Page 100 - Some Dance to Remember

70 Jack Fritscher

whatever it is you’re trying to talk about. I’m tired. Don’t give me your
insomnia.”
“It’s not contagious,” Ryan said.
“With you, everything is a plague. I’ve got to get some sleep. I’m sorry
I’m not up to your late late show. I didn’t know I was going to have a few
beers and some grass and meet a big, bearded Canadian with an uncut
dick and a hairy chest and belly.”
“I’m glad you did. I’m glad you enjoyed it.” Ryan meant it. But he
needed the accustomed comfort of Teddy’s body sleeping next to him. It
was as close to proof as he could come that he was not in solitary confine-
ment inside his own skin. But if he had to ask for it, the proof would not
be there. Teddy had to give it, someone had to give it, without being asked.
“So one last time. What’s eating you?” Teddy asked.
“I can’t say it.”
“Coming from a big mouth like you that’s something. I thought you
had a spiel for everything.” Teddy stood up from the edge of Ryan’s bed.
“If you can’t say it, Ry, it doesn’t exist.” He turned his back on Ryan and
walked toward the door.
“If there is one sin in life,” Ryan sat up shouting in the bedcovers,
“you just committed it.”
Teddy retreated through the door, turned and said, “I’m sorry, Ry.”
“Here! Tonight! Committed here in this bed tonight!”
Teddy pushed the door to Ryan’s bedroom closed and padded softly
down the hall. Behind him, he heard one of the last things Ryan ever said
to him.
“You Judas!”

17

Within two months, Kick was living in Ryan’s Victorian. “I haven’t
moved here,” Kick had an indirect way of taking to Ryan, “because you’re
here; but I wouldn’t have moved here if you weren’t.”
Kick knew how to hold Ryan. His big arms made Ryan feel safe.
Ryan’s house made Kick comfortable. They were a pair.
The Entity took up residence with them.
Kick was an exhibitionist pleasantly surprised that Ryan could equal
him in exhibition. On Castro, Ryan delivered a gentle Attitude that
declared to the hunks who gravitated around Kick that Kick was as built
in his head as he was in his body. Kick, in his soft spoken way, matched
Ryan subtlety for subtlety, handling adroitly every queen and musclehead

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