Page 94 - Some Dance to Remember

64 Jack Fritscher

He was in the parade, but not feeling part of it. The night was too gay
and cold. He needed heat and light. He set his sights on that impenetrable
circle of homomuscular men he adored from afar. He went from man to
man trying to fuck his Ideal into existence. Drugs helped. Especially pop-
pers that could turn Godzilla into God.
That El Lay when Kick walked into that Ideal and filled it with his
aura and his muscle, Ryan found his target. What is love-at-first-sight if
not that moment when someone suddenly matches in the flesh the ideal
image that the seeker has always carried in his heart and head? It’s tragic if
the feeling isn’t mutual. It’s a gift of the gods if the love is requited. Ryan
played it cool. Kick was too good to be true, but was no more, Ryan felt,
than he wanted or deserved. He spun head over heels when Kick pursued
him as much as he wanted to pursue Kick.
Under the roar of the helicopter that Sunday at Bar Nada, Kick had
asked Ryan to fly to El Lay. Three weeks later the blond bodybuilder who
strode out of Ryan’s wet dreams drove him in the red Corvette to the top
of the hill above the HOLLYWOOD sign overlooking the smog burning
the topless towers of El Lay.
“If you can find it in your heart to love me,” Kick said, “you won’t
have to leave anything behind. If you want, I’ll show you everything you
ever wanted to know about muscle.”
Los Angeles spread out below them like all the kingdoms of the world
that could be Ryan’s if only he would take up this calling, this vocation, to
a life as manly and noble and pure as a disciplined bodybuilder.
“You know,” Kick’s blue eyes looked deep into him, “you can have
anything you want.”
Kick was offering himself.
“Why me?”
“You are,” Kick said, “the richest man I know.”
Sirens shrieked through the boulevards below them. An alarm went
off in Ryan: he flashed on his Victorian and the deed to his ranch, his
safety deposit box, his bank account with the savings from the tidy days
when he had pulled the salary of an associate professor. He was shocked,
wary, that he should be told this.
After all, Teddy...
But then he rationalized, no, realized, that this man, this golden
bodybuilder, knew and cared nothing about his assets. Besides he had his
own: the beach condo, the Corvette, the Harley-Davidson Sportster, the
extravagance of the helicopter.
Kick must have seen the flush in Ryan’s face. “I’ve known since that

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