Page 419 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 389

muscle.” Ryan imagined Kick’s picture in the muscle magazines endorsing
megavitamins and “natural” steroids, pushing $29.95 mail-order courses
screaming ad headlines: “You Can Have Arms Like Mine in Three Days.”
“Everything has its going rate.”
“You should never have hustled me. Never me.” Ryan flashed on
Teddy, the original hustler Judas.
Ryan was too polite, even in his anger, to mention he’d found out
on Kick’s trips to El Lay to see Dr. Steroid that he’d been invited to that
famous swimming pool at that castle in the Hollywood hills where, every
Sunday afternoon, the most handsome muscle guys from the gyms stood
on one side of the pool and the checkbooks stood on the other.
“I didn’t have to hustle you. You gave me everything.”
“Exactly. I gave and gave and gave.”
“Then I didn’t hustle you.”
“You hustled my heart. I wish you could have turned my head and
left my heart alone.”
“I don’t believe this,” Kick said. “My life is turning into a B-movie.”
“Just like when you muscle-hustled that poor girl.”
“What girl?” Kick’s face glowered, afraid that Kweenie had spilt their
little secret.
“The Third Runner-Up in the Miss Alabama Contest. The girl who
threw herself out of your car and landed on her face when you told her
you didn’t really love her that way.”
“You forget nothing, do you?”
“I take notes. I have a photographic memory. I have tunnel vision
around you. I see, hear, think of nothing else. I’m obsessed with you.”
“I love you for that.”
“Then drive to Bar Nada with me.”
“I’ve had enough,” Kick said.
“No, I’ve had enough. I want more.”
“So do I.”
“What more do you want?”
“I want you to see me as I really am,” Kick said.
“What a hoot. We both want the same thing. Don’t double-talk me.
I hate reverse psychology. What’s all this mean? What has all this meant?
What are you trying to do?”
Kick looked Ryan directly in the eye. “Make a man out of you.”
The low blow stopped Ryan dead in his tracks.
Outside, late winter rain pelted the sidewalks. Gay men stood hud-
dled in the doorways of stores. The rain brought the street cruising to a

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