Page 430 - Some Dance to Remember

400 Jack Fritscher

to get his act together. He sensed in his old lover’s face intimations of the
joy they had once found in sex.
Teddy rubbed his crotch.
Against the confusion Kick had raised in his head, Ryan felt his con-
fidence return in the dependability of Teddy’s presence.
“I thought,” Teddy said, “we deserved one more fuck together.”
He wants sex. Good. I’ll feed him and fuck him and he’ll come back
home.
“I know the reason you came.” Ryan rubbed his own crotch. “It’s the
same reason I asked you.”
“Then you know,” Teddy said. “You’ve heard.”
Ryan rose from his chair and sat on Teddy’s lap. He turned his voice
down to its most seductive. “I’ve heard what I used to hear,” Ryan whis-
pered, “that we were good when we were together.”
“We were good,” Teddy said, “until we were bad.”
Ryan stared at him. I’ve always loved him.
“The reason I’ve come,” Teddy said, “is to tell you myself.”
Ryan felt something change in the room.
“I’m leaving San Francisco. Hank and I are moving to Wyoming. We
both want to get as far away from AIDS and everything as we can. We
want to start over together with each other. I wanted you to be the first to
know. I wanted to tell you myself.”
“No way,” Solly later told me, “did anyone eat that lasagna!”

7

Ryan fled again to the refuge of Solly Blue. At the door, Ryan screamed,
“What movie am I?”
“The Towering Inferno?”
“Phaedra. I’m Melina Mercouri in Jules Dassin’s Phaedra.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“I’ve lost everyone.” He acted like a soldier whose second trench mate
had died in his arms. “What’s the matter with me? What do I do to
people?” He imitated Mercouri’s deep voice. “Eagle of the cold north.
Falcon of solitude. I give them milk and honey. They give me...poison!”
He spun around the room like a full balloon with its neck untied. He was
pumped up. He was on a mean roll.
“Calm down,” Solly said. He couldn’t believe the tactic Ryan had
tried with Teddy. “You’re out of your mind,” he said. “Teddy’s a jerk.”
“You’re goddam right I’m out of my mind. I want them dead. I want

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