Twelve of us sit waiting in a sunny upstairs room of a pub that doubles as a vegan restaurant. The tutor explains the principles of life drawing for those who haven’t done it before, like me. We sit, poised with our pencils and papers. I suppose I feel like we should all be naked. Is this person being paid to be naked? Is it worse if they are? A naked person comes out from behind the bar. Their body is supple and softly lit. It is the afternoon and I have had a wine in the pub downstairs – a pale rosé that kissed me on the lips and slid down my throat like a promise. The sky outside is pink and grey. The person sits and gets comfortable. They look so comfortable they make me comfortable. They are not posing and nor am I, nor is anyone. We all start to sketch. I let the silence gather around me once more. The shapes I make with the nib of the pencil are fat and light and easy, then grow into human parts and then I stop thinking altogether and—

RELAX

Almost. I suppose you could call it something like that.

Four hours later. Now I am naked too, but I stand smoking by the open window and the no-smoking sign, regarding this person with whom something is about to happen. I put out my cigarette still looking at them.

Our clothes lie like stepping stones to the door.

WE LIE

still in the full quiet of the room. Our bodies are like sucked sweets. We don’t even know each other’s names and this makes us both smile as we say goodbye. I order room service and eat it sitting in my own divine stink.

When my meal is done I creep into the bathroom and take a milky piss, slack and sensual. The porcelain gleams meanly. My hair is wild in sweat-dried curls around my head.

I go back to the bedroom and lie on the bed, ass aloft. I look at my nakedness in the full-length mirror. I make a square with my fingers and put myself inside. Click.

I leave the hotel at 5 p.m. I weave between people and cars, through the rush hour, but now the rush hour is outside. I am aware of my body as a shape that is cutting the same shape through the world, over and over as it moves forward, leaving behind it a concertina paper chain of women holding hands. We hold each other together.

I hold myself together.

When I get home, Kelly looks at me and says, ‘Have you done something different?’

‘You could say that.’

DRAFTS

Dear Jenny,

It seems to me you have two options:

1. Embrace the terror

2. Die