Nude Men

idea.
     

chapter eight
     
     
     
    T he following day I skip work again. I must stay home and decide whether I really will confess or not. It’s not a light decision. After thinking about it all morning, I conclude that maybe I don’t need to confess after all, because Sara was obviously not harmed, and I will never do it again. I have no more desire left in me. I can go on with my life.
    At two o’clock, however, I start to feel some desire again, and this frightens me. These first twinges of longing slowly but inexorably grow. I feel like Humpty Dumpty, getting closer to hatching. There is a monster within me, a monster of lust, and soon he will come out, and he’ll gladly accept Sara’s invitation to visit her at five o’clock to aerate her fur. I am afraid of myself. J must confine and restrain myself before I hatch. I must enchain myself now, while I’m still ambivalent, still vacillating.
    I take down my handcuffs from the bathroom ceiling and bring them to the kitchen. I handcuff my left wrist to the oven door and sit on a chair. I throw the key far into the living room. Minou pounces on it, thinking this is a game, and plays with it, eventually knocking it out of my sight. I will wait like this until Charlotte gets home at five-thirty and unlocks me.
    Minou, having finally become bored with playing with the key, sits in the kitchen doorway, contemplating me. She says, I hope I’m not prying if I ask what you are doing.
    I swear, sometimes you remind me so much of Henrietta’s doorman, with your smug sentence structures, I reply.
    Okay, she says. How’s this: What the hell are you doing?
    Leave me alone. I’m hatching.
    I see. Let me know when you’re done.
    I have almost reached the point where if I were not handcuffed I would visit Sara with no hesitation. I have only a tiny drop of doubt left, a tiny grain of guilt. I say: I’m going to crack at any moment.
    That’s useful to know, answers Minou.
    Oh my God, it’s really happening. I just felt the first crack.
    Is there anything I can do?
    I bury my face in my hands. I want Sara, no doubt about it, no guilt about it; I wish I were not handcuffed. I can’t believe I even considered going to jail for sleeping with her. It wasn’t really so very wrong. It wasn’t that dreadful, that horrendous. Let’s not exaggerate. Why do I let myself be so tortured by it? I know I will visit Sara tonight. It may be a bit wrong, a bit undesirable and unbecoming and unpraiseworthy, but it’s not that despicable a crime. I sigh deeply and lift up my head and say, Okay, it’s finished. I’ve hatched.
    You have?
    Yes.
    What now?
    I wish you could get me that key.
    I can understand, she says.
    Will you try?
    Cream. Heavy, that is. Every day for a month. In exchange for the key.
    Okay, I say.
    Minou smiles, lies down, and falls asleep.
    You useless piece of catness, I tell her.
    Yeah, yeah, attaboy Jeremy, she replies in her sleep.
    My only choice now is to wait for Charlotte to come home and unlock me. What will she think when she sees me like this? She’ll want an explanation. Perhaps I could tell her that I was depressed and was testing a theory that says you should lock yourself to a famous tool of suicide to no longer be depressed. One’s forced proximity to suicide tools revives one’s taste for life, I’ll say. Ovens are a classic suicide tool, even though they can’t be used that way anymore, but it doesn’t matter, it’s the symbolism that counts, the connotations that ovens strike up in our minds. Most of this is subconscious, you know.
    And Charlotte will answer, “Yes, I know,” because she’s a psychologist and will therefore agree with anything that contains the word “subconscious.”
    Five o’clock comes and goes. The phone rings. My machine answers, and I hear Sara, who says, “Knowing you, I bet you didn’t go to work today. It’s five-fifteen, and you’re late. I want you to come and aerate my fur this second, do you hear? I'm waiting.” She hangs up.
    I must not let her words agitate me too much. I try to focus my mind on something else.
    The suicide tool excuse might be a little too farfetched. I could simply tell Charlotte that I was playing with my new handcuffs and accidentally threw the key too far away. She’ll ask me why I bought handcuffs, and I’ll tell her I thought they would be fun. But she might put more meaning into it than I intended, and she might say, “You’re right, we could have a lot of fun with