The Invisible Man’s Striptease

He removes his belt, his shoes, his watch. At this point everything’s status-quo. He takes off his sunglasses and then he takes out his glass eyes and that’s the first hint of what’s to come. He takes off his false moustache and there’s a little strip of nothing underneath his bandaged nose. He takes off the nose. He removes the bandages from his hands and arms, and then items of clothing just begin to fly off, as if of their own volition. Those of us in the audience ask ourselves, why is this turning us on? Oh, it’s not as if the question hadn’t occurred to us before. But even as we find ourselves drawn more and more into the act, we wonder, what is it about seeing a shapely form reveal absolutely nothing underneath that gets us going? He shakes out of his jacket. The socks come off. Soon it’s just a pair of men’s boxer-briefs dancing in the air. Soon it won’t even be that, and we’ll be left to wonder if he’s still onstage, or when he left. It’s that long moment of doubt that most of us are longing for.