Nude Men

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.
     
    L ady 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’Âne. 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.
    The little girl knows the words to all the songs, and sings along, with a very beautiful voice. In fact, she knows the words to the entire movie and talks at the same time as the actors.
    The story is about a king who falls in love with his daughter. He wants to marry her. She loves her father but doesn’t want to marry him. To discourage him, she tells him she will agree if he gives her a dress the color of the weather. To her surprise, he succeeds. She tells him she wants a dress the color of the moon, thinking it’ll be too difficult, but he succeeds. She tells him she wants a dress the color of the sun. He succeeds. She tells him she wants the skin of his magic donkey. He is indignant at this request because he loves his donkey, which defecates gold. But he kills the donkey and gives her the skin, thinking that now she will marry him. She wears the skin as a disguise and runs away. Eventually she meets a prince.
    Once, Lady Henrietta watches the movie with us. She tells me that the fairy tale was written by Charles Perrault, the same guy who wrote the stories of Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, and Cinderella. Henrietta says she often wondered why “Donkey Skin” never became as well known in America as the others. She suspects that it must be because the subject of a father being in love with his daughter is too shocking and objectionable to Americans. And of course, she says, it is shocking and objectionable in real life, but does that mean you can’t have a fairy tale about it? Bluebeard killing his wives is even more shocking, and yet Americans don’t object to that. Interesting phenomenon, she muses.
    The little girl is very intelligent, but strange, quite articulate for her age. One day I’m sitting on the couch and she comes and sits on my lap, wraps her arms around my neck, and rests her head on my shoulder.
    Holy shit, I think.
    From then on she often sits on my lap. She sometimes kisses my cheek passionately. She even gives me hickeys on my neck and cheeks, which I don’t feel but notice in the mirror when I get home. I realize then what the red marks are on my neck and cheeks.
    Every time I go to their apartment, Sara has thought of new things to tell me, more imagery like the time she told me I was a poor naked turtle. Or the time—it really beat all the others—she said