He stood there. She said nothing. She had simply shut him out." Tom waits: "saying nothing at all, for some minutes. He thought: 'She'll have to say something if I stay.' But the minutes went past, with no sign." Tom has fantasized that he can be tenderer than the other workmen, and therefore he assumes the woman will be more forthcoming to him than to his crude companions. Like the other construction workers, this 'Peeping Tom' cannot separate fantasy about what they call this modern "Lady Godiva" from reality: it does not occur to him that the woman has a sense of her own sexuality, independent of his feelings of her: like the real Lady Godiva, he feels she should only disrobe for a reason, to satisfy male desire.

The story suggests that Tom's sentimental feelings about the woman are just as unreal as the pornographic scenarios created in the...
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