At St. Vincent's Hospital, Dr. Joyce Wallace was called by a Wall Street firm that had an employee who had AIDS. Wallace remembers, "They said, 'Everybody is hysterical. He says he has AIDS. Other people don't want to work with him. How do we protect ourselves.' I said, 'Don't sleep with him, and don't share a needle with him.' "

On Long Island, a woman confided to a close friend that her husband had come down with AIDS. Suddenly, none of the neighbors wanted their children to play with the woman's daughter. The friend pressured the woman to take the daughter out of school. The sanitation men refused to pick up the woman's garbage. She finally called the Gay Men's Health Crisis and asked a psychotherapist named Diego López for help. López served as a marine in Vietnam, and the woman's tale reminded him of the reaction of people in combat.

"When people are afraid, they create horrible things in their minds that don't exist," López says.

Back in Manhattan, a health fair that planned to offer examinations for AIDS was bounced at the last minute from P.S. 41. The school-district superintendent expressed fears that the cafeteria would be contaminated. The fair opened at a nearby community center. One woman came in and asked if her daughter was in danger of getting AIDS by attending a synagogue with homosexuals.

In midtown, advertising executive Karen Smith found herself discussing AIDS with some colleagues over lunch. The talk turned to symptoms, and somebody remarked that one of the agency's employees had come in with a reddish rash on his upper arms. Somebody else said that the man had recently lost a lot of weight. It was also noted that the man had developed a persistent cough. And Karen Smith suddenly felt less than comfortable to be sitting near the man's desk.

"I started getting kind of nervous when he coughed or cleared his throat," Smith says. "I say to myself, 'What could I be breathing?' "

A short time later, Smith was required to go over some work with the man. She remembers, "I had to stand close to this person, and I said to myself, 'Keep calm. Even if he does have it, you're not in danger.' Another piece of me said, 'Run. Turn around now and run. Just get away.' I held my breath and then told myself, 'Don't be ridiculous. This isn't going to help. You have to breathe sometime.' Then I turned away and took a breath behind me."

On another day, Smith went out to lunch with a friend who is homosexual. When it came time for dessert, they decided to split a piece of cheesecake. Smith assumed that the waitress would bring the piece on a single plate. The waitress instead cut the piece in half and served it on two plates. "When we ordered, I didn't think twice," she says. "But as I ate I thought, 'Oh my God, I'm so relieved. He could be infected.' Then I said, 'Oh, come on.' You're at war with yourself."

Eventually, Smith discussed her anxieties with her psychoanalyst. During the session, the psychoanalyst handed Smith a copy of a newsletter concerning AIDS. "My shrink said she's eating home a lot more. She's worried about AIDS, too," Smith remembers.

Invited to testify on the illness before a legislative hearing, Callen was told, "Don't bring any AIDS patients."

The death toll in New York reached 288. This included a prominent Brazilian fashion designer named Marcus Goncalves. Yet there are still crowds at the baths, which some New York doctors believe helped spread acquired immune deficiency syndrome in this city. Here men lounge with towels wrapped around their waists and slip into cubicles for sex whose hazards Dr. Dan William compares to driving a car at 120 m.p.h. while inebriated. At the Everard Spa, owner Irving Fine reports that business is down just 10 percent.

"You lost your business people, your married men," Fine says. "And you can't blame them."

At the East Side Sauna, on 56th Street, the crowds tend to dwindle when AIDS is in the news. Then, after a few days, the men drift back. Manager Jim Schwartz says, "Certain people, when you start to talk about it, they leave. They want to be as ignorant about it as they can." Schwartz now supplies prophylactics and uses a stronger germicide on the tiles.

"I know it won't do a hell of a lot, but you do what you can," Schwartz says.

Then there are the brothels, and the swingers' clubs, such as Plato's Retreat. There are doctors who feel that the sex that occurs here may soon prove to be as deadly as that in the baths. Dr. William says, "You can be absolutely certain the single swingers will likewise be affected by AIDS. It's just a question of time. It's just a question of the right person with the infectious agent. And then it's just a jump into mainstream America."

Among those who now feel safe is model Susi Gilder. Over a gulf-shrimp dinner at the Texarkana restaurant, on West 10th Street, she extracted a pledge of monogamy from her boyfriend, Eddie. When Susi made a visit to the ladies' room, Eddie said, "I've been reformed by the Black Death."

And among those AIDS patients who still survive is Michael Callen. In May, he was invited to testify before a legislative hearing on AIDS headed by State Senator Roy Goodman. Shortly before the meeting, an assistant called to ask Callen if he planned to bring anybody with him. Callen said he would be happy to round up some other AIDS patients.

"He said, 'Oh, don't bring any AIDS patients,' " Callen says.

A few days later, Callen was having breakfast with his lover in a coffee shop on Sixth Avenue. The lover is a drummer from Chicago named Richard Dworkin. The two men first met a year ago, when Callen decided to use the time he had once spent at the baths to form a gay band. He put an advertisement in a local paper, and Dworkin was one of those who answered. One night, Dworkin stayed late at Callen's apartment. Callen remembers, "He made this pass at me. I was so shocked. I said, 'Wait, stop, you don't know. I've got AIDS.' " Dworkin decided that he was willing to take the risk, and the two men grew devoted to each other. After the bowling alleys and the toilet stalls and the baths, Michael Callen now lives whatever days he has left much like a good Methodist from Ohio.

"Love's a funny thing," Richard Dworkin says.