The Water-Method Man

'Tell me when you're cold,' I said, my voice muffled under the puff, hearing her gum snap and her short laugh. 'I'm not looking,' I said. 'Don't you think this is the perfect opportunity for you to undress?'

'You first,' she said, so I began, secretly under the puff, handing items out to her, one by one. She was silent out there, and I imagined her readying herself to bash me with a chair.

I passed out my turtleneck, my fishnet shirt, a wad of knee socks and my lederhosen knickers.

'My God, what heavy pants,' she said.

'Keeps me in shape,' I said, peeking out at her.

She sat fully clothed by the headboard, looking at my things. When she saw me, she said, 'You're not undressed yet.'

I went back under the puff and struggled with my long underwear. Then I got it off, held it in my lap a while, then delicately handed it out: a rare gift. I felt her moving on the bed then, and waited in my tent as tense as a tree.

'Don't look,' she said. 'If you look, it's all over.'

Unbuckle, -zip, -strap, and unpack her! Or better, let her do it herself. But why is she doing this?

'Who's Bill?' I asked.

'Search me,' she said, then peeked into the puff. 'Who are you?' she said, sitting knee to knee with me, Indian style. She snatched half the puff around herself, shading her tawny body from the light. She still had her socks on.

'My feet get cold,' she said, willing my eyes to stay on her eyes and look nowhere else. But I took her socks off for her. Big broad feet and strong peasant ankles. I tucked her feet in the hollows of my knees, pinched them with my calves and held her ankles with my hands.

'You have a name?' she asked.

'Bogus.'

'No, really ...'

'Really, it's Bogus.'

'That what your parents called you?'

'No, they said Fred.'

'Oh, Fred.' The way she said it, you could see it was a word for her like turd.

'That's why it's Bogus,' I said.

'A nickname?'

'A truth,' I admitted.

'Like Biggie,' she said, and smiled self-consciously; she looked down to her golden lap. 'Boy, I'm big, all right,' she said.

'Yes, you are,' I said, with an appreciative run of my hand up her long thigh; a muscle tightened there.

'I always was big,' she said. 'People were always fixing me up with giants. Basketball and football players, great big awkward sorts of boys. Like it was necessary we be matched or something. "Got to find someone large enough for Biggie." Like they were finding a meal for me. People always fed me too much, too; they just assumed I was hungry all the time. Actually, I have a really small appetite. People just seem to think it means something if you're big - like being rich, you know? They think if you're rich, you only like things that cost a lot of money. And if you're big, you're supposed to have some special attraction to big things.'

I let her talk. I touched her breast, thinking of other big things, and she ran on, not meeting my eyes now, watching my hand with a sort of nervous curiosity. What will it touch next?

'Even in cars,' she said. 'You're in the back seat with two or three other people, and they don't ask the smaller person if she has enough room; they always ask if you have enough room. I mean, if three or four people get stuffed into a car seat, nobody has enough room, right? But they seem to think you're some sort of expert at not having enough room.'

She stopped and caught my hand where it moved across her belly, holding it there. 'You should say something, don't you think?' she said. 'I mean, I think you should say something to me. I'm not a whore, you know. I don't do this every day.'

'I never thought you did.'

'Well, you don't know me at all,' she said.