Give Me Your Answer True

by Suanne Laqueur

  “Ugh, the report of traumatized pussy in my bed, just what I want.”

  “It’s the best kind,” she cried, throwing her arms around him.

  He laughed against her head, one hand sliding down her back. “You have a nice ass,” he said, giving it a caress and a squeeze. “I’ll give you that much.”

  APRIL 26, 1997

  Dear Lucky,

  Hello darling girl. We gypsies are hitting the road again. I’m writing this in the airport, on the way to Washington D.C. for the next leg. Sending you a clip from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Lacrimosa was well-received and the Arts critic, as you can see, did a bit of homework. In fact I think she did more homework than me. I swear I never consciously set out to choreograph Lacrimosa as my “I am a survivor” piece. I just loved the music and it made me see movement and steps and patterns. And Gabriel of course helped make it come to life.

  But maybe all along…

  I’m now listening to the other sections of the Requiem thinking I have more to say. Or rather, I’m thinking the structure of the piece is telling a story. Perhaps my story. All of which has me dancing around the hotel room at odd hours and scribbling like mad in notebooks. We shall see what comes to pass.

  By the way, funny story, one of the dancers got all flustered and embarrassed when she read the review. “The piece is called Requiem?” she said. “I thought it was Rakewind.”

  Of course, the official name of the ballet is now Rakewind.

  Anyway, let me tell you about one C. Harland Kent III. You have to say his name with your teeth clenched and your jaw thrust out. (You just did it, didn’t you?) He’s a production assistant at the Cleveland Art Museum. He chatted Gabe up at the reception after the performance (I was back at the hotel icing my ankle. It’s been acting up). And he passed along his business card to give to me. A conquest, ladies and gentlemen.

  Gabe gave me a “not cute, but a great personality” description. But my inner geek was interested in knowing someone who works at an art museum, so I called him and suggested meeting for coffee and corn flakes after the show.

  (No, this does not end well.)

  C. Harland Kent is instantly-cream-yourself gorgeous. Like if Will and Erik had a love child. Dark hair, beautiful eyes, killer smile, insane body. Check, check and check. And I show up at the coffee shop in post-performance loungewear with my wig-crushed hair and eyelashes still greasy with baby oil. I thought I would KILL Gabriel. Looking like shit, I had to rely solely on my witty, sparkling conversation.

  For the record, the C is for Christopher. And his friends call him Trey. Because his grandfather is Ace and his father is Deuce. Get it?

  (You’re not amused. Hold on, it gets worse.)

  Also for the record, in the presence of impossibly handsome men called Trey, I have no witty, sparkling conversation. So I talked about Erik.

  (Let me lie down so you can stomp me to a pulp.)

  In my defense, let me say that while the conversation wasn’t sparkling, it wasn’t superficial either. He’s a superb listener. And my God, these amazing chocolate-brown eyes and… What was I saying? Oh yeah, he kept me talking about myself. And I wasn’t bawling all over the table about Erik, I was just telling my story. And for the first time I felt like I was telling a cohesive, coherent story. Not all over the place and going off on ridiculous tangents. I finally put it all together with things I’ve learned in therapy and…

  I can see you’re getting bored. No, I did not sleep with him. Feel free to stop reading, I’ll just keep babbling.

  He did end up giving me a killer private tour of the museum on my day off, and bought me lunch. He’s twenty-seven. Went to John Carroll University. Art History major with a minor in (don’t kill me) technical theater arts (it’s my type, what do you want from me?) He’s getting his master’s from Case Western Reserve and… You’re bored again. I didn’t sleep with him. God, he was hot though, fucking hurt to look at him.

  I need to get laid, don’t I?

  We’re getting ready to board. I’ll post this when we reach D.C. Miss you, darling girl.

  Love, love, love,

  Dais

  P.S. You’re disgusted with me, aren’t you?

  THE BETHESDA Review

  July 19, 1997

  CityDance Conservatory welcomes guest artists Marguerite Bianco and Gabriel Ostin who are currently touring with the national production of Phantom of the Opera (at the Kennedy Center through October). Bianco and Ostin will teach ballet and contemporary classes during their residency. Bianco will also stage her work-in-progress Rakewind, set to Mozart’s requiem mass, for the Professional Artist Series at the Strathmore Music Center at the end of August.

  AS A PEN-PAL, Trey made no demands save one: he insisted Daisy join the twentieth century and get an email address.

  I know how much you love your quaint letters, he wrote. But I have atrocious handwriting. And no patience.

  He called her nearly every Monday, her day off. Either in the morning to hear what she had planned or in the late evening to hear what she had done. Their conversations—written or spoken—were long and interesting but never flirtatious. Trey was open about his social life, but didn’t mention a girlfriend.

  “Or a boyfriend, for that matter,” Daisy said to Gabriel one night.

  “For fuck’s sake, he lives in Ohio,” Gabriel said drowsily. “You couldn’t be much more than a long-distance booty call. Too expensive. Take the friendship.”

  “You’re right. He’s good company.”

  “Bet he wouldn’t scratch your back the way I do.”

  “Who could? My feet are cold. Can I put them on you?”

  “Shit, no. Get those frigid, prehistoric claws away from me.”

  “We bicker like an old married couple. Isn’t it adorable?”

  “Woman, you put those feet near me and I will shiv you.”

  Daisy finished the section of Rakewind set to the Confutatis Maledictis. She wondered if anyone would guess it was her interpretation of a pot-and-ecstasy high roll. First the violins boiled in vigorous ostinattos under the male vocal, then melted into fluid, lilting arpeggios under the female voices. Chaos melting into a murmur. Her dancers clustered center stage, shifting and morphing in sculptural lifts and lyrical falls to the floor. Slow-motion embraces on the middle plane. Constantly evolving shapes, bodies passed hand to hand, giving and receiving weight. The combined chorus built up like clouds which then rolled over, yawning. The strings seemed to drop away, as if the stage were falling asleep. Perfect silence. Out of which would arise the Lacrimosa.

  Now she was faced with the Rex Tremendae Majistatis, which had to come first. And she was stuck. So she called Trey to procrastinate.

  He sounded tired, but jubilant. “Did I tell you I applied for an internship at the British Museum?”

  “You did not,” she said. “What kind of internship?”

  “Curatorial support and assisting with cataloging and care of drawings and watercolors. Seventeenth to nineteenth century, in case it interests you.”

  “I’m more a sixteenth century kind of girl.”

  “Dammit.”

  “Anyway, did you get it?”

  “I got it. I’m in.”

  “Trey,” she cried. “You’re in.”

  “This is me. In.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you, thank you. I’d like to say it was a team effort but it wasn’t.”

  “When does it start?”

  “Second week of September.”

  “Exciting.”

  “What’s going on with you? How’s construction?” Trey asked.

  “Awful.”

  “Still? Don’t worry, you’ll think of something.”

  “I got five weeks left, I better.”

  “Do you have to do the Rex, are you committed to it? Could you stick to the Confutatis?”

  “I could, I guess,” she said. “But I think, musically speaking, it would sound weird. The Confutatis is definitel
y the middle of a thought, not the start of one.”

  “Good point.”

  She tapped her pencil on her notes, frowning at the Latin text she’d copied from a book at the library.

  “Confutatis maledictis,” she said. “What does that even mean?”

  “When the confounded are accused.”

  She sat up. “You know Latin?”

  “Twelve years of parochial school and a Jesuit college degree, ding-dong. Of course I know Latin.”

  “Oh my God. Help me.”

  “I’ll try.” He let out a groan, with accompanying noises that sounded like a body collapsing. “God, I’m tired,” he said, yawning. “I’ve been riding this crest of anticipation for so long. I read the acceptance letter and the bottom fell out.”

  “We don’t have to do this now.”

  “No, I want to help you. C’mon. Speak Latin to me.”

  “Rex tremendae majestatis,” she said. “I know Rex is king. Tremendous majestical king?”

  His soft laugh curled into her ear. “King of tremendous majesty.”

  “I was close.”

  “I think I’ll have it put on my business card.”

  “You should,” she said, smiling. “How about quantus tremor est futurus.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t kiss you when I had the chance.”

  She looked up as if he were in the room. “Is that the literal translation?”

  “Loose.”

  Her fingers wrapped tight around the pencil and a smug triumph coiled up in her chest. “I didn’t know you wanted to.”

  “Oh, I wanted. Bad.” His voice was pitched low, husky with an indolent fatigue. It seemed to caress her. Or want to be caressed.

  “You wanted to kiss me bad?” she said. “Or you wanted to kiss me well, you just wanted it badly?”

  “Bad,” he said. “Cro-Magnon bad. Me you kiss. Ungh.”

  She laughed. “Why didn’t you?”

  “I thought about it when I was giving you that tour at the museum,” he said. “But every time it seemed the time… I don’t know, I guess I was feeling shy. Which is the nice way of saying I chickened out.”

  She curled into his words. “No, you were shy.”

  “If I ever see you again, I’m kissing you immediately.”

  “I hope you’ll say hello first.”

  “Hello. Can I kiss you? Me you kiss? Ungh.”

  “You don’t have to ask,” she said, smiling. “Just the hello.”

  “Got it. More Latin, please.”

  “Quantus tremor est futurus.”

  “Est,” he said. “I know the French part of you wants to drop the T. Latin isn’t devious that way. Just say it the way you see it.”

  She repeated the phrase, pronouncing all the letters.

  “Great trembling will come,” he said.

  “Doesn’t coming always involve trembling?”

  “Always with me. You?”

  “Sometimes my teeth chatter.”

  “Thanks for the visual…”

  “Ad te omnis care veniet,” she said, and then closed her eyes.

  “To you all flesh shall come.”

  “I wish.” She opened her eyes. “Quaerens me, sedisti lassus.”

  “Faint and weary you have sought me.”

  “Are you weary?” She imagined his profile in sleep, head nestled against her. His hair falling through her fingers.

  “No.”

  The single syllable was both confident and vulnerable. In her daydream his head lifted. He was awake. Eyes filled with lust. Her mouth was dry. Then all at once, it was wet. Then everything was wet. She pressed her thighs together.

  “Ingemisco, tamquam reus.”

  “I moan as one who is guilty.”

  “I kind of want you,” she whispered, nearly soundless.

  A swallowed pause. “I kind of want you too,” he said. “Bad.”

  The pencil rolled out of her fingers. She slid to lie down as her heart sat up, beating slow and deep, squinting at the unfolding scene with keen, interested eyes.

  “Statuens in parte dextra.”

  “Guiding me to your right hand.”

  Her breath thick and hot in her chest as she pretended him taking her hand, guiding it to the fly of his jeans.

  “Don’t stop,” he said.

  Her mind pulled an imaginary zipper. “Oro supplex et acclinis…”

  “I kneel with submissive heart… God, I want to taste you.”

  Her reply stumbled, words piling up in her throat. She heard him inhale and exhale. His sigh stroked a single, deliberate finger down her stomach.

  “I want that, too,” she said. “Bad.” She drew her forearm over her face, blocking out the light, blocking out everything but his voice. She was flayed open, exposed to the tight, trembling core of frustrated vulnerability. Her body was clutching at his voice. Clutching at the want.

  I want him.

  “This is crazy,” Trey said softly.

  “I’ve never done anything like this,” she said. “Have you?”

  “Couple times. But I felt like an idiot.”

  “How do you feel now?”

  “Like I want to eat your voice. Like I want to tear the phone apart to get to you.”

  She pushed her papers off the bed, turned off the lamp and lay down, curled into the dark and rolled into him. “Trey…”

  “I’m so fucking hard for you.”

  “Ungh,” she said.

  SEPTEMBER 7, 1997

  Dear Luck,

  So… Jesus, I’m blushing before I even start. So Trey came down to D.C. for the performance last weekend. Oh wait, let me get the performance out of the way. It went great. Review clipping enclosed. Skim it politely. Done? Good, back to the matter at hand. Curtain came down and I took Trey back to the hotel room and had my way with him all night long.

  Oh my fucking god. Or rather, oh god my fucking.

  It was fantastic. The whole business was so frank and unabashed and unapologetic. After a month of intense phone sex, describing in no uncertain terms what we wanted to do with each other, when we finally met up after the show… It was like a five-second decision. If that. You want to get coffee or go back to the r— We’re going back to the room, right, who are we kidding?

  I loved it. It felt so fucking good to WANT. I haven’t had that pure streak of sexual itch in such a long time. And I was really scared I would never feel it again. Seriously, like Erik ruined me for anyone else. He not only pulled the plug on our relationship but yanked out a few circuits in my libido switchboard for good measure.

  The switchboard, darling girl, is alive and well. It was beyond hot. And it could’ve been a total bust, right? Big buildup and then crash and burn and disappointment. Nope. Nuh-uh. Came my brains out. Housekeeping pretty much scraped us off the ceiling the next morning. We made a spectacular Walk of Shame to a diner and had one of those warrior’s breakfasts. Grinning like morons.

  We did get a little sappy saying goodbye. Breaks all the rules of a one-night stand but it’s not like he was a total stranger. Sniff. If only we had just one more night. Clutch. Kiss. I’ll miss you. Sigh. Sniff.

  Bittersweet, was the word.

  Yeah.

  (Pause…stare into space)

  Anyway, he’s safely arrived in London and in a few weeks I’ll be heading out to Los Angeles. I’m excited to see the West Coast. We’re supposed to get a half-dozen new cast members. Thank God because the company is getting on each other’s nerves. We’re all bickering like siblings. We need some fresh air and some fresh meat.

  (Pause…stare into space…)

  Got a letter from John, he’s doing really well in Boston. Got some outstanding reviews when he played Mercutio in their staging of Romeo and Juliet. He has a new girlfriend, Paola.

  Will called me last week. He’s also doing great things in Frankfurt. He asked how you were and said to say hi to you. No really, he did. So this is me, as Will, saying hi to you.

  Hi. Please take your
clothes off.

  Come on, you laughed. I know you did.

  Anyway, I gotta go now. I love and miss you.

  Put your damn clothes on.

  Dais

  OCTOBER 10, 1997

  Dear Rita,

  Have you read The Golden Compass? I met this guy, Trey, and he said a lot of my story reminded me of the book. He gave me a copy to read on the flight to L.A. I’d never heard of it. Now I can’t un-hear it. I devoured it on the plane, cover-to-cover without stopping. It’s possibly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever read. I want a daemon. I love the idea of having your soul manifest itself as a live animal companion you can hold and hug and talk to. A constant counselor and helpmate. I find it somewhat offensive this does not exist. Why isn’t this real?

  I wonder what my daemon would be.

  Anyway, I’m not sure you know the plot, but briefly: it involves a sinister plan to separate children from their daemons because doing so releases a great deal of energy. The child usually dies as a result, or else wanders as a soulless outcast because not having a daemon is horrifying—equivalent to someone not having a face.

  Trey wrote me a note inside the book’s cover, “When you read about daemons, I think you will find the word you’ve been looking for to describe Erik leaving you.”

  He was right. The word is sever.

  A child without a daemon is called a severed child.

  When I read that, I actually put the book down in my lap and stared out the window a good twenty minutes. Repeating ‘severed’ over and over in my head. This notion of severing, disconnecting two soul mates, releasing an immeasurable amount of energy, enough to rip a hole in the sky. My head was whirling. It all seemed to make sense. When Erik severed himself from me, all the released energy had to go somewhere.

  It went back into me.

  A bullet severed my artery. Its energy caused compartment syndrome and they had to cut to release it.

  My lover severed his heart from mine. My entire body developed compartment syndrome and I had to cut to release it.

  This is quite a thing to realize at 33,000 feet.

  So here I am in La-La Land, playing the Pantages Theater until April. It’s the longest leg so far. We’ll be here six months. But I cannot complain because the weather, in a word, is spectacular. After the cold winters in the Great Lakes and the disgusting summer in Foggy Bottom, I cannot get enough of perfect 72-degree day after perfect 72-degree day. And so much to do.