SEVEN DAYS (19 page)

She could listen to him for hours and not hear a word.

That turned out to be true, because what seemed like a moment later, Andre was clicking his fingers in her face.

She hated that. People used to do that at work when she was concentrating on a particularly satisfying, perplexing problem.

“What?” she said.

“Stand up,” Andre said.

Judy noticed that everyone else was standing and waiting for her to join them.

“Are you okay?” Mark said.

“Of course,” Judy said.

He explained that the first exercise he was going to ask them to perform was to dispel any fear of the canvas in front of them. He asked them to stare at it. There were a number of things that could come between them and their artistic vision and he identified fear of the blank canvas as one of them. The fear of making a mistake. The fear of wasting resources and wasting time.

“That's nothing,” he said, “compared to wasting your talent.”

Judy looked at him and hoped to connect with his eyes, but his eyes were everywhere but on her.

“We're going to dispel any fear of beginning,” he said. “I want you do destroy your canvas.”

“What?”

“No.”

“What with?”

“The canvas is your tool,” Mark said, “not your nemesis. You own it. You can give it life. And you can take it away.”

The group looked at each other.

With Andre's help, Mark removed the red covering in the middle of the room to reveal a canvas and easel and chair, smashed to kindling. The paper was torn and ragged, a great spike going through it like a stake through a vampire.

“Here's one I destroyed earlier,” Mark said.

“What do we use?” somebody asked.

An easel clattered to the ground and everyone looked to see the rock chick putting her booted foot back on the ground.

“Excellent, Maggie!” Mark said.

Judy felt a flare of jealousy. It shot through her with more force than she could have expected. She was normally in good control of her emotions and it took her by surprise, so that she wanted to take it out on her canvas. She wanted to pretend that it was Maggie and pummel it.

“Kill it,” Mark said. “Plastic chairs are expendable too.” He left the room.

“No, they're not,” Andre said to the group and ran after Mark.

Maggie was stomping her canvas into the ground.

“Oh my God, this is great,” she laughed.

One by one, others began tapping at their canvases, which made Maggie laugh, considering that she had kicked hers into submission in one go. Not to be outdone, Judy pulled a hand back and punched her canvas square in the face. The easel only wobbled.

“Ow!” she said and clutched her wrist.

Her head was hurting more than ever with the noise of wood snapping and canvas being ripped from its frames so she was pleased when Mark returned and took them to the next stage.

Having stirred the entire room into a frenzy of destruction, he had them look at what they had done and then had them set up a new canvas—and a new easel where necessary. Nobody but Maggie had destroyed their chair too. Bernard might have done, but Mark had returned too soon.

Staring at their fresh, unsullied, unbruised, white canvases, Mark reminded them that they were the masters and mistresses of their destiny. The canvas was not in fact an enemy. It was cloth stretched over a wooden frame and was to be bent, quite literally if necessary, to their will.

It was the first time in weeks that Judy felt strong, and this despite being hung over.

Finally, he had them sit down—Maggie sat on the floor—and close their eyes.

Judy had listened to guided meditations before, but nothing so powerful as this. Mark kept it very simple and grounded and his voice was hypnotic.

When he told her to breathe in, she obeyed.

He asked her to think of a place in which she felt safe and immediately she was back in the gallery, where she had felt that she could do anything as long as she was by his side, hand in hand, practically floating from room to room.

When he told her to breathe out, she obeyed.

He told her to let go.

Of me, yes,
she thought.
Of you, never.

* * * *

When she opened her eyes, the room was empty except for her and Mark. He was sitting next to the only remaining easel and canvas in the room, making it seem as though a hurricane had ripped through and left only him standing. That seemed appropriate. He came across as being bomb-proof, not because he was tough, but because he was mostly lucky, and when he wasn't, he kept coming back anyway.

The phrase: “You can't keep a good man down,” came to mind.

Followed by her conscience's edited version: “You can't keep a good man.”

She unfolded her legs, wanting to stand, but unable because she had pins and needles from her toes all the way up to her knees.

“You finally let go,” Mark said.

“I finally fell asleep,” she corrected him. “Nothing mystical about that. Why didn't you wake me?”

“Why would I?”

“Because...because...everyone's gone.”

“I'm here,” he said.

“And because I snore.”

`“You don't snore,” Mark said.

“Yes,” Judy said. “I do. I have it on good authority.”

“Peter?” Mark said.

She had been thinking of Peter, but also Lisa, and thinking of her made her feel sexy again and for a split second she felt as though she had the capacity to draw Mark to her, not the other way round. A moment later, however, Mark put his pencil behind his ear and somehow that gesture disconnected them, as if he had hung up on her.

And so why am I still so hung up on you?
She thought.

“The others are in the recreation room,” Mark said.

It sounded like a dismissal.

“Thanks,” Judy said, rubbing the life back into her legs, but she hovered in the doorway.

“If you don't want to be with them,” Mark said, “why do you care so much what they think of you?”

“It's not that I don't want to be with them,” she said. It was that she wanted to be with him. “What are you doing over there? What were you doing while I slept?”

“Come see.”

The room seemed impossibly large. Her footsteps echoed on the tiles like a drummer keeping time. She was aware of his gaze on her legs, though she was wearing trousers, against Lisa's advice.

When she reached him, she realised that she would forgive him almost anything and the feeling frightened her. He smiled at her and she smiled back, almost laughing, almost relieved. She wanted to slap herself to regain control of her face.

She glanced at his canvas and then did a double-take. Blood rushed to her head and she felt as though someone had twisted a knife in her. Mark had used charcoal, chalk and pencil to sketch out the outline of a woman, seated, with her knees to one side, floating on water, eyes downcast, perhaps sleeping, her hair suspended in the air as if falling, though the woman appeared to be otherwise still. Her body was youthful and sensual, fluid lines from head to waist, thigh to calf, calf to toe.

“She's beautiful,” Judy admitted grudgingly.

“Yes, you are,” Mark said.

“That's me?” Judy said “I mean. Is this really how you see me?”

“You're more beautiful than anything I can create.”

They were close enough to touch.

Judy checked that they were alone. They were. And yet she couldn't move.

“I have two problems today,” Mark said.

“What are they?”

“The first is that I'm going to kiss you again and Peter's not going to like it.”

Her hands were shaking. No. She was trembling all over.

“He's real,” she said, “but we're just friends.”

“That leaves me with one problem,” said Mark.

“What?”

“Tutors can't go round kissing their students. People will think that the only reason you're here is because I fancy you. It's not the only reason.”

Hearing him say that he fancied her gave her confidence.

“Nobody needs to know about us, but what makes you think I want you to kiss me again?” she teased.

“You don't snore in your sleep,” Mark said. “But you do talk.”

Her mouth opened in shock and he took that moment to steal a kiss, their tongues entwined. Just like that, their bodies were one.

It was not enough.

“How do you feel now?” Mark asked, looking into her eyes.

She’d once heard that when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you. This was how she felt now.

“I feel better,” she said, massaging his arm and then stroking his chest. “Better and better.”

She was emboldened by his touch. She felt her body come alive under his hands, which cupped her breasts and claimed her waist.

She nuzzled her cheek against his neck, kissing his shoulder, forgetting the doubts that she had had about them that day.

He reached under her sweatshirt and into her track bottoms.

“I didn’t shower this morning,” she admitted. “Someone forced me out of bed and onto a minibus before I had a chance.”

“That person doesn’t care,” Mark said and turned her round.

She rested her hands on the back of Mark’s chair and looked over her shoulder to see what he was up to aside from massaging her breasts from behind with one hand. With the other, he was shoving her track bottoms and knickers down around her thighs.

Cool air circulated around her naked skin. She leaned against the back of the chair, wondering if he was going to spank her or slide his cock into her.

Both,
she thought.
Wouldn’t both be wonderful?

As she thought this, her tiny hairs standing on end, anticipating Mark’s touch, she kept her eyes on the door at the far end of the room.

Mark threw his wallet aside and tore open a condom wrapper. The sound of Mark’s preparation made her heart race, but the fear of the door opening and somebody walking in on them had it’s place too.

Eventually, she said:

“Is that door locked?”

Mark eased his cock into her.

“Did you lock it?” he asked, knowing that she couldn’t have done, because she didn’t have the key.

She was distracted for the moment, because she was so tight around him and his cock felt delicious as he penetrated her, deeper and deeper until she felt his balls against her too.

She arched her back, getting comfortable, while Mark pushed in and out of her, her pussy so wet that she felt a cool trickle down the inside of one thigh and heard the squelch of his cock entering her repeatedly. The legs of the chair slid on the tile floor. One leg was shorter than the others and it rocked and clacked against the floor whenever Mark pushed into her.