Nude Men

the closest thing to it they have here, I think, is a shop where they sell seeds and nuts and things. They have one in Wonders of Life.”
    So we go to the seed shop. She buys some seeds. Then she says she wants to see the ducks.
    “What ducks?” I ask her.
    “I don’t know. Just ducks. I think I saw some on a pond somewhere.”
    We wander around and come upon some ducks on a pond. Sara picks up a rock and throws it at the ducks. They fly away.
    “That’s not nice!” I tell her. “Why did you do that?”
    “I must see duck shun.”
    She must see duck shun. I don’t even bother asking her why she must see it. She’s just being eccentric, trying to seem mysterious. Just let her be. She must see duck shun. And what else, may I ask? Really!
    And then, of course, I get it.
    And then I understand the other one as well, the seed auction.
    On our way back to the hotel, she sucks on something endlessly and loudly, as though she wants me to ask her what she is sucking on.
    “What are you sucking on?” I ask her.
    “Seeds.” She sticks out her tongue. Two little sunflower seeds are lying on it.
    “Why are you sucking them?”
    “Figure it out yourself.”
    She’s sucking seeds. I’m not getting anything.
    Seeds are sucked. Make it simpler.
    She sucks seeds.
    Succeeds.
     
    W e have dinner with my mom at the Coral Reef restaurant in The Living Seas. There are four big glass panels on one side of the room, through which one can see sharks, a swordfish, stingrays, a jewfish (which is huge: it’s sort of a grouper), and many smaller fishes.
    Mom is in a slightly better mood, but all we talk about are the fishes in the aquarium, and pet fishes in general, and my girlfriend Charlotte’s dead goldfish, the one I gave her, Al.
     
    I hope Sara will not come to my room tonight. I don’t want to see her. As I am thinking this, there is a knock on the door. Maybe it’s my mother. I have never been so happy at the thought that maybe a knock on my door is from my mother paying me a surprise visit.
    “Who is it?” I ask softly, standing a few feet away from the door, because I don’t want to be near, or touching, something that Sara might be near, or touching.
    “It’s me,” answers Sara in a singsong voice.
    “What do you want?”
    “Open the door.”
    “I’m very tired. I was already falling asleep.”
    “Aw, come on. I have a surprise.”
    I bet I know what it is. I bet she bought me a pair of shorts and she’ll request that I try them on in front of her.
    “I really don’t feel well right now,” I tell her.
    “I don’t either. I can’t fall asleep, so I just want to chat for a few minutes, and then I’ll be sleepy.” She begs, just like my mother when she pays me surprise visits in the city.
    “Are you sure you can’t just read or something?” I ask.
    “Yes, I’m sure.”
    I open the door with dread. She walks in, wearing a white terry-cloth bathrobe.
    “I was only joking,” she says. “I don’t have a surprise. I just wanted you to open the door.”
    She takes off her bathrobe and drops it on the floor. She is naked.
    I clutch the closet, to prevent myself from dropping to the floor like her bathrobe. “What are you doing?” I ask.
    “I’m hot. Don’t mind me.”
    She lies down on my bed, turns on the radio, and starts flipping through the hotel Bible restlessly, to the beat of the music, like a metronome. It’s classical.
    I pick up her bathrobe and throw it over her. “Please put this back on or get out of my room. You should not show yourself naked in front of me.”
    She kicks off the robe. “Why? I’m only a little girl. Children are allowed to be naked. You look so funny when you try to be harsh.”
    “You’re not going to put it back on?”
    “No, I’m not. I’m hot.”
    “And you’re not going to leave?”
    “No. I want to chat. I can’t fall asleep.”
    I suddenly get a very clever idea, which I am very proud of. I am gloating at how it will disappoint her, and there will be nothing she’ll be able to do about it. I open a drawer and take out one of my long black socks. I walk to the chair by the window, grinning, not looking at Sara, though I can see from the corner of my eye that she is following my movements, probably with curiosity. I sit on the chair and tie the sock around my head, over my eyes. I wonder if she will voice her disappointment or hide it.
    “You’re very prudish, you know, Jeremy?” she says.
    “That’s nice. Otherwise what’s