But at fourteen, you crave difference. So, the obsession with artists, creators, thinkers, the opposite of anything you have known in your life. All that: an escape. A world where people communicate honestly and openly; touch, laugh, cherish, seize life, sizzling like luminous fireflies in the dark; feel deeply and passionately, yes, yes, all that.
Lesson 37
Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily
Friday afternoon. Central Station. You have just bought your train ticket to get you home for the weekend; you are walking across the concourse.
Ahead. Mr Cooper.
You, in your school uniform.
He glances at you, blushes. You are one of those girls he never wants to see again in his life; the whole school is laughing about it, at him. It is a split second, a moment. You could walk straight past him, not look.
You walk up to him.
‘Are you OK?’ Not knowing why that comes out, all you can think of is his reddening face, the vulnerability, the sweetness in it. It makes him oddly approachable.
‘Yes,’ he stammers, bewildered. ‘Were you … ?’
‘Do you live near here?’ Blurting it out, covering up his awkwardness.
‘Yes, my studio’s across the road.’
‘A real, live studio?’ Your eyes sparkle. ‘Wow.’
‘Yes,’ he laughs. ‘It’s disgustingly messy, I’m sure it’d disappoint you.’
‘No!’ In the presence of a man you are blushing, changing, becoming something else. Losing the sharp flint; have you ever been like this?
‘Come and have a look.’
You nod, barely knowing why or what you are getting yourself into, words won’t come, you’ve lost your voice, your heart is thumping, you walk beside him, your insides flipping. If only the other girls in your class could see you now. Something, someone, has taken over your body, your talk. Your curiosity has emboldened you; yes, the experiment will start here, now. You have to do this, you need to know.
‘You don’t have somewhere to go, do you?’ he says at the entrance of his scruffy building.
‘My train’s delayed. Trackwork. I’ve got an hour to kill.’
The lie slips out, it surprises you, the ease of it. And the impertinence of your voice, your boldness—the collector, the archivist, with a task to complete.
‘My parents don’t like me hanging around Central alone.’ A pause. ‘I don’t like it.’
Your desire for friendship, companionship, someone, anyone, is insatiable; your desire, too, to have something, one thing, over all those girls in your class, over their ease and smoothness and confidence, their sense of entitlement. You can’t wait to tell Lune. She’ll be so proud of you. An artist, the coolness of that. The artist. Yours.
It is beginning.
And you are following this man from the railway concourse because of something else that has recently crept into your life. The possibility of aloneness, all through your days. You feel you could be very good at being alone and it frightens you; needs arresting.
Lesson 38
Easy, pleasant and beautiful as it is to obey, development of character is not complete when the person is fitted only to obey
His studio is in a warehouse, a proper one, whose second floor is reached by a scuffed and clanking goods lift. You say nothing as you are lifted high, high, but you are breathing tremulous, fast, clutching the straps of your backpack. Not looking, biting your lip, scarcely believing you are doing this. Trying not to show him anything of the great churning within you. He is wearing jeans and t-shirt, he looks different, a student himself. He shares the space with three other people, it is a hot Friday afternoon, they are out.
He gives you some lemonade. Lemonade! You are not allowed it at home.
You sit at the table, he accidently brushes your leg as he sits, you pretend not to notice, breathe shallow. You look around. Tacked on the wall are various postcards from galleries, and photographs, black and white and colour. Your eye rests on a print of a painting, a woman naked, the artist looking straight up her legs.
The meticulous detail.
He catches you looking.
‘Courbet. The Origin of the World.’
A prickly silence. You don’t want to look away, in shock, don’t want to give him that; can feel a familiar tingling, in your belly, between your legs.
‘Incredibly bold for way back then.’ A pause. ‘And now.’
You nod. Blush. The good student, taking in your lesson.
He stands in front of you. The bulge between his legs has grown again, he is right in front of you.
‘Do you want to sit for me?’ he breathes.
You try to still your breath.
So, this is it. You close your eyes, nod, can’t speak. Finally you will learn how love happens, touching and cherishing and nourishing and wanting, you, just you; you will learn where love comes from, how it’s snared, yes, this is the beginning of everything.
You stand, your finger finds the back of the chair, you don’t know what to do next.
He strokes your cheek. It slips down. Over your neck, chest, breast. Something is taking you over, a vast yes. You are angling up your arms and awkwardly unzipping your school uniform, and now he is helping you, he is undressing you, leading you; reaching behind your back, as if this moment will disappear if he doesn’t hurry, stumbling with the clasp and finally slipping off your small, pale bra then kneeling and holding his face to your skin, your quivering skin and with a great sigh burying himself in you, breathing you in. And staying there, staying.
Then his fingers. Slowly, slowly, like a daddy longlegs. Working their way into your white cotton panties.
Spidering inside, to your core, your great warmth; slowly prising your legs apart. You watch him watching, his mouth parted, his breathing. You are intrigued—his face, that you can do this to another person.
Transform them.
The power in that, and you have never felt such power in your life as he undresses you until there is nothing left.
So wet you feel you could crumble with it, now, buckle with his touch. You clutch his hair. Your legs collapse under you. He catches you and lays you on a worn Persian rug on the floor. Stands over you, smiles, assesses. Whips off his t-shirt.
Picks up a paintbrush.
Lesson 39
Would that, instead of educating our young girls with the notion that they are to be wives, or nothing—we could instil into them the principle that, above and before all, they are to be women
You feel suddenly, brutally, exposed.
‘Uh uh,’ he admonishes, as your legs instinctively entwine, shutting you away.
The rug is threadbare, thin, you can feel the sharpness of the floorboards underneath.
He unzips his trousers, fast, and you are astonished at the length of his penis, the size of it, it looks so big, it could never fit.
‘Are you a virgin?’ he asks.
Yes, you nod, breathe, biting your lip, can scarcely talk.
‘How old are you?’
‘Fourteen.’
‘No one must know we’re doing this.’ No talk in his voice, just breath.
‘Yes.’ Your face turns away, to the Courbet, so this is what women do, all women, you will learn, it is time.
‘I don’t know if I—’ you suddenly blurt, the voice of a child.
‘Sssh,’ he says.
You glance across at his canvases, stacked against walls and on easels, the paint is viscous, tumultuous, raw; among the portraits are some other ones, secret ones, bodies, just bits, never a face; men and women, their genitals in stark, cold, medical close-up. You look and look at those ones and then something cold touches you, playfully, and you start; the paintbrush, it parts your lips, you yelp in shock, it brushes your clit, plays with the entrance of your secret interior, then slithers across your mouth and your taste the tang of it, of you. And he dips the brush inside, gentle but insistent and you gag and he stops, it goes back to your clit and your stomach flips and desp
ite yourself you’re suddenly opening your legs wider, wider, surrendering, arching your back and gasping, suddenly, and there is a great warmth, a tingling, something is taking over you, you are becoming someone else.
Who opens herself. Who is turned over. Who lifts her buttocks out, high to the sky, wanting, waiting, for God knows what, as the tip of the brush plays, explores. Teases and you wince and flop—no, this is going too fast, it’s too unknown. All of it. You twist onto your back, legs clamped.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he says, matter-of-fact, smiling, placing the paintbrush back in a crammed jar. You look at him, no one has ever said you are beautiful before. A blush roars through your body.
‘I really want to paint you.’
You nod, the good girl, still biting your lip.
‘Now,’ he whispers.
But the spell is broken, you should be getting back, the golden light of late afternoon is slanting too obliquely through the tall, dusty windows and you must hurry to catch the next train, you’ll be just in time for Dad to not be worried if you go now, quick.
‘Next Friday,’ you manage to stumble out. ‘Same time.’ Don’t know what you’re saying.
His fingertip draws a line across the top of your pubis, then slowly, slowly—as your belly rolls under him—his touch, teasing in the crevices and you rise to it you meet it then his finger darts inside, once, with a swift, hard jerk; he hooks you; you tense in shock. The tone, in an instant, has shifted into something else.
‘Our secret, remember. No one must ever, ever know about this.’
You are too young for this, you are not sure, you shouldn’t; you are the good girl. You nod, next Friday, yes.
Desperate to begin.
Living. Loving. Life.
You need this.
You are on a path now, you cannot turn back.
Lesson 40
Let us turn from the dreary, colourless lives of the women who have nothing to do
The thirstlands.
All through that week and if anyone touches you, brushes by you—near your midriff, belly, chest—you will implode. All nerve endings raw and clenched at the thought of him, and pants damp, soaked with want. Lune gives you a secret smile whenever she catches your eye; you’re a woman now, more woman than her and you both know it. For the first time in your life you have something over her, over all of them, and it makes you walk tall, bold, right down the centre of the convent corridors with their polished parquet floors—you are becoming someone else. No more hugging the walls in this place, you are embarking on a new life.
Before you catch the bus that will take you to Central Station you change out of your school uniform, preparing for him, making sure you have more time this visit.
The force of the anticipation, as if a great hand has brushed a sheen of varnish over the tepidness of your life.
He smiles a triumphant smile as you step from the lift.
‘Well well, I wasn’t sure you’d come back.’
He is not wearing trousers, just a t-shirt. He is ready.
You hesitate, not sure why; roaming the kitchen, looking at anything but him as he gazes at you like a quarry caught, smiling his smile while he retrieves a lemonade for his guest and a beer for himself, opening it with one finger and still looking. Undressing you, with his eyes, as your fingers scurry to the buckles of your braces in self-consciousness.
There is a photograph on the battered fridge of three women, one of them is heavily pregnant, they are wearing bikinis on some deserted beach. ‘My flatmate. The middle one,’ he says. CWA is emblazoned in red lipstick across each of their tummies.
‘C.W.A.?’
‘Cunts With Attitude,’ he laughs. ‘I’ve painted the lot of them.’
Women who seem a world apart from you with their brazenness, bluntness. As does that word and the way they have colonised it; you’ve never heard it spoken aloud, thought it was only used by men who don’t like women very much.
‘Come on. Let’s get going.’
A new briskness in his voice.
‘We don’t have much time.’
You turn. Take a deep breath. So, this is it. A fresh canvas waits in readiness. The Courbet print is high in its corner with a slice of masking tape. He comes up to you with his knowing smile and unclips you, bold, just like that he draws off your t-shirt and whips off your bra; impatience in his fingers now.
You step back.
He grabs your hips, rubs, close. Cups your buttocks under your underpants, draws you into him.
Right, it must be done, now, this is what you have always wanted, dreamt of—a painter, an artist, you are complicit in this; there will be your triumph over the other schoolgirls, your difference, you cannot go back.
He spits on his fingers. Gosh, so that is what men must do. A wet finger slips inside you. Another.
Feel him, exploring. Your eyes blink, smart.
Lesson 41
No power on earth can give you back that jewel of glory and strength—your innocence
Urgent now. Propelling you onto a well-worn fifties couch. Whipping off your undies. Snatching up a paintbrush, clamping it between his teeth. Standing over you, cocking his head, nudging your legs apart. Lifting one knee casually into a crook, with his foot; placing your own foot wider on the couch, wider, it hurts.
‘Touch yourself,’ he murmurs.
You frown, what? But you know, you have seen it in Lune’s magazines, you know instinctively. Your fingers stray, he is holding his penis.
‘Slip inside,’ he breathes, directing, as his fingers move slowly, up, down, and you touch yourself, obey, the good girl. Is this right, asks your frown, your concentrating face. He nods.
‘Yes, yes, keep going.’ You close your eyes, try to lose yourself, touch yourself like you do at night, every night, when the wet comes, the flooding.
‘That’s it. Perfect.’
So.
The learning has begun, the collating of experience; you must do as you are told, it all begins from here.
You widen your legs further, further, splaying your fingers and surrendering to the moment, closing your eyes, arching your back, catching your breath. You open your eyes, watch him watching you. The power in it, the spell that your body can cast. Then suddenly, urgently, need something inside, anything, need to be filled up. You gasp, he groans, holding his firm penis then coming close, whispering the paintbrush across your clit, your lips, your secret mouth. ‘Deeper,’ you whisper, you don’t know why, needing it, something, anything, opening your legs wider.
‘Good girl,’ he whispers back chuffed, then to himself, ‘my obedient little schoolgirl,’ and you stop, frown, suddenly don’t like it.
The tone.
You shut your legs. He’s having none of it. He kisses you hard, suddenly, on the lips, a knee rough between your legs, and squeezes your chin firm, twisting your skin, pushing in the intrusion of his tongue and sweeping your mouth like a mine sweeper, kissing you hard as if his lips are wooden. You don’t like it anymore, it hurts. He jiggles your breasts, scrunches them up. Flips you over, smartly, like a piece of meat; you’re now kneeling with your belly over the couch and you cry out in shock, it’s too rough, changed, insistent.
‘Wait,’ you gasp but he’s not listening anymore, now something is between your legs nudging, pushing, bullying; it’s too fast, there’s no tenderness.
You pull away before it’s too late.
‘Stop! ’
Lesson 42
Her poor little bones were crunched between his dazzling jaws
Stumbling, reeling from his warehouse saturated in its golden light with your legs slightly apart and the ache, in all of you—at your tender parts so sullied, violated. But that is nothing compared to the enormous, flinched hurt of your heart. Where was the mystery, the grace, the empowerment?
There was no you.
In any of it.
From that moment he kissed.
It was wrong, just that.
And you knew in
that instant something you will now know for the rest of your life, at the first touch of a man’s lips: if it is wrong at that moment then what hope has the relationship got, can it ever endure?
It’s all in the kiss.
You recall the lack of tenderness most of all. The violence of that. And the way he spat, sharp, on his fingertips—the cheapness of that gesture. And the sound. Like a fork in fettucini as he worked his way in. Hooked you, hard. In ownership. He had no right.
My good, obedient, little schoolgirl.
The chuff in his new voice. The ugliness. Taken over by someone else, a man you didn’t recognise anymore. With … what was it, distance? Yes that, in his tone; you could have been anyone. In an instant he was changed—stripped—his true self and you didn’t like it one bit.
Only one thing is certain now: they will never know how much you are watching them.
The way he clumsily jiggled your breasts as if he’d read how to do it in a manual, that this is what turning on a girl was all about. Not feeling it. And you, staring at him in shock, at everything he was suddenly doing. Not participating. You have no idea if this is what is meant to happen but it just felt wrong, mechanical, bleak; it was not the sex of your imagination, your mind defrauded you. Or he did.
He didn’t like women, that was the most shocking lesson from it.
The affronted, luminous pain of the experience is like a bell of sadness inside you, pushing against your skin, as you stumble, dazed, into the late afternoon.
No idea where to go from it.
Lune will know none of it. You shut down, shamed, will never talk of it.
With My Body Page 6
