A few years ago I spent a month in a cabin in Montana, my dog Curly as my only companion. The cabin was owned by former first daughter Amy Carter, who had grown up awkwardly before our nation’s eyes. It was a very cold winter.

In the mornings I would get up with the sound of woodpeckers at work. There were pines everywhere around the cabin, and beyond the pines, there was a lake to the east. I could sit on my deck in the mornings and see the lake through the trees’ straight trunks.

Amy had told me that once a week, there would be a man who would come to deliver wood. She told me that he was a very striking looking man.

That first Sunday, I retrieved the newspaper and began reading an article about whaling. It seems that Japan has wanted for some time to resume its practice of hunting whales. They want to take 150 Bryde’s whales a year between 2004 and 2008, and 150 minke whales this year. Japan was clearly concerned about the whales. What did they know that we didn’t, I wondered.

It was a very interesting article, and I looked forward to reading it all.

Just then I heard the rhythmic ripping sound of someone walking through the snow. I looked out my clouded window and saw a man. I guessed him to be the man who would bring the wood, and about his appearance Amy seemed to be correct. He was about 6’3", with a long mane of dirty blond hair. His hair was very, very dirty. His jaw was sculpted and he wore a thick mustache. Behind him, he pulled a sled full of wood. Curly woofed quietly, but I shushed him.

The man did not know I was watching him. He began to unload the wood, stacking it neatly against the cabin, and he soon became warm enough to take off his jacket. Now wearing only a tight black tank-top, I noticed his chiseled muscles and his very smooth skin.

To use the word ‘adonis’ in a sentence here would not be inappropriate.

I went back to reading my article about the Japanese pleas for whaling. They had convened an international conference of some sort to determine whether Japan and other pro-whaling nations, such as Norway, should be allowed to kill whales. These pro-whaling nations claimed they could do so in sustainable numbers, while most of the rest in the international community insisted that there was not enough science to know whether or not sustainable whaling was possible.

I looked up and saw the wood-man bare-chested. Apparently, he had been working so hard that his shirt was now a nuisance. His naked chest was strong and smooth, covered in a glistening sheen of perspiration. He was hairless and his skin was colored a light shade of cherry. Cherry is a kind of wood.

I moved my gaze from his torso to his face and realized he was looking at me. First he looked into my eyes, then scanned my body. It was at that moment that I remembered I was nude. I sleep in the nude now that my husband Mark has disappeared with that woman from the laundry room.

Before I could protest, the wood-man was inside the house. He was a huge man and closed the door. It seemed that he wanted something from me, but who could guess what that thing was? He wore only his work boots and very snug denim trousers. They appeared to be getting more snug as the seconds passed. I stood before him, unclothed and unmoving. Because the window was behind me, he could have seen only a silhouette. He stepped toward me and I saw him more clearly.

He was a powerful man, virile, a man who would take what he wanted, without being cruel. I looked up and down his beautiful torso, drinking in his smooth hard chest, his arms like bent pipes, his flat, perfectly defined stomach, the few strands of hair below his navel, disappearing into his jeans, which hid a growth of a very distinct shape. My eyes caressed this part of him lovingly, afraid, but intrigued by its size and apparent power, and then my gaze swung to the right, where, just behind him, I had left my newspaper. I had almost forgotten all about it.

I brushed past the wood-man and took it into my hands and touched it. I refound my place. The problem with whales in general, apparently, is that it’s hard to know precisely how many whales of any species actually exist. Worse, many killings of whales — accidental or not, by fishing vessels or other watercraft — are not reported.

Now the wood-man was behind me, breathing on my back. I heard myself sigh. I guess I really sympathized with the Japanese and the Norwegians, in that there are indeed animals and plants that need to be harvested, lest they take over the world and rule over humans, making us do their bidding.

If minke or Bryde’s whales attempted to lord over me, I would start an underground movement aimed at stopping them. We would wear organic-looking clothing and would live in a bunker built from scrap metal. Amy Carter would be there, as would the daughters of Jesse Jackson. We would breed with the sons of Gil Gerard. Our children would run around, filthy, because we would know that the battle against the whales would take many generations.

Those fucking whales! I would say to the assembled rebels. I would be the leader of the rebels. Yeah, fucking minke fascists! they would yell. We would all raise our harpoons and do some kind of chant I would invent. All the chants would have to go through me to make sure they were good chants. I hate stupid chants.

You ask me how the whales would rule over people if they live in the ocean and do not have thumbs. I shake my head and say, This is how it starts, humans. This is how it starts.