Nude Men (17 page)

She stands behind me and encircles me with her arms. I feel her cold plastic mask pressing against the side of my face. “I want to kiss you, Jeremy, but I can’t because of this awful mask I’m wearing.”

“Don’t take it off!” I cry, because I am afraid to see the childish face of the person who is arousing me.

She slides her hands in my shirt. I push her away and snap, “Stop that.”

“What?”

“That!” I shout.

“What I’m doing or what I’m saying?”

“Both!”
I scream in her face.

But she does not stop, so I push her away again, but she comes back on me, so I finally leap up from my chair, rush to my bedroom, and come back with a long black sock, perhaps the very one that served me so well at Disney World. And now, for the second time, the faithful sock is coming to the rescue. Except that the last time, come to think of it, the sock didn’t serve me so well after all.

I stand in front of Sara, near the couch, and say, “Sit.”

She sits on the couch.

“No. On the floor.”

She obeys me.

“Lie down.”

“Oh, goody,” she says, and lies on the floor, her bright, white, nude body shining up at me, glowing teasingly.

“Raise your arms above your head,” I tell her.

She raises them, and I pass them on either side of the foot of the couch, and then I tie her wrists together with the sock.

“Wonderful,” she says. “Now we’re doing a bit of tying up. That means you’re excited, right?”

I ignore her and go back to my letter.

“Jeremy, you were supposed to stay here,” Sara says.

“No I wasn’t.”

“Okay, then I’ll come and see you.” And she easily slips her hands out of the sock knot and is all over me again.

The sock has faded me for the second time. I will not use any fabric softener at the next wash. Not because had the sock not been so well softened, Sara could not have slipped her hands out. No, I am not so dumb as to think that the extra lack of softness would have made any significant difference in the ease of Sara’s escape. The reason I will not use fabric softener at the sock’s next bath is, of course, to punish the sock for repeatedly failing me.

I go to the bathroom, climb on the toilet, and bring down my handcuffs from the ceiling.

When Sara sees the handcuffs, she sucks in her breath sharply and says, “Wow, Jeremy. Handcuffs. You’re an exciting person.”

With the handcuffs, I lock Sara’s wrists around the foot of the couch, in the same position as before. She does not resist. She seems to be enjoying it, probably feeling a sense of power and challenge, and thinking: You can do anything you want to me, Jeremy, but you’ll see, I’ll still get you.

I go back to the table and stare at the “Dear Henrietta” on the page.

“Jeremy?”

I ignore her and try to concentrate. I wonder if I should start with: “I have committed a terrible crime” or “This is a letter of confession”?

“Jeremy, look at me.”

I look at her. “What?”

“Can’t you sit a little closer?”

“No.” I look back down at the page. Or should I start with: “I’m very sorry to have to write this confession to you”? Finally, I cross out “Dear Henrietta” and write underneath: “My Lady.” It’s the most respectful greeting I can think of. Then I could begin with: “After you read this letter, I won’t blame you if you’ll want to kill me.”

Sara says, “I’ve never had so much fun. This is exciting. But don’t be too much of a tease. Don’t keep me locked up too long.”

I ignore her, but Minou doesn’t. She is looking at Sara with great curiosity. She’s never seen anyone lying on the floor like this before. But soon the novelty fades, and she goes back to rolling on her back with heat.

Sara is sdent for a while, and then hums a bit, and then says, “His strong arms were resting on the table. His large right manly but sensitive hand was holding a pen. He was writing a letter to her mother, a letter describing all the sordid detads, the sin that had occurred at the park of amusements. The pen, the lucky pen, held by those long graceful male fingers, was sliding against the page the way she wished his cheek would slide against her stomach. She, poor young woman, was lying naked as a worm on the cold hard floor, hands handcuffed around the foot of his couch. If only it was his foot, and not his couch’s foot, she would feel consoled. The mask was on her face, the mask which he cruelly forced her to wear because he could not bear to see her ugly face. But her body, oh, her body was beauty itself, a swan, a naked princess.”

Sara is silent again. Then she says, “Jeremy, unlock me.”

“No,” I answer.

“ ‘Jeremy, unlock me,’ she repeated,” Sara continues. “She said it over and over again, but he kept saying no, no, no. ‘Jeremy, unlock me, unlock me, unlock me.’ ”

I ignore her. And then I hear a heavy sliding noise. I look up, and she is slowly dragging the couch across the slippery wood floor. She grips her bare feet to the floor and pulls her body forward and advances toward me, on her back, legs first, dragging the couch behind her. Her progress is very slow. She groans under the strain. Minou is absolutely horrified by this spectacle. She’s not used to the couch moving around and making noise. She runs to the kitchen and hides.

I go back to my letter, and Sara says, “So the poor soul, the poor desperate little bird, started dragging the couch behind her, which was terribly straining her skinny, puny arms. It was making a loud grindy-like noise, and it was scratching his floor, which upset him more than the damage it was doing to her body. She might not even be able to have babies in the future, because her poor lovely delicate lustful body was being stretched like a rubber band so much.”

“Stop dragging the couch,” I tell her.

“Her body was burning with desire, and so was his. They both desperately wanted to get their fur aerated. He tried to concentrate on his letter, tried not to look at her, but it was hard.”

What she says is true. She goes on. “Her skin remembered his touch from the park of amusements, and her skin was begging him; if only he’d look up from his letter, he’d see every one of her little hairs kneeling in prayer, praying that he would become rational and come to her.”

I glance at her and look back down at my letter, my mind hot, as in a fever. I am aroused. I take a deep breath and read “My Lady” out loud, hoping that the sound of my voice will help me to focus my mind. Then I read as I write: “ ‘I am very sorry to have to write you this letter.’ ”

“ ‘Unlock me, unlock me, my lord, I implore you,’ she cried, but he did not listen, or pretended not to.”

“ ‘Something happened at Disney World which should never,
ever
have happened, something terrible,’ ” I read.

“He was terribly excited, was dying to get up and come to her, but was fighting the temptation with all his power, and he was a strong man, a strong, muscular man with rippling muscles and a hard manhood between his legs, a manhood that he wanted to give her but daren’t, because he knew that it wast sin. I knowest that it ist sinst, he thought to himself.”

“ ‘Your daughter and I had a good time at Disney World, but then one night we got carried away and lost our minds, or rather, I should say,
I
lost
my
mind, since she’s a minor, and we did it, we made love.’ ”

I stop reading, because this particular scene I am living right now strikes me very strongly with déjà vu. I have seen this scene before somewhere, or a very similar one, hard as that may be to believe, for this scene is so strange, but I’m sure of it. And then I remember. It was in the film
The Exorcist.
Sara reminds me of the little girl possessed by the devil, who moved furniture. The girl was tied to her bed, just as Sara is chained to the couch. I am the priest, reading from the Bible, trying to destroy the devil with holy words, while the devil-girl is speaking to me, trying to tempt me, her face a mask of evil. The girl and the priest both talked at the same time to each other, each trying to win, trying to overpower the other.

Suddenly, Sara stops pulling the couch. She is close enough to me now that the tip of her foot can touch my foot when her leg is completely stretched out. She is lying there, below me, on her back, silent and panting, and she finally says, “He has finished his letter. He has revealed the whole truth, and he looks down at her and knows he’s supposed to bring her home now, but he just doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to do it, because he knows that as soon as he unlocks her she will pounce on him, and then he won’t be able to resist her, so why even try? Why even try? But he really should take off her handcuffs now. Her wrists must be sore from having dragged that heavy couch all that way, and he’s not as cruel as he seems, he has a noble decent heart under that virile manly exterior. He really should look at those little wrists of hers. They might be bleeding, and then he would get in trouble with her mother. He should tend to those wrists if they are bleeding, before they get infected from the dirt on the floor. So he gets up.”

Minou is sitting in the kitchen doorway, looking at Sara from a safe distance. She seems to have forgotten her heat for now. Things evidently got a little too weird for her taste.

Sara is silent for a moment. “He gets up!” she repeats, louder. She is silent again and then says, softly, “Jeremy, please get up.”

I get up.

“And he walks over to her,” she says.

I slowly, softly, walk over to her head and stand there, towering above her, looking down.

“And he crouches next to her face.”

I slowly bend down.

“And he feels pity in his heart. He wants to give her a reassuring pat somewhere, but he’s not sure where, because there’s no place on her body that’s not erotic in the position and the nudity she’s in, so he takes the little key out of his pocket and unlocks her handcuffs.”

I unlock her handcuffs.

She says, “He looks at her wrists, and they are rather red and irritated, but not bleeding.”

I look at her wrists. Her description is accurate.

“She sits up,” says Sara, and sits up, “and looks into his eyes for a long moment, through the holes of the Mickey Mouse mask.”

Sara looks into my eyes. “She gets up and pulls him to his feet.”

Sara gets up, takes my hand, and pulls me up. I yield.

“She leads him to the bedroom,” says Sara, and leads me to the bedroom. Halfway there, she stops and says, “
He
leads
her
to the bedroom.”

I lead her to the bedroom.

Sara says, “She wants him to aerate her fur the way a real man aerates a real woman’s fur.”

I ask, “Not like the last time?”

“He asked. ‘No,’ she answered. ‘The last time we aerated each other’s furs the way a woman aerates a man’s fur.’ ”

“Really?” I say. “Is that the way you see it? That’s how you think women make love to men?”

“He asked. ‘Well, if not that,’ she answered, ‘it was at least the way little girls make love to men.’ ”

I must make love to her the way a real man makes love to a real woman. But she is not a real woman. And I suppose one could argue that I am not a real man. I wear a condom and lie on top of her and make love to her. Minou looks at me having sex with this mouse. I have an incredible urge and need to kiss Sara’s face, but I don’t dare take off her mask for fear of seeing extreme youth underneath. I stick my tongue in the eyes of her mask and in the mouth of her mask, and my tongue gets quite cut up in one of the eyes from the sharp edge of the plastic. It bleeds, and some drops of blood fall on the mask and run down its cheek, making Mickey Mouse look as though he’s crying blood, which disturbs me greatly, so I close my eyes and concentrate on being a real man.

A
fterward Sara goes in the bathroom, runs the shower, and stays in there for half an hour. I start getting nervous that Charlotte might be coming home soon. When I knock on the door and ask Sara why she’s taking so long, she answers, “Do you mind? I’m washing my femininity.” I ask her to hurry up, but she doesn’t, so I finally tell her to end her shower, but she tells me she hasn’t finished washing her femininity yet. So eventually I get a knife to unlock the door, thinking there might be something wrong. Sara is sitting on the closed toilet, reading my boyhood diary, which she took down from the ceiling.

“It’s a very interesting story about the little white elephant,” she says.

“Yes,” I say, taking my diary from her and closing it.

“Do you still have the elephant?”

“Yes.”

“Do you ever make wishes on it?”

“No, of course not.”

“Can I see it?”

“No. I don’t know where it is, and I have to take you home now.”

I
take Sara home by cab. Just before getting out, she says, “My mom will be out with friends tomorrow for the whole evening. I want you to visit me at around five o’clock and aerate my fur again.”