Strip (31 page)

“I think it's time you get off your knees, I mean feet,” I told him, and he smiled. He was so ready to sit on his ass for his paycheque. After this, I put my typical damper on things by telling him my news. “I've blown everything—except Zaitsev—to be told I'm too old.”

“Maybe he can tell that to Martha Graham. Quoting you, by the way.”

“I mean, too old for what?”

“Whatever it is you wanted?”

“Where are all the ones who said I'd make it?”

“Look, what the hell do you want? Stardom? Artistic fulfillment? Even I am starting to wonder.”

“I've been dancing really, really well. You know that. I think I'm actually better than when I left the Company. I mean what the fuck? How much longer are you going to pay my rent?”

Kent rolled his eyes. “Do you want me to tell you Zaitsev's jealous? No offence, but I doubt it. He is like that with tricks; playing one off against the other. Just persevere. Take whatever he has to offer, as a teacher. The worst that can happen is he kicks you out. And he's not the only one teaching in this city. Now answer my question. Stardom or fulfillment?”

“I can't believe you were his bumboy. You're practically famous.”

“Don't change the subject.”

“You've made your point. I'll have to think about it.” I hadn't forgotten how, that chilly night back in Quebec, Kent had taken the wind out of my sails by asking what I had to offer as a dancer. It continued to haunt me.

“In the meantime, my advice is to just keep doing your thing. A river or stream always manages to find its way…”

“…to the bottom.”

“Just don't sleep with him.”

“I'd still be too old.”

“That's what happens. Look at me now, look at me then.”

It was funny that in this ghetto where every man seemed attractive, and obsessed with aging, we could laugh at the superficiality of it, even though we were whole-heartedly under vanity's spell.

“Someone probably told him I was a stripper.”

“He likes to take credit for discovering new talent. You…”

“Old, like he said.”

He continued. “I need to talk to you.”

“Is it the dishes in the sink? The candied chicken livers I burned? I'll get you a new frying pan.”

“I don't care about the pan.”

“I promise I'll clean it, even if it takes dynamite.”

“We'll throw it out, get a new one.”

“I'll pay for it.”

He sighed loudly. I'd exasperated him. I figured living with me would end up being a trial. “Remember Quebec?” he said.

“Again?”

“Remember Henri?”

“Has he died? I'm sorry I didn't even ask I've been so wrapped up…”

“He died before I left.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I didn't want you to think…”

“You cared?”

“I have a problem.”

“Well, he's dead, so you can't owe him money. Sorry.”

“With him, I drank, a lot…”

“You still do.”

“I thought I was just a big drinker, but it's not that.” He paused. “Oh, what the fuck.” He nibbled on a hangnail and then leaned forward. “My name is Kent and I'm an alcoholic. Okay? Get it? I mean you know me. You know my beers before dinner, after dinner, before sex, after sex…”

“During sex.”

“Before bed.”

“That's alcoholism?”

“I can't do evening hours without it.”

“You fooled me. I honestly didn't notice. I always figured beer was harmless—now rye and Coke and my parents, there's boozin'.”

“If I've acted strange, I'm sorry. I don't want to hurt you. You know, do something bad that I'd blame on the booze.”

“Have you just decided this? Do we really have any evidence?”

“It's why I left Toronto in the first place. I used to get messy, every night. No one would talk to me. It got worse with Henri. He was a mean drunk. But it's brought out something in me.”

“Does this explain New Year's?”

“It's become an every night thing. Every single night now, I can't relax without that first beer. I think that's what made him sick. I'm thinking that's what did it.”

“But you don't seem…”

“Like one?”

“What can I do?”

“Nothing. I just wanted you to know. It started here. It's got to end here. I've started the meetings. Last week. Lots of meetings, for now. Just telling you is a big help.”

I didn't tell him about my own dependency—on him. I didn't want to scare him or make things weird between us, or make him feel any more responsible for me than he already did. I felt like we had turned into some kind of old married couple who just did our thing without even noticing it. Someday we would celebrate it. I looked around the café at the other men. I felt for the first time like a couple, like there was a bond so strong between us it could never be broken, and I felt like everyone could see it. I took his hand in mine and I felt proud.

During those next few weeks, Kent attended meetings every night, and I decided that if we were ever going to make love using all our faculties I'd have to make an extra effort. I bought myself a dildo, I mean a sexual aid, that was about the size of Kent, I reckoned, and I practised with it every night after a warm bath. The initial pain was almost unbearable, but it got easier if I imagined Kent inside me and fantasized about what our first time would be like. I wanted this to happen. I had started to feel sexual with my changing physique. I actually felt more sexual than I had in ages, maybe ever. Knowing how he looked at me made me feel that way. I wanted to be enjoyed by him while I enjoyed him. I spent the evenings looking forward to our sleeps in that big bed—looking forward to fitting into our spoon shape, him curled around me, his fingers instinctively groping me while he slept.

The meetings helped. The bravado and prowess that I associated with him must have been the booze, because it vanished. He was all there now. Authentic. Consistent. Fewer cigarettes even. We shared the odd joint. He was less fidgety. There was a sensuousness about him. As if he had slowed down enough for me to see him, appreciate his crooked smile, his stubby fingers on a coffee cup, his sad eyes.

After several prolonged sessions with my vibrating plastic friend, I made an offer. It was after he arrived home from his meeting. I was feeling sexy and limber and lean. It was something I never thought I'd enjoy, but soon I found it, that feeling, the fabled prostate
g
spot that was so real and so pleasurable, that he had found months ago when we were together. I told Kent I had a present.

“Don't do this for me.”

“It's for us.” He was extremely sensitive and gentle, but the fact that he was so horny, and horny all the time, made it that much more fun. Although it took ages for me to relax and feel comfortable every time, we always ended up
enjoying
it. Something about the prolonged effort made him even more excited. Soon it was full-fledged mentorship (so
that's
why fucking feels so good, so
that's
my prostate). In the dark, in that hot room, he was over me. My feet stirred the air above me, or he would grasp them like he was at the helm of a ship holding the wheel, or he'd hold my legs by the ankles like a bound, captured animal. And in the shadows and the motion I saw a hint of his younger self, that sharp, devilish look that had made him so alluring.

One night, afterwards, as we were lying across each other in our customary tangled mound of limbs, he spoke. “It's like playing, isn't it?” But I was still an apprentice. I wondered if I would ever really be in control of my own pleasure. I knew it was only because of him that I was able to enjoy it.

After we got more settled we'd refer to the fun French times in Quebec, like an old couple talking about the good old days. “I 'ad to walk t'irty kilometres t'roo da blowing snow and minus-forty centigrade, to get to da strip club in time for my nightly blow job, before I waved my—how you call it—my dick in some woman's face, 'osti, you kids 'ave it so easy nowadays.”

And he'd say stuff like, “Do you remember so and so?” as if I had been there for the whole time with him, when he'd always had his own life going on in Quebec.

I started to show up at his work, after class or after my lunch shift and we'd catch up on every minute that had passed since we'd last seen each other. Some nights, after his meeting, he took me out to the clubs like he had in Quebec. He didn't feel the need to be anaesthetized. I did, but I'd sip a beer, and he'd have tonic water. We'd stay in the dark and sometimes neck, or check out the parade of guys and talk about taking one of them home.

“How about him?” he'd say.

“Too young. I like them older. You know.”

“As old as me?”

“Experience turns me on.”

“I guess we have complementary tastes. I like them young. Like you.”

Most of the time we left together. Once, he took off for a quickie at the bathhouse, a sore point for me, but it was becoming rare. He said he liked to sit in the dark and in the steam. For him it was a complete escape from the real world—he wasn't looking for much more than that and the odd thrill—but he admitted that it killed him to see me go home alone.

After a few weeks of moaning about the bomb that Zaitsev had dropped, I decided that it wasn't going to stop me. Other dancers witnessed the jab and told me he was full of shit, and that it wasn't the first time. At about the same time, I overheard that
ddt
was holding open auditions the following week. They were looking for a classically trained male with modern dance experience. I thought I stood a chance, in fact more of a chance than anyone I had seen recently. One of the Company's pillars had been the investment they made in modern training to keep their repertoire broad. Graham contractions, Ailey lunges, Taylor, Cunningham, Limón, Tharp choreography. Corner to corner. Shoulders to the side. Hips to the front. Breathe low, from the solar plexus. A modern dancer could last as long as the best of them. Your weight travelled through muscles and bones, solidly into the floor. It was the function first, then the form.

It was a Friday morning when I went to
ddt
's studios in the heart of Cabbagetown. I walked by that same house where I'd stripped and had humiliated myself weeks earlier. At
ddt
, other dancers were stretching on the studio floor, checking out the competition. I saw some familiar faces from class, and was eager to show what I could do. I took my place and am able to say I looked good in the mirror. The panel was comprised of three men—at least one I recognized, and the other two seemed familiar, but how would I know anyone from anywhere? Yes, of course, the birthday party. I suppose at that moment I could have either left, or stripped, but I persevered, trusting their professionalism. A female regisseur called out the floor barre and then the choreographer, the one who had been the birthday boy, showed us the choreography.

That day, I flew across the studio. I found that any anxiety had turned to absolute joy. I was dancing again. I was in the floor with control, steadfastness, and I felt beautiful. I was everything I had learned up to that moment, from ballet to Brittany. My fear at being misread collapsed and reinvented itself as an egotistical look-at-me-and-what-I-can-do in a joyous ecstatic burst of energy. I led the class from the front, from the back, from the corners, no fear, and soon it became clear that I was leading the battle.

When the audition ended, and we were all changing in the hallways, one of the assistants came over and whispered to me to stay behind. Some of my classmates looked up at me and smiled or winked. As if the whole room was with me. I was taken to a room where the artistic director, the regisseur and the choreographer waited. They smiled. They were nervous. We were all giddy. I sat on my hands.

“I enjoyed the class.”

“Thank you. We could tell. It was obvious, and refreshing. We'd like you to work with us,” said the choreographer. He looked at my eyes, not my crotch. “John Rottam, we'll have a contract ready for you on Monday.”

That was it. Everyone had left by the time we finished talking. Only me left with my glory. I waltzed down Winchester to Parliament. I wanted to explode. With my feet off the pavement, I flew. Fuck! Finally! After all the shit and mess-ups. This was it. I couldn't wait to tell Kent. I called him at work and at home but there was no answer.

It was early Friday afternoon, and after Rachelle stitched her last tutu of the day, she joined me for celebratory drinks at Bemelmans, both of us feeling superb at last, both with real jobs—
and
in the big city. I would be part of a privileged elite of artists who were the heartbeat of that city. It was a superb feeling. I made a detour on the way home and stopped in at Biltmore's to tell the fat fuck I quit, only because I hoped there might be a paycheque to be had, which there wasn't. Otherwise, I just wouldn't have shown up ever again.

When I got home I called out for Kent, looked for a note or something on the table, for a message to meet him somewhere after his
aa
. My mind raced with the options for celebration. Ginger ale? Perrier? Great food to make up for no booze? The answering machine blinked and when I pushed play there was woman's voice telling me to call Toronto General Hospital. I was put through to a wheezing voice punctuated by heaving breaths I didn't recognize on the other end: “I… was… just… walking… down… Church… and… I… couldn't… breathe… fell… on… a… car… ambulance… came… I'm… okay… now.”

I got to the hospital with minutes left before the end of visiting hours and looked for Kent. I was sober now and my energy tumbled from the highs of the day. I was so ready with my good news about the audition but there he was, eyes closed, wearing an oxygen mask. I reached under the sheet and held his hand, his rough fingertips that had tickled me so often. He dozed and I couldn't figure out how he was, or what was happening. Soon he came around and tried to talk. “I've always loved you—you know—the way it is now, what we have—us—that's the way I dreamed it.”