Nude Men Read online

  As I walk back to the office;, I am conscious of my naked body under my clothes. I feel the fabric rubbing against my skin, everywhere. I am aware of general nakedness in the world, of people’s bodies rubbing against their clothes. I feel sexy. But then I get frightened by a memory: the memory of what my body looked like, just this morning, in the mirror. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. Perhaps the mirror fooled me with an unflattering optical illusion. I want to rip off my clothes, stand in front of a shop window, and examine my reflection to see if I made a mistake by agreeing to pose for the painter of nude men. I do not rip off my clothes. All I do, as I walk, is peek out of the corner of my eye to catch my image in a window. All I catch, reflected in a shoe store, is the shine of my spoon traveling stiffly by my side.

  But seriously now, why the hell did this woman come and talk to me? Maybe she’s eccentric, a little extravagant. Maybe she picks up strangers off the streets all the time to do God knows what. A madwoman. Maybe she’s just bold and unashamed to walk up to prospective models and frankly state her interest. No matter what, the fact is that I am now obsessed with my body, its adequacy or lack of it.

  By now you are probably dying to know what I look like. And the moment you find out, you’ll start comparing your physical appearance to mine, to judge if you, also, have a chance of one day being accosted by a creature equal in loveliness to the one who approached me at lunch.

  Let me spare you the trouble, for now, of having to make these degrading comparisons, and simply tell you that yes, you do have a chance, and no, I am not willing to describe my beauty or lack of it right now, other than to tell you that I’m not fat.

  Arriving at my office, I sit at my desk in semidarkness, staring blankly at the fat, round doorknob, and slowly I start puffing out my cheeks, digging my chin into my neck, creating a tiny, puny, double chin, spreading my ten fingers apart, lifting my arms away from my body, opening my thighs, and filling my stomach with air. Oh, and I also lower my eyelids, because the fat around my eyes would prevent me from opening them completely. Now there is good reason for me to be nervous about posing nude.

  I debloat: I suck in my cheeks, stretch out my neck, empty my stomach, lower my arms, open my eyes, and close my thighs and fingers. Now there is not good reason for me to be nervous about posing nude.

  I bloat up again. Now there is.

  I debloat. Now there’s not.

  Amusing.

  Now there is. Now there’s not.

  I am bold this afternoon. I do things I would not normally dare do, like spin my chair around to my computer and type: “I am not fat. If I were fat, there would be a reason for me to be nervous about posing nude. I am not fat. I am nottttttttttt.”

  I stare at my words on the screen without blinking. The lines become blurry. I am in a trance, wallowing in thoughts about Lady Henrietta and about the wonderful fact that I’m not fat. You may be starting to suspect that perhaps I used to be fat. No. The reason I’m so happy I’m not fat is that I’ve got to try to be happy about something, and I don’t have many things to be happy about. I could just as easily be getting excited about the wonderful fact that I am not bald, or that I have two arms.

  I am awakened from my daydream by Annie, the twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant, who’s married. She says to me, “Charlotte’s on the phone.”

  My girlfriend, Charlotte, calls me every day at work. I told her not to call me. Not every day. Not even every week. It’s embarrassing. She does it anyway. Now Annie, and everyone else, knows I have a girlfriend named Charlotte who calls me every day at work.

  I pick up the phone and hear her granular, cottage cheese voice. “I was wondering what you’d like for dinner tonight, darling.”

  “Cottage cheese,” I mumble absentmindedly.

  “What?”

  “Oh! What would I like for dinner? I’ll have to work late this evening. And then there’s some work I have to do at home. I’m simply exhausted. I don’t think I’ll be able to see you tonight. You understand, don’t you?”

  “That’s too bad. I was thinking we could have an especially nice evening.”

  Cottage cheese, cottage cheese.

  She’s talking about sex. She uses it as a bribe, always, when I’m not enthusiastic about seeing her.

  “Oh, now I feel especially sorry that I can’t see you,” I say. “But we’ll do it another night.”

  “You mean tomorrow night, right?”

  “Of course that’s what I mean.”

  “Okay. Goodbye, wooshy mushy.”

  “Goodbye, twinkle face,” I whisper, not wanting Annie to hear me.

  “Have good dreams, I’ll talk to you later, I love you.” She makes a big noisy kiss.

  “Me too, me too too.”

  I hang up the phone and go to my boss, the head researcher, hoping he has some fact checking for me to do.

  “No, I don’t have anything right now,” he says. “But maybe Annie has some filing for you.”

  Of course, as usual, maybe Annie has some filing for me. I am twenty-nine years old, I am a fact checker, and maybe Annie has some filing for me. A fact checker is what I am. I’m not a filer, I’m not an editorial assistant. I’m a little better than that, which is normal because I paid my dues for many years, I worked my way up. I’m a fact checker, hoping to be a writer. I would like to be a journalist, a writer of magazine articles, an interviewer. The glamorous people I would write articles about would then know me, be my friends, and perhaps even marry me.

  Three years ago, when I started my fact checking job at this magazine, I let my superiors know that it would please me greatly to write little articles once in a while. Sure, they said. The only thing they’ve given me so far is a small, unimportant story on the little boy who played in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. That was a year ago. Since then, nothing. The other fact checkers, and even the editorial assistants, get to write articles all the time. I, on the other hand, file. For hours at a time, I file. They give me mountains of it. Sometimes, when I’m filing, I almost cry. I get tears of rage in my eyes. Why, I wonder, must I do this? Why am I the only one? They know I want to write. How many times must I tell them?

  I walk toward Annie and stop in front of her desk. “Hi, Annie. Is there any filing?”

  “When there’s filing, it’s on the file cabinets as usual, Jeremy,” she says without looking up.

  Condescending! People at work are often condescending to me, especially the lowly editorial assistants. I should not pretend I don’t know why, just as I should not pretend I don’t know why I don’t get articles to write. It’s because I am mushy. I am a mushy man. I reek of mushiness and meekness. People at work have always been condescending to me. They talk to me with excessive self-confidence. When they’re in a group, talking together, and I pass by, one of them might say very loudly, “Hi, Jeremy!”

  “Oh, hi,” I answer cheerfully, pretending I am a normal person who did not notice the mocking loudness of the greeting. Then I think that perhaps they mock me because I don’t say hi to them often enough.

  I try to think of new ways to act, ways that might make people respect me more. For example, one day I came in and talked very loudly to everyone.

  I said, “Hi, Annie!” very loudly, and then I went to John, the head researcher, and said, “Hi, John! Do you have fact checking for me today?” Very loudly.

  I did not notice any increase in their respect for me.

  Another day I tested a new technique, which was to not pretend I liked them, to not pretend I liked my job, and to not pretend I was in a fine mood. I even decided to not hide any anger I might have.

  “Hi, Jeremy,” Annie said.

  “Yeah, hi,” I answered. I sat at my desk, took my time, ate a banana, and slowly made my way to the head researcher’s office. “I’m here,” I said glumly.

  “Hi, Jeremy,” said the head researcher. “I don’t have any fact checking right now, but maybe Annie has some filing for you.”

  I left his office
without answering, went back to my desk, ate another banana, and said to Annie, “Any filing?”

  “Yes, actually there’s quite a lot of it today. I put it on the file cabinets.”

  Another time I tested the technique of being extremely nice to everyone.

  “Hi, Annie,” I said sweetly, happily, tenderly. “How are you?”

  “Okay.”

  “If there’s any work you need help with, just tell me and I’ll give you a hand.”

  “No thanks. There’s just the filing on the file cabinets.”

  “Sure, I’ll do that, but first I have to go ask John if there’s any fact checking he might need help with.”

  “Hi, John,” I said. “How are you today?”

  “Fine, thanks, Jeremy.”

  “I hope you’re not too overloaded with work. Is there any fact checking or anything else I can help you with?”

  “No, thanks,” he answered, not really paying attention because he was working at his computer. “Everything’s under control. Ask Annie for some filing.”

  I am not a mean person. I have never been mean to any of these people. I get a feeling of helplessness, of having tried everything and failed. I get tears of rage. I am exasperated, desperate, bitter. I am a bitter lemon. A mushy bitter lemon. Half-rotten. I want to go to extremes. I want to say things that have never been surpassed in cruelty or offensiveness. I want to revel in the viciousness of it. But I have no viciousness to revel in.

  I go to the file cabinets, the monsters. There is a mountain of clipped articles on top. Some articles are only a sentence long, one inch by one inch, so you can imagine how many separate articles can be contained in one small mountain.

  The file cabinets consist of thirteen huge drawers, nine of which are filled with celebrity files, two with film and TV show files, one with gossip columns, and one with miscellaneous. In the nine celebrity drawers you get Marilyn Monroe, Sylvester Stallone, Princess Di and children... In other words, all actors, all musical groups, and all royalty, some boxers, some directors, and some models, one or two best-selling writers, and Bush and family and Clinton and family.

  In the miscellaneous drawer you get tons and tons of unalphabetized miscellaneous, such as celebrity fragrances, celebrities in the slammer (or at least arrested), births, deaths, marriages, divorces, couples, celebrity causes, deaths while filming, Aspen, Oscars, music awards, Emmys, etc. The files are mostly labeled with my handwriting, because, of course, I am mostly the one who files around here.

  I feel strong this afternoon. I feel ready for a few hours of mountain climbing. Even though the mountain of clippings ends way over my head, I feel taller than it. After all, in my pants pocket I have my stainless-steel spoon, which will serve as my stainless-steel mountain-climbing spike and later will become my stainless-steel Dumbo feather, to help me fly off the stinking mountain and into the arms of my painter of nude men.

  I take the first small clipping from the top of the mountain. The name of the celebrity is highlighted in yellow for my convenience, so that I don’t have to spend one or two extra seconds figuring out who the article is about. Thank you, Annie, or whoever was responsible this time, for the thoughtful gesture. The highlighted name here is Madonna. The M drawer is one of the more pleasant ones, at a comfortable height that requires no bending. The Madonna file is large, packed full, messy, overflowing with clippings. It’s hard to squeeze the tiny newcomer in. I manage.

  I am happy, happy, happy. Go lucky, go go lucky. Why shouldn’t I be? Two hours have passed, and I got fewer paper cuts than usual. Only one per hour. I am now holding an article on Brooke Shields. I read it, as I always do when I come across an article on her. She used to be the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. That’s before she gained weight. But I haven’t gained weight. I’m not fat.

  I’m annoyed at myself. It annoys me that everyone, including me, assumes that no one wants to be fat. People take this for granted, which I find offensive and unfair. What counts in life is to have enough energy to work and file. The rest doesn’t really matter. Fat, not fat, bald, not bald, old, young, man, woman, fact checker, writer, filer, what does it all matter? In the long run, the differences make no difference. I must remember that. The differences make no difference. That’s what I believe, no matter what proof to the contrary you may ever find.

  I keep filing, looking at my watch every five minutes. The time passes so slowly. I force myself to stop looking at my watch for what seems like a considerable length of time, hoping I’ll get a nice surprise. Forty minutes must have passed. I look, and only fifteen have gone by.

  The skin around my nails is raw, bleeding, from my always having to squeeze my fingers into overstuffed files. Good. Good punishment. Punishment for what? I’m not sure. Perhaps just for being myself. Bleed more. Here, squeeze your fingers into Michelle Pfeiffer. She’s a tight one. Rip a little more skin off. Good.

  At ten minutes to six, I go to the men’s room. My hands are black from the newspaper ink. I need to wash them many times to get all the ink off. The head researcher walks in and enters a stall. When he comes out, I’m still standing there, washing my hands.

  He stands at the sink next to mine, washes his hands, and says, “It’s all that newsprint, isn’t it, Jeremy? It’s hard to get off.”

  chapter three

  Heat. What is heat? Every day, when I walk home from work, I wonder if there will be heat in my apartment. Today is no exception. As I walk down the street, I forget about Lady Henrietta, my naked body, everything except whether I will find symptoms of heat in my apartment. To tell you the truth, I don’t really know what to expect or to look for, because I don’t really know what heat is. I have lived twenty-nine years and never learned exactly what it was. I must admit I never bothered to look it up in the dictionary, but really, one would think that by now I would have picked up scraps of definition here and there. If the heat doesn’t come soon, I will take my cat to the vet. I tricked you.

  “God, that woman looks like she’s in heat,” is just about all I’ve ever heard about heat. I suspect heat has to do with vigorous energy, lust for life. The women referred to with those words seem more alive and happy than us poor folks who don’t have our heat. Their eyes twinkle and their hair whips the air. But I might be completely wrong; these characteristics may be purely coincidental.

  On my way home, there’s a pet store I always look into. I like to check if any of the kittens displayed in the window are more beautiful than my cat, Minou, a blue-cream Persian. None ever is. My cat has long gray fur with a cream throat, and a beautifully mushed-in face.

  Today the pet store window is filled exclusively with Himalayans, those vulgar cats who have the Persian’s long hair combined with the Siamese’s markings. They are so dull, always the same, like clones. Disappointed by the lack of competition, I don’t even bother to stop.

  I suddenly notice a woman running in my direction, so I start running toward her, because when a woman runs in your direction, there is one chance in a hundred (or a thousand, or a million) that she spotted you from afar, was stunned by your looks, decided then and there that you were the man of her life, and took it into her head to throw herself into your arms. Wouldn’t it be a shame not to reciprocate her enthusiasm from the very beginning? I think it would be a shame. So even though today has been a pretty good day, romancewise, and there is no reason for me to be that desperate, I am now running toward the woman out of habit, holding my arms slightly open so that if she is running to me, I will be running to her as well, and we will throw ourselves into each other’s arms, and it will all be extremely romantic. On the other hand, my arms are not open enough for it to necessarily mean anything or to embarrass me in case she happens to be running to someone behind me, or to no one in particular, which is usually the case. Rather, always the case.

  At home, Minou is sitting in a corner of the apartment. That’s unusual for her; she usually runs to greet me at the door. I hang up my coat, drink some orange juice, go to
the bathroom.

  How’s the weather outside? asks Minou from her corner.

  Fine. Why are you sitting in that corner? I ask.

  Cause I like it. Did you see any cats more beautiful than I in the pet store window?

  No. Only vulgar Himalayans. Are you feeling okay? I’ve never seen you sit in that corner before, I say, thinking that perhaps this is the first symptom of her heat.

  I’m feeling fine. What’s that spoon you’re holding?

  I look at my hand, startled. Before leaving the office, I had taken my spoon out of my pants pocket and held her in my hand all the way home, even while running with open arms toward the running woman, but I had forgotten to put her down when I drank my orange juice and went to the bathroom.

  Incidentally, you may be wondering why my cat is talking to me. Let me assure you that our conversation is probably not really taking place. I’m virtually certain that it’s only in my head that we’re talking, but sometimes I’m more certain than at other times. I realize it does not seem quite normal that I spend so much time conversing with my cat (and I confess that I do indeed spend a lot of time doing it), but I can’t help it.

  I am able to read all her expressions distinctly, unmistakably. Each of her gestures is translated by me into specific sentences whose subtlest intonation I can make out. Her words ooze out of her every strand of fur so unambiguously that even human beings cannot make themselves so well understood to me. What is most captivating and enslaving is that her language is specific. When she says, I want some heavy cream, I am not unclear as to how, precisely, she expressed herself. She did not say: I would love to have some heavy cream, or: Please, I haven’t had heavy cream in a long time. No, she said, I want some heavy cream. She seems to speak to me so clearly that I can’t very well not answer her, can I? It would be rude.