Page 180 - Some Dance to Remember

150 Jack Fritscher

“That can’t all be natural.”
“It’s totally unnatural. But not the way you think,” Ryan said. “It
comes from a special Energy. Kick works for his muscle. What sort of
work do you do?”
“Hey,” Kick said. He wiped his hairy blond arms with his white towel.
“How you guys doin’?”
“Hey, man!” The bodybuilder butched up his voice. He reached out
to shake Kick’s hand. Sweaty lifting glove met sweaty lifting glove. “I was
wondering if you’d like to join me for brunch?”
“I’m busy,” Ryan said. “I have a deadline for Maneuvers.”
The bodybuilder stared daggers at Ryan. “I meant Kick,” he said.
“Not now,” Kick said.
“You mean no.”
“I mean not now. I don’t mean not ever. I mean not now.”
“If it’s not now,” the bodybuilder blossomed into full queen, “then it’s
never as far as I’m concerned.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Kick said. “Come on, Ry. Let’s finish
our workout.”
“Everybody on Castro knows you two are cunts.”
“Take it easy.” Kick’s voice was even.
“Why you never go out with anyone?” the bodybuilder asked.
“He goes out with me,” Ryan said.
The bodybuilder sneered. “What you got I don’t got?”
“Everything,” Kick said. “He has everything.”
“I don’t have everything,” Ryan said. “My pencil neck isn’t pumped
up with steroids.”
“I’ll forget I heard that.” The bodybuilder watched them walk away.
“But I won’t forget it soon.”
“Pop a few more ’roids,” Ryan said. “When you’re big as an elephant,
you’ll never forget.”
“Come on,” Kick said. “I don’t like men acting like this.”
“He said stuff about you.”
“Everybody yells stuff at bodybuilders. Like we’re public property.
They want to fight you. They want to fuck you. Before I walk into a res-
taurant, I say to myself, they don’t know I’m going to be there, but I know
they’re going to be there. I have to be prepared for them to be surprised
and stare and blurt out stuff.”
Ryan was pissed, but he lay down on a padded bench to finish his
heavy presses. Kick stood behind his head, his crotch almost astraddle his
face, to spot him. His cotton gym shorts thrust his firm basket forward

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