With My Body. Nikki Gemmell

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      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 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