Nude Men Read online

  “Oh, you hurt yourself,” she says. “It’s my fault. I made you nervous, and now you’re bleeding. Do you forgive me?”

  I nod my head and feel a drop dribbling out of the corner of my mouth.

  She kisses me. She unbuttons my pants, unzips them. She gets up and lowers my trousers and underwear as far as she can. I am erect.

  “Oh, so that’s what a thingy looks like,” she says.

  I wish I could give her a look of disapproval, but since my eyes are covered I need to do all the expressing with my mouth, so I sort of scrunch up my lips in reproach.

  “I’m only kidding,” she says, “Remember, I live with nude men. I know what these things look like.”

  She tries to pull my pants from under me with all her strength, but doesn’t succeed.

  “Do you think you could bounce a bit?” she asks.

  I stay paralyzed. I do not allow myself to “bounce,” even though I would like to. She tugs one side of my trousers, then the other. I know that she’s not making any progress, because I can feel my pants bunched under me, blocked by the weight of my bottom. But I do not help her. It would be a crime; I would be participating.

  She suddenly stops pulling and laughs. “You look so funny.”

  I can imagine that I do look funny. For a second, I experience a surge of inward laughter. I expect it to seep out, at least in an irrepressible smile, but a mixture of panic and desire quenches the smile before it is born, like a stifled sneeze. Not the slightest muscle or wrinkle twitches on my face. I have never been as sexually excited in my entire, goddamned life. I am taking this whole thing much more seriously than she is.

  I hear paper tearing. It sounds like a candy wrapper. I feel her hands. She is putting a condom on me. That I did not expect. Under my sock, my eyes are open wide with surprise.

  “You’ve done this before?” I ask.

  “No,” she says, her voice filled with pride. Pride at her skill, not pride at never having done this before. I explain this because I know it with absolute certainty, and it might be misunderstood.

  Yes you have, you lying piglet: This is a delirious thought on my part, with no foundation whatsoever and no thought behind it.

  “I don’t want to catch an incurable disease from you,” she explains. “Or an incurably fatal disease, or a fatally incurable one.”

  How romantic.

  “I thought of all the combinations,” she says.

  Yes, I see.

  “For that matter,” she continues, “I wouldn’t like to catch a baby from you either, because then I’d have to go on one of those TV shows with many other girls who have small numbers and who caught babies. I’m going to take your blindfold off now.”

  “No!” I cry. “I would rather not see your face.”

  “But I want you to see us.”

  “No, because I must not see your face.”

  “You’re so difficult, you spoiled little chicken,” she says, annoyed.

  She gets up. I hear her walking around the room, rummaging through things. She comes back to me, straddles me, and takes off my blindfold. I scream. Mickey Mouse is sitting on me. No, it’s just a mask. Sara is so ingenious. Now I don’t have to stare at her face, I can stare at Mickey Mouse. She puts me into herself. The mouse is grinning at me obscenely; he looks as if he’s having fun, but I imagine that under the mask, Sara must be squinting with pain, clenching her teeth. I do not take my eyes off the glimmering black eyes inside the mouse’s eyes, and they are fixed on me as well. I wish I could see her expression, to know if she truly is grimacing, as I imagine, or if it’s different. I can tell nothing. The mouse keeps smiling, and the music keeps playing, and she even knows that you’re supposed to move. I don’t move. I feel selfish not to, but it’s against my principles.

  She slaps my arm. “Move! I know you want to.”

  If she’s going to start beating me, I will not stupidly stick to my principles. That would be too much. So I move.

  Afterward I accompany her to her room, and I ask, “Did it hurt?”

  “Yes,” she says.

  I leave her and go out of the hotel. I walk in the night and I cry. I’m a pervert. Would a normal man have been able to get excited by an eleven-year-old girl, even if she threw herself at him? Probably not. I think about what will happen now. The little girl will tell her mother, the mother will tell the police, and the police will come and get me and put me in jail for the rest of my life, and I won’t fight them because what I did was horrible. It’s not as though I didn’t know it was horrible. Society pounds it into your head from your earliest days. I knew very well that it was a horror for little girls or little boys to have sexual intercourse with an adult, or with anyone. A horror. It’s called child molestation, even rape, when they’re that age and you’re that age. Because children do not come on to adults, they simply don’t, it’s a fact that everyone knows, unless it’s in total childish innocence that they come, to get the affection of a father or mother. But they do not think about sex at all, they do not have any sexual urges, they just have curiosity. I knew all this, but I chose to ignore it. I will not resist the police. I will simply wait for them to come and get me. Or maybe I should just kill myself now.

  chapter seven

  The next day we return to New York. No one says anything unusual, and my mother suspects nothing. Sara goes home, my mother goes back to her house in the country, and I go to my apartment. Charlotte greets me when I arrive. I had forgotten that she had moved into my apartment. I expected to be alone. She asks me how the trip went. “Good,” I say, and answer her questions absentmindedly.

  Minou is in the middle of her second heat. She peed on my kitchen counter. Thick, concentrated pee, in small puddles. I am much too preoccupied by the previous night to ask Charlotte why she allowed the pee to dry without cleaning it.

  I clean the counter and wait. It’s five o’clock, and I know that Lady Henrietta may call me at any moment, as soon as Sara finishes telling her what I did. Or maybe Henrietta won’t even bother to call. Maybe she’ll just send the police. I am a pervert, and I am waiting with relief for the police to come get me.

  You might think that this is a perfect opportunity for me to make a wish on my little white elephant. I could wish that Sara never tells Henrietta what happened. But I don’t. It does not really occur to me to make a wish regarding this problem. When one is hopeful that a certain bad thing will not occur, one does not use one’s white elephant, because to do so would seem too trivial, too pointless, childish, hopeless, which should demonstrate to you that I am not as empty-headed as I may seem, my head is not so very much in the clouds. I am a down-to-earth person when life gets serious.

  Henrietta doesn’t call that evening, and the police don’t come. The next day I wait. Sara must have hesitated before telling her mother. But she’s going to tell her very soon, I’m sure.

  The phone doesn’t ring that day.

  The next day I wait, and the phone rings. I answer. It’s Lady Henrietta. I am barely breathing, my eyes are closed, I feel that the end of my life has come.

  “Hi,” she says, cheerfully.

  Her tone surprises me. “Hi,” I answer.

  “How are you?” she asks.

  “Okay.”

  “I wanted to thank you for what you did.”

  “Oh.”

  “I know you really didn’t want to go to Disney World, and it must have been such a bore for you, but now things are going great between Damon and me. We’re quite involved. We had the most romantic weekend in the world. I owe you for life.”

  “That’s okay.”

  She talks a bit more. I’m not really listening. We hang up.

  Sara didn’t tell her mother. What is she waiting for? This is a new development I must deal with. But it makes sense. Children who have been sexually abused very rarely tell anyone. They are too ashamed; they think it’s their fault. Or maybe Sara simply didn’t feel like telling her mother because she thought she would get in trouble.


  I sit on my couch all evening, staring blankly in front of me. It gets dark outside. I don’t turn on the light. Sara could tell her mother any minute, any day, any week, any month, any year. The police could come and get me anytime between now and ten years from now, or even when I’m eighty, they could come. I don’t know what to do.

  I live, that’s what I do: meaning, I brush my teeth, I go to sleep, I wake up in the morning, I eat, I go to work, I file, I live. Charlotte notices that there’s something wrong with me. She makes a comment, and I make a comment, and we drop it.

  I live for three days. Then I live for a fourth day. Then I hesitate a little, and I make it to the fifth day. I then sit on my couch and live through a sixth day. And then I sit on my couch again, and I stop living. I cannot brush my teeth or go to bed anymore. I cannot go to work and file. On the seventh day, my buzzer rings. It must be the police.

  “Who is it?” I ask in the intercom.

  “It’s Sara.”

  I let her up. When I open my door, Mickey Mouse is standing there in front of me. It’s a nightmare, a punishment. Sara walks in and says, “Why haven’t you called me? I thought you would call me. I’ve been waiting for your call.”

  “What do you want?” I ask her.

  “The usual.”

  “What is the usual?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? Isn’t it written all over my face?”

  I stare at her mask and say, “No, that is not the usual.”

  “Well, it should be. It will be. And it is in my mind. Your girlfriend isn’t home?”

  “No.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Having dinner with friends.”

  “When will she be back?”

  “In a few hours.”

  “Can I have something to drink?”

  “What do you want?”

  “You choose. Surprise me.”

  I go to the kitchen and try to think of the most unsexual drink I know. Coffee? No, it excites one. Tea? No, that has caffeine too. Herb tea? Yes, that’s good. Mint? No, that’s also a stimulant. Sleepy-Time? Yes, it’ll make her drowsy. But on second thought, no, because “Sleepy” is too much like “Let’s sleep together.” Chamomile? Yes! There is nothing more unsexual than a digestive aid.

  When I come back out with the tea, Sara is not naked. Good. What a relief.- We’re off to a fine start. My spirits rise slightly.

  Sara is petting Minou, who’s rolling around on her back. “Why is your cat acting so strange?” she asks.

  I certainly don’t want to tell her that Minou is in heat, or it might inspire her. I could tell her Minou is distressed because my mother saw her fur balls on the floor. Or I could tell her she’s rolling around with happiness because she’s getting along splendidly with my girlfriend, who just moved in.

  Finally, I answer, “She’s just hot, that’s all.”

  “But why does she want so badly to be petted? She’s completely

  frantic.”

  I reply the first thing that pops into my mind: “She likes to be petted when she’s hot, because it aerates her fur.”

  “What do you mean, ‘aerates’?”

  “You know, it ventilates it.”

  “I wouldn’t mind getting my fur aerated,” mutters Sara.

  I pretend I didn’t hear, and we leave it at that. We drink the tea and talk about the weather. She’s the one who brings up the weather, and I’m glad; I could not have thought of a more wonderful subject to discuss with her. Deliciously impersonal. Perhaps if we get sufficiently into it, we can talk about the weather until Charlotte gets back in a few hours, and I will have survived this visit. After a while, though, the conversation is becoming one-sided. I’m the one talking about clouds, various clouds, and how I wish I knew the names of all the different types of clouds. And I tell her about rain, and the fact that one should not drink rain, because even though one might think that it’s the purest water in the world, actually it’s not, especially in the cities, because it picks up the pollution from the air as it falls from the clouds. And I tell her about snow, that I used to eat snow, and that one should probably not eat snow either, especially in the cities, for the same reason that one should not drink rain. And I tell her, “Could you please pour me a tall glass of warm summer rain.” And I laugh. Sara is starting to look at me strangely. I don’t know how I know this, since she is wearing the mask, but I do know it. Perhaps through the particular quality of her silence. A silence with her breath restrained, her breath just hanging there in the middle of her lungs, not going out very much and not going in very much.

  I don’t dare ask her why she’s wearing that mask. If I’m lucky maybe she’ll forget she’s wearing it. Or at least, maybe she’ll forget why she’s wearing it, which is what matters.

  Finally, she says, “Did you have a good week?”

  “Yes. Yes, I did,” I lie, and nod. “And you?” I see the danger of that question as soon as I have uttered it, and I wish I had kept my mouth shut, because she either did or did not have a good week, both of which possibilities are probably my fault for reasons I don’t want to hear or know.

  “I had an interesting week,” she says, “other than waiting nervously for your phone call. I had to write a story for school. The teacher gave me an A-plus on it, but then she called in my mother for a private conference because she thought the story showed that I might have problems at home. She’s a stupid teacher.”

  I suddenly get very scared and wonder if her story is about a little girl who goes to Disney World and has an affair with a grown man.

  “What was in your story that made your teacher think you might have problems at home?” I ask.

  “Beats me.”

  “Who beats you?”

  “No. Beats me, as in: I have no clue.”

  “Oh. Well, what was your story about?”

  “Thank you for asking. The title was, quote: The Unauthorized Biography of the Late Humpty Dumpty. The True Story Behind His Great Fall. His Secret Addiction, His Hidden Obsession, His Torturous Temptation, His Dilemma: To Hatch or Not to Hatch? That is the Question. End of quote. Do you like the title?”

  “Yes, but why did your teacher think you had problems at home? What was your story about?”

  “Thank you for asking again. Once upon a time Humpty Dumpty had a temptation, a great desire. He wanted to be sat on by a hen. After all, it was normal, for he was an egg, and being sat on by a downy bird butt is an egg’s natural destiny and desire. There was a big beautiful hen near where he lived. She was always sitting, and never on any eggs, and therefore she had plenty of vacant space under her for him. Humpty wanted ever so badly to go slide himself under her soft sitting bird butt, but he knew it was dangerous, it was a risk, for if he indulged in the pleasure of being sat on, he would soon hatch and would no longer be an egg, and he liked being an egg, and he wasn’t sure he’d like being a chick. Do you like it so far?”

  “Yes; go on,” I tell her.

  “Okay.” Sara puts down her tea, walks over to me, takes my teacup from my hands, puts it on the table, and sits on my lap.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Telling you the rest of my story. So Humpty went to ask the advice of his brother, Lumpy Dumpty, who told him to have willpower, to resist the temptation of getting sat on, or he would hatch. ‘To hatch,’ said his brother, Lumpy, ‘is undesirable. It’s the unknown, it’s probably immoral, and it’s tremendously harmful psychologically and physically, if not downright fatal. It breaks you, it scars you for life, and that’s if you’re lucky enough to get glued back together again by the king’s horses and men, but if you’re not, then just forget it; you’re in pieces. Getting sat on is sinful. Above all it’s indecent. It shows the lack of any basic eggly decency.’ Do you like it so far?”

  “Yes,” I reply, though I’m wondering if she’s not indirectly trying to insult me through her story, since I am now being sat on by her.

  “Humpty Dumpty knew that his brother Lum
py was probably right. However, one day he circled the hen many times, trying to imagine her downy bird butt feathers covering his hard bald shell, and he got chills of pleasure thinking of it. The hen frisked her downy bird butt in his direction and made soft bird sounds. Finally, he could resist the temptation no longer.”

  Sara slides her hand into my shirt and caresses my skin softly and says, “Humpty slowly slid himself under the hen, feeling each feather, one by one, move over every millimeter of his hard bald shell as though he were submerging himself in a warm, delightful bath. The bird smell was intoxicating, and he knew it was dangerous, knew that once eggs are drugged by the bird smell, they have no more will or desire to escape before they hatch. But Humpty was not drugged yet. It takes a while. Every few minutes he would turn himself over, to have every side of his body exposed to her warm feathers, much the way one might turn over a piece of food in the frying pan so that it will be cooked on both sides. That’s what was happening to him, he realized: he was cooking. The longer he was sat on, the more the monster within him would grow, and soon it would come out.”

  Sara slides her hand out of my shirt and slowly starts unbuttoning my shirt buttons as she goes on: “Humpty gathered all his willpower, slid himself out from under the divine hen, and walked over to his meditation wall. He sat on the wall for days, and thought, and tried to make a decision. ‘To hatch or not to hatch? That is the question,’ he told himself. ‘To be sat on or not to be sat on? That is the other question.’ He did not think he could go through life without being sat on. Life simply would not be worth living. It felt so natural, so right, how could it be evil or immoral or harmful? After all, we all have a need. Some of us need to be sat on, and some of us need to get our fur aerated. Anyway, Humpty felt his soul shriveling under the strain of trying to resist something his body needed. He was becoming grim and bitter. Permanent wrinkles of unhappiness appeared on his hard bald shell of a face.” Sara caresses my face. “But he still sat on his wall, thinking. Finally, he started rolling on his side, back and forth, with indecision and restlessness, and he had his great fall off his meditation wall. And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put him back together again. Do you like it?”