The Lessons by Naomi Alderman Read Free Book Online Page B

what do you think of this group of pictures?’
    ‘Hmmm?’ I said.
    ‘These pictures. This woman. What do you think of them?’
    ‘Mark,’ said Jess. There was a warning in her tone, a hint of something. She walked towards me and perched on the arm of my chair, taking my hand in hers.
    ‘Come on, James,’ said Mark, ‘what do you think of the pictures?’
    Something else was going on. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that. Next to me Jess stiffened. I felt her hand close around mine.
    ‘Don’t, Mark,’ she said.
    Mark tipped his head to one side, flicked a quick look at me, then looked at Jess.
    ‘I’m only asking.’
    Jess pursed her lips. After a moment, she said, ‘Ask. Someone. Else.’
    Mark met her gaze. I saw him move his tongue inside his closed mouth, licking his top front teeth, pushing his lips out.
    ‘Fine,’ he said, then, all smiles, turned to a man staggering unsteadily across the room.
    ‘Rob,’ he said, ‘what do you think of my pictures?’
    Rob collapsed on to a sofa and looked around him with exaggerated concentration.
    ‘Do you like them, Rob?’
    All at once, no one else in the room seemed to be talking.
    Rob peered at the walls. Spotting the one closest to him, the woman nude, draped with multicoloured art silk, he broke into a grin.
    ‘Dirty pictures, is it?’
    Mark grinned.
    ‘Yeah, that sort of thing,’ he said. ‘What do you think of her?’
    Rob looked at another picture in which the woman was dressed in diaphanous silk, her naked breasts clearly visible through the fabric. Rob blinked and pulled his head back a little, having some difficulty focusing.
    ‘She’s fucking gorgeous ,’ he said at last.
    Mark lit a cigarette, took a deep drag and blew the smoke out slowly, in a steady stream. He held the cigarette just a little away from his mouth and said, ‘She’s fantastic, isn’t she? Would you, you know, do her?’
    Rob squinted at the picture. He smiled drunkenly. ‘Fuck, yeah. Who is she? Your girlfriend or something?’
    Mark took another long, slow pull on his cigarette, then said, ‘That’s my mother.’
    It is at this point that my memory begins to blur. Although nothing had yet passed my lips I find that in my recollection the ferns and trees had already started to creep from the wallpaper to spread their tendrils through the room. Everything felt dangerous and confused. The music grew louder. Mark was dancing and talking and running his hand through his blond hair and squeezing my shoulder. Jess got up to dance and said, ‘Come on, come on,’ but I remained seated. Someone gave me a cake and I ate it. It tasted a little dry. I chewed it more thoroughly. Time dilated and contracted and across the room Jess was dancing and laughing and talking, tossing her hair back from her shoulders and touching another man, a man who was not me, on the arm.
    Time passed again. It seemed to be doing so more slowly. I thought I saw all sorts of wonders. A woman I had never met took off her beaded top and bra and danced. Simon threw Franny over his shoulder and carried her through the room, like a caveman with his trophy. I seemed to see Mark dancing with another man, hip to hip and chest to chest, sinuous and strong. My head felt heavy I wanted to rest it and Jess was there in her gold dress with sequins all over and I was wearing jeans but nonetheless I walked to her and laid my head in her lap.
    ‘Very affectionate,’ someone said. And this seemed to me the funniest thing in the world, the funniest thing I had ever heard, and I laughed and laughed with Jess’s hand on the back of my neck.
    ‘Did you …?’ said Jess to someone.
    ‘No, not me, I don’t share,’ someone said.
    ‘Then which one of you?’ said Jess.
    Mark said, ‘It was me.’
    ‘Oh, God, what did you give him?’
    ‘Just some weed.’
    ‘How much, for fuck’s sake?’
    The room was triangulated, its dimensions folding in, the vanishing point closer than it should have been, and I stood