Nude Men (15 page)

Sara laughs and sits on my lap. She’s quite heavy for a supposed little girl.

“I got you now,” she says.

“Oh, don’t do this,” I whine.

“You can’t see me, so what does it matter? I could be wearing a space suit as far as you’re concerned.”

She strokes my hair, plays with the end of my sock.

“What do you think I should do to help me fall asleep?” she asks.

“Imagine you are slowly falling down a dark hole, like Alice in Wonderland.”

She kisses me on the mouth, for the first time. My lips are tightly shut. I am not breathing.

“Relax,” she says. “Imagine you are falling down a dark hole, like Alice in Wonderland.”

“You should do this with someone your own age,” I say.

She slides her hands under my sweater and caresses my bare skin. I am paralyzed. I am excited by her, and that is why I am paralyzed. I can’t help having these thoughts: Well, she really
wants
to do it. It’s not as though she didn’t try. She sure tried hard, for weeks, she did everything in her power for this to happen. She would be terribly hurt if I rejected her now. It might even scar her for life.

And I become red with shame at the thought of what society would think if it heard my thoughts. But the thoughts come back; I can’t keep them away: Why shouldn’t she have sex at eleven? She certainly seems ready.

And as though agreeing with my thoughts, Sara says, “I got my first orgasm six months ago, just a few weeks after I got my first period. Isn’t that interesting. I’m ready.”

My thoughts continue: What openness. What brass. Who knows, she might be advanced like those girls in Africa. They do it when they’re like five, I heard. Apart from that, I can tell that she’s dying to do it. This isn’t just innocent platonic childish affection. It’s excitement and lust. That’s undeniable. I don’t know what to do.

I take my Bic pen out of my pocket and rest my front tooth on the tip of its cap, even though I swore I would never do it again.

She puts her hand on my crotch, over my pants, and this causes sudden, automatic, conditioned disapproval on my part. “You should do this with someone your own age,” I say, taking her hand away and putting my tooth back on the tip of my pen.

My pen slips and stabs my palate. Blood gushes out. I don’t even bother to swallow it quickly. My mouth fills up.

“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 s
kill
, 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.

A
fterward 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

T
he 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.