Nude Men

Charlotte would look at is straight ahead at her feet.
     
    T he following Saturday I bring the little girl a bunch of white peonies, my second-favorite flower, thinking it will please Lady Henrietta. It turns out that it pleases the little girl even more. She jumps around my neck gratefully, which makes me uncomfortable because she has seen me naked.
    I ask Henrietta what happened with the O.I.M. she brought home the other night. She says she painted him but it’s not finished yet, so she can’t show it to anyone.
    She shows me the painting of myself. I almost laugh at how much she changed me. She made me look like a very effeminate man, lying in a feminine pose. Then I am overcome with a feeling of awe. It is very well painted. It shows me lying on the couch, naked, on pink and black sheets, my arm behind my head, looking at the painter. The painting is full of optical illusions, especially in my expression and the way I hold myself. I look as if I’m almost happy, but I also look as if I’m anxious and very desperate. My body looks comfortable, relaxed, and even self-confident, but at the same time the facial expression indicates a wish for the body to be veiled, and indeed, it almost does seem that a barely perceptible veil covers me entirely, except for the eyes, like a Halloween ghost costume.
    “It’s very good,” I say.
    “I know,” she says. “It is without doubt the best painting I’ve ever done. You were the best model.”
    “Was I an Optical Illusion Man?”
    “Yes.”
    “Your daughter said I am the most extreme O.I.M. she has ever seen. Is that true?”
    “Yes. I have never seen a more complete Optical Illusion Man than you.”
    “How am I an O.I.M.? What is it that I am almost but not quite?”
    “You are almost ugly, but not quite. You are almost good-looking, but not quite. There is almost a tire of fat around your waist, but not quite. Your ribs almost stick out too much, but not quite. You almost look like the most stupidly blissful man in the world, but not quite. You almost look like you might commit suicide any second, but not quite.”
    “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