Nude Men (19 page)

“Don’t worry about it, Jeremy. You did nothing wrong.”

“I had sex with your eleven-year-old daughter at Disney World!”

“Don’t shout. It doesn’t matter. I’m all for it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this right away? You knew I’d be feeling guilty and living through hell, waiting for the police to knock at my door, and then trying, but failing, to resist your daughter’s repeated attempts at seducing me. Why didn’t you tell me right away when I got back?”

“I didn’t want to invade your privacy or make you uncomfortable if you didn’t want to talk about it. But obviously you do want to talk about it, so we will, but when you’ve calmed down. You can come see me this evening, and I’ll explain things.”

“I don’t want Sara to be there.”

“Of course.”

She hangs up. I remain sitting on the couch. Charlotte walks toward me slowly from the bedroom and says, “You had sex with an eleven-year-old girl?”

I stare at her. I had forgotten that this was Saturday and that she was not at work.

“I overheard the whole thing,” she says. “It is horrifying. I’m going to tell your mother.”

“Why my mother? Why not the police?”

“Because it’s family business.”

She heads for the phone. I step in front of her.

“I can call from anywhere,” she says.

“I don’t want you to call my mother.”

“Yes, I will, darling. It’s for your own good.”

I feel all the rage toward her that has gathered in me over the months. The drop that overflows the glass. I give her a tremendous slap, with the intention of knocking her out.

She is on the floor, motionless. I feel guilty immediately. I feel I am sinking to greater depths, first by having sex with an eleven-year-old girl, then by purposefully knocking out my girlfriend. What am I going to do with her now, kill her? It wouldn’t surprise me. And yet the slap has made me feel much better. Some of the rage is out of me.

I kneel beside her. She lifts her head.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “You can call my mother if you want to.
I’ll
call her.”

I pick up the phone, but she prevents me. “It doesn’t matter,” she says.

Things seem to return to normal. Charlotte goes out shopping. An hour later my mother calls me.

“Charlotte told me everything.”

I can’t believe it.

“I can’t believe it,” she says. “You had sex with Sara when we were in Disney World?”

“Charlotte called you?”

“Yes, thank God. You must be punished.” She hangs up.

I will break up with Charlotte. I can’t stand her anymore. I will make her leave my apartment.

I
go and see Lady Henrietta.

I ask her, “How could you approve of your daughter having sex at eleven years old? No mother accepts that.”

She answers, “I’ve always been very open with my daughter, and she’s very open with me. I’ve encouraged her to talk to me about whatever she wanted, about boys she had crushes on, about what types of relationships she hoped to have with them.

“I am for children’s sexual liberation,” she goes on. “Why should it be wrong for children to have sex if they feel like it? What right do we have to prevent them? But of course, they must feel like it. That’s what determines the line between children’s sexual liberation and child molestation. I am as strongly opposed to the latter as I am in favor of the former. I wanted to have sex when I was twelve. But I didn’t, because society said it was wrong, and I thought: Society must have a good reason for believing children should not have sex, a good reason that I don’t understand because I’m too young. But in a few years I’ll understand it, and I’ll be glad I waited.

“I remember lying in bed,” she continues, “when I was thirteen, wondering how I’d be able to wait until the acceptable age, which I thought was around eighteen. The thought of waiting five years was hell. When I was sixteen, I almost did it but decided not to, because it was not quite the acceptable age. I still didn’t know why I shouldn’t do it, and I thought I must still be too young to understand. I am now thirty years old, and I haven’t yet discovered the reason why I had to wait until I was eighteen to have sex, and I’m angry about it. I decided not to make my child go through that nonsense. Everyone is different. Some people don’t find the idea of sex pleasant until they’re nineteen or twenty. Some never find it pleasant. Others want to start when they’re even younger than I was. And I’m not talking about innocent curiosity here. I’m talking about full-fledged sexual excitement, identical to what adults feel.”

She looks at me in silence for a moment, and then says, “Before you came on the scene, Sara never expressed any desire to make love to anyone. She often talked about certain boys she wanted to kiss or even cuddle with. But when she met you, she started speaking to me about you immediately. She said she thought y0ll were wonderful, that she was in love with you and wanted to make love to you. I wasn’t sure exactly how I felt about you back then. You’re not exactly run of the mill. I thought you were rather strange, no offense, especially when you first came to my studio to pose. I saw blood in your mouth. It scared me a little. I thought perhaps you were a bit disturbed. I always wanted to ask you about that. How did your mouth get full of blood?”

“I was resting my tooth against the tip of my pen,” I explain, “and it slipped and stabbed my palate. The blood came out quickly, but I thought I was swallowing it fast enough for you not to notice.”

“Well, that’s a simple explanation, much less spooky than I feared. When I got to know you better, I realized that I had been right. You are not the run of the mill. But I also realized that you were better than the run of the mill, that you were gentle and kind, and that there was no one I would have preferred my daughter to fall in love with than you. Nevertheless, I thought that her interest might fade. To tell you the truth, I even hoped it would, because although it seemed perfectly clear to me that Sara should do whatever she felt like, there remained a part of me, from the old days, that thought that maybe I was still too young to understand why children shouldn’t have sex. Anyway, Sara’s interest in you certainly did not fade; it became a passion. By then I had gotten used to the idea that she had made up her mind to charm you. I started worrying about how disappointed she would be if you did not reciprocate her affection. I was virtually certain that you could never be interested in her because she was so young and because you were interested in me. I told her this many times. I didn’t want her to get her hopes up. I told her she should set her mind on someone her own age, but she wouldn’t give in. That’s when she came up with the idea of Disney World. It was her idea, and she spoke in such a rational, intelligent, and mature way that she convinced me to let her go with you.”

The more I listen to Lady Henrietta, the more I feel my guilt and tension leaving me.

“How old were you when you first wanted to have sex?” she asks me.

“About ten.”

“How old were you when you did?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Was the wait bothersome?”

“Yes.”

“Frustrating?”

“Yes.”

“To say the least?”

“Yes.”

“May I go so far as to say that it was a form of torture?”

“Yes.”

“Children should be educated, not kept in ignorance. The only danger for them is pregnancy and disease.”

“I don’t want to see or hear from Sara anymore,” I reply. “Tell her to stop calling me.
You
may not think that what happened was wrong, but I don’t want to live my life this way. I was hoping you’d put an end to it. In a way, you did. I can never again do what I did with Sara, knowing that you know about it.”

* * *

I
feel much better, but I realize I do not like Lady Henrietta as much as before. As a result of having been traumatized, I crave normalcy now.

I go back to my apartment. Charlotte’s there.

“You called my mother,” I accuse her.

“You told me I could.”

“But you said you wouldn’t.”

“I changed my mind.”

“So did I,” I say. “I think we should not see each other for a while. I would like you to leave my apartment. I want to live alone again.”

“Oh.”

“I want you to be gone by tomorrow evening. I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.”

T
he next day I am in the supermarket, buying food. I’m at the lemon stand, looking at all the plump yellow lemons. Whenever I see lemons I get a strong feeling of identification, and now, as I gaze at a whole pile of them, I get a feeling of belonging, of acceptance. It’s only with lemons that I feel this way, because we share bitterness. A woman stands next to me and says, “You’re tall; could you please grab me a box of those garbage bags up there?”

“Do you want the tall kitchen garbage bags or the bigger kind?” I ask.

“The tall kitchen kind.”

I hand her the box.

“Thank you so much,” she says. “I’ll use these garbage bags tonight to teach my daughter how to throw things away. She’s eleven, and she never throws anything in the garbage. Yet she’s n0t dumb. She’s quite mature for her age, but of course not mature enough to go to bed with a man.”

The woman turns around and walks away. I stand there staring at her back. I have never seen her before.

W
hen I get home, I ask Charlotte, “Have you been sending a friend of yours around to bug me?”

“No; why? Has someone bugged you?”

“A stranger came up to me and spoke to me about little girls and sex.”

“It’s your guilty conscience punishing you.”

T
hat evening, Lady Henrietta calls and invites me to visit her the next evening. I hesitate.

“Why are you inviting me?” I ask.

“Because I want us to remain friends. I don’t want what happened to spoil our friendship. Laura will be there. I’m sure she’d love to see you.”

I am exasperated. Will this Laura thing never end?

“Laura and I don’t click,” I say. “She is the dullest person I’ve ever met.”

“You’re wrong. She’s just shy. Once you get to know her better, she becomes downright interesting. I promised her you’d come over again soon. See her at least once more, and then we’ll drop it.”

“Will Sara be there?”

“Yes.”

“Then I would rather not come.”

“I think you should see her. I think there are things she wants to tell you.”

“I’m sure.”

“It won’t kill you. See her at least once.”

I
t’s 10:00 p.m., and Charlotte is still in my apartment, reading peacefully in bed. I confront her.

“I asked you to be gone by this evening.”

“I don’t agree,” she says.

“We’re broken up now. We’re not boyfriend-girlfriend anymore.”

“I don’t agree that we broke up.”

I’m too tired to fight her. I’ll wait till she’s in a better mood. I sleep on the couch.

M
y mother calls me just as I’m falling asleep.

“Did you enjoy my lemon woman?” she asks.

“What are you talking about?”

“My supermarket lemon woman with the garbage bags?”

“You’re the one who sent that woman to talk to me?”

“Correction. I hired her.”

I feel relieved that I’m not going insane. But I don’t feel the anger she probably expects me to feel. I am indifferent and tired. “What do you want?” I ask.

“What I want is to know if you enjoyed my lemon woman.”

“No, but obviously you did.”

“You’re wrong, Jeremy. This is not a game I’m playing. I’m spending my life savings to hire people to punish you. This is the only way I can help you and save you. You need to be taught a good lesson.”

“Don’t waste your money on me.”

“Nevertheless, that is what I will do, which should prove to you how much I love you.”

“I appreciate the gesture, but really it’s not necessary.”

“I think it is.”

“Then do as you wish.”

T
he next day, as I’m walking home from work, a man bumps into me in the street. He turns around and says, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I say.

He starts talking: “I always feel so bad when I bump into people, especially men, because I’m afraid they think it’s a threat, like in the movies. Especially western movies, I think. I often see those movies with my stepdaughter. She’s twelve. So pretty and affectionate, but I could never be sexually attracted to a little girl. No normal man can.”

And he rushes off. I stop walking and stare at his figure as it disappears behind a corner.