Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson Read Free Book Online

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    On arriving there for the first time I made friends with a family, and after dinner promised to call the next day. They urged me to do so, and I did, and was upset to find that the little house had been replaced by a Museum of Antiquities. The curator was sympathetic and pointed me in the right direction. I had it in mind to go back to the museum and look at the skeleton of an extinct whale. It seemed unlikely to me that a public building would feel the same need to escape as an ordinary individual.
    I was mistaken. The museum had gone back to its original site by the docks, and in its place, with room to spare, was a windmill. As I watched the blades churning the air and wondered what kind of an element air must be, to seem like nothing and yet put up such a resistance, the miller came to his round window and yelled something I couldn't hear. I caught hold of one of the blades as it passed by me and swung myself up beside him.
    He asked me if I knew the story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. I said I had heard it, and he told me they were still living just down the road, though of course they were quite a bit older now. Why didn't I go and see them?
    Thinking that one dancer might well know another and that a dozen of them must surely know one I took a catch of herrings as a gift and banged on their door.

THE STORY OF THE TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES

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    I banged on the door and heard a voice behind me asking my name.
    'My name is Jordan,' said, though not knowing to whom.
    'Down here.'
    There was a well by the door with a frayed rope and a rusty bucket.
    'Are you looking for me?'
    I explained to the head now poking over the edge of the well that I had come to pay my respects to the Twelve Dancing Princesses.
    'You can start here then,' said the head. 'I am the eldest.'
    Timidly, for I have a fear of confined spaces, I swung over the edge and climbed down a wooden ladder. I found myself in a circular room, well furnished, with a silver jug coming to the boil with fresh coffee.
    'I've brought you some herrings,' I said, awkwardly.
    At the word 'herring' there was a sound of great delight and a hand came over my shoulder and took the whole parcel.
    'Please excuse her,' said the princess. 'She is a mermaid.'
    Already the mermaid, who was very beautiful but without fine graces, was gobbling the fish, dropping them back into her throat the way you or I would an oyster.
    'It is the penalty of love,' sighed the princess, and began at once to tell me the story of her life.

    We all slept in the same room, my sisters and I, and that room was narrower than a new river and longer than the beard of the prophet.
    So you see exactly the kind of quarters we had.
    We slept in white beds with white sheets and the moon shone through the window and made white shadows on the floor.
    From this room, every night, we flew to a silver city where no one ate or drank. The occupation of the people was to dance. We wore out our dresses and slippers dancing, but because we were always sound asleep when our father came to wake us in the morning it was impossible to fathom where we had been or how.
    You know that eventually a clever prince caught us flying through the window. We had given him a sleeping draught but he only pretended to drink it. He had eleven brothers and we were all given in marriage, one to each brother, and as it says lived happily ever after. We did, but not with our husbands.
    I have always enjoyed swimming, and it was in deep waters one day that I came to a coral cave and saw a mermaid combing her hair. I fell in love with her at once, and after a few months of illicit meetings, my husband complaining all the time that I stank of fish, I ran away and began housekeeping with her in perfect salty bliss.
    For some years I did not hear from my sisters, and then, by a strange eventuality, I discovered that we had all, in one way or another, parted from the glorious princes and were living