Nude Men

probably very embarrassed by me, but she doesn’t want to hurt me. She feels it’s good for me to be with her, that it can only help me. When she’s harsh, it’s not because she dislikes me. In fact, she often says, “I love you and just want what’s good for you. You need to be shaken up a bit.” I don’t take it too personally.
     
    M y mother complains to Sara about me. Sara complains to my mother about me, saying things like: “Don’t you think he should let himself go a little more? Don’t you think he’s too stiff and constipated?”
    “I agree,” says my mom. “That’s what I’ve been telling him for years.”
    “He’s always so worried about doing what’s proper.”
    “Couldn’t agree more.”
     
    W e go back to the hotel at around five, because Sara has a headache and wants to rest.
    Right after dinner, my mother goes to her room to sleep. Sara comes to my room and begins to talk about things; I’m not sure what things, because I’m so tense. She seems very relaxed.
    She keeps talking about me, analyzing me, telling me what she likes about me. She shows off her flesh. I’m not sure if she’s doing it on purpose or if it’s just me, old pervert that I am, noticing it. If she is doing it on purpose, she has a talent for it, because it looks very natural. She reeks of childishness. Smooth cartoonish skin. Even the slightly uncoordinated movements of children. She looks like putty, like if I press her arm, it’ll change shape and stay that way.
    As we talk, she insists on sitting next to me, with my arm wrapped around her. She cuddles in the hollow of my armpit. “You’re my teddy bear,” she says, which is music to my ears. That’s the kind of attitude I like. The innocent, friendly one. At one point she walks over to the door and spins around. She starts singing “Tonight” from West Side Story. She walks slowly toward me, perfectly serious, with an intense expression on her face, singing: “Tonight, tonight, there’s only you tonight. Tonight there will be no morning star. Tonight, tonight...”
    She finally reaches me and begs me to sing with her. I object quite energetically, telling her I can’t sing at all. She insists even more energetically, and we start singing the duo, her cheek glued to mine, my voice sounding like I don’t know what. In fact, I’m not really singing, I’m talking.
    She finally goes to her room to sleep.
     
    * * *
     
    T he next day Sara wants to do Horizons again. So we do it again, even though Mom doesn’t really want to.
    We then go to MGM Studio, taking the shuttle bus at around 4:00 p.m. We take a ride called “Backstage Studio Tour.” We only do the first half, which is on trams and lasts twenty-five minutes. There’s a scary part when our tram goes over a bridge, which starts shaking, and fire appears everywhere, and a huge amount of water comes crashing toward us. The fire is hot, and the people on the left side of the tram get wet. We are on the right side. The second half of the tour, which we don’t do, lasts forty-five minutes and is on foot.
     
    S ara’s face is young, but she has the body of a tall, sensuous woman.
     
    M y mother says loudly, so people can hear her, “Intelligence in men has never much interested me.”
     
    S ara tries to act very sexy, to move sexily, to make me desire her.
    What does she want from me? How far is she trying to go? Not that I would accommodate her.
     
    A t one point, during a rare moment when Sara is not with us, my mother tells me, “I don’t understand why this little girl likes you so much. But I’m very pleased about it. It’s charming, her affection. I’m sure it builds your confidence. I must say I’m „ bit jealous of her. I hate her a bit.”
     
    W e go on the rides. We go on the little trains, and we see the little shows.
     
    W hen my mother is beyond hearing range, Sara says to me out of the blue, “I’ve got to warn you that I’ve got big boobs for my age. Or for any age. I’m afraid you’ll faint if you see them.”
    “Then I hope I will never see them.”
     
    W e go on the little trains, we see the shows, we stand in the endless lines (half an hour, an hour), we go in the stores but buy very little, we eat at the little restaurants, some of which are good, surprisingly.
     
    S ara often has headaches. I don’t know if it’s because she thinks they’re an attractive feminine quality or if they’re real.
     
    “L ook at that sexy prick over there. Not