Читать книгу With My Body - Nikki Gemmell - Страница 10

That season of early autumn, which ought to be the most peaceful, abundant, safe and sacred time in a woman’s whole existence

A memory slicing through your life.

That you slip out every night like a billet-doux hidden in a pillowcase, that you’ve carried through all your adult years. A memory of exquisite shock: that your body was cherished once. Not used but thrummed into life. His touch – you are addled by the remembering even now, after all these years. His touch – sparking you awake, God in it. And his voice. Is that what we remember most potently, out of all the senses, long after someone has gone? You can still recall the exact way he spoke your name when he was deep inside you, moving almost imperceptibly, the nourishment of it. You have pocketed that voice in your memory long after the sharpness of his features has faded.

In no way did he want to reduce you; that above all you remember. His singular aim: to empower you, lift you, unlock you. Teach you to know your body, what it is capable of. How many men give women that gift?

Another country. Another life.

A world away from this one, now, sipping your green tea as you stare out the window at 4.30 p.m., your life ticking by, your knuckles white around the mug. It’ll be teatime soon, followed by the pleading to get the homework done, the dragging from screens, the nagging to have showers, do teeth; all the plea-bargaining, negotiating, cajoling in your life, the relentless exhaustion of it.