Читать книгу With My Body - Nikki Gemmell - Страница 42

Tenderly reared young ladies

The art room.

A new teacher. Mr Cooper.

A man.

Extremely rare in this place. He is one of a series where visiting artists run workshops in the school, explaining what they do; he is collected by the parents of Sophia Smegg, the richest girl in the class. He is young. A painter, apparently, a good one – his work has already been hung in the Archibald Prize.

His trousers have worn, grubby knees and paint splatters; a red sock peeps from the toe of a sneaker. He has made no concession to being in this place of constraint.

You are riveted. You are not the only one. You can taste the alertness in the air. And as the entire class of fourteen year olds gaze at this new specimen in their midst, something happens to his trousers. They grow. They stick out. At the crotch. It is excruciating, it is fascinating, it is appalling. Every girl in the class knows what it is. Every girl in the class cannot take their eyes from it. The entire phalanx of girls is silent, spellbound. Mr Cooper’s face reddens, he has barely begun his talk. He falls silent.

He excuses himself.

Mr Cooper does not come back.

He has left the school, it is understood.

The next artist is a porcelain painter, a woman of seventy-six.

None of you know what happened after Mr Cooper left the room. You suspect he exited so rapidly because of deep embarrassment; couldn’t face any of you again and you are intrigued by that, the blushing, mortification, vulnerability.

So. Mr Cooper. Gone from your life. And you will never forget. The power in you, in all of you. That collectively you could do this to him.

You feel too much, think too much; the intensity of the fantasies, every night before sleep. The Penthouses, at home on weekends, for when you are alone, vividly alone; you cannot look too much, it is unbearable, the intensity. And it is not the pictures of the men that excite you, intrigue you, it is the women; the men look terrifying, you cannot deal with that bit, but at night, every night, to lull you into sleep, the movie begins in your head. You are fourteen, you are not meant to know any of this. You are intrigued by your body, the concentration of what’s between your legs, the potency of it, the way it changes its viscosity, its dynamism – what is it for? Your hand, in wonder, exploring.

Your life hasn’t begun yet. When will it? You are aching for it to start.