Page 23 of Tendu: Dancing in the Castle

“Really?”

“I read this. Maybe can do for you, no?”

Resistance crumbled in the charm of his playful look. “But…” The idea contradicted my previous relationship experience. “Wouldn’t that disgust you?”

“No. Why you think this? Is like a magical power, the ability to create life. So many times we are making love these last weeks.” He splayed his hand wide over my abdomen. “If we were cavemen, already my seed would grow in you.” My eyes met his in surprise as he went on. “So: chocolate, pain killers, hot water bottle. This is to be my shopping list?”

Friday and Saturday proved too painful for any orgasmic experimentation, and rolled over into Sunday evening when I woke feeling terrible. It was the opposite of that first time I had awoken there in Aleks’s flat, the feeling of rightness now replaced by a horrible wrong. The air was thick with sweat and… what? Itchy and uncomfortable, everything felt out of place, like nothing fitted in the world.

I turned over in the bed and found Aleks, awake and grey-faced, hair damp against his skin. His forehead was hot under my hands. “You’ve got a temperature,” I noted, sitting up to inspect him, my own malady forgotten.

He sat too, repressing a groan.

“And you’re in a lot of pain.” I hesitated to touch him further, sensing aches everywhere.

“It happens.” Voice hoarse, he leant back against the headboard, and I understood he’d rather I wasn’t witnessing this. It was Will and his dyslexia in a different form, and I knew just how to be.

“See, you ballet boys are all the same,” I said in a totally unsympathetic manner that shocked him into looking at me. “So precious about yourselves. You think you’re the only ones who ever have problems or feel pain.” Considering the way he’d cared for me over the weekend, and that Will had covered my Saturday teaching, the declaration was grossly unfair, but kindness that could be interpreted as pity had no place in the situation. I knew that well. “They gave me the pill and Paracetemol to control my medical condition. But you’ve got something far superior. I’ve seen it in your medicine cabinet, and that’s what you need now, isn’t it?”

He nodded, still somewhat taken aback by my speech.

I fetched the pills and a glass of water and held out the prescribed two.

“Four,” he said.

I popped two more out of their foil, and he knocked them back.

“Do you need anything else, Aleks?”

He lay down, slowly, carefully, completely unlike his usual self. “Sleep,” he said. “You.”

The place in my chest that had hurt before squeezed as I rested my face near his and smoothed back his hair. His features relaxed once he was asleep, but his breathing was disturbingly ragged. How often did this happen? How had it been when it first began? Had it been worse than this? It must have been, to end his career like it did. The thought of all the pain he had been through dismayed me, and all it had cost him. My lovely, lovely Aleks, who was so good, so kind and so perfect. I wanted to wrap him up in love and keep him safe and well forever.

Morning arrived with a fanfare of sunshine and normal temperatures. I turned under his arm to examine his sleeping form, and was relieved to discover easy breathing and a healthy looking pallor.

Returning from the bathroom, I found him sitting up, arms hooked round his knees, sheet over his legs. He regarded me with some wariness, possibly wondering if more meanness were to be levied his way.

“You look better,” I said, sitting down and assessing the mean/nice requirement.

“Yes.” He shrugged, obviously not wanting to talk about it. “And you. You are better?”

“All cured by a magic pill.”

“This is the reason you take? You said last night, you have a condition?”

“Polycystic ovary syndrome. And you thought I was just wildly promiscuous.”

He smiled. “This, I am never think.” The happy mood evaporated. “Malphia, when this drug I am taking, it is making me… It has side effects.” There was a pause during which I worried about what other suffering he had to endure. “I won’t be able to make love to you, maybe not even tonight.”

“Silly man.” The words came out more gently than intended, and I kissed him to hide it. His mouth tasted odd, bitter from the illness or the drug.

He sighed. “You are to see all bad things of me today, angel. The medication leaves me like hangover, certain food I must eat, and also I very much want to smoke. I go outside.”

I got dressed in the bathroom, sensing his unusual need for privacy. Then, feeling the chill breeze from the balcony doors, I took a sweatshirt out to him. Sure enough, he was insufficiently dressed in vest top and trackies. Cigarette in mouth, he leant forward on the balustrade, stretching his calves.

“Sit upwind,” he suggested, indicating the chair to his right as he sat on the other.

“It’s colder today,” I observed, wrapping the jumper round his shoulders before sitting down and looking out at the city coming to life. The dome of St. Paul’s glowed with the first golden light from the sun. The lines of cars, with their red and white lights, were not so serene. They seemed an unnecessary and noisy addition to the morning. “I wonder where they all have to be at this time?”

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