Page 473 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 443

“Do you want to?”
“I’m already here, aren’t I? Do you see anyone else around? There’s
just you and me, kid.”
“I don’t want sex,” Ryan said.
“I’m not offering sex.”
“I want a friend, not fireworks.”
“We’ve always been friends,” I said.
“I don’t want to sleep alone.”
“I think I can manage to sleep with you,” I said.
“Sleeping doesn’t mean having sex.”
“So would a little safe sex hurt?”
Ryan was startled. “You mean affection.”
“Call it what you will.”
“You’d let me make love to you?” he asked.
“You need to make love to somebody who’s real.”
“Are you real?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know if I can handle it,” he said.
“Handle what? That I might be someone real saying, ‘I love you.’”
“I know,” Ryan said, “that you love me. Who else would put up with
me? Who else would make such an offer?”
“So?” I said.
“But you’re not gay.” Ryan hesitated. “Are you?”
“What I am is human. I don’t have to be gay to love you.”
“You can’t just try this stuff on for size, you know.”
“What stuff?”
“Homosexuality.”
“Who’s talking homosexuality? You. That’s who. I’m talking about
real human love.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“Is it?”
“You’re an academic. A scholar. You categorize everything. You don’t
have the feeling for this.”
“Is it homosexuality if I love you enough to hold you, just hold you?
Charley-Pop held you on his lap.”
“Can you hold me?”
“To quote someone I know intimately: ‘I may not have eighteen-inch
arms, but my arms are big enough to hold you.’”
“Is this what you’ve always wanted?” He was stymied. “Is this why
you’ve always hung around? Is this why you’ve stuck by me? Is this a love

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK