Nude Men Read online

  “Oh, is that all?” I ask.

  “Are you being sarcastic?” she says.

  “No. Isn’t there anything more revealing about my inner self? Less superficial? More meaningful?”

  “Oh, you want the meaningful ones. In that case, I might as well show you the list I made of the meaningful optical illusions contained in you.” She opens a drawer and takes out a white sheet of paper, folded in two. She hands it to me.

  The paper contains the following information, written by hand:

  Jeremy Acidophilus, Optical Illusion Man

  1. He doesn’t talk much, but when he talks, it’s too much. (Ow. I’m terribly insulted.)

  2. He looks weak and unhealthy, and yet if the end of the world ever came, he somehow looks as though he would survive us all, like a cockroach.

  3. He looks easily manipulable, but also looks like he could be unexpectedly stubborn.

  4. His face is often very pale, and his mouth is big and red, which sometimes makes him look like a vampire, sometimes like a clown, sometimes like an old-fashioned sensitive gentleman, but, surprisingly, never like a homosexual. On other days, his mouth looks much smaller, more normal-sized, and is less red, and his skin is less white, and one wonders if one imagined his big red mouth from the previous day or if it really existed.

  That is the end of the list, but it was too long for my taste, and I feel as though I have just received four punches in the face.

  “When you wrote cockroach, perhaps you meant maggot?” I ask her, not out of bitterness but out of genuine curiosity; my appearance always reminds me so vividly of a maggot that I wonder whether she might not find it a revelation if I mention it to her.

  She looks at me, a bit surprised, and says, “No, I meant cockroach.” She takes the paper from me and returns it to the drawer.

  “Are you an O.I.W.?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “Do you think I am?”

  I try to think of something she almost is, and finally I say, “You are almost rude, but not quite.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” she says. “I’m dreadfully sorry if I did. But sometimes I get passionate about my art, almost angry, and I can’t stop myself from saying or writing things that might be too harsh, because I feel that what I say is the truth.”

  “Will I still see you, now that you’ve finished painting me?”

  “Of course. I want you to keep seeing my friend Laura. She doesn’t have many friends, and I think you two could like each other a lot.”

  “I don’t think she liked me much. She barely spoke to me,” I say.

  “She liked you a whole lot. She told me so herself.”

  “I’m not fond of... what she does.”

  “What about you? Do you do something so fascinating that it allows you to be so judgmental and picky?”

  “I’m a fact checker. At least that’s something people do. I don’t know what you intend. Do you want me to get involved romantically with her?”

  “That would be nice. If you like her, that is.”

  “I like you.”

  “I know, but you can’t. I like Laura’s brother, Damon.”

  Damn. I knew it.

  “You must understand,” she continues, “I’m encouraging you as a favor to her. Sort of tit for tat. I help her find a guy, and she puts in a good word for me to her brother. I actually don’t know her that well. I met her recently, through her brother. I’m not incredibly fond of her. I find her quite ordinary, to be honest, which I know may surprise you, now that you’ve seen her show. Though she has qualities that would please most people. She’s sane, well-balanced, stable, wholesome, calm, easygoing, even-tempered, relaxed, serene. Her brother, on the other hand, is splendid.”

  When I get home, my cat, Minou, is almost smiling, looking at me through half-closed eyes. Her fur is all fluffed up and disheveled.

  Oh, Jeremy, darling! You look very good today, she says. I’ve been waiting endlessly for you to come home.

  Why?

  First tell me, am I pretty?

  Yes, as usual.

  You’re not even looking at me.

  I look at her, and she stretches luxuriously on the floor.

  How about now? she asks. Do I look pretty now? She purrs violently, but I can tell she’s making a tremendous effort not to purr while talking, because she knows it annoys me.

  Yes, you’re pretty, I reply. So why have you been waiting for me to come home?

  Because I think I have my heety-weety.

  What’s a heety-weety?

  Oh, Jeremy, you are sooo slow.

  Okay, I’m slow. So what’s a heety-weety?

  A heety-weety is my heat. Why aren’t the males coming?

  Well, how do you expect them to come? All the windows and doors are closed, and we live on the third floor.

  That doesn’t matter. They’re supposed to come anyway.

  You mean by walking through walls?

  I don’t know. They find ways.

  She meows a lot and looks as if she’s in pain. I feel sorry for her, so I say, Don’t worry, you’ll never have to go through this again. We’ll get you an operation, and you’ll feel fine and normal for the rest of your life.

  Are you insane? I want to make love. And I want to have children.

  But you’re going to start peeing everywhere.

  I promise I won’t.

  She goes on and on, horrified and indignant, and I begin to feel like a monster. She makes me swear never to have her operated on, but I cross my fingers to keep the option open.

  She calms down and says, Pet me, Jeremy, pet me. More. Don’t stop. Oh Jeremy.

  chapter five

  Three days later, for the first time, I visit Henrietta for no reason other than friendship.

  In fact, she is the one who suggested it. I thought it must be because Laura would be there. But no. Instead there is a good-looking nude man, being painted by Henrietta. He is lying in the most comfortable position he could find, unless that rule applies only to the imperfect models, like me. Henrietta says hello but is so absorbed by her painting and marzipan cats that she does not pay much attention to me. Her daughter, Sara, takes my hand and pulls me to her bedroom to show me her Humpty Dumpty collection.

  There are many different Humpty Dumpties sitting on her shelves. Many of them are real eggs with painted faces and string arms and legs pasted to them.

  “I made them,” says Sara.

  “They’re very well painted,” I tell her.

  She points to one of the eggs. I look at it and I am shocked. She says, “This one is my latest. I finished it this morning. It took me nine hours to make, during three days.”

  The face painted on the egg is my face.

  “Do you like it?” she asks.

  “Is it me?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s very realistic. You’re so talented.”

  “Thank you. Whenever I meet someone I like, I make an egg out of them.”

  “I’m very flattered.”

  “That’s not all. There’s a show that goes with it.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Are you ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay.” She stands tall and straight, facing me, next to the Humpty Dumpty of me, and starts reciting: “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall...”

  At this point she slides her finger behind the little egg with my face on it, and pushes it off the shelf. It falls and breaks on the wood floor. Thick red shiny goo pours out of it.

  Sara continues her recitation: “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put him back together again.”

  I stand there stunned, feeling insulted.

  “Wasn’t it nice?” she asks.

  “It’s too bad you broke my face.”

  “But wasn’t it nice, the show with the blood? Wasn’t it

  surprising?”

  “Very surprising. How did you make the blood?�
�

  “Mercurochrome and olive oil.”

  “It’s too bad you broke my face, though. Especially if it took you nine hours to make. It was so well done.”

  “Don’t worry,” she says, picking up a closed half-carton of eggs. She opens the carton, and I am confronted with six more Humpty Dumpties of me, each one expressing a different emotion, which I can more or less decipher as Fear, Surprise, Anger, Sadness, Boredom, and, the last one, Guilt, with bright-red cheeks of shame.

  I look at the little broken face on the floor, the seventh egg, and I realize that it was Happiness.

  “They’re beautiful,” I tell her.

  “Don’t think it took me sixty-three hours to make all these eggs of you. It took me nine. You can have one, but I must warn you that the one you pick will reveal more about your personality than would nine hours of conversation.”

  I try to decide if I should pick the one I like most or the one that will incriminate me least. The one I like most is Guilt. It is the funniest and most expressive, with its bright-red shamed cheeks, but it also happens to be the most embarrassing one to choose, so I decide to pick the least incriminating, most innocent one.

  “I think I’ll take Boredom,” I say, pointing.

  “It’s not Boredom; it’s Sleepiness. It’s extremely revealing that you interpreted it as Boredom. But you’re lying. It is not your favorite one, because it is obviously the least well painted. This is very revealing, Jeremy, and doesn’t put you in a very good light. It shows that you are a bit of a coward and dishonest. Admit it. The bored one is not your favorite.”

  I find her unpleasantly clever for a child her age.

  “You’re right,” I say, hiding my annoyance. “I chose the bored one because I didn’t want you to think I was afraid, surprised, angry, sad, or guilty.”

  “You’re revealing more of yourself every minute. Why in the world would you not want me to think you were surprised? That’s not a negative or embarrassing emotion, but obviously it is for you, for some deep, strange, and mysterious reason.”

  She caught me. She’s right. I did not want her to think I was surprised by her behavior toward me, by her excessive familiarity, which troubles and confuses me. I must lie. “No, you’re right; surprise is not a negative or embarrassing emotion. I just happened to think of boredom first. I was negligent.”

  She looks at me suspiciously through half-closed eyes. “So tell me, which is your favorite egg?”

  “The happy one that’s on the floor.”

  “That’s too easy. Anyway, I can’t give you that one; it’s broken. Which one in this carton do you like the most?”

  “That one,” I say, pointing to the guilty one. “I like his red cheeks.”

  “You don’t need to justify your choice by saying you like the red cheeks. There’s no reason for you to feel guilty about choosing guilt.”

  “I’m not justifying my choice. I really like the red cheeks.”

  I visit Lady Henrietta twice a week, every Saturday and Wednesday night, because she says I can stop by whenever I feel like it. She must enjoy my presence. I think our relationship is growing deeper, slowly but surely. I hope her affection for me will become romantic soon, if it isn’t already.

  Laura is starting to show up once in a while. She tries to talk to me a bit, saying nice normal things, like: “Jeremy, I loved that movie you chose, We Are the Taurus and “Jeremy, I like your jacket,” and “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” To Henrietta and Sara, she says, “Your painting is coming along nicely, Henrietta,” and “Are you learning interesting things in school, Sara?”

  I grab the first chance I get to play with Sara, which I like a lot more than talking to Laura. I don’t know why I’m so repelled by her. Well, one reason is that I hate the feeling of getting matched up. I’ve hated it all my life, ever since my mom used to make me play with the yucky little neighbor girl. My mom and her mom would sit together, look at us, and say, “Oh, it’s so cuuuute!”

  Often when I visit her, Henrietta is painting one of her models. So far I’ve seen only the beautiful models, no ordinary men like me. While Henrietta paints, her daughter, Sara, also does artwork. She sits at the coffee table and draws men’s clothes, sometimes from imagination or sometimes getting the model’s clothes from the dressing room and laying them out in front of her. She makes quick but very good sketches of the trousers, ties, shirts, and shoes, while nibbling on some of her mother’s marzipan animals.

  “I didn’t know you were also an artist,” I tell her.

  “I’m not really. I only draw men’s clothes.”

  “Why?”

  “I think they go well with my mom’s paintings.”

  I interpret this as some deep disturbance she has about her mother painting nude men. I express this opinion, in private, to Lady Henrietta, who says, “I doubt it’s a ‘deep disturbance.’ It might be a slight puzzlement. Sara feels her drawings nicely complement my paintings. I think it’s charming.”

  So I decide to ask Sara herself what she thinks: “How do you feel about your mother painting nude men?”

  “I think it’s great,” she replies. “Nudity is the most profound subject in the world.”

  “Are you bothered by it?”

  “No; on the contrary. I think I’m lucky to have such an intelligent and relaxed mother.”

  I’m not convinced. What Sara does and what she says are two different things. I would think that if she approved of her mother’s paintings, she would try to imitate her by drawing naked things, like her dolls, naked.

  Sara is always holding Barbie dolls, so finally one day I ask Lady Henrietta, “Isn’t she a little too old to play with Barbie dolls?”

  “Yes, of course,” says Lady Henrietta. “That’s why she does it. She likes to be unconventional, which is something truly admirable in a child, because at that age they are so cruel to each other. She likes to do things that will arouse her classmates’ scorn, and she confronts them with it. She’s so strong.”

  “That’s why she dresses in these very childish clothes?” (Which she does.)

  “Yes, that’s why. On top of it, she sort of likes Barbie dolls. They stimulate her imagination.”

  That’s when I decide to buy Sara a Barbie doll, to please her mother.

  I go to F.A.O. Schwarz, thinking they will have the biggest selection. I want to buy the best Barbie doll Lady Henrietta has ever seen. I want to impress her with my choice. I bet she has never bothered to go to F.A.O. Schwarz for a Barbie doll. I bet F.A.O. Schwarz carries Barbie dolls that are more beautiful and realistic than any she has ever seen. I can already imagine the effect that my choice will have on Lady Henrietta. I bet Sara will tell her mom that it’s the best Barbie doll and say something like: “Your new friend, the O.I.M. one, has exquisite taste.”

  I am now in the Barbie section. They do have a rather large selection. I start looking carefully at all the boxes, trying to find the most impressive one.

  I see Barbie Flight Time gift set. Pretty pilot changes into glamorous date! Wings for you. And a paper doll too.

  They have the same model in three versions: the black-skinned doll, the blond doll, and the brunette, who has a prettier expression than the other two because her mouth is closed.

  They have Barbie Wet’n Wild Surf Set. Dolls not included.

  Also Wet’n Wild Water Park. Dolls not included. The ultimate pool and super slide! “Drinking” Fountain! Spraying Jet Stream!

  I try to figure out why they put the word “drinking” in quotation marks. None of the other words are in quotation marks. It must be a typo.

  There are about a dozen more boxes, with Barbie cars, houses, workout centers, picnic sets, etc. I am a little disappointed. None of the dolls are realistic or beautiful or interesting. I feel I should give up my idea of buying Sara a Barbie doll. Maybe I should get her a Humpty Dumpty instead.

  I am about to leave, when I see that off to one side are some dolls that look like Barbie but are called
Jane.

  The first Jane box I come upon is Jane does makeup, but can’t get it right, so picks up telephone to call her friend over. In the box there is a little telephone and a Jane doll with her mascara and lipstick smeared ungracefully around her eyes and mouth.

  I go to the next box. Jane goes on a diet. The Jane doll is chubby.

  The next one is Jane walked in dog poop on her way home, and she must get it off her new shoes before her date comes to pick her up in five minutes. There is a brown glob on the pink shoe of the Jane doll.

  The next one is Jane goes to the movies with boyfriend, and he kisses her. Dolls not included. In the box there are two movie theater chairs and nothing else.

  The next one is Jane chooses a hobby. She starts painting. Nude men. That would have been good.

  A saleswoman comes up to me and says, “Do you need help?”

  “I’m trying to find the best doll for a little girl.”

  “You should look at the Barbie dolls right over there. They’re much better than the Jane dolls.”

  “I already saw the Barbie dolls. I must have missed the better ones. Where are they?”

  “They’re all better.” She then lowers her voice. “I know I’m not supposed to say this, but personally, I think the Jane dolls should be banned. They’re unwholesome.”

  I buy Jane does makeup and Jane goes to the movies with boyfriend, still wondering why they put the word “drinking” in quotation marks.

  I give Sara the Jane doll, and she jumps around my neck and kisses me and hugs me, which still makes me feel uncomfortable, so I decide not to give her presents anymore. But whenever I go there, she keeps throwing herself at me anyway. She really likes me.

  Lady Henrietta does not ask to paint me again, but she seems to like my visits, even to think they are normal and should continue. I have become one of her friends.

  Her daughter adores me. She hugs me when I come in, and kisses my cheek. She forces me to watch movies with her, especially one called Donkey Skin, or, in French, Peau d’ne. Both Lady Henrietta and her daughter speak French well. Sara goes to a French school. The movie is in French, with English subtitles. It’s a fairy tale. A humorous fairy tale. Catherine Deneuve plays the princess.