Free Justine by Kerri A.; Iben; Pierce Mondrup Page B

bartender to hurry and bring three double Havana Clubs.
    â€œYou’re all three beautiful as goddesses,” he said. “Come on, girls, come, come, come.”
    He hustled us between himself and the remaining professor, who followed his colleague’s example, packed up, and left.
    â€œHey, girls. It’s just us now,” the painting instructor grinned, guzzling his highball and ordering another.
    Katrine left on the excuse she was going to the bathroom.
    â€œWell now,” said the instructor. “Ane. When are you going to show me what you can do?”
    Ane blushed, but the instructor drew her closer and kissed her hair.
    â€œFuck me, you’re so hot,” he said.
    I kicked him in the shin. He jerked back, still with Ane under his arm. His drink splashed over her and down my arm when my boot struck, and he stiffened. Ane twisted free and left.
    â€œHey,” he said. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
    He set his glass down.
    â€œExcuse me,” I said.
    He looked completely off. I thought he was about to start swinging or shouting.
    â€œYou’re welcome to see my things,” I said.
    â€œI don’t know anything about videos,” he said.
    â€œHow can someone know nothing about videos?” I asked.
    â€œI don’t like watching them,” he said.
    â€œWhat are you drinking?”
    â€œRum.”
    â€œTwo rums,” I told the bartender. “I also do things other than videos.”
    â€œTalk to Ole Willum,” the instructor said. “That’s who you should talk to.”
    And he downed his drink and left.

R ikke’s standing in front of the gate, Rikke with the soft arms and big hair, the person who’s so preoccupied with herself and her career and others, including me. As soon as she sees me, she shouts that she heard about the fire from Per Olsvig. I don’t remember saying anything to him about it, but yes, I did.
    Rikke, whom I know from Juanna Gomez’s guest instructor days, is someone I’d really like to avoid, just like that, but I’m sucked in her direction. Much of what I decide gets nullified and now, against my will, I’m on my way over to talk to her.
    â€œIt’s totally surreal that your house should just burn like that when you think back to your experience with Juanna,” Rikke says. “If it weren’t for the fact that it was so long ago, someone might almost think it was a piece you’d set up. Did you film it?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œWell, the fire?”
    â€œMy camera burned along with everything else. And my computer.”
    â€œBut what about that exhibition you’re having? Isn’t that just around the corner? What are you showing?”
    â€œPaintings, I think.”
    â€œOkay? Crazy. Is it anything I can see?”
    â€œSometime or other.”
    â€œWe’re just in the process of researching an exhibition, and I was thinking . . .”
    I’d like to set her hair on fire.

J uanna is a Mexican artist our professor, Gretha Müller, knows. She works with psychoanalysis in her works, and with hypnosis. The first thing she did when she came to the academy was to lie us down in a circle. Rikke, who never misses an opportunity, and who always participates in the good exhibitions, and who generally gets a lot of things handed to her, whispered that a number of places ached within. One of the other girls admitted that she’d consider murdering a certain person if it weren’t for the fact you’d get punished. There was also someone who thought he was a vampire. He’d seen an a video online and now he knew there were others who, like himself, longed to taste a woman’s blood.
    Juanna had learned hypnosis from a relative and she thought it was important that each of us try it out. Rikke was anxious to see me enter a trance. There was no reason not to do it. I wasn’t afraid, neither of the trance nor of