Ten years later, Number One got back in touch with me. He’d found my email address on the Internet and he wrote to me. I was that gob-smacked and surprised! And some of those old feelings from way back flared up again, just a little bit, even though by now we were out of reach for each other and we each had our own life. All the same, I was really touched; especially because he kept stressing that he couldn’t forget me either. We sent a few emails back and forth, a few photos. We complimented each other and promised we would never lose touch again. But despite all protestations to the contrary, our email connection petered out eventually. We lost each other again. But not in my heart – there, he is firmly anchored in place.
Number Two: Defloration terror
The six-month mourning phase appeared to be over, because all of a sudden there was my Number Two. Funnily enough, my Number Two and I had been “going out” together when we were twelve, but that only lasted a few days and ended with me breaking it off in the schoolyard. I was in sixth grade at the time. My best friend even managed to record that tragic moment photographically. The photo still exits today. Being a fashion queen, I was wearing grey leggings and a pale-pink extra-long oversized fine-knit sweater. Back then, my sense of fashion still had a lot of development potential (even though, amazingly, this look would have been totally en vogue again this summer!). As did my sense of men, incidentally. In fact, back then I hadn’t really any intention of going out with that particular boy, because I was undyingly in love with someone else all together: the class hunk. As thick as two short planks and terrible at school, but an absolute ace at sports. Exactly the kind of guy who will mercilessly break your heart at least once in a lifetime, never mind whether you are fourteen, thirty-four or sixty-three. That these guys are bad news is something we know not only because we keep being reminded by our dear mummy, our best friend, out best gay friend and our big sister – no, it’s something we already know within ourselves. Does that help? Of course not! Eyes wide open and heart a-flame, we run, suffering deliciously, towards our doom.
He was outrageously handsome, hair the color of straw, forever wearing the coolest Chiemsee sweaters and the coolest Levis 501 jeans, both of which were de rigueur at the time. He was always tanned and had these incredible blue eyes. Unfortunately, those blue eyes weren’t particularly interested in me. However, I decided to try everything in my power and since, even back then, I preferred to take matters into my own hands, wrote the obligatory “do you want to go out with me” note during class. Yes, the whole shebang, with two tick boxes for Yes or No. Heart beating like crazy, I passed the note to him. And when he passed it back with his reply, it said: “Maybe after the math test.” Oh great. What the hell was that supposed to mean?! I kept analyzing his reply for days, but I couldn’t get a bead on it. Was it supposed to mean that he’d go out with me if the test went well? Or maybe if the test went badly? Oh man, love was complicated, even back then! And while my attempts at getting my great unrequited school romance off the ground seemed to rather fizzle out, an emissary for another boy, the one who would later become said Number Two, handed me a message, stating that he wanted to go out with me. I was stunned, hadn’t expected this at all. I asked for time to think it over. And suddenly my original object of desire, who had kept me on the back burner all this time, declared that he was interested after all. This too is a strange lesson from the playing fields of love: the moment you turn away from your beloved, he suddenly finds you irresistible. Could this really be explained by that tired old myth of the male’s thrill of the chase? Rule: When someone gives their heart to you, suddenly there are more hearts being offered to you. But when you’re searching for someone to give you their heart, forget it – no chance!
And so I found myself in the absurd situation of having to choose between the two candidates during recess. Both of them now knew of each other and demanded to know where they stood. Courageously, they both planted themselves in front of me. – I can’t imagine a woman ever doing this – and asked for my decision. And I, stupid cow that I was, made entirely the wrong decision! I wanted to get even with my true love, the blue-eyed blond hunk, for making me wait so long. And, with my head held high and proud like an imperious princess, I chose the other one. Brown hair, brown eyes and not nearly as handsome. The moment I’d made my decision, I regretted it – but it was too late! If you purposely decide to choose the shit end of the stick, you’ll have to live with the consequences. There went my one and only chance to go out with my blue-eyed hunk. Afterwards, he took up with some super-trendy tenth graders. Stupid spotty-bunny me cried her heart out. How could I have been so dumb? So now I had the other one around my neck. We spent an afternoon at the local swimming pool. His legs were already richly and scarily covered with black hair. And so I decided to dump him again, as quickly as possible. During said recess, in the schoolyard. My blue-eyed hunk left school two years later and until then I yearned for him heart-achingly, all that time.
Even though four years later Number Two still had a lot of black hair on his legs, our interest in each other suddenly rekindled. After half a year of mourning for my Number One, my heart eventually had to admit that the Greek option did not really have a promising future. And so I started to look around again, to see what was on offer locally. I was sixteen years old by now, in tenth grade, and aside from a bit of groping, necking and licking had no other sexual experiences to my name. And all of a sudden, all the girls around me were doing it. The still-virgin girls reverently bombarded the ex-virgin girls with questions. Does it hurt? What’s it like? What’s it feel like? Did you have an orgasm? What about the sperm? And each one of the ex-virgin girls had a different story to tell. Some were disillusioned, some romanticized their first bedroom adventures, Hollywood-style, and others preferred to keep quiet. So what was the sexual truth? After all, nothing is ever lied about as much as sex. I didn’t let all those first-time-in-the-sack girls pressurize me. It’ll happen when it happens. And besides, I was still quite happy with my memories of Number One and didn’t feel remotely inexperienced.
And so my interest in my Number Two slowly reawakened. I think he was quite impressed by my holiday adventure, which only goes to confirm the lesson mentioned above: you only become wildly interesting when you’re no longer available. Once you’re in love, others practically throw themselves at you. If woman appears unapproachable, guy goes crazy. He practically drools and he won’t give up until he has shot you down. Number Two and I spent some time flirting, teen-fashion. In actual fact, he already had a girlfriend at the time. But I’ve never let myself be discouraged by little obstacles like that. The spark finally ignited on a long school trip. Quite accidentally (of course) we spent the entire day more or less next to each other, always endeavoring to attract the other’s attention. And then, on the long bus ride home, we just happened to sit next to each other and were resting our feet on the seat opposite. And since it was cold and dark, we used our coats as blankets. And those naughty feet of ours started to play with each other. Sex or no sex, there simply is nothing more exciting than those very first on-purpose tender physical contacts. So hot! So thrilling. So sizzling. So erotic. So exhilarating. It just bowls me over every time. Even if a contender should turn out to be a loser soon after, the magic of that very first touch is simply unbeatable. And the longer that magic lasts, the more certain it is a sign that further developments will be thrilling, not disappointing. And so our sock-less feet explored each other under the protective cover of our coats, that night in the bus, surrounded by some forty classmates, none of whom had any idea what was going on, nor were they supposed to, which made the whole thing even more exciting. At some point our hands found together, too, and that doubled our state of excitement. Now our feet and our hands were touching and caressing each other and I was blissed out and kept holding my breath the entire time. My heart was beating like crazy. We didn’t say a word. And we didn’t kiss. That would have certainly attracted attention. Back home, alone, I kept remembering how
our feet and hands had touched. As ever after an experience like this, I was in complete turmoil and couldn’t sleep.
Next day in school was really exciting. Deep glances that went under the skin and this terrible not knowing of what was what. After all, he was already spoken for. And since there were no mobiles and no Internet (text messaging and emails are definite flirt propellants!) we had to write little notes to each other. In one of those he confessed his love for me, and one day after school he came home with me. Of the many advantages of both parents working, the best clearly is the fact that, as a teen, you have the run of the house in the afternoons. We sat next to each other on the settee and chatted about this and that, being exceedingly cool and nonchalant. Why is it one feels obliged to act so cool and disinterested at moments while inside one feels like going crazy? Then, finally, the moment of deliverance! We took up where we had left off on the bus. We touched each other’s hands and our hands started to caress each other. We didn’t say a word. And then finally, having moved closer and closer together, we kissed. He was quite good at it. Actually he kissed really well; it was a pleasure to kiss him. Kissing is so important! For me, kissing opens all the locks and gates. Kissing is so arousing, I’ve had to put panties into the dryer just from kissing! But if someone is a bad kisser, all the magic vanishes in one single moment, followed by bleak disillusionment and dark disappointment. If he can’t kiss, he won’t be able to make up for it in bed, either. It would in fact be best to just send him home the moment you realize you are not impressed by the quality of his kissing. But most of the time, we aren’t brave enough to do this (why is that?!) and so we end up with the same kind of botch-up job in bed.
But Number Two was great. And so we were soon lying on the settee, making out like crazy. I was so aroused that I rubbed myself against his leg and came very quickly and unnoticed: my lovely Number Two never noticed a thing! Aside from some heavy snogging and petting with our clothes on and hands inside of sweaters from the waist up, there was nothing doing. And in any event, I wanted to have matters clarified first. He immediately said he would split up with his girlfriend so that he could be with me. I felt a bit uneasy. I wasn’t quite sure of him and didn’t really know where I wanted to go with this, and whether I actually wanted it to go anywhere. Then again, he had this really sweet girlfriend and I, still a spotty teenie-girlie, just could not imagine that he would want to exchange this sweet, tender, beautiful girlfriend for me. What a mess!
But somehow, some time later, we managed to go steady. He had split up with his girlfriend and I had committed myself to him. Even though he was by no means the coolest guy in school and I would have scored considerably more kudos points with a different conquest, which at that age is not exactly unimportant. And so my Number Two and I kept fumbling and making out and making out in my parent-free home in the afternoons and felt our way further and further along. I was extremely panicked that he would touch me down THERE. OK, I’d been there with my Number One and, due to my almost daily masturbatory practices, was very well acquainted with my body and all its intimate places. But still I fretted constantly. I was scared to death of letting him anywhere near down there. Not because I was a prude or scared of things – rather the opposite, I was as randy as a bitch in heat. But I totally panicked in case Number Two would be shocked when he discovered what a woman looks like and smells like down there.
Apropos: Pussy hang-ups
Am I the only one to have pussy hang-ups? I have no idea where this panic comes from. Then again, Mother Nature or God or whatever joker is responsible for the biological packaging of our primary sexual organs, seems to have been of not quite sound mind when they created them. I mean, what exactly is that supposed to look like, down there between our legs?! A couple of pathetic piggy-pink flaps of skin, nestling in a load of fuzzy hair? The rest of the female body is so beautiful – did the Good Lord run out of bio-putty between our legs or was he maybe distracted because he was contemplating the latest football results? I don’t care how many New Age women are singing in praise of the female love-muff, I simply don’t believe you: just take a proper look! The thing just looks miserable.
And what about the smell! I’ve never been comfortable with the typical pussy smell. Never mind how often and how carefully you wash, whether you apply body lotion by the liter or spray your panties with perfume (burns like hell!), it still smells of pussy. Always. When I really got going and did it by myself, I found the smell quite hot. But I just could not imagine that a man would like it. I even was ashamed of it – still am. And I practically wet myself with worry that my Number Two would smell my very own secret odor between my legs and find it disgusting. These days, I’m a bit more relaxed about it, but even today I can’t really let go until I am absolutely certain that the guy is all right about it. If I have even the slightest worry that he’s not, I feel self-conscious and clam up. Which makes me quite cross. But I can’t seem to get away from this stupid notion.
Just like I used to think that penises would stink horribly but my first experience put me right, I also used to think that I would die of embarrassment if anyone should ever see me naked. I thought I would not be able to handle my counterpart looking at me every day, knowing what I looked like naked. I thought he would tell everyone and make fun of me, and God knows what else he might get up to with his knowledge of my unclothed surface area. Especially once one is no longer together. I also used to be quite put off by the idea of having shared sexual experiences with someone, and then splitting up. There’s no telling what nasty stories he might spread about me!
As a worst-case scenario, the story of a school friend of mine brawling noisily about his very personal sex-shocker experience has burnt itself onto my memory. This was the late nineties when full intimate shaving wasn’t the done thing at all, and of course there was no Internet with sites such as youporn.com, where you could become very well acquainted, pre-coitally, with primary sexual organs, both visually and with regard to handling.
Said friend freely talked about his first time and loudly shared how shocked he was when he first set eyes on his girlfriend’s Promised Land, and I quote: “Bugger me, you girls have one ugly piece down there! I thought I would faint, it looks like a slimy rotten run-over dead hedgehog!” Whoa! That hit home. There’s no answer to that, is there?! Silly girls that we were, and completely unable to handle such a situation, we did what women always do when they are confronted with something embarrassing and unpleasant: we giggled non-committally. How is a teenage girl in the midst of her sexual awakening supposed to develop any kind of libidinous self-confidence when she hears that kind of talk from some loudmouthed Smurf look-alike? We all know that the Good Lord wasn’t exactly motivated by urban Design2000 criteria when he created pricks and pussies. But a run-over hedgehog? Come on, the female genital area isn’t that bad!
This did nothing to help with the alleviation of the pussy hang-ups that had been with me since I had a first furtive look between my loins with the aid of a mirror. The shock was profound. I was dumbfounded and almost wanted to ask my mum if it was possible to swap the thing for something else. That bunch of pink folds is supposed to be the longed-for Promised Land, the bliss at the end of the pilgrimage, the great endeavor that all heterosexual males strive for?! You must be joking – they’ve got to be off their rocker! A bog-standard coffee cup is more erotic than that weird mess of floppy skin and curly hair. It must be the fascination with horror that would scientifically explain the magical attraction of this body part. Generally speaking, female bodies are utterly beautiful; we girlies have much to be proud of. But really – the genital zone seems to have been fashioned by a heavenly apprentice who was a trifle stoned at the time!
This might explain why so many women prefer sex in the dark. They don’t want to scare men off with their little sex-creature that takes a lot of getting used to. What is unfathomable is why every porno movie and magazine has girls present themselves with their legs spread so wide that you can practicall
y see all the way up to their lungs. Naturally, you eventually come to terms with the deranged outer appearance of your genitals as well as their odor. And since men can’t seem to get enough of what slumbers between our legs, I suppose we girlies should just relax. Even said school friend doesn’t appear to have any problems letting his cucumber play happily with run-over hedgehogs. Still, the term “run-over hedgehog” has remained ineradicably and mercilessly lodged in my brain to this day. I kept remembering it every time I saw the hedgehog-loudmouth’s girlfriend. She was in our school and she looked like a perfectly normal girl, neither particularly pretty nor particularly ugly, just standard. But every time I saw her, my head pounded out “run-over hedgehog” with the accompanying image flashing up on the giant screen inside my brain. Recently, some ten years later, I found her by accident on one of those online networking platforms. And guess what instantly shot through my mind? Oh look, there’s the run-over hedgehog!
The One - No one said it would be easy Page 2
