Nude Men

what happened, and I promise I won’t try to charm you anymore. I’ll just be very frank and very direct. There won’t be any more teasing or flirting. There won’t be anything that will make you uncomfortable. So will you still see me sometimes, when you come visit my mother?”
    “Of course.”
    “Thank you,” she says.
    We then carry on a bit of small talk, and she leaves. Henrietta comes back, and Laura arrives. The moment I see Laura, I realize she is exactly who I need. The very traits in her that I had found unpleasant before, I now crave. Her sanity, her normalcy. I love every word she utters. I love it when she says, “How’ve you been, Jeremy? I haven’t seen you in a long time.”
    “I’ve missed you,” I tell her, barely believing that I’m saying this. I glance at Henrietta to see if she heard me. She is staring at me with surprise. I won’t let it embarrass me.
    Laura looks at me with surprise too, but mostly with pleasure.
    “How have you been?” I ask her, as we go to sit on the couch.
    “Fine, thank you.”
    I ask her about her show and rack my brain to think of other things to say, but can’t come up with anything, and she can’t either, because we don’t have much in common. It’s wonderful to find someone to whom you have nothing to say. It’s so normal and sane. Much better than exchanging dozens of twisted little comments with Henrietta.
     
    T he next day I’m with Tommy (my crotch brooch friend) in a bookstore. We’re buying Cliffs Notes for him. An old woman with an umbrella walks toward us. We watch her coming, not really paying attention. She stops in front of us. She takes the handle of her closed umbrella in both hands and holds it in the air like a baseball bat. She swings her umbrella and gives me a tremendous blow on the hip.
    “Ow!” I say, holding my hip.
    Tommy steps back, expecting that he’ll be next, but the old woman pays no attention to him; all her interest is focused on me. She stares at me viciously and says, “You are an abomination to your family! You are a monster.”
    A few people are looking as she walks away.
    “Do you know her?” asks Tommy.
    “Not really.”
    “What do you mean, not really?”
    “No—I mean no.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me that you were an abomination to your family?”
    “I don’t really have a family.”
    “Except for your mother.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Poor Jeremy. Things like this only happen to you. She seemed to know something about you. Did you do anything very naughty that could cause such a venomous reaction?”
    “I’ve never even seen her before. She’s insane.”
    “You didn’t answer my question, so I must assume that you did do something very naughty.”
     
    A n hour later, I am back at my apartment, kneeling on the floor, scrubbing the newly pee-drenched couch, when the phone rings.
    “What about that one?” says my mother’s voice, which has become nauseating to my ears.
    “It hurt,” I answer. “Was the violence included in your scenario, or did your employee improvise?”
    “Nothing is improvised.”
    “What are you going to do next? Have one of your agents run me over with a car?”
    “How dare you speak to me that way. How dare you even insinuate such a thing!”
    She hangs up but calls me many more times, bugging me. I waste practically my whole evening talking on the phone with her. I finally warn her that I will change my number if she doesn’t stop phoning me.
    Notice that I do not make a wish on my little white elephant for the agents to stop coming. Why? Because I know it’s pointless, gut then why am I so filled with hope when I make a wish for certain people to love me? And more important, why am I not repelled by the idea of making a certain person love me unnaturally, against her will, by using magic? Wouldn’t I prefer it if her love for me was genuine?
     
    C harlotte is not moving out of my apartment. I keep asking her to, ordering her to, but she doesn’t do it. She refuses to acknowledge that we’re broken up.
    I try to explain to her the concept of breaking up. “You don’t need two people to do it. In a couple, if only one of the people wants to be broken up, then the couple is broken up.”
    “I don’t agree.”
    “Anyway, I’m involved with someone else.”
    “Is it a little boy this time?”
     
    I ’ve been thinking a lot about Laura. The thought of her normality soothes my mind. I often go to Lady Henrietta’s apartment to see Laura.
    One day