Page 389 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 359

go. You’ve done that. Now we have to take our relationship as far as it will
go. I’m scared. I admit it. There’s a plague in the streets and I don’t want
either of us to die.”
He saw Kick in a worst-case future, bloated with water retention,
pock-marked with steroids, stressed out, his liver turning to pudding, his
bone marrow rotten with cancer, his immune system depressed by the
’roids.
“Come on, Ry. We’re both the picture of health.”
“I’m not talking the fantasy of pumping iron. I’m talking bodybuild-
ing as an innocent sport. I’m talking the reality of the muscle business.
Not sport. Business. I’m talking steroids, Kick. I’m talking injectable shit.
I found the syringes in the refrigerator. I saw the pimples on your back in
the shower this morning. You’ve always told me everything, but you didn’t
tell me you were a shooter. I love your surprises, but this one scares me.
Needles! My God. Intravenous drug users get AIDS. You can’t add that
risk to the risk of being gay.”
Kick raised his arms in his famous double-biceps pose to charm Ryan
to quiet. “Does this body look down-home healthy, or whu-u-a-t?” he
drawled.
“I don’t know anymore whether you’re shooting steroids because you
want to, or because you think I want you to.”
Ryan said the one thing, but he thought something else. I don’t know
anymore whether you’re putting out to me because you want to, or because
you think I want you to.
“Don’t answer that, please. Because if you’re shooting up more for me
than you, then I can’t help but love you more. I like the bodybuilder trip,
but I love you. You’ve got to stop. Think of the side effects. I don’t want
you to die. I don’t want me to die.”
“Ry, Ry, Ry,” Kick said. “You’re not going to die. You shouldn’t read
so much. You take this AIDS thing too seriously. This is America. Next
month there’ll be a cure.”
“Too seriously? I’m not talking AIDS. I’m talking steroids. I’m talk-
ing poppers, coke, Kryptonite, MDA.”
Ryan saw Kick did not like the conversation.
“You’re talking Logan,” he said.
“I’m not.”
“You always say one thing and mean another.”
“There’s no way this can be forced into a triangle. I handled all that
from the first. This is between you and me.” Ryan looked hard at Kick. “I
can’t keep up with you. I’ll die.”

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
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