~ She grew up ~

I am back at the old house. I grew up in a black and white house. True story this. The house, the attitude, the world. Ordered. Ordered around. Where parents keep the children. It is a house where beer is stored; not to drink, but to trick the big black slugs. Their longing lures them in, gets them drunk, drowned, dead. I am younger then. Much younger. A time without desires. But at the cusp. It is a time when my young inner world starts to flutter in turmoil. Black and white sails wide open. Sails ablaze. My world was at arms, lengths, wrestling with innocence and wringing for freedom. The slugs drown for their instinct. That is my lesson. Watch and learn, child.

Younger still. In that younger self, instinct is the sovereign, ruling by a shining heart. After all, all children are innocent. We are unknowing and we are contented in that way, the only way, unquestioned. If adults could see it! If adults could only remember it! But. Black and white. Sails will become curtains. Growing in time, space grows around me. Expands. Growing horizons, I want my own breath to fill it. My very own breath. Mine. I want to draw curtains. I want more space, need more space, demand. My space.

Nakedness becomes strange. Awaken. Self-aware. Public nudity (Germany!) equally a fascination as it is an embarrassment now. Staring. Daring. Nudity of body, and nudity of the heart, in equal measures. Hand in hand. I am seven, perhaps when I become a seeking one, propelled, urged along. From deep down. When I demand, silently, for I do not know the questions. Despite the confusion and maybe because of it, a quest is shaping. A hunt is on. Do I accept the quest? Do I know what it entails? Do I know the prize? Do I know the price to pay? The slug’s desire killed the little slimy beggar. What’s so different between animal instinct and desire?

And then, I am in love. Like yesterday, I remember it so clearly. I experience first love, my very own first love. And do not know it for it. Remember the slugs, child. Be careful. Danger! Desire is dangerous. Wanting gets you tricked. But my first love is so dreamlike as it is innocent. It is not serious. For I do not know how to make it, seriously. How can I?! Oh! These feelings are exhilarating and scary. Rollercoaster. Going down. Pressing me down in the seat. Pressing my tummy up against my heart. Every night in my dreams. Every night, I try to kiss the boy. Want his lips on mine. Want! Whenever our lips are about to touch, I wake up. Argh! Pressing indeed. I want to know what kisses feel like. The quest. There is no avail. Yet.

So I wait. Impatiently. I have patience as there is no choice. Even the dreams forsake me. Oh you traitors! I am nine, perhaps. Lips nearly meeting. I do not tell anyone about my nightly adventures, pressing, urges, ever. How could I? It is the first journey I make on my own. It is my secret. Mine. And it is an unfinished one. Maybe I feel a tad embarrassed too. Wanting. My wanting is embarrassing. Pathetic. [German: pathetisch with pathos, with passion.] Maybe I should just drink the beer, then drown. Get it over with. Inevitable. Tragic, comic, but at least intent.

The adults, my keepers, leave hidden messages for me. Like a trail, leading to an unholy grail. I stumble across intently hidden messages. One day it is a book that has description of a sex act. Who makes babies? Here is the instructions. That instrument inserted here. There are fleshy bits that inflate. There are cavities that expand. Things inflate and expand beyond recognition. But I do not want babies. I am busy the way it is. I am busy growing. Up. And down. Out of it all. I am busy impressing boys in the gym. Impressing them with my athletic moves, twirls, twists. Are they looking? Here I go. A sequence of intricate turns and tumbles. In technicolor 3D. Elegant. Easy. Light as a fairy would have it. I defy gravity. I defy the laws of nature. I defy. I defy. I pretend. I impress. Were they looking?

The real flying happens when I discover masturbation. I had read in a magazine, that it’s like peeing, only better. Rub, rub, rub, nice warm feeling, and then you go beyond the feeling of needing a wee. It works. That was an instruction that works for me. Less of inflating tools and expanding cavities. More of down to earth stuff, shaking a leg. Shaking earth. Beyond. I am eleven, perhaps. Staring at the world’s map pinned to my bedroom wall whilst I do it. The other wall displays my competition certificates from running, jumping, throwing and gymnastics. A lot of firsts.

In the end I am getting sick of it all. In the end I asked to be kissed. We stand at the garden gates, and I demand that he kiss me. I am thirteen? He too. We also rubbed on each other. Not on the garden gate. This would be in his bedroom. Clothes on. T-shirts pushed upward. Flies open. [Hosenstall, German for flies, literally trousers’ stables, winnieh winnieh] I get to touch his penis at one point. I am keen. Explore. Orgasms? Yes, probably. It’s a bit hazy. It was big. His penis was big. Isn’t it funny how little we remember? Not funny. Strange. Isn’t it strange how little we remember about our intimate path?

Pushing out into the world. It happens so quickly. I am not keeping a diary. I am too full of life. Drunk and delirious on life. And sometimes on beer too. Or sherry at one point. Bleurgh. That was a bad idea. Anyhow, it feels like a fast forward – zoom – to the next bit of mental footage. Here is me, first time I actually hold a penis in my bare hands. In its real stature. Grandeur. Glory. Out of its stables. I was thirteen, maybe fourteen. He was thirteen, maybe fourteen. He is different he to the frustrated dream kiss, and another he to the kiss I stole at the gate. He is another he to the one I would conjure up when doing it with myself. Under the world map hanging from the attic’s slanted ceiling. That he was a television heart-throb.

Who cares! He is the first one I loved. Maybe the only one. Innocence is shy, and shyness tempers desire. But my desire is so strong. My desire is wanting. Pushing. Pressing. I desire, and so I decide not to be shy. I want. And we are about to get it on. Where was I? Oh yes. I hold his penis. And I realise, at that very moment, that crucial moment, that I do not know what to do about it. I do not know what to do with his erection in my hands. I stall. I flounder. Calmly he takes my hand and moves it up and down. I can feel the skin move on his erection. I am eternally grateful.

He has handed me the key. He shows me the way. Petting. Opens the gates. My gates and his gates. It is togetherness. Blissful. It is cosy and sexy. Full of sex. My sex and his. Months, and years. At one point he puts his in mine. Once. Just still. Keeping him. I want it. He wants it too, badly. Between us, there is a we. There also is desire. Selfish desire. Amongst those urges, shy finds no place. Just once I allow it. I decide that is enough. For now. Technically I have done it. We have done it. Followed the tedious instructions in the baby book. Technically it fits. I am glad, feel relief. But our hips remain still. Pressed against each other. No orgasmic relief. The condom is on. He is in. And it remains empty. It’s done. It calls for celebrations. I insist on drinking a beer to that. And I am not drowning like the slugs. I survived desire. I am the queen in his kingdom. And he the king in mine.