Strip (18 page)

Bertrand winked at me. “Come 'ave a look at da 'ouse.” And we headed back to the stage to look through the curtains into the audience. Our audience, somewhere out there, breathed. There may have been a woman with a child. I'm sure I heard someone cough. I realized I wanted anything but to be in that theatre. Fatigue hit me. I didn't have the strength to dance to an empty house. I wanted to sit in my café with Kent. That's all. I had lost my dedication. The only payoff that day (and it was cruel but I had to laugh) was the look on Madame's face when she realized what had happened. When the curtain finally rose, it did so to a house that coldly echoed every sour note of music, played on an out-of-tune piano, every step and every breath.

When it came time for me, as Geppetto, to lie down for my choreographed nap while the Blue Fairy, Maryse (whose severe makeup was more suggestive of an evil indigo fairy), kept falling off her points, trying to grant Pinocchio's wish to become a boy, I fell into a sound sleep. Bertrand's larger-than-life Pinocchio finally jabbed me, his poor father Geppetto who was trying to get forty winks from all his woodcarving, whittling and late-night stripping. I woke, startled, to Bertrand improvising laughter and some very silly dancing, which put us miles behind the music and gave us both a harsh fit of onstage giggles.

As we packed the van, Bertrand tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to a woman holding a little boy, both in matching down and leather. It was Suzette. “Hey
ma beau
, you danced well.
Hien, mon p'tit
, he danced well, didn't he? You recognize him from the club?” Clouds of still vapour hung. I was happy to see Suzette. She somehow reminded me that a real world existed somewhere. The real world, where I started to see that everything was on the outside, the opposite of ballet.

I laughed. “So, that was you at the back!”

“There were a few of us. Don't be so hard on yourself. See you Monday.” She was a rosy-cheeked vision of motherhood and all that is good and wholesome in the world. I knew then that I needed a hot meal when I got home. And some company.

After the miserable walk from the school, I stepped into a time warp. Belle
É
poque, around the corner from my place, would be my church of choice for a moment on this grey day—a warm pub carved into the wall three hundred years ago and filled with cranky ghosts. I would let Kent recuperate from his night before, his latest broken heart. From my alcove I offered up more of my tips from the Chez Moritz and took communion in the form of the sacred barley brew of Brador while I watched the world start to tie itself into knots, and my ghosts—present, past and future—take form and then vaporize through clouds of cigarette smoke. This is where I came to seek refuge and ponder what had become of me. There seemed so little left. But I could crawl outside of myself and observe as if I were a character in a storybook, and by doing so I was able to take myself less seriously. Now, that has become impossible. I am clawing my way to the bottom of a stairwell in a bloody toga, all the while promising myself, and God, that I will never be so stupid as to come to this again.

 

Later, surrounded by the
longed-for warmth of Kent's place, we had dinner. We sat in the easy chairs this time.

“Spaghetti, again?”

“Seems like you need your carbs.”

“This is fantastic.” He'd had a lot of wine, and I'd had sufficient beer by the time I got to his place, and couldn't stop laughing when I told him my falling-asleep story. It was good to be warm, really warm, and with him. I didn't have to impress him. He'd seen me at my worst in a very short period of time. “Can you imagine? I could still be asleep on that stage. I'd wake up and wonder where the hell I was.”

“Is this a habit or a tradition?” He looked at me. “It's our third dinner together.”

“Second one here.” Why was I trying to steer away from the obvious?

“Third if you count takeout pizza at your place and a few hundred with coffees downstairs, but who's counting?”

“It's good to touch base, in case one of us falls asleep onstage…”

“Or the other disappears into the wilds of northern Quebec, hot on the trail of some lumberjack.” I waved my finger at him. He had to know I'd registered his absences.

“I have a lumberjack friend. I could introduce you.”

“I'll pass.”

“Daniel? Still? Is that why you haven't…”

“Been laid?” I said. “Shit no!”

“…been good old, cock-slapping, body-fluidy, gooey, slippery-slidey and anonymously laid. You know, not just a naughty public shower game of peek-a-boo, but some sex. Call it lovemaking if you want.”

“I've had my moments. You know, before I finally gave up pre-med, I organized the university dance club and choreographed the ex-ballerinas into a recital.”

“This was a moment?”

“I'll get to it.” I had wanted to tell Kent about the two male dancers, and our curtain call, but the whole event came flooding back. He had to know I was more than this. “It was hours of tapping out the ‘Merry Widow Waltz,' recorded off a cracked thirty-three. The girls, all bobbing boobs and big behinds, leapt across the stage. Rehearsal skirts snagged, ripped, flowed, but they did it over and over until it was perfect. They ignored the bunions, the calluses, tendonitis and all the other reasons dance could be hell.”

“You had sex with them?”

“Of course not.”

“But you had sex.”

“Indulge me.”

“Go on.”

“It was trial by fire. I was the novice. But it was my idea so they gave me their attention just because, you know, ballet: stern, unforgiving, repressed, autocratic.”

“Get to the sex part.”

“We sold tickets. I invited two male dancers from the Company as our guest artists.”

“Finally.”

“Not yet. I paid a groupie to make posters. We booked an old lecture hall. Classmates set lights. I scavenged backdrops: classical, fake flowers and columns. The girls sewed tutus. They made themselves up as only a ballerina can, you know, thick eyeliner above and below, extending at least halfway to the moon, angling up to the temple. Thick eyeshadow, too. Pinkish rouge, and contour until they looked like Bambi's cousin.”

“The buildup is killing me.”

I got up and strutted around Kent's place, arms flowing in the air. “I copied Balanchine-esque port de bras arms, studied Labanotation and choreographed patterns that came from hours of listening to music over and over again. I even created my own
pas de deux
with one of the smaller girls, to something slow by Vivaldi. They congratulated me, used words like
choreographer
and
dancer
,
director
and
producer
.”

“Your point being that all this was better than sex?”

“It was the two guests…”

“At last!”

“…who came all the way from the Company for a credit on their resumés, past protegés of my teacher, Drake. The two men had such grace, such posture, such asses.”

“Assets? I see where this is going and I am shocked.”

“I'd seen them in the change room and I swear there was a tendon and a muscle for every single step they took. There was strength and grace I'd never seen in a man. I was so ashamed in their presence that I downplayed my crazy dream to be a dancer. But on our way through that frozen prairie air to the after-party that night they told me to go for it. They were both late starters, too, but did it, and after that my dreams and imagination went wild.”

“Did you orgasm?”

“When we got to the party it was kudos for all. Glory for the girls. Glory for the boys. Real honest-to-God professional dancers and fans cooing over us.”

“To make a long story short?”

“To make a long story short the men begged me to come to the Company, somewhat drunkenly. And later that night, for the first time in my life I had intercourse.”

“You fucked?”

“I fucked them both.”

“That's more like it.”

“But even then, the next morning I hoped some kind of bonding had taken place but I was wrong. It was just sex, again. Get-dressed, put-on-your-socks sex.”

“I've never heard you brag about yourself. You should do it more often.”

“I was already hooked, but it was those two men who finally opened the door by saying I should do it
now
.”

“No doubts?”

“I jumped from the ivory tower without a net. Freedom. I left them all—the ladies at the barre to continue their pli
é
s,
tendus
,
rond de jambes
, fouett
é
s. They had their Tuesdays and Thursdays. I left Drake teaching the little girls to get it right on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. They would either quit or continue, be told they were the wrong shape or be cursed with perfect proportions. They were at the beginning and I was at a place where I had to know how much more it could hurt. That one night was worth it to see smiles between swigs of Mogen David and ginger ale. Bouquets. Boyfriends. Talking dance. Basking. We were hopelessly confident for one night. We did it. In spite of the odds, their soft shapes rivalled the beauty of Degas' dancers. But then they talked of other dreams—degrees, professions, law, medicine, nursing, archaeology, motherhood, children, homes and real lives without dance. I was about to depart on a journey they would only ever dream about, with their blessings; I would have a career because there were so few princes. I was more hooked than ever. They left, weeping, laughing, in a giggly cloud of cheap wine.”

“And now?”

“I'm in a giggly cloud of cheap wine.”

“Not
cheap
.”

“To answer your question. I am a sinking star, no, pin of light on the horizon, faded to the point where you aren't sure if you can see me at all.”

“Come on, you're young—you're drunk, too, by the way. I like it when you're like this: you have a dream, you have drive. But those two guys—number five and number six? So few. I mean what a waste.”

“Too many warnings when I was young. We lived by a ravine full of evil men exposing themselves, offering candy and molesting wayward children.”

“Now you're full of it.”

“And swimming lessons at the
y
.”

“Continue.”

“As of now, I am just way too tired to even get it up, and as of right now way too drunk.”

“That was an option?”

“Could have had a big bag of candy by now. I guess I was holding out for Prince Charming…”

“Daniel.”

“Now all I want is the sleep that even he can't wake me from.”

“You're still young.”

“Middle-aged in dancer years, and feeling very old.”

“Dancers. You're nuts.”

I flopped back into my chair. Performance over. I wondered if he cared about any of this—he got up and came around the table, squeezed my shoulder. I didn't feel like a target this time. “Just one more mouthful of spaghetti?”

“You can finish it later. I promise.”

“I'll hold you to it.”

“So I take it your bottom is still undiscovered territory.”

“My
bottom
. We are polite, aren't we?”

“You call it bottom.”

“I call it behind.”

“Fine, so your ass…”

“Things don't work so well down there.”

“Maybe you just need the right person. How about a massage?”

“Do you realize you just used the massage line?”

“But I meant it.”

He got up and went to the kitchen. “A little olive oil? A couple of fingers? Maybe a tongue.” He pulled his shirt off, let his jeans drop to the floor.

“This isn't exactly how I saw our evening playing out.”

“You have a beautiful body, and I want you to understand what it feels like to have a beautiful bum. You'll thank me. Take off your clothes.”

As he returned, I took in his very un-dancer physique. I had grown so used to supple, defined, slender and overworked—and here was something so tight and beautifully proportioned, and so real.

Kent squatted and rubbed my inner thighs and looked at me as though he was taking in the view.

“I'm not kidding when I say…”

“Sit here, on the floor, face me, relax, just relax and enjoy the ride. I promise I won't hurt you.”

 

This stairwell cannot take
me away from what just happened up there. Some might say I am in shock. Some might say so what, I had it coming to me. The idea of two men having intercourse might force some to turn away. The idea of a man being raped might do so to others. I can do my best to turn away, run, block it out, but something is in the way.

 

I wanted to tell
Kent that I'd heard the “I won't hurt you” line before. But I trusted him. His straightforwardness demanded the same of me. There were no games, no second-guesses, no ulterior motives. My whole professional world was one big theatrical facade, and now here I was naked before him, in body and soul. I sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the chair, while Kent gently touched me—my inner thighs, my testicles. Then he slipped his hand underneath and gently tickled his stubby fingers into me. “We have all the time in the world.”

We sat face to face.

“Think of your ass as a big beautiful white moon. Pretend you're me, looking at it. Pretend you know my desire.” I wondered if Kent's desire verged on desperation. Did he desire all of me? Did he want things to go a lot faster than they did? No. He ended up being the most patient person I have ever met. It was the first time anyone had ever taken the time—and it happened. There was such a release in just having someone touch me after so many weeks of living in a straitjacket with the psychotic Madame—her band of crazy dancers—endless schlepping across the Lower Town of Quebec to make a little money—and after leaving Daniel far behind. I had to turn my mind off that other world and just be here in the room, on the floor, face to face. I was being cleansed. Reminded of my sexual self. “Relax.” The lights were on, not off, and we were staring into each other's eyes. “You feel so good.” He pressed farther, until I tingled inside… “Three fingers,” he said. “How does that feel?”