Free How to Be Both by Ali Smith

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, Isaw 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 greatAlberti, 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.
    Then she and I lay down on the bed and closed our eyes and she woke rested, the same as Ginevra (I did too, to find I was in her arms and most content and warm, it was most pleasant), and she thanked me for both the picture and the chance to catch up on her sleep.
    You’re a rare client Mr Francescho and I hope you’ll choose me again, she said.
    I left with the coins in my pocket and bought Barto and me both our breakfasts that day.
    So I went about my apprenticeship with my father and my brothers all that week thinking I was on to quite a winning thing working freelance at the house of pleasure.
    The time after that it was the girl called Isotta, who was black-haired and dark-skinned, not much older than me, and who sat demure on the bed while we discussed and agreed the drawing of herand the price she’d pay then when I turned my back to get my paper and tools out of my satchel sneaked silent up the bed like a cat and turned me and kissed me full on the mouth when I didn’t expect it and had never expected such a thing to happen with any tongue ever, to me, and then she