Nude Men

decent heart under that virile manly exterior. He really should look at those little wrists of hers. They might be bleeding, and then he would get in trouble with her mother. He should tend to those wrists if they are bleeding, before they get infected from the dirt on the floor. So he gets up.”
    Minou is sitting in the kitchen doorway, looking at Sara from a safe distance. She seems to have forgotten her heat for now. Things evidently got a little too weird for her taste.
    Sara is silent for a moment. “He gets up!” she repeats, louder. She is silent again and then says, softly, “Jeremy, please get up.”
    I get up.
    “And he walks over to her,” she says.
    I slowly, softly, walk over to her head and stand there, towering above her, looking down.
    “And he crouches next to her face.”
    I slowly bend down.
    “And he feels pity in his heart. He wants to give her a reassuring pat somewhere, but he’s not sure where, because there’s no place on her body that’s not erotic in the position and the nudity she’s in, so he takes the little key out of his pocket and unlocks her handcuffs.”
    I unlock her handcuffs.
    She says, “He looks at her wrists, and they are rather red and irritated, but not bleeding.”
    I look at her wrists. Her description is accurate.
    “She sits up,” says Sara, and sits up, “and looks into his eyes for a long moment, through the holes of the Mickey Mouse mask.”
    Sara looks into my eyes. “She gets up and pulls him to his feet.”
    Sara gets up, takes my hand, and pulls me up. I yield.
    “She leads him to the bedroom,” says Sara, and leads me to the bedroom. Halfway there, she stops and says, “ He leads her to the bedroom.”
    I lead her to the bedroom.
    Sara says, “She wants him to aerate her fur the way a real man aerates a real woman’s fur.”
    I ask, “Not like the last time?”
    “He asked. ‘No,’ she answered. ‘The last time we aerated each other’s furs the way a woman aerates a man’s fur.’ ”
    “Really?” I say. “Is that the way you see it? That’s how you think women make love to men?”
    “He asked. ‘Well, if not that,’ she answered, ‘it was at least the way little girls make love to men.’ ”
    I must make love to her the way a real man makes love to a real woman. But she is not a real woman. And I suppose one could argue that I am not a real man. I wear a condom and lie on top of her and make love to her. Minou looks at me having sex with this mouse. I have an incredible urge and need to kiss Sara’s face, but I don’t dare take off her mask for fear of seeing extreme youth underneath. I stick my tongue in the eyes of her mask and in the mouth of her mask, and my tongue gets quite cut up in one of the eyes from the sharp edge of the plastic. It bleeds, and some drops of blood fall on the mask and run down its cheek, making Mickey Mouse look as though he’s crying blood, which disturbs me greatly, so I close my eyes and concentrate on being a real man.
     
    A fterward Sara goes in the bathroom, runs the shower, and stays in there for half an hour. I start getting nervous that Charlotte might be coming home soon. When I knock on the door and ask Sara why she’s taking so long, she answers, “Do you mind? I’m washing my femininity.” I ask her to hurry up, but she doesn’t, so I finally tell her to end her shower, but she tells me she hasn’t finished washing her femininity yet. So eventually I get a knife to unlock the door, thinking there might be something wrong. Sara is sitting on the closed toilet, reading my boyhood diary, which she took down from the ceiling.
    “It’s a very interesting story about the little white elephant,” she says.
    “Yes,” I say, taking my diary from her and closing it.
    “Do you still have the elephant?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you ever make wishes on it?”
    “No, of course not.”
    “Can I see it?”
    “No. I don’t know where it is, and I have to take you home now.”
     
    I take Sara home by cab. Just before getting out, she says, “My mom will be out with friends tomorrow for the whole evening. I want you to visit me at around five o’clock and aerate my fur again.”
    “No, I won’t come,” I tell her.
    “I’ll be waiting,” she says, and gets out.
    The cabdriver looks at me in his rearview mirror with a suspicious frown, I think. Then I go back home.
     
    I have not sent the letter to Henrietta yet, because I must decide whether calling her might not be a better