Ali Smith - How to be both

I held on to my satchel and felt for a door handle with my other hand but there was none I could find: now the woman was pulling me towards the bed by the strap of the satchel and I was pulling against the strap back towards the door.

What soft skin you have, she said. Hardly even sign of a beard (she put the back of her hand on my cheek), come on, you’ve nothing to worry about, not even paying cause the friend you came in with, it’s already arranged it’s on him.

She sat on the bed still holding me by the strap of my satchel: she smiled up at me: she pulled a playful couple of times gently on the strap: I held back polite the full length of it.

She sighed: she let the strap go: she looked towards the door: when I didn’t make a dash for it right away she smiled at me again a very different way.

First time? she said unbuttoning her front. I’ll take care. I promise. Don’t be scared. Let me. Of you.

Now she was holding the fall and weight of her own naked breast in her hand.

Don’t you like me? she said.

I shrugged.

She tucked the breast back in: she sighed again.

Jesus Mary and Joseph I’m tired, she said. Okay. Let me put myself together. We’ll sort this out. We’ll get you another girl. You and she can use my room. As you can see, the best room. So what do you like? Tell me. You like yellow hair? You like younger?

I don’t want another girl, I said.

She looked pleased.

You want me? she said.

Not that way, I said.

She frowned: then she smiled.

You prefer a man? she said.

I shook my head.

Who do you want, who would you like to fuck? she said.

I don’t, I said.

You don’t want a fuck? she said. You want something else? Something special? Your friend in here with a girl too? You want to watch? You want 2 girls? You want pain? Piss? A nun? A priest? Whips? Ties? A bishop? We can do it all, pretty much everything here.

I sat down on the bench at the end of the bed: I opened my satchel, unrolled the paper, got out my board.

Ah, she said. That’s what you are. I should have guessed.

The light in the room was candle-undulate: it was best over the bed where she now was, dark and prettily pointed of face against the bedclothes, her nose turning up at the end, her chin dainty: older than me by 10 years, or maybe it could even be 20: the years of love had worn her eyes, I could see ruin in them: the dark of the ruin made her serious even though she’d painted herself something quite else.

I moved a candle, and another.

You’re looking at me so, she said.

I am thinking the word pretty, I said.

Well, I’m thinking the same word about you, she said, and believe me, it’s not my job to have such thoughts. Though it’s often my job to pretend that I do.

And the word beautiful, I said. But with the word terribly.

She laughed a little laugh down into her collarbone.

Oh you’re a perfect one, she said. Ah, come on, don’t you want to? I’d like to. I like you. You’d like me. I’m good. I’ll be good, I’ll be gentle. I’m strong. I can show you. I’m the best here, you know. I cost double the others. I’m worth it. It’s why your friend chose me. A gift. I’m a gift. I’m the one who costs most right now in the whole house, skilled way beyond the others and yours for the whole of tonight.

Lie back, I said.

Good, she said. Like this? This? Shall I take this off?

The sleeve-ties fell as she unlaced them ribboning over her stomach.

Stay still, I said cause the breast in and out of her clothes was now perfect curvature.

This? she said.

Relax, I said. Don’t move. Can you do both?

Like I told you, I can do anything, she said. Eyes open or closed?

You choose, I said.

She looked surprised: then she smiled.

Thank you, she said.

She closed them.

By the time I’d finished she was sleeping: so I had a sleep myself there on the bed by her feet, and when I woke the beginning of daylight was coming through the gap in the shutter through the window hangings.

I shook her a little by the shoulder.

She opened her eyes: she panicked: she clutched for something under her pillows down the back of the bed. Whatever she’d felt for was still there: she relaxed, lay back again: she turned and looked at me blankly: then she remembered.

Did I fall asleep? she said.

You were tired, I said.

Ah, we’re all tired in here at this end of the week, she said.

Did you sleep well? I said.

She looked bemused at my politeness: then she laughed and said

Yes!

as if the very thought that a sleep had been nice was astonishing.

I sat on the edge of the bed: I asked her her name.

Ginevra, she said. Like the queen in the stories, don’t you know. Married to the king. What elegant hands you have, Mr —.

Francescho, I said.

I gave her the piece of paper: she yawned, barely glanced.

You’re not my first, she said. I’ve been done before. But your kind, well. You yourself are a bit unusual. Your kind usually likes to draw more than one person, no? People in the act, or —. Oh .

She sat up: she held the picture closer to what morning light there was in the room.

Oh, she said again. Haven’t you made me look —. And yet it still looks —. Well, — . Very —.

Then she said, can I have this? To keep, for myself I mean?

On one condition, I said.

You’ll finally let me? she said.

She threw the sheet back from herself and patted the bed beside her.

I want you to tell him, I said. My friend, I mean. That you and I had a really good time.

You want me to lie to your friend? she said.

No, I said. Cause we did. Have a good time. Well, I did. And you just said yourself, you slept well.

She looked at me disbelievingly: she looked down at the drawing again.

That’s all you want for it? she said.

I nodded.

Then I went to find Barto in the lobby which in what daylight came through the cracked-open shutters was very different from its night self, stale, stained, patchy, signs of a fire gone wrong all up one wall: Barto was sitting in an anteroom with the house’s Mistress, she was older than anyone I’ve ever seen done up in white frills and ribbons, 2 servingmen filling a small cup with something, one pouring, the other waiting to hold it to her lip: before we left Barto kissed her white old hand.

Barto looked stale and stained and patchy too, rough as masonry and his clothes were creased, I saw when we came out of the house of pleasure into the sun.

I can’t pay for you every time, Barto said on our way to get breakfast. Especially not Ginevra. When I’m earning or I inherit I’ll treat you again. But did you have a good time? Did you use the time well?

Hardly slept, I said.

He clapped me on the shoulder.

The next time we came (cause I started to spend a couple of nights a month, my father believed, cultivating the possibility of the patronage of the Garganelli family), Ginevra met us at the door: she winked at Barto and put an arm round me, took me off to one side.

Francescho, she said. I have someone special to meet you. This is Agnola. She knows what you’ll like and how you like to spend your time with us.

Agnola had long waved gold hair: she was strong at the thigh as a horsewoman though young: when we got into one of the shuttered rooms with the curtained walls she took my hand and sat me down matter-of-fact at a little table, then stood above me in a most shy way and said,

you know Mr Francescho the picture you made of Ginevra? Would you care to make another picture like it, but this time of me, for remuneration?

which I did, this time the body naked on the bedcovers to show the symmetrics, cause the great Alberti, who graced by coincidence the year of my birth with his book for picturemakers, notes the usefulness of such study of the human body’s system of weights and levers, balances and counterbalances: when I’d finished and the drawing was dry she took it, held it to the candle light, looked hard at it, looked at me to see if she could trust me, looked back at the paper again: she put it down on the bed and went to open a hidden hole in one of the walls: she got a little purse out of it and paid me a number of coins.