Strip

by Andrew Binks

  “Spaghetti, again?”

  “Seems like you need your carbs.”

  “This is fantastic.” He’d had a lot of wine, and I’d had sufficient beer by the time I got to his place, and couldn’t stop laughing when I told him my falling-asleep story. It was good to be warm, really warm, and with him. I didn’t have to impress him. He’d seen me at my worst in a very short period of time. “Can you imagine? I could still be asleep on that stage. I’d wake up and wonder where the hell I was.”

  “Is this a habit or a tradition?” He looked at me. “It’s our third dinner together.”

  “Second one here.” Why was I trying to steer away from the obvious?

  “Third if you count takeout pizza at your place and a few hundred with coffees downstairs, but who’s counting?”

  “It’s good to touch base, in case one of us falls asleep onstage…”

  “Or the other disappears into the wilds of northern Quebec, hot on the trail of some lumberjack.” I waved my finger at him. He had to know I’d registered his absences.

  “I have a lumberjack friend. I could introduce you.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “Daniel? Still? Is that why you haven’t…”

  “Been laid?” I said. “Shit no!”

  “…been good old, cock-slapping, body-fluidy, gooey, slippery-slidey and anonymously laid. You know, not just a naughty public shower game of peek-a-boo, but some sex. Call it lovemaking if you want.”

  “I’ve had my moments. You know, before I finally gave up pre-med, I organized the university dance club and choreographed the ex-ballerinas into a recital.”

  “This was a moment?”

  “I’ll get to it.” I had wanted to tell Kent about the two male dancers, and our curtain call, but the whole event came flooding back. He had to know I was more than this. “It was hours of tapping out the ‘Merry Widow Waltz,’ recorded off a cracked thirty-three. The girls, all bobbing boobs and big behinds, leapt across the stage. Rehearsal skirts snagged, ripped, flowed, but they did it over and over until it was perfect. They ignored the bunions, the calluses, tendonitis and all the other reasons dance could be hell.”

  “You had sex with them?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But you had sex.”

  “Indulge me.”

  “Go on.”

  “It was trial by fire. I was the novice. But it was my idea so they gave me their attention just because, you know, ballet: stern, unforgiving, repressed, autocratic.”

  “Get to the sex part.”

  “We sold tickets. I invited two male dancers from the Company as our guest artists.”

  “Finally.”

  “Not yet. I paid a groupie to make posters. We booked an old lecture hall. Classmates set lights. I scavenged backdrops: classical, fake flowers and columns. The girls sewed tutus. They made themselves up as only a ballerina can, you know, thick eyeliner above and below, extending at least halfway to the moon, angling up to the temple. Thick eyeshadow, too. Pinkish rouge, and contour until they looked like Bambi’s cousin.”

  “The buildup is killing me.”

  I got up and strutted around Kent’s place, arms flowing in the air. “I copied Balanchine-esque port de bras arms, studied Labanotation and choreographed patterns that came from hours of listening to music over and over again. I even created my own pas de deux with one of the smaller girls, to something slow by Vivaldi. They congratulated me, used words like choreographer and dancer, director and producer.”

  “Your point being that all this was better than sex?”

  “It was the two guests…”

  “At last!”

  “…who came all the way from the Company for a credit on their resumés, past protegés of my teacher, Drake. The two men had such grace, such posture, such asses.”

  “Assets? I see where this is going and I am shocked.”

  “I’d seen them in the change room and I swear there was a tendon and a muscle for every single step they took. There was strength and grace I’d never seen in a man. I was so ashamed in their presence that I downplayed my crazy dream to be a dancer. But on our way through that frozen prairie air to the after-party that night they told me to go for it. They were both late starters, too, but did it, and after that my dreams and imagination went wild.”

  “Did you orgasm?”

  “When we got to the party it was kudos for all. Glory for the girls. Glory for the boys. Real honest-to-God professional dancers and fans cooing over us.”

  “To make a long story short?”

  “To make a long story short the men begged me to come to the Company, somewhat drunkenly. And later that night, for the first time in my life I had intercourse.”

  “You fucked?”

  “I fucked them both.”

  “That’s more like it.”

  “But even then, the next morning I hoped some kind of bonding had taken place but I was wrong. It was just sex, again. Get-dressed, put-on-your-socks sex.”

  “I’ve never heard you brag about yourself. You should do it more often.”

  “I was already hooked, but it was those two men who finally opened the door by saying I should do it now.”

  “No doubts?”

  “I jumped from the ivory tower without a net. Freedom. I left them all—the ladies at the barre to continue their pliés, tendus, rond de jambes, fouettés. They had their Tuesdays and Thursdays. I left Drake teaching the little girls to get it right on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. They would either quit or continue, be told they were the wrong shape or be cursed with perfect proportions. They were at the beginning and I was at a place where I had to know how much more it could hurt. That one night was worth it to see smiles between swigs of Mogen David and ginger ale. Bouquets. Boyfriends. Talking dance. Basking. We were hopelessly confident for one night. We did it. In spite of the odds, their soft shapes rivalled the beauty of Degas’ dancers. But then they talked of other dreams—degrees, professions, law, medicine, nursing, archaeology, motherhood, children, homes and real lives without dance. I was about to depart on a journey they would only ever dream about, with their blessings; I would have a career because there were so few princes. I was more hooked than ever. They left, weeping, laughing, in a giggly cloud of cheap wine.”

  “And now?”

  “I’m in a giggly cloud of cheap wine.”

  “Not cheap.”

  “To answer your question. I am a sinking star, no, pin of light on the horizon, faded to the point where you aren’t sure if you can see me at all.”

  “Come on, you’re young—you’re drunk, too, by the way. I like it when you’re like this: you have a dream, you have drive. But those two guys—number five and number six? So few. I mean what a waste.”

  “Too many warnings when I was young. We lived by a ravine full of evil men exposing themselves, offering candy and molesting wayward children.”

  “Now you’re full of it.”

  “And swimming lessons at the y.”

  “Continue.”

  “As of now, I am just way too tired to even get it up, and as of right now way too drunk.”

  “That was an option?”

  “Could have had a big bag of candy by now. I guess I was holding out for Prince Charming…”

  “Daniel.”

  “Now all I want is the sleep that even he can’t wake me from.”

  “You’re still young.”

  “Middle-aged in dancer years, and feeling very old.”

  “Dancers. You’re nuts.”

  I flopped back into my chair. Performance over. I wondered if he cared about any of this—he got up and came around the table, squeezed my shoulder. I didn’t feel like a target this time. “Just one more mouthful of spaghetti?”

  “You can finish it later. I promise.”
/>
  “I’ll hold you to it.”

  “So I take it your bottom is still undiscovered territory.”

  “My bottom. We are polite, aren’t we?”

  “You call it bottom.”

  “I call it behind.”

  “Fine, so your ass…”

  “Things don’t work so well down there.”

  “Maybe you just need the right person. How about a massage?”

  “Do you realize you just used the massage line?”

  “But I meant it.”

  He got up and went to the kitchen. “A little olive oil? A couple of fingers? Maybe a tongue.” He pulled his shirt off, let his jeans drop to the floor.

  “This isn’t exactly how I saw our evening playing out.”

  “You have a beautiful body, and I want you to understand what it feels like to have a beautiful bum. You’ll thank me. Take off your clothes.”

  As he returned, I took in his very un-dancer physique. I had grown so used to supple, defined, slender and overworked—and here was something so tight and beautifully proportioned, and so real.

  Kent squatted and rubbed my inner thighs and looked at me as though he was taking in the view.

  “I’m not kidding when I say…”

  “Sit here, on the floor, face me, relax, just relax and enjoy the ride. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

  This stairwell cannot take me away from what just happened up there. Some might say I am in shock. Some might say so what, I had it coming to me. The idea of two men having intercourse might force some to turn away. The idea of a man being raped might do so to others. I can do my best to turn away, run, block it out, but something is in the way.

  I wanted to tell Kent that I’d heard the “I won’t hurt you” line before. But I trusted him. His straightforwardness demanded the same of me. There were no games, no second-guesses, no ulterior motives. My whole professional world was one big theatrical facade, and now here I was naked before him, in body and soul. I sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the chair, while Kent gently touched me—my inner thighs, my testicles. Then he slipped his hand underneath and gently tickled his stubby fingers into me. “We have all the time in the world.”

  We sat face to face.

  “Think of your ass as a big beautiful white moon. Pretend you’re me, looking at it. Pretend you know my desire.” I wondered if Kent’s desire verged on desperation. Did he desire all of me? Did he want things to go a lot faster than they did? No. He ended up being the most patient person I have ever met. It was the first time anyone had ever taken the time—and it happened. There was such a release in just having someone touch me after so many weeks of living in a straitjacket with the psychotic Madame—her band of crazy dancers—endless schlepping across the Lower Town of Quebec to make a little money—and after leaving Daniel far behind. I had to turn my mind off that other world and just be here in the room, on the floor, face to face. I was being cleansed. Reminded of my sexual self. “Relax.” The lights were on, not off, and we were staring into each other’s eyes. “You feel so good.” He pressed farther, until I tingled inside… “Three fingers,” he said. “How does that feel?”

  “Three fingers in my bum!?”

  “In your bum? No. Up your ass, yes.”

  “Close to amazing,” is most likely what I said. He was so close and we were so slow that I could watch his pupils dilate. I inhaled his breath.

  “That’s your prostate,” he whispered.

  “It’s like I have two penises—one on the inside the other on the outside.”

  “If that’s how it feels, you’re a bottom.” He pushed harder, rocking my pelvis. And each time, our eyes stayed locked.

  I barely knew what was happening with me, inside me, inside my head, my heart. I didn’t want to think. About Daniel. My new self. I hated myself for thinking this.

  We sat like naked children facing each other, Kent’s penis pressed against my leg. It was absurd, him in rapture like this, all the while talking me through it. Why Kent? Why no embarrassment? Why so easy?

  I broke the rhythm.

  “Here, I’m going to withdraw. My fingers are starting to fall asleep. You are so tight. And that’s not a bad thing.”

  “For you.”

  After that we lay on the floor and held each other, falling in and out of sleep, slowly exploring each other with our hands. It was so good to press against a body. His body. He was one of the most sensitive men I’ve ever touched. Even when we kissed he seemed to be in some kind of rapture. I dreamt of the North Saskatchewan River that runs through the city where I was born, like it did into my bathing trunks as a kid. I loosened them a little and then a little more until they accidentally fell away with a kick and my shrivelled dink puckered in the icy currents. There was no beach, just a grassy bank, and no one came there to swim. There was a man, standing in the grass with his fly open. The red sun burned across the valley. I woke not knowing if it was a dream or a memory. We kept holding each other. An urge flooded me, which Kent sensed and satisfied, and then the closer he got to climaxing, the harder I had to hold onto him as his body trembled and convulsed. He bit, squeezed, dug in—whatever he had to do to keep from flying through the roof.

  I left early for the studio. There were reports of a blizzard already shutting down Montreal and making its way to us, causing havoc on the highway, jackknifed transports, whiteouts, hundreds of cars in the ditches. At the ballet studio, despite my morning-after inner grin, everyone was silent. This was no victory morning; the sounds of Sunday afternoon’s applause did not echo. The scent of incompetence was still fresh. Madame Talegdi was losing support; she had lost our trust. Layers of discontent and blame crowded the studio. Bertrand refused to talk to Maryse. He said she couldn’t dance, was all over the place, sliding en pointe, trop sauvage. He called her anorexic—which she was—and too weak to do anything. She wouldn’t speak to me, nor would Chantal.

  The sky grew eerily dark in the west, as if our foul moods fed the tempest. The radiators clanged and Madame shouted and clapped out the beat, since Hortense was ill. We all stood frozen at attention, shoulders around our ears and not looking at Madame, even Jean-Marc. She finally had her own version of a fit. She stopped the class, slammed her hands on the barre and then stomped out of the room.

  Then it was Louise’s turn. She coldly started her own barre while the others stretched and continued their warm-ups. When I joined Louise, she turned and stomped across the studio to the kitchen and slammed the door behind her. She had always been warm—her big eyes, her endearing shoves. But having designs on a gay man, if you’re a woman, can be a challenge. In the Company, more than once a female best friend ended up in tears because her “just friends” gay male buddy had snubbed her when she got too close. I felt it from Rachelle, and even from the girls at the club: possibilities reflected in their gaze. And in the linoleum kitchen off the studio, after I opened the slammed-in-my-face door, Louise lunged—her hips square against mine, with nowhere for the family jewels to go. Louise’s physique, her being, in fact everything about her, was lovely. You don’t need to be made of stone to appreciate a mountain. Forcing herself against me, she spoke in a loud whisper, “Who do you think you are?”

  “What do you want?”

  “I don’t believe this. After all the flirting, and you’re playing hard to get? I know exactly what you do.”

  “Chorus boy?”

  “You strip for women.”

  “They pay me, that’s all. You know what I am.”

  “But you’re not interested in me?”

  “Is chêre amie not good enough?”

  Louise relaxed her hold, but she squeezed my arms with affection and perhaps a measure of sensuousness. Maybe she saw me treading water until someone threw me a life vest, or until I drifted into a current that would carry me far away.

  “What are you doing
here?”

  “Je fais rien. This has all gone wrong.”

  The following weeks Madame played Bertrand off Louise by giving Louise the attention and ignoring Bertrand. But all he cared about was dance, and his too-honest face gave away everything he felt for Madame. I could also tell that he saw from my weak dancing that, pretty as I was, I was no longer competition for Jean-Marc.

  With the blizzard, I felt like Christmas had arrived. Everything was coated in frosting and the Old Town looked even more like a fairy tale. But major roads were cleared and work was still on. At the club, in the strippers’ dressing room Suzette wouldn’t stop. “Il danse. Le Grand Blond danse, vraiment. Il est danseur. B’en je n’ai jamais imagine. Hey, what the hell are you doing in a dump like this?” The girls all seemed so impressed; if I had been keeping a pregnancy a secret, they couldn’t have been more pleased. But it didn’t matter. The idea of becoming a fine dancer was fading for the moment. I just wanted sanity and simplicity.

  That night I decided on the songs for my official strip, with “Gloria” as my first song. It was about someone living in a world where no one calls, no matter how important you feel or how many people you think want you. And I danced to it, full out until my eyes stung, my heart pounded and my throat burned from the stale, smoke-laden air. Me, the star of my own little world.

  Then Toto’s “Africa,” which made me think of the kind of freedom I had never known, while I caught my breath, got grounded and started taking most of my clothes off. It was perfect timing for undoing buttons, zippers, ties and belts. After that, Suzette ran up to the stage, waving me over. “Did you pick your t’rd song?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Can I?”

  “As long as it’s not ‘In the Summer Time.’”

  She laughed and dropped the coins in the machine and looked at me as she punched the buttons, like she knew exactly which buttons to push.

  The music started slow with a guitar strumming and then notes on what sounded like and electric organ and a woman singing in a whispery voice, “Je t’aime,” while a man replied, “Moi non plus.” The song put me right in the bedroom it was so sensuous and sexy. As for the words, it could have been me singing to Daniel, Je t’aime, and Daniel replying, Moi non plus. But it took me to better places in my imagination—a loft in Paris—and then, being naked on the stage seemed more reverential than simply eyes staring at me in the dark. It gave me a greater understanding of the effect my sexual body could have and what I was capable of. The emotion coupled so easily with what I was doing. I had never given myself to the emotion onstage. I had never found it, and now it was so simple. My body was the song.