SEVEN DAYS Read Free Page A

poles, strapped together. She felt nothing. Mark seemed to sense her lack of enthusiasm.
    “Let me show you something,” he said, when they reached their floor.
    “In the bookshop?”
    “We'll be quick. I promise.”
    “I don’t have time,” she assured him.
    Mark looked at her long and hard and she found that she couldn't move. At the top of the stairs, people were parting around them, going left and right, as if they had formed an island.
    “Please,” he said.
    His eyes were so open. He would have accepted any answer she gave right then, because he'd laid himself bare for her.
    She opened her mouth to say that she couldn't possibly spend time on a diversion, but what she actually said was:
    “Okay.”
    “May I?” His fingers were warm against hers. His grip was firm, but gentle. He held her as though holding a precious thing that he must not break and that he must not lose on any account.
    She imagined those hands commanding her, laying her down on her bed and positioning her just the way he wanted. She’d be unable to resist him.
    They took a necessarily circuitous route through the churning crowd until ahead of them was an enormous, red doorway that stretched up to the ceiling. This was the much-proclaimed exhibition of erotica. An enormous sign above the door said: NAKED.
    As they continued through the mass of people, Judy realised that they were jumping the queue. Mark nodded at the gallery attendant at the door.
    “She's with me,” he said and at once she felt like his property. She felt every inch that very precious thing. She relaxed and he tightened his hold on her.
    “Come on,” he said with a grin.
    It was only as they passed through the doorway that she realised it had been designed to look like giant labia. Her instinct was to laugh, but she thought that that probably wasn't seemly in a serious gallery of modern art. Instead, she followed Mark's lead into what must accordingly have been considered the fallopian tubes of the exhibition.
    They passed through a stiff, double door on which there was a clear, printed warning that the rooms that followed contained very explicit images and was intended for adults only.
    “Ready?” Mark said, but he didn't wait for an answer before pulling her inside.
    She felt an illicit flutter of delight with every minute squeeze of her hand in his, every tiny readjustment, every imagined caress.
    She was unable to resist him in that moment and neither did she desire to.
    The first thing that Judy noticed inside was the crowd, which was a similar size to the mob outside the exhibition. Many of them stared at her and Mark as they entered. She felt a flush of pride at entering with such a gorgeous guy. After glancing at a few of the enormous paintings hung high on the walls, she ascertained that people had been looking at the two newcomers not only because Mark was so good-looking but to gauge their reactions to the work around them.
    The first room contained mostly portraits created on canvas in oil. A man on a mission, Mark didn't pause to let her linger in front of each work, and so she took them in quickly in a manner that did not seem befitting of a gallery, but created an impact all of its own. She saw flesh upon flesh, breasts, bellies, skinny and fat, bottom after bottom, flowing hair, faces - beautiful and ugly - open mouths, eyes, blue, brown, grey, shining. Wet lips. Bare legs. Sinuous vines. Red silk.
    The space was huge, but bare, so as not to detract from the impact of the work.
    Mark paused once, in the second room, to say: “Cezanne” as if he was pleased or impressed that it was here, but still didn’t want to stop yet.
    Judy saw a painting of half a dozen naked women dancing in the forest, which gave her a sense of freedom, like flying through a gallery, attached to Mark, cutting through exhibits and their viewers alike.
    He knew exactly where he was going and Judy Liked that.
    “That's a Picasso,” he said. “Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. See