By this time Ulf and I had been through a lot together

By this time Ulf and I had been through a lot together. We depended on each other, but we also were on our own and liked our freedom. I’d have “adventures” with other guys, probably more than him cause I was less severe in my judgements. But Christmas came again and he arrived fresh from Sweden with his suitcase full of food and champagne for Christmas. We decide to spend a week or so in London and had a pretty good time there. London didn’t seem so great after all the other places, but maybe that was my fault for not doing the typical tourist things. We saw A Chorus Line in the West End and liked that a lot, bought each other black leather stuff, but didn't really see much point of returning. In London we found him a leather motorcycle jacket. Mine meant so much to me; I wanted him to have one too. It represented our maleness, the rebellion, the macho. But when we got back to Paris Ulf took our ‘open’ relationship just one step too far. We had gone to catch the show at the Alcazar, where one of my friends was the male lead. We got there late and had to stand to watch. There was another guy standing too, and some time later was gone. Then Ulf said he needed to piss. He was gone too long and when he came back looking a little silly, it hit me hard to realize he’d been having sex with the other guy. See, before this we might have had sex with other guys, but always when the other wasn’t around to know about it. So this seemed different and I ‘lost it’. Told him I never wanted to see him again and all that stuff. But two days later I’m leaving a note at his hotel, trying to not have it all end like that. We talked a little, but not much and he left for Stockholm. Shortly after all this mess I found out there were auditions for a show touring Japan, took the audition and got the lead. The choreographer and I hit it off, she a middle aged German woman who was responsible for the biggest tourist attraction show in Paris: The Moulin Rouge. Rehearsals were fun, there were a lot of girls but only one of them French, which was odd considering the name of our show: Bonjour Paris. Then there was Ernie, another American guy, Shawn, an Australian guy, and Roman, a sweet sixteen kid with an open smile and totally in love with costumes with feathers. He was so “fresh” and eager I sort of got infatuated with him, envisioning a lot of pleasure in his company during the three-month contract.

The week before our flight from Paris to Tokyo all the gay media was talking about a gay film showing in a cinema on Rue Lafayette called Hommes Entre Eux. I got a ticket and entered the dark theater, maybe for the film, maybe for the off-screen action. No one much was there that afternoon, so I settled in to just watch. When the credits started rolling, it was a little fawn of a guy in tights holding cards saying produced by, directed by, etc and something seemed familiar. About half way through it struck me- OHMYGOD That’s Romain!!! Maybe it started out with him in various suggestive poses holding the credit cards but it continued with him fucked by every character in the fucking movie! My eyes at first uncommonly focused then glazed as my jaw kept dropping. Here was this what I thought innocent little kid into feather boas doing stuff that would have kept me from walking AND in front of a camera! After the gang rape scene I’d been emotionally abused enough and left the theater in a daze to face the bright light of day. At the rehearsal later that same day, when he came bubbling up he sensed something had changed in my reaction to him, but we never discussed it. Maybe it was all for the best. In Tokyo I saw he was everyone’s darling as his effeminate ways immediately pegged him as gay, while no one believed I was even when I told them. Sometimes the stereotypes work in your favor. It also made it easier for me to control my professional jealousies. Romaine was placed behind me in the choreography, but the little bastard was always stealing the audience’s attention, leaping about as if in a world of his own, ignoring the choreography, adding flourishes of his own, eyes bright and shining, chin lifted high, flashing his youthful dazzling fawnlike smile. The audience, delighting in his “innocence” and probably wondering what the hell he would do next couldn’t take their eyes off him. I did what I could to keep the spotlight on me, and just had to deal with the fact he was pretty good at keeping it on himself. But he wore himself out; his heart stopped beating toward the end of the stay, and he was hospitalized awhile. I never got close to him. But there is an interesting sequel in my and Romain’s story. The first week we got back to Paris I was coming out of my favorite bakery, eating my flan and then realized the little sleek red sports car beside me was moving exactly at my slow sauntering pace. I looked around and behind the wheel was the star of Hommes Entre Eux eyeing me hard. He had no idea I mentally knew every inch of his pornstar body and from mental replays of the film knew just what he needed. The car stopped, the door opened and I got in and put my hand on his crotch. He knew a deserted building, where we both performed well our sleazy sex unfilmed fantasy. I never told him I knew who he was. He slipped me his card for another rendezvous, but I didn’t bother. My contentment was enough, plus knowing Romaine and I weren’t in moral, dance or sexual competition anymore. Seems it was just a matter of whether cameras are rolling or not, and if a big eye in the sky sees all, we stewed in the same pot.

Tokyo wasn’t at all what I expected. None of us were prepared for how hard the work was. Every day of the week, arriving at the theater early and not leaving until the town closed down, an incredibly early 11:30PM. We arrived thinking we were hot stuff. But downstairs under where we rehearsed more rehearsals were going on. I went down to check it out. A Japanese group was doing some incredible stuff- great, really great choreography and they were all so damn good. Then I found out they were not only sharing the stage with us, but the show was being advertised as “a competition between the Doriss Dancers of the Moulin Rouge and the Nitchigeki Dance Company.” It made me almost ill, the contrast between them and us. The joke was after watching the show it made you wonder how we won the war. We’d come on stage with these timeworn faded feather costumes and do a Charleston or gypsy or cancan, and get a polite applause. Then they’d enter with the most incredible new flashy costumes, do some straight-from-Broadway choreography and bring the house down. After the initial humiliation I started loving it. I danced as well as I could, but screw worrying about being outdone by my new friends. Never having identified with our group masquerading as French, I was enjoying it now as if I were on the other team. They were so incredibly sincerely nice. I’d spend all my free time with the their cast and stage crew, and was always included in the saki parties and hot baths after the show. One thing I especially liked was sitting and joking with he stage crew during breaks between shows. There were about 30 men of all ages and they would all get in this tangled up mass of bodies, laying all over each other like in some big orgy, and yet there was nothing sexual about it. They were just comfortable like that and I’d never seen anything like it anywhere else ever and envied the casual acceptance and enjoyment of human contact. In the elevators girls would rub my arms and giggle at the hair. But as luck would have it, I had sex with only one beautiful well-hung Japanese boy. He just appeared at my hotel room door one night; I let him in not understanding who he was or why he was there. He disappeared in the bathroom first and spent an entire hour splashing around like a dolphin in the tub, throwing water everywhere. I sat there dumbfounded on the bed watching the water run out under the door wondering what the fuck. But then there he was, soft and humid and hot under the cover with me. One other guy sent me flowers and fruit and started being front row and center in the audience. Then he politely requested a dinner date, asking could he draw me, and I thought sure, why not. First we went to a restaurant and over sushi he confided “On stage Mr. Tom look very young. Up close have wrinkles.” Fifty points lost. Then we go on to the hotel. No drawing pad in sight and when the room door closes he jumps all over me like a crazed animal. I immediately demand to leave and he follows me apologetically out. Back at my hotel in the taxi he hands me a gift. I wait until I’m back in my room and Ernie is there. It’s a $400 Seiko watch. I’m really annoyed but Ernie is adamant “A girl never gives back jewelry” So I kept it. Looking back I wish we had had sex. The story might have had some more laughs and who knows, maybe I would have eventually been worth a Rolex.

It’s like the night in Lebanon when I was walking to the casino and an Arab boy comes out of nowhere and starts walking with me. I was always intending this kind of meeting, but it almost never happened. Anyway, after a few simple sentences he says he would like to fuck me, but it would cost me 50 pounds, what, maybe $10? I was such an egomaniac I couldn’t get beyond the word pay. ME pay? Are you crazy! I’m the fucking star! Now of course, if I had it to do over again I would most certainly have paid. Not cause I wanted so to get fucked, but because I would have had another memory. It was a moment that could have led to an adventure, most likely a good one, cause if he had wanted to harm me he had the chance. See, now I understand his self-image or socialization made it necessary for him to get paid, but maybe he just wanted to know me sexually as much as I would have liked to have known him. But we couldn’t drop the baggage and just dance. And by the time you realize you’re carrying shit you don’t want or need, well the sun’s out and the night-magic gone.

Ulf meanwhile is wet miserable and cold in the Swedish army. But he gets himself out and takes the Trans-Siberian express across Russia to connect with Japan. And one night just after my 30th birthday he arrives in Tokyo. It’s not as idyllic as I would have wished. I was working all the time. Then he did some sightseeing trips alone that I had put off doing until his arrival, so we argued about that. Then the old argument about did he really love me came up, and this time he was really tired of hearing my whine. My hopes of staying on in Japan and us traveling together fell apart because of the work visa specifications. Meanwhile I was burning all bridges of future dance employment in Paris and Monte Carlo by striking for dancer’s rights with Doriss and the Japanese management. And so we did as best we could in a brother sort of way and headed back to Stockholm together immediately after the show closed.

We moved upstairs in the same building, built more furniture, and Ulf got a job working nights in the hospital. He’d sleep during the day and I’d swim, take dance classes, read, whatever. At night in the perpetual dusk/twilight while he was at work I’d often leather up and go out cruising. There were several parks where guys grouped up for sex with beautiful overlooking views of the city skyline. I loved climbing the rocks, following, being followed, hot meat in the cool extra-clean air, the ritual. It was a nice spring/summer. Easy times. Comfortable. Then Ulf got a job in Paris at the Casino de Paris and I flew home to North Carolina after Mom wrote and said Daddy was sick and they could use some help. It was an easy decision to return. My dance career I felt was over, partly due to age but mostly due to desire. Ulf was fine, maybe even better off without me, and I had a long-standing debt to Mom and Dad.

Still, comes Christmas and Ulf arrives, bearing gifts of porcelain and glass and with the intention of staying awhile.