Strip. Andrew Binks

across the stage, intimidated the soloists and principals. I couldn’t get enough of dance, or love. Did Daniel feel the same? I was too busy with all this to have any idea.

      At the height of it, I gave my notice and final bow to the Company’s repertoire. As Daniel said, “Why do they call it repertoire? It’s been done, over and over and over: Tybalt, Romeo, The Nutcracker prince, any prince, anything dusted off and redone, from Ashton to Balanchine.” So I stepped out of the royal storybook, to become a finer dancer. I traded that rush of a curtain call—opening my arms wide enough to embrace three or four thousand people, and then seeing, when the house lights went up, the faces whose collective breath I’d sensed throughout the performance, all of them cheering, as they stood in one motion—for a promise of even greater praise. Someday they would clap for me alone as I stepped forward out of the line. It was time to remind myself of that dream once again. So many times since then, I have forgotten the dream.

      I vowed to excel and pay attention to my technique, establish a strong foundation and secure a long career, with Daniel’s help, not to mention his international connections. This was so much more than the limited choice I had become so used to. I had come so close to being satisfied as a big swan in a small lake.

      I met Kharkov in a makeshift office in Place des Arts, after company class, while I was still soaked and high from whatever it was that was forcing me to go beyond my limits. Kharkov was wearing a tailored Italian suit that he’d obviously picked up in Montreal. Everyone had been shopping their heads off before going back to Canada’s breadbasket. “It’s time to move on,” I said.

      Kharkov sat still, put his hand to his mouth. I could see the wheels turning. Finally he spoke. He told me I wasn’t serious. He threatened that if I paused now, all the young dancers nipping at my ankles would finally overtake me. (You don’t cross Kharkov, was a Company mantra.) “You aren’t dancing well, you know. But I liked you. I think you know that.” As with all the dancers, I hated his grip on us. In a flash he could praise you or put you down, leave you a crumpled heap of fucked-up-ness if you cared—the humiliation and manipulation, his temper, his mood swings. Ballerinas would be in tears one moment and hugging him the next. “Promise me you won’t come back. I’ve seen so many dancers go after something, fail, wind up so far away from where they first started, I’ll never understand—bank tellers, bored mothers, strippers even. And they somehow think I will take them back. This is final—enough of your stubbornness—the Company does not take lightly to this kind of thing. You are too young, too insignificant. Are you absolutely sure?” He needed to know. It always looked so much worse for Kharkov when he lost a dancer he hadn’t fired or whose dismissal hadn’t been discussed with the board. In fact he’d been known to strike deals of irreconcilable differences, so both could save face. “You have always lacked soul. There is nothing to see when I look in your eyes. I see nothing.”

      “Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”

      “Perhaps Monsieur Tremaine can teach you something.” He knew. “Now get out of here before I do something both of us will regret.”

      I will never know what that something might have been. Would he have kissed me like he kissed Peter? I doubt it. Maybe he wanted to strangle me. That, we both would have regretted.

      But I was full of the good dancing I was doing. I looked down at my thighs, my crotch, my feet, my hands hanging at my side, parts of me I only normally saw in a mirror. I was an asset—why wasn’t he begging me to stay? I hated myself for having a brief moment of self-doubt. Although I wanted to leave with as little fanfare as possible, it would have been nice to have him regret losing me.

      It was time to dance and love as others had done. I needed to keep following my heart. It was there, tucked inside Daniel’s sternum. That’s where I saw my future. I saw with conviction the rejigging of my technique, establishing myself in the East, and most of all, endless love.

      I met Rachelle at Dunn’s for one last cigarette and coffee. There, surrounded by busy waiters, customers lined up at the door and glass cases of cheesecakes, we tried our best not to get too sentimental. “I’ll write to you about it.”

      “Just phone. How was Kharkov?”

      “He squirmed. You know Kharkov.”

      Rachelle mmmm’d like she didn’t believe a word. “Don’t take any shit. The dance world doesn’t like outsiders.”

      “The dance world is outsiders.”

      “Not to sound negative, but I hope your prince is all he’s made out to be. You deserve it.”

      She had her prince, and I wanted mine. “Take care of Peter.”

      “You’re leaving a trail of broken hearts.”

      “Peter? I think we sorted that out long ago.”

      “He’s a sensitive boy.”

      “Kharkov likes sensitive.”

      “Sounds like he’s up next for soloist.” Rachelle was a perceptive girl.

      “Did he tell you?”

      “I heard you guys. I know all, see all. I am a woman, for God’s sakes. I just… I just don’t believe it.”

      “Me neither.”

      “No. Honestly. This isn’t you. It’s like you’ve been brainwashed. Yes, you’re dancing better because of all the endorphins in your systems, but it’s making you crazy.”

      “Cake?”

      “Oh God please no. My thighs are starting to squeak; I’ll have to start greasing them.”

      When we were paying, I bought a whole cheesecake for later with Daniel. “It must be love.” Rachelle jabbed me in the ribs, her momentary seal of approval.

      After the show that night, I packed my things and Peter, Rachelle and I opened a much-needed bottle of champagne.

      “Altogether now, you know it by heart: Give me Veuve or give me death.”

      “God, how many of my paycheques have gone up in bubbles since you two moved in?”

      We drank it in a kind of noisy silence: Hotels doors banged, someone knocked on our door and an elevator bell kept dinging as if to mark the very last moments we would have together. But we sat, with our backs to it, in our own silence. “I can’t talk or I’ll cry,” Rachelle said, breaking the silence.

      “You’ll probably get Tybalt,” I said to Peter.

      “No. Too good-looking,” said Rachelle. “He’ll get Paris and a really good role in something new.”

      “Something new?”

      “Mark my words.”

      Soon my thoughts shifted to the future, my future. All I could think about was getting to Daniel, and sharing another celebratory bottle with him. I didn’t want to drag this out any longer. Rachelle would get weepy if she had any more to drink—there was still a stocked mini-bar after all—and Peter was probably just thinking about his next role. I’m sure I’d already departed as far as they were concerned. We kissed, hugged, I took my bags and my cheesecake and tried not to run into anyone else, as I ran to him.

      When I got to Daniel’s, we celebrated the Company’s departure and my new life. In the moonlight on the bed, after Daniel separated the seeds from the stems, we smoked and then we stuffed ourselves on cake and each other. We lay on our backs looking out into the treetops and he told me about an abusive father and a doting mother as he traced his fingers through the shadows above our heads. I told him about the big empty house in Edmonton and the anticipation of siblings who never arrived—how my father’s family humiliated my mother until it was revealed it was father who was reproductively challenged. (Was I a one-shot deal? If not, who was my real father?) Father appeased his guilt, starting with her first mink coat and continuing with her very own convertible—that woman drove a shrewd bargain. As a result, my mother referred to me as her “perfect boy.” The term was loaded with, “Since I can only have one,