Strip (23 page)

But Madame cut me off. “Shut up you, shut up now and leave here or I will call the police. How dare you insult my girls, my dancers or Jean-Marc.” Madame came after me swatting me on the head, and then drove me hard in the gut. She had it in her to do much worse. I couldn't breathe, but I grabbed my things. The truth was out. The girls ran across the hall to the washroom and I heard Madame's shouts echo down the hall. I changed in the stairwell and left.

Once upon a time I had wanted to like Madame. If she had been more generous she could have made us all great dancers. But the ego can do horrible things to remain intact. Bertrand and Louise had also grown tired of her after their summer and being exposed to something greater in Montreal. They had outgrown her. Staying there would never have worked for them. Madame could only take them so far. I hoped for them that real exposure would take them to the next level.

 

Meanwhile the Chez Moritz
had another guest—not a circuit girl nor a drag queen—this one only to watch the show. I grew up with Marilyn Monroe in my soul even if she was wary of my type. Her beauty cast a spell over so many and her pain made us forgive. How many fruitcakes have told me that Marilyn Monroe was their real mother? Somehow it never adds up with the lie they tell me about their age. I swear to you that that Christmas, Marilyn Monroe dropped by the Chez Moritz. I saw her from the stage. There was a fuss at the front door. I thought maybe Vasili was giving someone the heave-ho. But a bubble of blonde was the focal point, being swarmed. Soon men in dark coats and sunglasses were shifting chairs at the back and Vasili was helping seat them. I wanted to believe what I was seeing. Steve was at her table, waved me down after my set ended. “You must meet my friend, Marilyn Monroe.”

“I thought she was dead.”

“It was all a lie to get her out of the public eye. Don't speak to her. She can't speak English.”

“She hasn't aged much.”

“Men buy her things: minks, jewels, cheekbones, the perfect nose. She'd like you to dance for us.”

Other than batting her eyes to get me going, she didn't pay me any attention. She and her gang made sure they were being noticed. I just danced in the shadows with not much commitment. I was not the centre of attention by any means. When Louis joined the group, the men moved into a tight circle around him. Louis smiled too much. I'd never seen him smile like that. He dabbed his brow. He seemed nervous, and it wasn't to do with the size of my cock. Steve watched me with his back to them like a cat waiting to pounce on a moving target. Since no one was watching him watching me, he decided to add a little spice to his evening and stir up some trouble. He was smoking, chewing his gum, one eye on his booth, checking the room to make sure no one was going to run out of music and, during all of this, sitting close to my crotch and staring longingly at my dick.

I started to get hard. I had to stay in a squat, which pleased Steve even more with this private show happening between my thighs. I was Pavlov's dog, having been trained in the basement washroom. Marilyn was too busy sipping from a straw to notice. And her entourage popped their heads out of the clutch momentarily to catch an eyeful of tit. So this little porn-fest went on while I was trapped with a hard-on. Steve made this look like a conversation; between big chews of gum he talked about Marilyn, saying she ducked out of the stripper circuit early, before she got to be known as one.

I wanted to interrupt, find out what was going on with Louis and the men—it looked like he was about to be lynched—but he went on, “Now she really thinks she is Marilyn.” He rested his hands on my knees all the while taking in the view, which seemed simple enough, but it was torture. “And she wants everyone else to think so, too, and treat her like Marilyn.” He said she wouldn't last, just like the real Marilyn—she'd never be satisfied—showing up at clubs around Quebec for some attention and the odd newspaper photo op. Her Montreal mob husband had created a monster. It's funny that fine line between having a talent and having huge amounts of attention for nothing in particular. You have to work hard at both. At the end of the song, I left the table with my jeans tight over my crotch.

Later, when Steve had told all the girls in the change room about my woody, it got not much more than a chuckle. Steve's Guy didn't laugh. But all I could think of was Louis's smiling sweating face and wrinkled brow.

 

Madame Talegdi brought me
in for performances of her
Nutcracker
, since we were locked into a performance schedule. This meant playing the Mouse King and more small roles—from Drosselmeyer to the Christmas Tree—than anyone double-cast in the Company could imagine in their worst dancer nightmares. After tripping over all of the junior school dancers in their homemade costumes onstage and having Madame barking and stamping at all of us, even the youngest, I was ready to toss in my dance belt for good.

At night it was the Chez Moritz disco version of
The Nutcracker
. Marcel had better costumes; tits and bums unbound and glazed in coloured glitter like overgrown sugarplums. My sheer white leotards hid nothing. The roles were better too: I got to be the Nutcracker and the Prince. Marcel let me make up most of my own choreography so I twirled and fouettéed my way into the Christmas spirits of the audience—who, probably along with their kids, saw me by day in Madame's sloppy recital.

We were all relieved that the final performance was done. “No New Year's this year,” Marcel shouted over the chatter. I looked up, not sure what he meant by it. “Louis wants just the girls for New Year's.” There could have been some good money for New Year's for all of us. “I'll see you on the second. We have a new show to get going.”

Out west,
Nutcracker
s were followed by the obligatory family visit. But with a little cash and pre-Christmas tip money, I got it together to make my own plans to help me get through the time following Christmas by booking a last-minute flight to the tropics. Five nights, Quebecair, nothing included, paid for with a fist full of tips. I needed something to look forward to. I'd leave on Boxing Day. Keep it a secret from my parents—and from angel-face Philippe.

 

Before he headed up
to Rouyn-Noranda for
Noël
with his huge family, I told Philippe I didn't want to continue. “It's me, I'm just not ready for a commitment.”

“We can still be friends.”

“I just don't think I have time.” It occurred to me that any time spent with someone I didn't care about created a horrible feeling of claustrophobia, as if my life really was being wasted. He gave me a little music box he'd bought at an antique store, insisted I have it, and a small box of cookies. I was such a shit. I said goodbye at my front door as he got a cab to the bus depot to be with his family in time for mass. Christmas Eve wasn't a time of year or of my life that I wanted to lie; I couldn't pretend any longer. I had bought a monstrous tourtière, but a silent meal between the two of us would have been farcical compared to what he would have with his family. I sat in the silence, eating the cookies, watching flakes of snow glisten in the chill outside my window as the tiny music box played “Waltz of the Snowflakes” from
The Nutcracker
. I suppose I should have at least appreciated someone who liked me so much.

At noon on Christmas Day my parents called, and while we talked I stared at the tourtière wondering how to dress it up. Vegetables? Cranberry? What did these people do? My mother was choked up as always, whether I was there or here. “Will we be seeing you over the holidays?”

“I don't think I can get away.”

“Your father said you might surprise us.”

“I wish I could.” I knew he only said this to keep her from going on about me not coming home. My presence was the last thing they needed for a merry Christmas. I could hear my father talking in the background. “He says to say merry… oh for heaven's sake, this is ridiculous, just wait.”

There was the obvious shifting and shunting of phone from hand to hand and then my father's voice in deep, stark contrast to my mother's. “Hi son, do you have someone there to spend Christmas with?”

This shocked me, but what the hell. “Yes, I have a neighbour coming over for dinner. We're having tourtière, since I'm living in Quebec now.” But I'd lost Dad at the word neighbour, it was too much of a reminder of who I was: a person, not a projection. I picked up the slack. “You two have a merry Christmas and I'll see you in the New Year. I promise.”

But it was my mother's voice that replied. “You have a merry Christmas too, and we'll talk soon”—something we often said when we knew it would be some time before another call.

After the call I went back to bed. The quiet sounds made it feel more like home than ever. I managed to wake in time to get the tourtière in the oven, potatoes boiling and squash boiling, too—a ballerina's nightmare meal—before Kent showed up, and when he did, he looked oh so good. I'd never seen in him anything other than a
t
-shirt, a parka or his birthday suit. He wore a red shimmering dress shirt and a green bowtie he'd made from ribbon. When I saw him standing there at the door with his bottle of bubbly, I could have eaten him. “Real French champagne,” he said. “Méthode champenoise.” He raised his eyebrows. “Can I come in?”

“Life should always be so fine,” I said, following him to the kitchen. He seemed so self-assured from the back, kind of strutting. I loved that about him. Everything, the nastiness of the Company, the distracted pressure of the club, the guilt over having more or less dumped someone on Christmas Eve, vanished.

“It is fine, this very moment. I have something for you.” He turned, held up a small, wrapped package. “Open it.”

“Oh, why did you do that? I completely… I was so concerned with my own…”

“Just open it.”

It was funny to think that not only had he gotten me something, but that he had taken the time to wrap it.

“A book of…”

“Dancers should read. You should read. This.”

“It looks French.”

“Every word of it. It is French. It's the poems of Émile Nelligan. You're living in his province so you should read something by him. I'm sure you know enough words—
amour, mort
—to get the gist.”

“I'll read it, you'll see. I
can
read. Thank you.
Merci, mon ami
.”

“De rien.”

“You look like the biggest Christmas cracker I've ever seen.”

“Pull me. There's a big surprise waiting for you.”

“You may have been celebrating all day, but I've been in a coma.”

Kent relaxed, let out his inner flamboyance, which made him that much more endearing. He hummed a few carols with a resonant basso profundo, and then sang a very fruity version of “I'll Be Homo for Christmas.” I was so used to him being the tough guy with his short, quick movements and a voice that held no hint of affectation. Often, recently, we'd had so little time together. It would be a blessing to sit down for more than one course. He wandered the place and hummed while I fussed at the stove and turned the table into a tableau dripping with Christmas sentiment, from candles to crackers to fake holly. It occurred to me then, with him keeping himself busy, that I had more than the usual good feelings for him. I was full of good feelings. But I think, for me at least, those kinds of feelings were the elephant in the room.

We sat at the table, tucked our napkins, pulled crackers and uncorked the champagne. I unloaded huge servings of tourtière, he served up my effort at vegetables. I lit candles and we both looked out at snow falling on the empty street, and listened to the silence. Golden light glowed behind drawn curtains up and down the sidewalk. At last a holiness had descended, and I still had time to make the peace of the Christmas my own. I watched him closely and differently than I had before, as he talked about Christmases with friends in Toronto and his reluctance to participate in family Christmases in Windsor since leaving home. His family turned their backs on him. They thought they were sleuths discovering he had no girlfriend. He said his leanings were more obvious with his too-fabulous blond hair, when he had hair, and very expensive taste when he was with someone who could support it. You could shut gay behaviour in a closet or excuse it away as “ladies man,” “bachelor” or “loner,” or just turn your back on all of it. Kent's family hadn't talked to him in years.

“It will be nice for you to catch up with friends in Montreal.”

I knew he wanted more of what he was looking for—Quebec City was too small and too much work for him. “Don't let me know if you run into you-know-who.”

“See? You've already forgotten his name. You might not even remember mine by the time you get back from down south.” I untied his bowtie, and he tossed his shirt by my mattress, pretending for once that he was the stripper. He did a very endearing routine with a lit cigarette, mimicking yours truly, and then we got under the sheets, me in his tight grip. We watched the candles flicker and die on the table while the snow fell outside and then we fell asleep, naked, together.

 

As I slept I
saw the snow bringing neighbours like us together. Then I dreamt of the land down south where the heat opens every pore, and feeds this man's testosterone like a leaky faucet. A pleasurable torture if you know how to control it. I saw the pale adolescent I was, my first and only Christmas in the tropical sun. We were two travel days away from Edmonton, Alberta, but all the same old faces had come along.

Sometimes a breeze pushed away the heat. But I learned the effects of sun on a man's back all day, the steam from the shower and my own light touch. There was a man on the beach who reminded me of Mister Clean—bald-headed and bulges of muscle as he flexed his crossed arms. Something stirred in me. The Edmontonians chuckled to each other at the small black Speedo that covered Mister Clean's family jewels and perfect ass. I watched them try not to look. I hoped the same firmness would find me someday. Could I ever hope to look like that? What would muscles look like on me? Would muscles grow? He was perfect. Why did the pear-shaped, soft-assed, sunburnt dentists laugh at this living statue? In an answer to a prayer, two more lean bodies, brothers or best friends, came down the beach in briefs. I made sure to spread out my beach towel in their path, but they didn't notice a horny prepubescent as they spoke a foreign language and stared into each other's eyes.