Page 381 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 351

Reel Six

Good-Bye, Dear, and A-Men!

1

Kick flew a direct flight from Alabama back to the tangle of San Francisco
sexuality and California self-deception. Two weeks in Birmingham had
changed him. He glowed with southern heat. He was more muscular. Two
weeks shooting Decadurobolin caused more change than two months of
hard training on a natural metabolism.
His Look had hardened.
Ryan was almost afraid of him.
His mosey had turned to the exaggerated swagger of professional
bodybuilders. His lats rose from his hipless hips up the back of his
V-shaped torso spreading like bat wings behind his thick chest. His pecs
were massive. His neck thicker. From his broad shoulders, widened with
new muscle, his huge arms hung out from his body as if he carried twin
basketballs between each inner elbow and his tight waist.
The steroids had made him thicker. Thicker than ideal. He turned
more heads than ever in the airport terminal; but this time, Ryan felt
the stares more quickly averted—not like before when men with normal
bodies had looked pleasantly at him, identifying with his athletic Look,
desiring to be like him. Identification seemed to have vanished.
His Universal Appeal was disappearing.
He was beefcake on the cusp of appealing only to hard-core
muscle-freaks.
He was meat.
Ryan was embarrassed. His lover looked like a man whose dedication
had pushed him over the fanatic edge. The tan was too tan. The blond hair
too hard. The blue eyes too brilliant. The muscles from outer space. What
had looked dramatic in the hot overhead spot of the posing platform, in
the cold fluorescence of the airport terminal was beyond the pale. Ryan
suddenly realized why most women don’t care for bodybuilders. Some-
thing brutal had happened. Something esthetic had died. Kick was no
longer a physique artist. Something innocent was gone. That innocence
had been his virtue. The well-muscled athlete, turned out like he might
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