Free Now I Know by Aidan Chambers Page A

daren’t think about the things I said on the way to her place. And I’m certainly not tapping them into this wp. The VDU would turn red from embarrassment (instead of staying green from envy of my brilliant mind, fantastic good looks, etc.).
    Naturally , I just had to tell her about this batty film, didn’t I! And she laughed, as any intelligent person would because it is unquestionably one big joke. So I came on all ho-ho-ho and smart-assed about it, which can’t have been any more winning. I can’t stand supercilious creeps, even when I myself am the supercilious creep I can’t stand. She must have noticed. But she took it well.
    I hope.
    Selah.
    I parted with the immortal words: Can I see you again sometime?
    Gawd!
    Yes, she said, and I nearly piddled myself. (Nearly relieved myself from relief!) Sunday morning, she said.
    I knew from the way she said it what the catch was.
    So long as I go to church with you?
    Why not? she said. It’ll be good for your research if not for your soul.
    At least I didn’t tell her, thank heaven, that I couldn’t care less if it wasn’t good for anything because I’d do anything for her right now.
    But why would I?
    It’s not that she makes me randy. She does make me randy, no question. But her body wouldn’t make me randy on its own. She isn’t like the girl playing the Magdalene. Her body does the trick all on its own. What does it with Julie is something . . . inside  . . . her body. Something I want to reach in and take hold of. The sex would be a way in. A pleasant way in, sure. But it wouldn’t be for itself, like it would be with Mary M. Not just for the sensation, I mean.
    I think I mean.
    But what’s the ‘something’ inside her that I want to get hold of? And how do I know it’s there if I don’t know what it is?
    Come to think of it, it’s like a black hole in space. We know it’s there but we don’t know what it is, and we don’t really know yet what happens if you go into it. Maybe if you go into that dark magnetic space you suffer a total change. Become the opposite from everything you are now. Male to female. Weak to strong. White to black. Human to—what? Inhuman? Superhuman? Maybe you pop out through the binary white hole into a whole new universe? A bit risky. Or, of course, none of those things might happen. You might just vamoose. But fantastic. Worth the risk.
    â€ 
    JULIE :   I lie here now remembering that day. After you’d gone, looking so pleased with yourself, I got straight into a hot bath and soaked away the mud and soothed my bruises and thought, ‘Oh dear, what now! Have I done the right thing?’
    You see, even after just that first sopping hour together I knew you’d get serious about me, and that I’d have a job keeping myself from getting serious about you. And the trouble was—the trouble is—I hadn’t planned on boyfriends. Not serious ones, anyway.
    You weren’t part of my scheme of things, dear Nik. Not at all.
    INTERCUT :   Julie’s room. An upstairs bedroom in a small terraced house. The walls are painted brilliant white, and are bare of all decoration except for a slender cross made from two pieces of sea-scoured driftwood which hangs in the middle of one wall. Beneath the cross stands a prayer desk of plain oak on which lies a Bible and a loose-leaf file containing passages from books, poems, and other writing Julie has copied out for use during meditation.
    Against the opposite wall is a single bed with a white-painted tubular frame. The bed is covered with a light blue counterpane that matches the curtains hanging at the only window. In the corner between the window and the prayer desk is a small armchair. Against the fourth wall, by the door, is a light wood bookcase full of mostly paperbacks. One shelf contains religious books; the other three hold novels, poetry, some biography.