Nude Men

cabinets. Now I register it.
    “You’ve been sleeping here?” I ask, concerned.
    “Yeah; it just made me feel closer to you. Don’t worry, it’s no big deal,” she says, waving at the mattress dismissively.
    In a way, I have been betrayed. She did not sleep with a man, but she did sleep with a file cabinet. And she petted a file cabinet very affectionately and even erotically and sensuously, staring at it lovingly, flipping through its files.
    I wonder what she’s filled the files with. Probably ordinary dull stuff. Bills. But then, as I’m standing there, I start fantasizing. It wouldn’t be so bad to remind her of a file cabinet if she’s filled it with very interesting files. That would make me feel good, in fact. Maybe the files are empty but labeled with elements of our future life together, like “Car,”
    “House,”
    “Son,”
    “School.” How charming that would be. It would show her devotion to me, her love for and near obsession with me.
    Or each file could be labeled with a quality of mine.
    Or maybe she labeled them with parts of our past, things we did together, and each file might be full of souvenirs from a particular evening, or restaurant. For example, maybe in one file she keeps my dirty Kleenexes from when I cried.
    She’s obsessed with me, I think to myself, flattered. This beautiful creature, even more beautiful than Lady Henrietta, whom most men would kid for, is obsessed with me. But then again, maybe the cabinets are full of files of her male conquests, with pictures and complete reports of their sexual prowess, and I’m just one of the files....
    I must see what is in the files, because then I’ll know what she thinks of me.
    I glance at them, not wanting to seem indiscreet, but I don’t see anything written on the folders, so I bend down and look closer. They are not labeled, so I open one, and then another. They’re empty. I look at her, bewildered, and doubly insulted, and worried about her sanity.
    “So,” I say, “not only am I a file cabinet, which is bad enough, but I’m an empty file cabinet?” Is that what she thinks of my mind? That I’m very stupid and have nothing in my head? I ask her as much.
    “No; on the contrary,” she says. “You have plenty of things in your head, but they are mysterious and intriguing things, which no one can know but you.”
    We kiss and lie down on the mattress.
    “I’m so glad you’re back. I missed you infinitely,” she whispers, her eyes closed as she kisses my neck.
    I feel great desire for her at this moment. I love her. But I know that before we go too far, there is something I must ted her.
    “How has your show been going?” I ask, to delay having to tell her what I have to tell her.
    “It’s going great.”
    “Are you tired of the clapping yet?”
    “I predict not as long as I live.”
    “I know, I heard you say that on TV.”
    “Then why are you asking?” she whispers, kissing me.
    “To delay having to ted you what I must ted you.”
    “Oh?”
    We are entwined in each other’s arms, and I am wondering if I should bother telling her this thing at ad. I know I must, so I reluctantly disentangle myself from her.
    “Before we go further, there’s something I must tell you.”
    “Yes, you said that already, poor Jeremy, poor Mr. Acidophilus,” she says jokingly, stroking my hair.
    I take her hand out of my hair and clasp it in my palms. I must not be distracted. “When I was in the country with Henrietta, she was very depressed,” I begin. “I thought she would never recover. I tried to distract her and ease her pain in every way I could think of. Nothing worked. I felt so helpless that I finally decided to comfort her in a more personal, intimate way.”
    Laura is lying on her back, motionless, staring at me with unblinking eyes. Has she understood, or do I need to elaborate? I find the silence very uncomfortable, so I decide to kill it again.
    “I made love with her, out of total desperation and sadness. I wasn’t sure it would help her, but it did. The next day she seemed less sad. She said she felt she had been in touch with Sara. And she also told me that I had not been unfaithful to you.”
    As each word comes out of my mouth, I feel it is vicious and bad. I guess I have just ended my relationship with Laura. But even now, if I could go back a few minutes in time, I would not withhold the confession from her. I’ve done enough wrong in the past. I don’t want to commit the additional,