Nude Men

ask, in a joking tone. I don’t want to seem too harsh, but I don’t want to be too soft either, or it won’t help her.
    “You are ruffling my feathers, Mr. Acidophilus.” She really is offended. It’s nice she can joke about it and put on a light air. Perhaps I poked at a sensitive spot of hers. Perhaps she has a terrible complex about being incompetent at magic.
    But she calmly proceeds to do the trick of making a card disappear under a handkerchief. She moves like a robot. She does it so badly that I can almost guess where she hid the card: in the lining of the handkerchief, or in her sleeve, or wherever cards are hid.
    “Don’t you do anything well?” I ask.
    She angrily slaps a coin into her palm, and it disappears before my very eyes, while her hand remains open.
    “There, that’s more my territory,” she mumbles.
    I look up at her face. She quickly looks away and repeats the traditional trick with the silver loops. I stop her.
    “Laura, that thing you just did. What was it?”
    She blushes, pouts, looks distressed, and quickly blurts out, “You just pushed me too far. You humiliated me. I wasn’t thinking. Let’s erase the slate. I want to lose consciousness.”
    “I’m sure you do,” I say, stunned. “I’m sure you do,” I repeat involuntarily. “That seemed mighty much like real magic to me.”
    “Of course not. That’s the only trick I’m good at. I just happen to do it well because it requires no sleight of hand.”
    “It requires no sleight of hand? Then it sounds even more like real magic to me.”
    “Well, it’s not.”
    “Then show me how you did it.”
    “It’s too complicated to explain.”
    “Try.”
    “No. Magicians are absolutely never supposed to reveal their tricks, no matter what. But you can go to any magic store and buy the kit with the instruction book.”
    I do exactly that. Early the next day, I go to a magic store and ask for a trick that enables you to make a coin disappear while your hand is open. They do not sell such a thing, of course, because such a trick can be performed only by fairies or witches or TVs. When I get home, I tell her I didn’t find her trick for sale.
    “Yeah, well, I didn’t think you’d go check,” she says. “I just wanted to get you off my back. It was actually my grandfather who taught it to me.”
    “I don’t believe you for one second, just for the record.”
    “The only reason you’re obsessed with it is because it involves a coin, like when you were little,” she says. “If it had been a button in my hand, or a thimble, or a ring, or a pebble, you wouldn’t have given it another thought.”
    “Not true.”
    “Yes true.”
    “Not not not.”
    “Yeah yeah yeah.”
    “No, I tell you.”
    “Yes, absolutely.”
    “Not on your life.”
    “Yes on my life.”
    “Forget it,” I say, waving my hand. But I then turn toward her eagerly and exclaim, “Do it again!”
    “Never. Drop your fixation.”
    “Never.”
    We stare at each other, almost panting. I suddenly plop down 0n the couch, exhausted. “I understand your dilemma,” I drawl. “You’re obviously not good at traditional magic, and it would he too risky for you to do your real magic, because even if you tried to make it look like fake magic, there’s always the chance you could get discovered. So all you can do is your postmodern baby magic. I understand your problem, and I now respect your decision.” I close my eyes. My case is closed: There is nothing you can say that will make my words untrue.
    “Oh, please! Give me a break,” she says. “My real magic? Yeah, right, Jeremy.”
    Nothing you can say.
     
    W e just are.
    We stand in the street, Laura and I, at a corner, without moving, without touching each other. We just are, together. The pleasure of being together is so intense that it is painful to bear. We must slow it down. We must slow down our existence and our heartbeats.
    When we are together, we get very excited about touching people without their noticing it. It is almost a contest between us: Who can touch people most. The best is when we both touch someone at the same time. The most convenient place to do this is in line.
    We never speak to each other about this behavior of ours. It isn’t some sort of game that we consciously set out to play. It started so gradually and imperceptibly that I couldn’t tell you on what day I touched my first person, or even what week. Touching clothing is good, it counts, but touching the