Naked Men

by Alicia Giménez-Bartlett

  But let’s try to focus a little here. The other day: Irene calls, wanting to go out with the guys again. She can’t deny she had a good time, even if she is a total prude. I don’t have a problem with it, I tell her, but then she says, absolutely unbelievable, “Tell whoever’s coming that I’m not interested in physical contact—I just want to see him naked. I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings afterward.” Amazing, right? Just incredible! Though I already knew about that—I hear things. After the last time the two of us went out with Rodolfo and Uriel, the next day Rodolfo called me all worried: “Hey, what’s up with your friend, did she say anything?” I stopped short. “No, she hasn’t said a word. What happened?” “Uriel’s upset because your friend wasn’t interested in anything with him. She just made him strip naked, that’s it. So he wants to know if she just didn’t like him, or if he did something wrong without realizing it.” Good God!, I thought. I told him I had no idea and that I had no intention of asking Irene either—that’s a private matter, and you can’t just go around asking about it. But I had the information, of course, and I couldn’t figure it out. At first I assumed that since it was her first time, Little Miss Sanctimonious was feeling shy and had had enough just seeing him naked without taking things any further. Of course, after her phone call and that business about “physical contact,” it’s clear there’s something else going on. But what? Maybe, deep down, she’s got a bit of lesbian in her. Or is it just that she’s repressed after living with her father her whole life? I’ve even contemplated psychological reasons: she’s so shattered after her husband left her that she’s become bitter and wants to make other men suffer, so she humiliates them. Because even if he’s a male escort, a guy is a guy, and making them strip naked and then rejecting them must really do a number on them.

  Anyway, Irene’s an odd bird. Really odd. Maybe she’s still a virgin. She was so in love with her father, maybe she never wanted to sleep with her husband. So many theories, and maybe that’s just her kink, seeing men naked. There are lots of kinks, some really twisted ones too. People are really screwed up—and it’s so easy to just be normal. Sometimes I think I’m too normal, because I’ve had plenty of opportunities to make my life more complicated if I’d wanted to. See, the only thing I want is to live a good life, no drama, grow old and all that, just like everybody else.

  All right, well, I’ll rustle up a couple of guys—it’s not going to be on me if this falls apart.

  * * *

  It’s much better this time. Clearly I need Genoveva for these kinds of plans. Plus, ever since we dropped the pretense, things have been a lot more natural. No more dumb outings to go shopping or have drinks. Now she knows what I want her for. And she likes having me around too—I don’t judge her, and my being younger helps mitigate the impression that she’s a pathetic older woman looking for a lay. It wasn’t too hard to come clean with her. Anyway, it’s not like not wanting to sleep with guys, just wanting to see them naked, is anything to be ashamed of. The other way around would be worse. And I put it to her in an aloof tone, without a hint of intimacy. I don’t want there to be any complicity between us. I think she understands that and will have the good taste to respect it.

  She’s already being more discreet this time. She didn’t announce with great fanfare that the guys were “hunks.” She only mentioned that one of them, “hers,” was a commercial model. He wasn’t famous or anything, didn’t appear in magazines. He just does ads when they call him, a freelancer, and he’s occasionally done runway work for a well-known designer. Mine—just hearing her say “yours” made my hair stand on end—was a younger guy who’d studied architecture but had lost his job. To earn money, he was working as a bartender at a nightclub and made a little on the side going out with women like us. At least that was the version Genoveva told me—who knows. There was no way of saying for sure who these guys were or where they came from. An out-of-work architect? Perhaps . . . Roberto, Genoveva’s companion, was definitely a model. He stood out because he had a great walk, straight as a ruler, and wore a silk scarf knotted elegantly around his neck. He told stories of his occasional work in the fashion world that sounded true. He wasn’t full of himself. Actually, he was pretty entertaining. He talked about a TV commercial where he’d played a modern dad and made us all laugh with his descriptions of how annoying the children on the shoot were, with one of them even spilling a jar of baby food on his pants.

  The unemployed architect had a lot less personality. I have no doubt he was unemployed, but I’m not sure he was really an architect. I tried to talk to him about the subject, and the only architect he seemed familiar with was Gaudí. He could have at least prepared a little if he was going to fake it! He was a kid from a lower-class neighborhood who mispronounced words, one of those people who think being well mannered means always saying “please” and “thank you.” Anyway, what can you really expect? At least he was handsome and he and Roberto didn’t already know each other. Rodolfo and Uriel had seemed like a couple from a TV sitcom, but without the humor. This guy was cheerful and laughed a lot. That was enough for me. They say laughter is good for your health.

  I realize how little laughing I’ve done in my life. Papá didn’t have a sense of humor. He was always serious-looking, though not taciturn—it’s to be expected after the tragedy he’d gone through with the death of his wife. And there was also his job: a businessman with that level of prominence and responsibilities can’t go around telling jokes or howling with laughter at every turn. It’s different with me, though. Everything in my life is falling apart: my husband left me, my business is going under . . . what can I do but laugh? I don’t have the energy to fight, especially since I have no idea who my enemy is. If Papá were alive, everything would be different; he’d know who to blame and devise a strategy for defeating them. But I don’t have his skill, and I lack the resources to clamber out of the hole I seem to have fallen into. Fortunately, my father taught me not to cry. The other day I told that to the psychiatrist, and he said crying can be a good release valve and a way of identifying which of our emotions cause us pain. The world’s turned upside down: you go to the psychiatrist so he can tell you how to cheer up, and the guy recommends you start crying. I guess this psychiatrist must deal only with wealthy women like me, which is why he offers such ridiculous suggestions.

  Anyway, everything went well with the fake unemployed architect. We headed to a hotel that night and, since he’d already been told what I wanted, there weren’t any awkward moments. He took off his clothes and started posing and flexing his muscles. I asked him to keep still, and he obeyed.

  Genoveva said we’re going to switch partners. We’ll see.

  * * *

  It had to happen, and it did. Luckily, he listened to me. Ultimately, everybody listens when money’s talking. With money in the picture, shame and dignity and everything else go out the window. The teacher knew he was in trouble. He comes to me the other day and says, “Iván, about what you were saying the other day—I’d like to give it a shot.” And I say, “Awesome, man. Given your situation, it’s your best option.” Then it got a little messy because he starts going on about how it was just a test, we’d see how things went . . . and then says, “Since it’s just a test, find me something light.” Something light? I didn’t really know what he meant by that until he explained. What he wanted was to take a lady to the movies, dinner, or some kind of party, and that’s it.

  “Well, man, things don’t quite work like that. You go out with a lady, yeah, OK, but after that who knows what might happen, and you have to be up for anything, understand? Whatever the lady wants.”

  “But you said . . . ”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit about what I said!”

  Did he really think he was going to get rich taking chicks to dinner? No way, man! Sure, it’s a way to earn some easy cash, but you have to clock in, even if you’re fucking Brad Pitt—money doesn’t grow on trees. App
arently he thinks he can go and set out his terms from the beginning: “You can invite me to an amazing dinner in a twenty-star restaurant, but afterward I’m going to bed alone—my mom’s waiting up for me.” Shit, man! I should have told him to go to hell a long time ago, but I just can’t do it—I feel bad for him and start thinking how if I leave him up to his own devices, he’s going to end up getting the shit kicked out of him. How has he made it almost forty years being such a dumbass? It’s just incredible. If I’d been him, there’d be nothing left of me, not even my skeleton. His grandmother must have taken good care of him, and his girlfriend too! I guess since he spent all his time buried in his books, he didn’t have to struggle to get ahead. But it doesn’t matter—however much education you have and however much other people take care of you, at some point you realize you can’t live life from behind a pane of glass. They shove you out of the nest even if you don’t want to leave it, and there you are, splayed out in the middle of the street.

  A week after that argument, when it still wasn’t clear whether we should move forward, a great opportunity came up: a bachelorette party at a private home. I hadn’t had any of those gigs for a while because, what with the crisis, there aren’t as many of them—people don’t much feel like celebrating. But they do happen occasionally: chicks who have a good job and invite all their coworkers to a party at their house. That comes out cheaper than renting a venue and hiring in caterers—plus, if you hire some good strippers for dessert, the crowd will have a better time than if you’d invited them to the fanciest place in the city.

  I told him that. I said, “Man, it’s a private party, totally ‘light.’ It’ll be like performing at the club, but with the girls sitting closer, real cozy.” The first thing he asks is “Will I have to talk to them?” You can’t take this guy anywhere. He makes it sound like talking to the girls is something horrible, just the worst, absolutely agonizing. Look, man, if you go to a rocking party, you can’t just dance your little dance and then sit in a corner reading a book. No, you have to join in a little, say hi, say the kind of things people generally say in those circumstances: “What’s up, girls? Who’s getting married? Are you sure about this wedding? Have you really thought this through?” You know, sell the act a little. You can’t just show up looking to be loved—we have to earn our keep, right? Another thing is he says he doesn’t want them teasing him. All right, that can be negotiated. I’ll talk with the chick who’s hiring us and tell her my partner is shy and doesn’t want them making racy jokes. I really hate to say that, but fine, I’ll give it a shot. But what I can’t do, no matter what, is say, “Listen, tell your friends my partner won’t be talking, so don’t bother.” Anyway, not wanting to tell him to go to hell, I said, “Well, you won’t have to talk much, Javier, maybe a few short sentences.” I think he realized what an ass he was being and started laughing.

  I gave him two days to consider whether to accept the job. For two days I patiently waited, holding back from offering the gig to someone else and closing the deal for good. Finally he comes with a martyred expression on his face and says, like he’s going in front of the firing squad, “OK, Iván, I’m in. I’ll go with you to the party.” Shit, man, I’ll accompany you to the grave, till death do us part, as the priest says. It’s a miracle! He probably spent the entire two days fretting about it: “I’ll go, I won’t go, I’ll do it, I won’t do it, yes, no, don’t know/no opinion.” Patience, Iván, patience!

  “All right, all right. There’s no need to make a big deal about it, Iván—I’m in.”

  It’s unfair to think it’s so easy for him. I suppose he must have had a first time too. Was it bad? Who knows! When Iván and I crossed paths again as adults, I immediately got the sense life had treated him worse than it had me. He seemed like an unlucky guy: deprived of the pleasures of education, haunted by his parents’ sad history, full of prejudices against women, living from hand to mouth . . . Today I see him differently. Iván is strong and ready to face any setback, he’s able to protect himself from misfortune, he doesn’t give up in the face of adversity, he’s self-confident, and he doesn’t cook up moral dilemmas that prevent him from deciding what’s best for himself. His world has turned out to be more real than mine. My ideal was a quiet life, a supportive and drama-free love, an endless supply of books that would bring me happiness. But that all turned out to be a fictional dream that collapsed with the first headwinds. Life is as Iván perceived it from a very young age: uncertain, difficult, sad, swift, cruel. Who can allow himself to live a placid existence dedicated to teaching, reading, thinking, living in harmony with others? I guess I’m not the only one who’s had to give up this sort of fantasy. We live in a wild jungle where you have to keep moving to avoid being devoured. The time I spent thinking I was happy had little relation to the truth. I was fooling myself. I thought I was showing my students the wonders of literature, but they probably weren’t even listening to me. They weren’t interested in Shakespeare or Calderón de la Barca—they were counting the minutes till the end of the class, eager to escape to freedom. They wanted to act, interact, log on to a social network, engage with the thousands of things awaiting them outside. And what about love? Is love as I’ve conceived of it even possible? Is it madness to still believe that calm and repetition might be a couple’s ideal bonds? Sandra left me because of extreme circumstances, but I now realize that even if we’d stayed just as we were, she’d have left me anyway.

  My values are obsolete. I’ve been living like a snail, and the shell I once produced no longer protects me. But did I have to be exposed to the elements so brutally? Being a prostitute! Charging money to sleep with a woman! Iván does it, sure, he likes living it up, overindulging . . . but me? All I need is four books and a cot. Is that true? Probably not. I’m not satisfied with whatever comes along—I’d never go live in a fleabag boarding house somewhere. I’m not good for much, and I need money to survive: that’s the raw truth, the only truth.

  I’ve got to preserve my sanity, avoid falling into despair. I’m alone. Iván’s my only friend. Stripping at a private party isn’t much worse than doing it every weekend at the club. Maybe that one gig will be enough to get me to the end of the month—that’s as far as I have to make it.

  “All right, Iván. I’ll go with you—don’t offer the job to anybody else. I’ll go.”

  So there we were, high on life and ready to win. The teacher and I agreed I’d go by the house to pick him up at eleven. I told him I had things to do beforehand, though it wasn’t true—but I didn’t feel like being with him all evening, listening to all his neuroses.

  The first thing I did was offer him some professional advice: don’t go overboard with the alcohol, don’t even think about dropping acid, keep things under control the whole time. It’s a good thing I didn’t spend the whole evening with him, because he was insufferable! A long conversation with him would have been torture: “Me, a prostitute—it’s so awful! So immoral!” I’m starting to know the teacher as well as if I’d birthed him myself, and I’m positive that’s pretty much how things would have gone. In any event, on our way to the party, he started nagging:

  “Shit, Iván, I don’t think I can do this! We should just drop it—it’s a ridiculous idea. Plus, my head hurts. I don’t feel good.”

  I ignored him and focused on driving. I acted like I hadn’t even heard him. I even put on some music and turned it all the way up. But it was no use—he kept moaning on about how he didn’t have the strength and oh his poor aching noggin. The guy’s a real fucking pain in the ass! He’s lucky we’re friends—otherwise I’d have opened the car door right there and kicked him to the curb. Is this really such a trial for him? Being shy is one thing, but getting all worked up about four chicks seeing you in the buff . . . I’ve done it a million times! Anyway, patience, I told myself.

  When we were almost to the house, the teacher really started getting the jitters and asked me to please let him out. I stood firm—no
more bullshit. I stopped the car in front of a huge house with a yard and a dog that started barking at the top of its lungs.

  “Look, Javier, do me a favor and chill the fuck out. I stuck my neck out and they hired both of us, and I’m not going to let you make me look bad. You’re not going to screw me over, understood?”

  Seeing how pissed I was, the bastard suddenly relaxed, or maybe the damn dog just incapacitated him with all that barking. I passed him a rail of coke, and he huffed it right down. I did another, and if that shit weren’t so expensive I’d have liked to have gone over to the edge of the yard and blown a little snow right in that fucking dog’s nostrils to see if it would fucking lay off.

  OK, so once we were calmer and clear on where things stood, I started looking for the house where the party was going to be. I slowly followed the GPS directions, and in a few moments we’d arrived. It was a cool place, definitely not a little duplex or a weekend cabin. We parked beside the wall. It was a quarter to midnight, so we had to wait a bit. That’s my MO—I like to show up right on time, not a minute earlier or later. It gives you the chance to scope things out. There were a ton of cars parked there, all luxury models: BMW, Mercedes, Alfa Romeo, Audi . . . The party guests were obviously high rollers. All right, so with a little luck we’d be able to earn some extra cash, which always helps with travel expenses.