Strip by Andrew Binks

great.”
    That week, we met for meals and sex and I took open class at the Conservatoire. I never stayed over at Daniel’s again; he would come over to my place and then go home. We needed the time—a courtship, I told myself—to get to know each other.
    He came over late on Saturday night, a week into my new life, after attending a closed rehearsal. Daniel lay on the bed staring at the ceiling, his nose whistling, after another sweaty attempt to penetrate me, while I sat on the toilet telling myself the pain would lapse.
    â€œOne week. It’s been over one week,” he said. “You’re afraid to let go. You will never be free as an artist or a dancer if you can’t let go. You will be nothing more than an uptight Anglo from the prairies.” Then he left.
    We were good with silences—connected enough to not need to speak. In spite of this little obstacle, I felt something was about to change with some kind of proposal. Then, with the little piece of polished rock he would give me, we would become the toast of the Montreal dance world. Our names, John and Daniel, would be on everyone’s lips. I would be his protegé. He would be my master.
    Â 
    Sitting here on the stairs, even now, body as it is, bereft of tears, blood and sweat, it seems absurd to wonder how he saw me. What is a bad decision? What’s the difference between a bad decision and adventure, or a good decision and boredom? Do all decisions make themselves? I haven’t thought of him wistfully for months, almost a year. I haven’t pined. You don’t believe that? And I can’t even remember the last time I got one hundred percent sentimental over him and had a good old-fashioned wine-soaked wallow. The cornerstone of lust holds up those castles in the sky.
    It was after I bought Egyptian cotton sheets and pillowcases at Ogilvy’s, and the salesman made a fuss over the thread count, something I’d never heard of, that Daniel became scarce. He was busy coaching, and when I pressed him for a rendezvous, he stopped returning my calls.
    I’m no stalker, but love does strange things. I didn’t want to sit in our café alone, wondering if he’d drop by, staring at a bunch of other sallow-faced intense couples. I didn’t want to feel like my ass (the gluteus maximus part) was turning to putty either. I picked another café nearer to the Conservatoire, where he did most of his work, and drank endless refills of café au lait en bol and ate just one more croissante au beurre and listened to ballet brats complain about their bony knees or flat arches, and wondered just how much butter it would take to turn my obliques into love handles. I didn’t want to forget what I was: a dancer, not just someone in love. It was every part of my life. It was me. I couldn’t live without it. But it seemed the magic was slowly leaving my body.
    I looked for him at Eddie Toussaint, but years ago they had banned him from their studios for artistic differences. Les Ballets Jazz was on a Central American tour. I finally got up the courage to inquire to the tight-lipped receptionist at the Conservatoire. She told me he dropped by sometimes, but only to use the space. She thought maybe he’d gone to New York, on invitation or on an emergency. Was it a family emergency and he couldn’t get in touch with me before he left? Did he leave a message? Had there been some miscommunication? Was he too preoccupied to even talk to me? As Rachelle said, “If you believe that, you’ll buy this watch.”
    When I asked Hugues, again, if there had been a message, he said the same thing, “Pas de message,” imitating my harsh English accent. He was as helpful as his face was angelic. I knew he knew something, but he probably figured this maudit anglais didn’t deserve a decent answer. He seemed permanently secretive. He said there was no word, not even from a friend who fed