Page 418 - Some Dance to Remember

388 Jack Fritscher

Kick rubbed the thick blond hair on his forearms. “I don’t love you
the way you love me. I don’t love you that way.”
“You don’t want anybody that way.”
“I don’t need anybody that way.”
“Not even Logan?”
“No. Not even Logan.”
“Good. Then we’re clear on that.”
“I have a sexual attraction to Logan. I don’t love him.”
“You said you loved me. You said we were lovers.”
“I do love you. But not the way you want me to.”
“How do you love me then?”
“You’re the dearest man I know. You’re a madman. You have madness.
You have passion. You have intensity.”
“I think too much. I get depressed.”
“You feel too much.”
“Is that wrong?”
“Not unless it hurts somebody,” Kick said.
“Have I ever hurt you?”
“Not unless you’re hurting me now.”
“Don’t double-talk me. I’m the talker.”
“You’ve always got what you wanted.”
“I got the fantasy of you. I hoped you were real.”
“I am real.”
“Prove it. Drive with me to Bar Nada.”
“No. I can’t. I won’t.”
“You must have freon for blood,” Ryan said.
Kick turned his face away. “This is part of the curse,” he said.”
“What curse?”
“The curse of looking like this. Of looking the way I look. People
make impossible demands. Something you never did. Something—the
one thing—that made you different from everybody else. Something that
kept you from being ordinary. Something that’s making you like every-
body else.”
“You’re no god,” Ryan said. Saying it, he felt like a heretic coming out
of the closet. “Your Universal Appeal is slipping.”
The temperature in the car changed.
“What’s that mean?”
“You’re becoming a musclefreak, a gym bum.”
“I intend to turn professional right after the Mr. California.”
“You’ve always been professional. Now you’re going to hustle your

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