he finds that he means it. It's sparking something in him, a desire that he doesn't understand yet. "I didn't know any of this and I feel like I should have."

"Are you not from around here? You sound like a real Antwerper, though."

"No, I am. I mean, I don't live in the city, but a few towns over."

"Late coming-out then? Or straight? Because you seem old enough to have lived through a lot of this stuff and the fight for our rights."

"Yeah, uh, I'm 56. Came out in March."

Sabine laughs. "Jules got you beat by more than a decade!" Edwin's gaze darts to Jules, who smiles back. "But I get it. I always knew and I sneaked out to have fun, but I only came out to my family and colleagues five years ago. We might have a lot of the rights, but people's minds haven't always caught up yet."

"That's a good way to put it." Edwin glances at Vincent, who raises an eyebrow and curls his mouth in a half-smile. "I, uh, think my mind hasn't always caught up yet either. Hence the, uh, education."

"Don't worry. Most of us have been there at some point in our lives. That's not so different now or thirty years ago. Has Vincent told you any of the good stories yet? Roos and Jules also have some." She elbows her husband. "You and Vincent are the queer men here, come on."

"Antwerp does have one of the oldest gay communities in Belgium," Vincent says. "But I'm too young to have lived through some of the more colourful periods. I only turned eighteen in the nineties and I remember a lot about the Aids crisis, not the fun stuff. Everything else are stories I've heard."

"I remember when Popi Café opened because a lot of gay bars were only for men back then. Implicitly or explicitly," Roos says. "Also the Sapho and Pink Lady. And the Shakespeare!" She looks at Edwin. "The Shakespeare was special because only women were allowed. They even had a female bouncer! Also some of the wildest lesbian parties I've been to. Nobody went there before at least 11 pm."

"Were women really not welcome in gay bars?"

"No, no! Or well, depends. Some places really not, but in other places, you had a lot of straight women who came there, so they wouldn't be bothered by men. It was really better that we had our own places. It's different now, of course. The more repressed you are, the more the subculture flourishes. Something that catered to women only wouldn't survive now."

Edwin's thoughts briefly stumble at the idea of straight women in gay bars. "But there's still places for men only. Like, uh, The Boots."

Roos shrugs. "Men have always been different. And that's kink."

"There's always been a double standard for queer men and women," Vincent says. "Did you know that for the longest time people didn't believe lesbians could have sex? That's why there have been way less laws against women."

"Seriously?!"

"Seriously. Straight people are so unimaginative, honey." Vincent smirks and Edwin is keenly aware that there's only twenty centimetres between them. "All missionary and in the dark. But no judgement as long as they don't judge me." The others laugh and Edwin tentatively does too.Vincent's tone shifts. "But come on, Jules, where are your tales of conquest?"

Jules chuckles. "Conquest? I think you and Roos are the only ones who conquered much of anything. I wasn't big on the partying scene. But I remember some of the early results of activism."

"What's your earliest memory of things changing?" Edwin asks.

Jules stares off in the distance, at the cloudy sky. "There was a program on national TV. Diagnosis of Being Different, in 1966. I was a teenager then. It was in the news last year because it was fifty years ago, but that was the first time gay people were interviewed on TV and not just demonised. Even if it still wasn't positive. But I remember watching it with my parents and knowing there were people like me. It just resonated with me, what they said."

Vincent nods and then frowns. "1966, wasn't that the year after that one homophobic law?"

"Article 372bis?" Jules nods. "Shame, really. Since the conception of Belgium, homosexuality had never been illegal and then they decide to raise the age of consent for gay people. At least it only lasted 20 years."

"There used to be a different age of consent?" Edwin asks.

"Oh yeah, it was 16 for straight people back then, like it still is now, but they raised it to 18 for gay people. Because if you want to have gay sex as a teen, you're clearly not mature enough. It used to be the biggest activist goal in those early years, but by the time it was abolished, we had other worries."

"Aids," Sabine says sombrely.

"Yeah." Jules downs his glass and stares at the table.

Sabine looks at Edwin. "Almost every older queer person has lost a friend or a partner during the Aids crisis."

"A whole generation was killed," Vincent adds.

"I didn't know that." Edwin is not sure how to process this information and the mood that has settled over everyone. "I knew about aids, but I didn't realise it had been so bad for the gay community. Like, a whole generation."

"It was very traumatic," Vincent says. "I don't know many people who talk freely about it. Some of my earliest queer friends and mentors got Aids, though not all of them died. I inherited the diaries and some memorabilia of my queer mother when she passed away." Mother? Edwin doesn't ask because that seems insensitive.

"Violetta?" Sabine asks. "I miss her. Nobody will ever be that fabulous and caring again."

"She was a pillar of the community," Jules says. "Like her chosen son." He looks at Vincent who bashfully bows his head.

"Don't flatter me too much."

A silence falls over the group, although noise comes out of the bar. The terrace is enclosed between four walls, so they're shuttered from the wind, but Edwin still pulls his coat a little tighter around him. His head buzzes with all the information and emotion. His own experiences seem insignificant in the face of what these people have lived through.

Vincent breaks the silence. "Our history is not all doom and gloom. We had fun too. And we had each other, even at our lowest. And we were the second country in the world to have gay marriage in 2003, so our activism paid off."

"We were the second? I really know so little about all of this." Shame bubbles up in Edwin's chest. No wonder people have little tolerance for bullshit if they lived through this. He's also perversely happy that he was safe from all that suffering in his heterosexual family life, but there is guilt attached to it.

"That's why we're doing this, sweetheart." Vincent's hand burns on his underarm when he squeezes. Edwin catches his eye, but can't hold his gaze. Vincent's empathy and understanding lays him bare more than the flirting.

"You're no less queer because you don't know queer history," Roos adds. "You can always learn."

Edwin smiles gratefully at her. "I do want to learn. Vincent ... Vincent made me realise that."

"I've got another fact for you, Edwin." Jules eyes crinkle. "More fun than the last one. Do you know who the first Belgian celebrity was that came out?"

"I don't."

"Will Ferdy. Ever heard of him?"

"He is ... a singer?"

"That's the one. He came out live on TV in 1970. You can imagine the chaos that caused." Jules chuckles. "Another important moment for me. Different than those common people in 1966. I used to dream of meeting him. But honestly iconic figure for the gay movement. His song Christine was originally written for a man, did you know? True story, too." Jules smirks. "There, you're a bit closer to being a proper old gay now."

Edwin chuckles. "I appreciate it. I learned so much today. I haven't really processed it yet."

"And it's not done yet," Vincent says. "We should bring our glasses inside. Or I bet Philippe will come whoop our asses."

"Wouldn't that be a sight," Sabine laughs.

"Rather you than me, honey. Not my kink."

Sabine's laugh grows louder. "My kink, but I got a husband for that." She elbows Jules, who tsks.

"You're really asking for it, aren't you?"

"And what if I am?" Sabine flutters her lashes. Roos catches Edwin looking and shakes her head with a fond smile.

"Ignore them," she mouths. Edwin glances at Vincent, who is getting up. He just winks and Edwin feels hot-cold shivers because how does Vincent turn everything into flirting?

People inside are also wrapping up and Philippe is waiting at the door. Vincent keeps talking to the bartender, Palesh. Could they have the same cultural roots? Sabine, Jules and Roos are again talking among themselves and Edwin waits with them, merely listening.

Philippe steps up next to him. "Have you been enjoying the walk?"

"It's been very interesting. Educational. Do you know all of what you tell from personal experience?"

"Not all, but a lot. I've grown up in the Antwerp gay scene. I've still got an anecdote for our last stop from when I was a teenager. But I've also done some research, talked with the older generation. And I hope you had fun too, since educational is only half of what we're aiming to do here." Philippe laughs brightly.

"I did. Meeting new people and all that. And Vincent is - nice."

"Nice, huh." Philippe grins and what's that supposed to mean?

"I'm definitely nice, honey," a voice from behind says. Edwin heats when he turns to Vincent. "And fun." Vincent winks and Edwin grows even hotter.

"So you are, you playboy. Let's go, now that you've finished your flirting with Palesh."

"If that was flirting, I would be very disappointed, darling. I'm way more obvious than that." Philippe shakes his head as they move outside and down the street.

They pass a square and then enter a long street that leads to the train station, with tram tracks in the middle and a long line of parked cars on one side. The Van Schoonhovenstraat is the oldest centre of gay night-life in Antwerp. It used to have about thirty gay bars, but they have all disappeared since. "That's why this street was nicknamed Rue de Vaseline. If you booked a hotel here, the receptionist would give you Vaseline to take to your room. It was a bit of an open secret what happened behind closed doors. If you knew, you knew."

Before the move to more open cafés with the growing acceptance, the bars used to be very dark. Everything was blinded and you couldn't enter without ringing a bell. "Most were so small that they just had a jukebox and a small dance floor, but this was the place to be with iconic names like Borsalino, My Way, Fifty-Fifty and Twilight later, the first bar with open doors and windows. They typically had explicit pictures of naked men on the walls, even more so than Café Strange. After a night out, people often went to a snackbar on the De Coninck Square - that we just passed - for a dagobert sandwich. The owner had a very colourful vocabulary for his clients, but that was part of the folklore then.

"When I was young, I often had to bike through this street and there were always two fears: you didn't want to be seen going inside, and you didn't want to be seen going outside one of these bars." Philippe grins. "If you didn't want to go to a bar, but you wanted a hook-up, there were gay people's favourite spots, like parking lots, public bathrooms, the back rows of the cinemas and bathhouses. People had discreet signals or knew based on looks and behaviour if someone was interested." Philippe continues to illustrate and goes on with the check-list that people used in the early 1900s to know if someone was gay. They walk through the street while he points out spots.

On the square in front of Antwerp's train station that towers like a cathedral, they stop again. "This is the end of our walk. It was a pleasure to have you all. I hope that you learned something and that you enjoyed the food and drink Antwerp has to offer."

Their group disperses into smaller groups and Philippe joins their circle again. "Is everything I have said today approved by you old hands? And I don't mean you, Vincent. Your opinion doesn't count because I know you've got eternal youth and too many opinions."

Vincent clutches his heart. "Darling, you wound me with such accusations! Me and opinions? Never." Edwin snorts before he can hold it in. "You got something to say, sweetheart?" He raises a thick eyebrow.

"If you didn't have opinions, I wouldn't be here."

"Lies and slander!" Vincent exclaims. He adds at a normal volume: "But fair enough."

Jules speaks up: "I don't have opinions, but I say you did well, Philippe. Very relatable and I learned some new things."

Fifteen minutes later, they all leave and Edwin and Vincent head in the same direction. "Where do you live?" Edwin asks.

"Here, in the city. There's no better place for a watchmaker or jeweller. But I'm gonna take the tram because I'm too tired to walk. Did you not come by train?"

"Took a bus. If I had taken the train, I would have needed a bus to get to the station, so might as well take a bus altogether."

"Makes sense. Was today what you expected?"

Edwin doesn't know what he expected. "It was a good introduction to gay history. Thank you." Vincent still sets him on edge, but Edwin can't deny Vincent made an effort to include him today. He still feels like an outsider who doesn't know anything, but Vincent is helping to change that.

"You're welcome, sweetie. Does this satisfy your need to learn or are you up for something more of a challenge?"

Vincent's tone needles him and before he knows it, Edwin replies: "I can handle a challenge."

***

Author's Note: The walk mentioned in this chapter actually existed at the time this story takes place (2017). Philippe was the actual guide and Armand Everaert, Palesh and Ludo Smits are also real people. However, I've never done the walk, so everything is based on articles/reviews and my own research. I hope this chapter didn't feel like too much of an info dump or non-fiction and the dialogue was still natural.