Free Strip by Andrew Binks

blaming everyone else? I remember once upon a time it had felt so good.
    That night we slept in Bertrand’s older brother’s big bed and he talked for another hour, face to the ceiling, eyes wide, before he fizzled. His solid body crawled across me to turn off the light. I could feel his warm red-wine breath. He knocked my alcoholic erection with that fat bulge he’d kept in his dance belt. Was this a last shot at getting me to dance with this Quebec company? He may have meant well, but my instincts told me not to touch. I’d seen him briefly with a woman at the Conservatoire, and something else said to wait, just a few more seconds, for Daniel and an answer. I so wanted to hold out for true love.
    I rolled away from him and stared into the dark and saw a kid, me, being shipped off on a bus for a bilingual exchange. It was une échange bilingue . French immersion. Two weeks with a French family and then a boy my age with us for two weeks. I went to a town, Bonneville, in rural Alberta. Big farms and warm wooden houses under a sky so big and clouds so high it could make you say your prayers even if you never went to church. I stayed with a French Canadian family who laughed together, took pride in everything—their food, their children—asked me lots of questions, worried over me, the English kid. They joked that I was one of them. Their son came into my room during the lightning and thunder after a prairie summer day to hold me and never say or think anything about it again. I remember the sheen of his hair. He came back, for his two weeks, to our empty bungalow in Strathcona. How different he must have found us. Our humourless hand folding and knuckle wringing, the television news at the dinner table, the stiff coughs and icy smiles. We caught each other’s eyes across that vast dinner table, but we were strangers.
    Fortunately my instincts were correct. In the morning the girlfriend I had seen him with, Louise, came by for coffee before class. Sex with a man had probably never crossed Bertrand’s ballet-obsessed mind. Anyway, the fantasy of it has gotten me some alone-time mileage. And Louise was built for men more than for dance. She must have made him very happy—and he, her, if she didn’t find him too much. “You stayed over? Even I don’t get that privilege. Don’t want to dishonour the brother’s bed.” She put two pain au chocolat on the table. “Eat, eat,” she said, and we all tore bits off. “He’s told you about Madame?”
    â€œMadame?”
    â€œIt’s her company. The one in Quebec.”
    â€œHe seems pretty excited about it.”
    â€œMadame is a genius,” he blurted.
    â€œWhat do you think of moving to Quebec City?”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œHe won’t shut up about you.”
    â€œBut…”
    â€œYou have potential. I mean you’re being a bit sloppy right now, but we all have our phases. You were second soloist. We saw you with the Company.”
    And I had seen her dance at the studio and, although she would never be part of a big company with a figure like hers (a woman’s, not a ten-year-old anorexic boy’s), she had a solid technique and strong natural instincts. For her to devote herself to this company in Quebec City, she must have been a believer.
    â€œWow, no one has said anything that nice since I got here. Shit, I’d be honoured.” I was intrigued by the idea of running away, but I still had to convince myself that Daniel had run absolutely cold, for peace of mind.
    After our first café , Bertrand started up again. “Our company is what dance is all about—we honour the dance—we don’t let anyt’ing pass—we are not sloppy like the Conservatoire—they don’t understand how to find the dancer within a person—we are only five—with you, we will be six—you will be dancing all the time—doing what you were meant