Page 213 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 183

Kick had said everything that Ryan ever wanted to hear from him:
“You’re the only man I want to keep on keeping on with.” Then Kick had
said those words that Christmas night, “I love you, Ry.”
Ryan pulled his arm from beneath Kick’s sleeping blond head. His
face was even more handsome in sleep. His naked body, all his fine mus-
cles in repose, looked sculpted by angels. Ryan knelt up in their bed. His
left hand moved slowly, lightly over the hairy bodybuilder’s shoulders and
chest and washboard belly. His right hand took hold of himself, and with
the palm of his left hand resting lightly on the sleeping man’s gently rising
pecs, with the feel of Christmas all around them, awake for them both,
solitary no more, Ryan made love a third time that night to the perfect
sleeping man.
“I know,” he whispered, “you’ve come from another star.”

3

Ryan would not apologize for being a masculinist anymore than for
being a homosexual. Kick fortified him. “We’re not really homosexual,”
Kick said. “We’re sexually sophisticated.” Ryan’s writing became more
resolute. No longer wrestling alone against the tag team of depression
and despair, Ryan changed when Kick came to his rescue. Kick climbed
through the ropes into the ring. The crowds cheered. The golden man of
bodybuilding tackled Ryan’s dark depression and deep despair the way
an All-American champion pins two fat and ugly wrestlers to the sweaty
mat. Kick’s mighty arms held open the ropes and Ryan escaped from the
ring of sadness.
Suddenly life seemed more possible than Death.
The angel Ryan had prayed for to beat his dark anxiety had arrived
on golden wings. Ryan became a daredevil. He liked wising off in print.
He liked the largeness, the exaggeration, the metaphor that is the essence
of all writing.
Maneuvers remained erotic entertainment without a breath of contro-
versy. Each cover promised: “What you’re looking for is looking for you.”
The magazine gave good head. Solid smut. Sleazy pix. All nasty leather
S&M. A new network of personal ads written by readers and answered
by phone or mail. Circulation grew. Maneuvers’ only competition broke
into a sweat.
The rival mag, Leather Man, ran middle-of-the-road S&M stories,
not-too-dirty photos, and campy copy. Silly cartoon balloons of queenly
dialog deflated Leather Man’s hardly hot pix of clonish young gay boys

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK