Teach Me Dirty

“I smoke, too,” I said. It sounded a lot cooler in my head. Between us, in the car, the words sounded pathetic and juvenile. Like me. “Sometimes. Well, not very often. I don’t mind, I mean, if you do.”

He smiled, and there was amusement in his eyes as he offered me the pack. “It’s hardly breaking the law. You are legal.”

I shivered at his words. Yes. I’m legal. In every way that matters.

My hand dithered, then retreated to my lap. “I don’t usually smoke a whole one, I just take drags from Lizzie’s. Smoking a whole one makes me cough.” Shit. I must sound like the biggest dork.

“It’s a bad habit.” He slipped the pack back in his pocket and watched me, undoubtedly soaking in every breath of my discomfort. He took a long drag, and then offered me his own cigarette, fresh from his mouth. My heart thumped. “Can’t have you coughing, but you look like you could do with this.”

I took Mr Roberts’ cigarette with shaky fingers, stomach fluttering at the thought of it being between his lips. I sucked hard, trying to look impressive, but his cigarettes were stronger than Lizzie’s and the smoke burned my throat. I handed it back before I got a headrush, transfixed as he placed his lips back to where mine had been.

“Talk to me, Helen.”

I willed myself into the depths of the soft leather seat. “I, um… I just… I just don’t know where to start.”

“Start anywhere you like.”

I smoothed my pleated skirt over my thighs, wiping my clammy palms in the process. “The drawing. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I should have been more careful.”

“You can forget about the drawing, Helen. I understand artistic expression, the fiery impulses of imagination as the muse calls. There is nothing to apologise for, you should maybe just consider being more discrete with your private sketches. Your peers may be less sympathetic. I’d hate to see you suffer for your creativity at the hands of those who don’t understand it.”

“Or understand me.”

“Precisely. Creatives rarely find their natural home amongst their peers, Helen. I never did.” He stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. “Youth is a cavern of creative potential, rife with tempestuous emotions and new, emerging sensuality. I think that sketch was tapping the wellspring. I don’t think it was about me so much as about you, making sense of your sexuality. There is such power there, Helen, such beauty, ripe to be channelled and explored. The picture was skilled, and it had life. That had little to do with me, and everything to do with you. The fact it was me was secondary to the pursuit of the art itself. The figure could have been anyone.”

But he was wrong. I was shaking my head before he’d even finished.

He raised his eyebrows. “You don’t agree?”

“I agree that it’s about something deep, something… sexual… some emerging me. I get that, and yes, my peers can be spiteful, most of them are total idiots, and no, I don’t belong there, and I never have and I never want to, and that’s ok, and they could be as spiteful as they wanted about my art, because I wouldn’t even care. I just care that it made you uncomfortable.”

“I’ve been a teacher a long time, and an artist for a lot longer. Little makes me uncomfortable.”

I took a breath and pulled up my bag from the footwell, and then I spat out the words in my throat. “It couldn’t be anyone, Mr Roberts. It’s never just anyone.” I dug out the sketchbook and held it between us. Contemplating the unthinkable. The whole scenario was unthinkable.

He stared at me for long seconds. “You want me to look?”

I nodded. “There is no other anyone. Only you. It’s always you.”

He took the sketchpad. I couldn’t watch as he flipped to the back. My stomach was churning, foot twitching, fingers twisting in my lap. I flinched as I finally heard the pages shut.

“These are very good. And very flattering on my part. Thank you. I maintain it’s about you, Helen, not about me.” He handed me back the book. “You have an incredible imagination, and a whole lifetime ahead of you to put it to good use.”

And it hurt. His tone hurt. The dismissal of my feelings as something that could ever be real and adult and viable hurt. “You think I’m a stupid kid, don’t you?”

His fingers shocked me, hot against my chin, his grip firm as he turned my face to his. “I’ve never for one second thought of you as a stupid kid. I think you are an incredible artist, and a vivacious, soulful, gifted young woman.”

And I said it. I just said it. “I like you, Mr Roberts. I really like you.”

“And I like you, Helen. Very much.”