Nude Men

in my chair.
    She stands behind me and encircles me with her arms. I feel her cold plastic mask pressing against the side of my face. “I want to kiss you, Jeremy, but I can’t because of this awful mask I’m wearing.”
    “Don’t take it off!” I cry, because I am afraid to see the childish face of the person who is arousing me.
    She slides her hands in my shirt. I push her away and snap, “Stop that.”
    “What?”
    “That!” I shout.
    “What I’m doing or what I’m saying?”
    “Both!” I scream in her face.
    But she does not stop, so I push her away again, but she comes back on me, so I finally leap up from my chair, rush to my bedroom, and come back with a long black sock, perhaps the very one that served me so well at Disney World. And now, for the second time, the faithful sock is coming to the rescue. Except that the last time, come to think of it, the sock didn’t serve me so well after all.
    I stand in front of Sara, near the couch, and say, “Sit.”
    She sits on the couch.
    “No. On the floor.”
    She obeys me.
    “Lie down.”
    “Oh, goody,” she says, and lies on the floor, her bright, white, nude body shining up at me, glowing teasingly.
    “Raise your arms above your head,” I tell her.
    She raises them, and I pass them on either side of the foot of the couch, and then I tie her wrists together with the sock.
    “Wonderful,” she says. “Now we’re doing a bit of tying up. That means you’re excited, right?”
    I ignore her and go back to my letter.
    “Jeremy, you were supposed to stay here,” Sara says.
    “No I wasn’t.”
    “Okay, then I’ll come and see you.” And she easily slips her hands out of the sock knot and is all over me again.
    The sock has faded me for the second time. I will not use any fabric softener at the next wash. Not because had the sock not been so well softened, Sara could not have slipped her hands out. No, I am not so dumb as to think that the extra lack of softness would have made any significant difference in the ease of Sara’s escape. The reason I will not use fabric softener at the sock’s next bath is, of course, to punish the sock for repeatedly failing me.
    I go to the bathroom, climb on the toilet, and bring down my handcuffs from the ceiling.
    When Sara sees the handcuffs, she sucks in her breath sharply and says, “Wow, Jeremy. Handcuffs. You’re an exciting person.”
    With the handcuffs, I lock Sara’s wrists around the foot of the couch, in the same position as before. She does not resist. She seems to be enjoying it, probably feeling a sense of power and challenge, and thinking: You can do anything you want to me, Jeremy, but you’ll see, I’ll still get you.
    I go back to the table and stare at the “Dear Henrietta” on the page.
    “Jeremy?”
    I ignore her and try to concentrate. I wonder if I should start with: “I have committed a terrible crime” or “This is a letter of confession”?
    “Jeremy, look at me.”
    I look at her. “What?”
    “Can’t you sit a little closer?”
    “No.” I look back down at the page. Or should I start with: “I’m very sorry to have to write this confession to you”? Finally, I cross out “Dear Henrietta” and write underneath: “My Lady.” It’s the most respectful greeting I can think of. Then I could begin with: “After you read this letter, I won’t blame you if you’ll want to kill me.”
    Sara says, “I’ve never had so much fun. This is exciting. But don’t be too much of a tease. Don’t keep me locked up too long.”
    I ignore her, but Minou doesn’t. She is looking at Sara with great curiosity. She’s never seen anyone lying on the floor like this before. But soon the novelty fades, and she goes back to rolling on her back with heat.
    Sara is sdent for a while, and then hums a bit, and then says, “His strong arms were resting on the table. His large right manly but sensitive hand was holding a pen. He was writing a letter to her mother, a letter describing all the sordid detads, the sin that had occurred at the park of amusements. The pen, the lucky pen, held by those long graceful male fingers, was sliding against the page the way she wished his cheek would slide against her stomach. She, poor young woman, was lying naked as a worm on the cold hard floor, hands handcuffed around the foot of his couch. If only it was his foot, and not his couch’s foot, she would feel consoled. The mask was on her face, the mask which he cruelly forced her to wear