Lemony Memories of Tim
I have no close up photographs of Tim: no photos from rehearsals out at PS-1 in Queens where six weeks of rehearsal space were paid for by a grant I'd won in the summer of 1985; no photos from the performances at the end of the summer in a showcase fundraiser at Riverside Church. But the video of that performance stirs up lemonade memories of him--sweet, tart, refreshing.
In the video, I can see the ease of our working relationship, as well as his uncanny ability to enhance the light, free qualities of movement I wanted with precise mid-air shaping of stretched legs, pretty feet, pointed toes. The intricate footwork proved fast enough to overtake even his significant talent and technique. Fine blond hair flying in a golden splash, his dancing gave crystalline effervescence where mine only offered milky swirls.
How intoxicated I got swerving in close to him in that big airy gymnasium, windows wide open to grab any freshness from sultry July afternoons. I used my attraction to Tim to motivate me. Holding him close, I worked out the shifting handholds and subtle weight shifts in a slow duet section, then re-imagined that section as an interwoven double duet, teaching the movement, timing, hand holds and partnering that Tim and I had figured out to Francie and Anne. As I restructured the section, all four of us took each part with a different partner. To describe what I wanted to see, I used metaphorical language like two willow branches flowing lazily in the breeze, punctuated by sculptural images, the Pieta, the three muses, doves on a wire fluttering their wings.
Where was Drew that summer? In Europe rehearsing? Who was he singing with, what and where were they performing? I don’t remember, probably because my attention was dominated by what was happening right in front of me.
With Tim in the studio every day, I began to let my guard down, perhaps worn down by the heat, more likely worn down by my raging libido. I couldn't help choreographing my romantic dreams and eventually was unsuccessful in my attempts to hide my desire to be close to him. Nearing the end of our rehearsal weeks, I asked Tim for some separate time, without the women, to work on his solo section.
When we arrived in the studio on the second to last Friday, we began lobbing teasing banter back and forth as we got undressed for rehearsal and folded our clothes in neat piles on the gymnasium's bleachers. Whatever we were joking about dropped away when he met my gaze. As a response to the question in my eyes, he lay back on the bleacher--to stretch or to invite me to stretch our boundaries, I don’t know. I held eye contact as I stepped closer and closer, as I straddled his hips, as I eased my weight down on the erection trapped in his dance belt and leaned forward to kiss him. He got nervous right about then, worried that someone might walk in on us. I reminded him that in the four previous weeks no one had ever walked in on us, and that, while we were not completely alone in the school building, we had never seen any of the other artists that were working in the various classroom spaces in other parts of the building. I kissed my way down his citrusy clean body, gathered armfuls of yielding silky softness, knelt tenderly between his legs to taste him, then draped my whole body over his and brought us both to climax.
With the erotic tension between us finally released, our dancing together became even smoother. When the women arrived a couple hours later and we showed them the last bits of new material we had developed, I found it easier to speak without blushing about the sensual and romantic undertones I was looking for from all four of us in our interchangeable pairings.
The beautiful publicity shots of that dance, eventually titled "Sketches for a Summer Afternoon", don't include Tim. They feature other men in the roles Tim and I created, other young dancers who I found to fill in when he surprised us all by announcing he was abandoning his dance career completely to take a well paying job in finance. But the dance became a staple in the repertory and always retains the bright summery flavor of Tim.
