With My Body

‘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 despite 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