Masculine in contrast

A day and a dance

When I was young and just beginning to dance I wondered. Women danced like women and men danced like themselves. I found this odd. Women’s dances begin with hips, rolling, swaying, rising. Not all women, but enough - a boy just beginning to learn could point and say “this is how women dance.” Men didn’t share movements. Do they all stomp feet or bob their heads? Is a masculine dance made of swaying torsos and waving arms?

I am not attracted to men - but I can see them through women’s eyes. Nothing I saw in them felt male - and arousing as a female. Where most women dance in a way that I find pleasant to look at as a man, men could be good dancers - but they were not uniquely male. I wanted to be male.

So I learned to dance like a man, from women.

What women did I took and twisted. Learn the feminine version of a movement and the masculine one would pop out. It was only after learning to roll my hips that it became obvious that they wanted to thrust, only after having knees bent inward that they felt masculine pointed out. Some movements translated straight to a male body. I looked for those above all else - if I found them attractive elsewhere they would probably look attractive on me.

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It was years after this that I began borrowing other things. For one, I decided to let them come to me. For another I decided to play hard to get. 

Women I found, were most attractive when they were out of reach. When I caught some small hint that I might be attractive in return, and then nothing until I had given up - only to get some small hint again. 

I decided it was a game. The great game. The game that you’ve lost if anyone knows you’re playing. Men did not play well. Blundering in time and time again. Always losing by revealing endlessly their infatuation. I would not play the man’s way - I would find a masculine twist to the feminine dance.

I would win the game.

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As I walk in the door, I run into a young woman, one of the ones I watch. There’s no real interaction. I nod, she smiles, but it’s more than we’ve ever made before. In the beginning I tried to dance with her, but she gave me nothing so I backed off - always aware of her when she’s close, I offer small gestures - if she wants to take a first movement - if she wants to come to me - then she can. I don’t know her name - in my head she’s belle/ballet - some pun between the two that makes sense in thought but not pronounced aloud.

As I step out onto the dancefloor I wonder if perhaps today she will come to me. Days repeat themselves. Each new section of any given day will echo, amplifying until a stubbed toe in the morning is ruined dinner at night. The order remains the same. To see if I will dance with her I look to the morning. I woke up with an incredible feeling. My first night in our new house, it felt like the beginning of something amazing. The first day of my life for the coming year.

From there the day was productive but not extraordinary. The ordinariness weighed down the day until a strange melancholy - having brought nothing to read on the bus - overtook it. Dance I expect to be the same. The exaltation seizes me again. The music is perfect and washes over me as my body knows just how to move. By the end it will be gone - replaced by an echo of before - but I enjoy this, now.

Bellet, comes in again and I watch her. Less ballet today, and more hips. I can’t tell if she’s aware of me. I can’t tell if she cares. I resolve to act the same. As a man I must pursue, but I need not make a fool of myself. Let her perceive my interest - we’ll do this together or not at all. 

She comes close to me as we dance. I give it back to her, making my way to where she stands, giving just as much as she’s given me. No more. I will not make a fool of myself. I will win the game.

Finally as we come near the end she looks up my direction and suddenly smiles. I smile back but by then she’s turned and can’t see. Then she walks past me, sultry - hips swaying, neck cocked, one shoulder raised. I grin - finally! That movement will finish our game. I will return it and she will dance. 

I am watching for an opportunity when she struts by again. same pose, same walk. She turns and struts a third time, walks a foot past me and pauses. The young man there circles her in his arms as they begin to slowly and sensuously dance. I turn away. Glad I am not brave - to march up to her and ask to dance. Glad I did not return a gesture not meant for me at all.

The melancholy returns. A harder echo, as I watch her, whole body beautiful against his, and his, finally masculine in contrast. It is not the melancholy of a boy who had almost lost a game. It is the melancholy of seeing something beautiful, and knowing it cannot be yours. Of seeing the world stream by, as you ride on the bus without your book, and seeing for the first time that its beauty is not for you. 

It is simply beautiful.

What I take and twist from it might also be beautiful - but never in the same way.

It’s the melancholy of wishing my woman back in my arms again. The simplicity of just being a man - finally masculine in contrast.