Page 258 - Some Dance to Remember

228 Jack Fritscher

moral theology.
“During war, for instance,” the good Monsignor had said, “when a
man and wife are separated, neither spouse, during the separation, may
stare at a photograph of the other and masturbate. No matter if they’re
thinking of their love far away. Masturbation, no matter the circum-
stances, is always a mortal sin. A man’s seed must be deposited in the
receptacle of the woman. Masturbation, without question, condemns the
masturbator, male or female, to the eternal fires of hell.”
Kick himself enjoyed the videos of his body and face. Often they
viewed the tapes side by side in bed, stroking each other: buddies in-love
with the ideal they watched moving on the bright screen.
“Kick,” Ryan said, and I had no reason to doubt this, especially at the
pure beginning of their affair, “has a wonderful ability to distance himself
objectively from the image on the screen. He understands the concept of
Emerson’s world view of the Me and the Not-Me. He understands my posi-
tion in this whole matter. It’s like he becomes me and I become him and
we both become the ideal on the screen. We transcend space and time and
ego. We conjure together, and as sure as a child may be created between a
man and a woman, an Energy is created between us.”
Actually, Kick was very like a sculptor, who, after he sculpts, sits
back and studies his own creation. In Ryan’s bed he could lie back from
the Energy he put into bodybuilding and enjoy the beauty of the art
object he and Ryan had created in his flesh. “You and me, coach,” he
said. “We did it. You helped me do it. No one has ever treated me like
you treat me.”
Ryan knew in his heart it was true. He had never treated anyone the
way he took care of Kick. He knew from the first instant he saw Kick what
Kick needed and what he himself wanted.
It was the same thing.
“I always believed this was possible,” Ryan said. “I just never thought
it would happen.”
There was that night, straight out of a romance magazine, that stuck
in Ryan’s head. He remembered it a thousand different ways. Heading
for supper at Without Reservation, they had driven the Corvette to Mar-
ket and Castro and parked on the roof of the Fireman’s Fund Building.
Instead of turning off the engine, Kick touched the dashboard to push a
cassette into the tape deck. “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet,” he said. “Don’t
get out. Let’s do a doobie.” He fired up a joint. “Listen to this cut.”
They sat knee to knee in the tiny cockpit of the car, laughing as
the windows misted up inside and out. Their breath, their words, circled

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