The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore Read Free

me into the room was not the woman whom I would later come to know as Lydia (was that
you
watching from behind the mirror, Lydia?), but some droll old fat bearded sot who held no special interest for me. There was a transparent plastic box on the floor. The scientist produced from the pocket of his white coat—with the excessively theatrical flourish of an amateur magician—a peach.
    A peach, Gwen—he was my serpent and I was his Eve. There we were, me in my prelapsarian nudity and he in his demonic white coat, tempting me with fruit coveted but prohibited. The only difference was environmental: we’d swapped sexy Edenic lushness for the sterile whitewashed walls of Science. Also, that particular fruit is semiotically associated with the female pudenda, isn’t it? Isn’t that why Cézanne painted them?—
Still Life with Peaches
?—why, that’s just a quivering bowlful of vulvae sweating on the breakfast table, waiting for you to eat them up!
    But the peach in question: so he takes, this scientist does, he takes a juicy piggish bite out of it and starts making yummy-yum-yum noises,
mmmmmm
, rubbing his belly, trying to goad my jealousy, you see. And as I recall, it worked. I was a simpler creature then. I remember wanting the peach at that moment more than anything. Hell, I would have sold my soul for a peach. (And in a way I did.) I remember hating, no,
loathing
that old smug fat imperious blob forthe way he lorded the fruit over me so. So he took his bite, breaking the skin, releasing into the room the ambrosial aroma of that sticky wet fleshy treat, and then he, bastard, pushed me away when I reached for it. Then, turning to the box—transparent plastic box on the floor, remember?—he operated some sort of device which made the lid spring open, placed the peach inside and shut the lid. I was watching his actions with curiosity and a motley of deadly sins: greed, envy, gluttony, lust. Then, the demonstration: the box-opening mechanism consisted of a button and a lever; he pressed the button; then he rapped on the lid of the box three times with his knuckles, like this—
knock, knock, knock
; then he flipped the lever and the lid of the box popped open. He reached in and—again, moving his arms in such a grossly histrionic manner it was as if he wanted the people in the nosebleed seats to see what he was doing and making a face like
Look, Bruno, what do we have here?
—extracted the peach.
    Again I reached for it. Again he pushed me away. Then he put the peach back in the box, promptly left the room and pulled the door shut behind him. Bruno was alone.
    Alone with the box, with the peach clearly visible but locked away inside, forbidden to Bruno. I looked at it a moment. I pressed the button, knocked thrice on the lid, flipped the lever, opened the box and removed the peach. Did I dare to eat a peach? Indeed I did.
    In this way I fell from my state of innocence.
    The door opened, I was escorted out and my brother, Cookie, in, where I understand the same procedure was repeated on him. A little while later all three of us—Cookie, Céleste, and I—had made it through the first round, and I was taken back into the room, until they decided enough time had elapsed to renew my appetite.
    Only this time—
this
time, it was Lydia—gorgeous-smelling Lydia, my human peach—who attended me into the little room with the box. Just being alone in a room with that woman wasenough. And now
she
removed a peach from the pocket of
her
white coat,
she
took a sopping wet bite out of it and took her sweet time chewing. Then
she
placed the peach inside the box, waited a moment, pressed the button, knocked her knuckles on the lid three times,
click-click-click
, flipped the lever that opened the box and retrieved the peach. After locking it up again she left the room, though I entreated her to stay. Alone, I again in turn pressed the button, tap-tap-tapped, flipped the lever and proceeded to feast: but
this
peach tasted so much