In the desert, you can remember your name

At some stage, somewhere between permanently and comprehensively destroying any chance I had with Emily, and conveniently providing a babysitting service to allow neighbourhood harlots the peace and quiet of an empty house, I changed schools. This could at least partly explain the date with the young, cute redhead, as the lack of eligible ladies at my new school was basically set in stone. It was boys only.

The new school was a fair hike from my house, about an hour every morning to get there, and a similar trek on the return journey. It was a centrally located, traditional, selective school, where we were made to wear ties, blazers, shiny shoes, and the whole old-boys-secret-handshake package. The school itself resembled nothing if not an early twentieth century prison, complete with watchtowers and rusty-but-solid spiked cast iron fences surrounding it. And it was into the prison cells that the twelve hundred odd boys aged fourteen to eighteen would file each day, and attempt to absorb the wisdom of the ancients.

I use this turn of phrase particularly because not a single member of staff appeared to be younger than half a century's vintage, except perhaps the limber and moustachioed Physical Education staff. They were also predominantly male, with a few notable exceptions. The matronly teacher of "modern history" (which really showed her age, as it started with the English Civil War) had a forties style hair-set, which we assumed was an original from the period. She was married to another teacher, who also taught history, and was about as warm and loving as a glacier slowly grinding a rock face into fine powder.

The art teachers were also female, and while one was, we were convinced, a friend of Sappho, the other was somewhere between twenty five and thirty five, a very difficult period to gauge accurately for a teenage boy. It's neither within the realm of still being desirable to them, yet somehow not quite to the level of "old". She was one of the favourites, and at least gave us some kind of female influence, but she was never an object of schoolboy obsession. Unlike the Australian History teacher.

Now, here was a woman, easily within range of our own age, that is to say; less than a decade fit comfortably between her birth and our own. She was also very attractive. Now I have to say, in retrospect, that attractiveness is so highly contextualised, that were I to see her on the street in any other period of my life, in any other context, I may not have looked twice. But to a room full of hormonal lads, colonial history was never so enthralling. She was mid twenties, I'd guess, when I started there, with no real age lines in her face to speak of, aside from some laugh lines at the edge of her eyes. She had deep green, large eyes, but not the kind that pop out when irritated, like some teachers', but expansive, like deep, calm lakes. And her lips drew your gaze, as they related the stories of the early settlement of the country we call home.

Her auburn hair was wavy, not curly, down to her shoulders, and she had been spared the humiliation of fashionable hairstylists, most likely by her low teachers' salary than by choice. The same limitation was put on her manner of dress, though she never looked less than stylish, she was neither a flashy dresser. But her clothing fit her very well, and accentuated the youth she had, which was sorely lacking in the rest of the faculty. And when she spoke it was with a clear, lyrical voice, which never cracked in anger, nor bellowed in accusation. Certainly not to the degree I had become accustomed in other classes.

So here she was, an oasis in the desert of masculinity. The sex symbol of a whole generation of schoolboys, and sure enough the subject of more than one of "those" dreams in my four years there. And it was all I had, for a long, long time. You have to remember your name when no one calls you.

Shyness is nice, but shyness can stop you...

The funny thing about being a fourteen year old boy and becoming aware of the opposite sex, is that, as we are often told: girls mature faster than boys. So it's no surprise to find our early unsophisticated attempts at romance are all too easily brushed off by the inscrutable objects of our desire. They know what we wanted, and they know we had no idea how to get it. The girls our own age, that is.

So, there are many periods of adolescence in which a man is just a man. Or more accurately, a scruffy haired, fuzzy lipped teen is a scruffy haired fuzzy lipped teen. In other words, there are droughts. Extended periods of no love and attention from the ladies of our world. Times when our attention may be trained upon younger girls, who still fall for the corny lines of the "older man". Of course these girls all too often had older sisters who would warn them off our clumsy attempts at luring them to the movies. Or worse, they had brothers, whose methods of dissuasion were somewhat less subtle.

Having younger and older sisters put me in the unenviable position of having their friends surrounding me at this age. The older girls had the stigma of me being their friend's little brother, while the younger one's listened far too carefully to their older siblings for me to have any hope of getting them alone for five minutes, let alone out on a "date".

Not that I recall actually dating very often, certainly back then. Once only was it officially a date, and it was, indeed, the sister of a friend of my own sister who was the lucky contestant. We actually went to see the "delightful Julia Roberts" in Pretty Woman at the local cinema. Clearly it was Ladies Choice that night, as Julia has about as much appeal as a candidate in the holding yard at the local glue factory. So, we sat in the back row, eating popcorn, watching the film. Then the popcorn ran out, and I rested my hand on her knee.

She did nothing to prevent this, despite it being bare below the hemline of her short, retro-style a-line dress. I decided to try and slip it further up her thigh, but as I had left my hand in the same place for so long, it had become sweaty in the warm cinema, and sort of dragged in a jerky and completely unsexy manner along the top of her thigh. Until she quickly and firmly, but calmly placed her hand on my wrist to signify "No Entry".

Undeterred, I rearranged myself in my seat, and successfully deployed the world famous "yawn and stretch" routine, encircling her shoulders with my right arm. For some reason I had been given the impression by some over chivalrous male role model that the gentleman always sat closest to the aisle in a theatre or cinema, such advice is probably less useful nowadays, or may have been completely misleading, even then.

During the closing credits of the film, I somehow maneuvered myself into a position where I was able to kiss her on the lips, and even for a brief moment got my tongue into her mouth, which she seemed to feel was about as desirable as being force-fed raw eel meat. But didn't actually push me away. But she held my hand, meekly, as we walked back to her place. Her parents were, for some reason, not at home, and her older sister had obviously taken the opportunity to invite her boyfriend over for something more unsavoury than what I had experienced at the flicks.

And we sat, in the dimmed lights of her lounge room, for a couple of hours, speaking hardly a word, watching music videos on late night TV, until, about two o'clock, I made my excuses and left. The whole episode confused me at the time, but in retrospect, I think I made a big mistake.

I had mentioned her name to my brother, and said she was cute, or whatever it was I used to describe attractive girls in those days. And she was attractive, I had met her at a party a couple of weeks before our date, and was taken by her strawberry-blonde bob and washed out blue eyes. She had had very fair skin, and a light sprinkle of freckles, which I still find somehow charming and innocent. Then I got a phone call from her sister, asking if I wanted to go out with her. I think she did want to go out with me, as she did actually call me herself once I had confirmed, but at the same time I think her older sister had her own agenda.

And I think she pushed her sweet, shy, little sister into going on a date with me so she could have her boyfriend over. And over. With no interruption. Shame I didn't give her some more of my time. She really was cute.

If you can't be with the one you love, honey...

The show ended, as always, with the usual "cast party". Having been to several in my adult years with "professional" actors, an overnight stay in a local scout hall is possibly not quite on a par with such debauched soirees. The most exciting activity involved, beginning with the current year's extravaganza, videos of the show from years gone being replayed on a clunky, ancient, top-loading VCR, in reverse chronological order. This ritual was intended to last all night, for those who could stay awake that long. The charming tradition allowed all who remained conscious to witness themselves getting progressively younger and gawkier, and the new cast members to see that everyone, even if they are now cool semi-adults, is retarded, spotty, and awkward in their teenage years. Okay, admittedly they were in scouts in their early twenties, which is probably not the coolest thing to be doing, but at least they had rusty Land Cruisers to take their scouty girlfriends overnight to the mountains in. That was cool enough.

Mostly people arrived with their sleeping bags, and propped themselves up to watch at least the performance from which they'd just finished. Even though we had heard all the terrible jokes, sung all the choruses, and our legs were still tired form the dance routines, we had not seen our show before this point. It was at the same time joyful, seeing all our work complete, and sad, knowing that we would never, ever repeat that performance. After the final curtain, the plan was to make it through the previous year, and the one before that, until breakfast. In reality, most were asleep before the first tape was rewound and those that were still awake had little interest in the colourful antics of yesteryear, and a great deal of interest in how much they could feel through two layers of sleeping bag. Not much, I'll admit, but there were real adults supervising, so it wasn't even remotely possible to actually get down to anything obscene. Much. The prospect of a wristie with a happy ending in your own sleeping bag was less than appealing anyway.

But Emily wasn't there, anyway. Not that I think she would have even contemplated such a thing. Her parents were apparently concerned about her spending the night in a dark room full of teenage boys. While she protested at length that it was no big deal, and nothing would happen, and it was all supervised, they were right. A room full of teenage boys, ramped up on red cordial and chocolate and cake at three o'clock in the morning is no place for a young lady. But after our kiss, I am not sure she would have even spoken to me, as she barely had for the rest of the production. But Emily was not the only girl in the cast.

Bernie was freckly. Put simply, that was the first thing anyone would notice when they first saw her. Her entire face, and presumably most of her body, though I never got to see much of it, was covered in a layer of reddish brown freckles, so thick it was easier to count the places where her pink skin emerged than number the actual spots. But she was pretty, despite that. Not that anyone paid much attention. She was also loud and boisterous, I guess it was a defense against the cruelty of adolescents. She was always around, making loud and obscene jokes and generally making the boys laugh, and the girls whisper behind their hands.

Bernie decided to camp next to me, rolling out her sleeping bag between mine and a mate's while we were scoffing supper, and slipped into her winter weight bedding when we began to watch the show. Her commentary was hysterical, and soon I was laughing a familiar over-tired, wheezy, childish laugh that began to hurt my ribs and bring tears to my eyes. As the night turned into morning, her volume reduced, and as those around us slipped into heavy sleep, we found ourselves whispering and chuckling through two or three tapes. Eventually, even the minders were asleep, and we lost interest in the video, talking about various random, important and trivial topics in hushed tones, and giggling intermittently at jokes which would not have raised a laugh at any other time, or to anyone else.

I found myself laying side on, facing her, my head propped on one elbow, she mirroring my reclining pose. She made some joke, and I laughed my head off it's perch, and onto my now outstretched arm. She slowly dropped hers so her hand was stretched out above her head, and her fingers entwined with mine in the dark. I rolled slightly forward and kissed her on the lips. They were soft, and moist, and as I drew back I looked into her eyes in the flickering light of the dancing chorus on the TV. She looked back, and leaned forward to kiss me back, properly. I flicked my eyes up for a moment, and spied the windows over her shoulder The grey light of the pre-dawn illuminated them quietly, and the rush of cars passing occasionally on the road nearby echoed quietly in the empty old hall. Then I closed my eyes, and focussed on her kiss, not wishing to end the moment.

She did it for me, drawing away slowly and rolling onto her back, resting her head on her faded pillow slip. I moved slightly toward her, and still holding her hand, snuggled in next to her. She released my free hand, and I put the other over her as she rolled away from me, pulling me with her. She turned back toward me and kissed me again quickly, but gently.

"Goodnight" she said. And we slept. And I was smiling.

Emily tries, but misunderstands...

Emily. Rose-hip cheeked, coil-spring haired, Sunday-school pure, unspoiled, lovely Emily. At this point I had not even kissed her properly. She actually didn't seem like she had kissed anyone much, but she was so pretty I didn't mind just holding her while we sat around waiting for our curtain calls at rehearsals, or entwining my fingers in hers as we stood and sang among the chorus. Her blue eyes were flecked with green and gold, and when she turned them to mine, and smiled, it was enough to satisfy me.

It was, for a long time, anyway, enough to satisfy me. But something had awoken in me after my night with a red haired beauty at a non-sanctioned party somewhere in the suburbs one weekend. Something I suppose I have come to know well over the years since, though in the knowing there is no mastery. I am a slave to that passion as much now as I was then, when I first tasted it's intoxicating syrup. And so it was, during a weekend long dress rehearsal, Emily was to have a taste of my passion, and decide for herself if she found it to her palate.

We had been rehearsing since early morning. We had rehearsals both Saturday and Sunday, including a full technical dress rehearsal on Sunday night, as the show was due to open the following week. Aside from us, the University was deserted but for a few diligent but desperately lonely students using the library across the campus. We would see them sometimes in our breaks, eating solitary, sensible lunches from desperate plastic lunch boxes. They would sometimes smile at us, especially if we were partially in costume, dressed as chiffon draped fairies, or sequined sea creatures, or raggedy torn pirates, as we laughed and joked from scene to scene outside the stage doors. We would call out to them, and sing bits of chorus, to hold their attention, which was easy, before abandoning them to their sandwiches and books.

On the Saturday night, as we were drawing toward the curtain for the first song of the show, we had a catered dinner, supplied by mothers of the kids and various sundry "volunteer" sibling who were clearly working under duress. Good stodgy sausage casserole glistening with pale brown gravy served on top of a mound of slightly chunky, floury, salty, milky mashed potato. As much orange cordial as we could drink, and jelly and home brand ice cream for dessert. This was not gourmet food, but armies have marched on less, and it was guaranteed to be a damn sight better than the poor bloody book worms were having for dinner. Not least because we were all eating together.

After dinner, we were given an hour to relax while final preparations were made with the "orchestra". This consisted of anyone slightly musical who was remotely related to a scout or guide, past or present, in the whole of the surrounding region. A tinpot orchestra if ever there was one, but led by an ageing, white-bearded gentleman whose claim to fame was that he had conducted, in earlier days, the Melbourne Symphony, though some said only as a fill in. He wasted no time in donning full tails for any occasion he was required to wield the baton, however. We milled about outside the theatre, listening to the drawn out notes of the brass and strings tuning in, as some of the younger kids ran around playing chasey games. We in-betweens played games of a different kind, though I suppose only the rules varied from the simpler pursuits around us.

I was wandering along, talking to Emily, holding her hand, and we stopped for a moment by a wall of windows, behind which the set dressers were busily painting the South Pacific Ocean, complete with uncharted palm islands, as a backdrop. We stopped and I leaned against the window, and I put my arms around Emily's waist. She stepped into me and her head pressed into my chest. I spoke her name and she looked up at me and our lips met for a kiss. I tightened my arms and kissed harder, she opened her mouth slightly and our tongues touched each others' tentatively at first, then more insistently I opened her mouth with mine. The kiss only lasted for a couple of minutes, I was doing my best to make things interesting, while she was shyly going along, it seemed to me. Our mouths parted and she again put the side of her head against me, but said nothing.

The bells called us back to the backstage area and she went off to find her small part of the girls' dressing room, while I went off to mine, quite happy I was not, as I had been earlier in the day, wearing tights. The rehearsal went well, only a few minor mistakes, the same repeated fumbles we had been expecting since we started learning our parts. But throughout the show, I could not catch her eye in the chorus, nor did she speak much to me afterwards. She simple left when her parents came to get her, only a quick kiss on the cheek and a fleeting "See you tomorrow".

Something had changed, I could tell, but I'm pretty sure it stemmed from me, not her.

Is this love, baby? Or is it just, uh... confusion?

Here I was on the one hand being the epitome of a good boy scout. In actual fact, I literally was a good boy scout, going to troop meetings every week, filling another evening a week with rehearsal at the jolly-good-old-fashioned-stage show, which was rapidly approaching. My winter evenings were basically chock full of home style goodness. That is, the evenings of the weeknights. As a fourteen year old boy coming of age in the post bicentennial Australia of the nineteen eighties, there were other influences on my development. The "teen subculture", though I would never really belong to any particular one, was beginning to distract.

Having older siblings at the local school meant there was a ready suply of less than savoury events scattered among the nearby houses every other weekend. Okay, they were relatively low key by comparison to later experiences, but a parent free house where a variably sized group of bored youth could drink their six packs and fruity lexia was about as sophisticated as we were looking for at that age. So it was that one weekend, my brother and I set off for our local non-hotel affiliated bottle shop and purchased a dozen cans of Vitamin B, the vernacular for our local brand of cheap nasty beer, and a $2 bottle of Spewmante for "the ladies". This bottle shop was rather desperate for business, and while my brother and I looked every bit our mid-teen age group, we were never questioned about our possession of valid identification. Just a knowing nod as we handed over our pocket money for the evenings entertainment.

And as the moon began to rise in the east, we set off for another of the nearby post war houses where a genuine Pacific Island princess was turning seventeen. While her billet family were away on a Church conference, we decided to drop by at her invitation, and trash their house. For the most part, the party was confined to the backyard and the garage. And it was in the garage that I saw a girl that helped crystallise my ongoing thing for redheads. She had the palest complexion, decorated lightly with a scattering of pinkish orange freckles, deep green eyes, and a flowing veil of fiery red hair, which tumbled over her shoulders and down her back. She scanned us briefly as we walked in, but her gaze didn't linger while I was watching her, and she turned back to her friends and their cask of cheap nasty sweet wine.

My brother and I got started on our cans of beer, and the party gradually descended into the usual melee of drunken stunts, amateur passion, bad dancing and general irresponsibility that teen parties are liable to. The night was clear and cold, and the air was full of steaming breaths, combined with cigarette smoke from heavily rugged up teenagers lit by an almost full moon. A nearby neighbour of ours had introduced me to the red haired girl at some point, and I found myself dancing with her to some hair metal classic, the name of which eludes me. I'd hardly have said it was "our song" but still, it may have been significant. I would hazard a guess at "Livin' on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi, but more through elimination than tangible memory. Anyway, my dancing skills were put to the test, and not being entirely inexperienced, I could at least put in a bit more than the standard drunk boy shuffle. Again my understanding that dancing was a key to winning girls over was reinforced, and we were soon in a corner sitting together, talking very closely in each others' ears while the music blared.

I'm not exactly sure how, but these things tend to happen eventually in such situations, and before long we were well and truly pashing. I mean, I had kissed girls before, but this was the real thing. This was the kind of kissing where suction was created, the kind that lasted for minutes at a time, and involved strange involuntary guttural tones deep in the throat. The kind that caused ceratin changes in the trousal area, and prompted me to attempt to get my hands underneath her clothing. Our activities increased to the point where we began to attract attention from other revellers, mostly because I had her tilted almost horizontally and was kissing her neck while my arms had disappeared up to the elbow under her skirt. Not that I actually touched anything but her legs, and would have not known what to do even if I had.

At this point, my brother and our neighbour had come over and she was led away into the house proper, while my brother distracted me by thrusting another beer under my nose, which I proceeded to guzzle through smeared lip gloss and a stupid grin. The party continued for a couple of hours after this. The red haired girl had been taken home in a state of semi-consciousness by our neighbour, and I was a little disappointed, though mostly just inebriated. Around 3am, we had well and truly run out of beer, the birthday girl was asleep on an old couch in the garage, half waking every time someone tripped over some more empty bottles, and there were at least two girls throwing up into various garden beds, with obligatory attendant back rubbers. It was at this point my brother and I left the party and walked home long the quiet lamplit suburban streets. We quietly snuck in the house through the back door, listening for any movement, but successfully evaded our parents, and slipped clumsily into bed.

Of course it wasn't until I woke up in the morning I remembered Emily. My girlfriend.

Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle...

I've said before I didn't spend my entire social life at school, I had myriad activities outside school. Walking by myself. Whistling. Riding my bike around the streets on my own. Humming. Writing letters to girls I liked. Destroying letters to girls I liked. Writing terrible poetry that always, always, always rhymed, no matter how hard I tried to be artistic and deep. Drawing interesting and bloody ways to kill my enemies, all of whom were among my best friends, and my personal list of arch nemeses changed on a daily, sometimes hourly basis.

And once a week I would go to Scouts. Which was entertaining in an old fashioned "Huzzah lads! Let's see who can run around the hall five times and get back in here with a pine cone before I blow this whistle" kind of way. We wore uniforms. We wore scarves. I know exactly what a woggle is, and indeed, how to make one from rope or leather thong. I can tie a variety of life saving and decorative knots; read maps with or without a compass; light a fire with four pieces of newspaper and a single match; track various types of native and domestic animals; cook in a gigantic cast iron pot as well as on a large bean-tin over a candle (though this is restricted only to pancakes) and various other impressive yet useless skills for a boy living in a major capital city.

One other thing which people may (or may not) know about Scouts is: they love to sing. Every meeting, there were songs to be sung, and every camp, there was a campfire "concert" which consisted of various heart stirring pseudo-Christian, pro-Imperial songs, a few mildly bawdy ditties, and a whole bunch of terrible skits based on the worst dad-jokes imaginable. If you ever wondered where the father of your children learned all those terrible jokes that erupt as soon as he has signed the birth certificate, chances are he knows what a left handed handshake means, and somewhere has a strange pointy four sided hat with his name emblazoned on the inner band.

This was all jolly good fun (what?), and honestly, it was. But even better than regular scout meetings was an annual event which combined the local scouts of the whole local area, and when I was a young teen, that was actually hundreds of kids. It pushed all these boys together, ranging in age from about thirteen to about seventeen. And it brought in another large group of kids, too. But these kids wore blue uniforms, and were shaped in such a way they made the scouts do very strange things, especially to each other, in order to gain their attention. The Girl Guides were also in our Gang Show.

A Gang Show is like a University revue. Only, possibly slightly less sophisticated. So while every ten years or so, a popular, intelligent, hilarious and biting revue comes out of a major University in this country, we are still waiting for a major television network to give a regular series to any Scout-based production. This is in part because the material in most of the shows had worn thin when Victoria was still on the throne, and probably gave rise to her infamous "We are not amused". That which wasn't older than any of my living relatives was penned by older memebrs of the scouting movement involved in the production, whose talent was generally inversely proportional to their enthusiasm. But this was fine. It was indeed encouraged, as after all, we were just here to have fun, and everyone had to put in as best they could in the areas they had some inclination.

While all the acting and singing and costumes and lights and music and dancing and the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd were very exciting, it was still probably the girls that kept me coming back every year. In fact, it was in the rehearsals and show of my second year in the show that I got a steady girlfriend for the first time ever. It was also around this time that I learned how to make relationships very complicated very quickly. But I shall return to that story, anon.

Emily Harris was a girl of my age, around my height, with a broad smile and tight ringlets that would not sit flat ever. She was fresh faced and always laughed at my jokes, which was a bonus, as I felt that was pretty much all I had. The cast would be split up to rehearse different individual acts for the show, people having been cast according to their relative competencies in each area of performance: Acting, Dancing and Singing. There was always a large chorus who would always have massed singing and basic dance routines to practise.

I seemed to always get chosen for acting parts, and often for small group singing, where three or four singers would sing small parts together in the hope of masking each others deficiencies. I suppose it was a step up from the massed chorals of the rest of the group. I was placed in one such small group with Emily, and having been in rehearsal for a couple of weeks, and getting to know her a little better, I decided I liked her enough to "pop the big one" Okay, but remember I was only fourteen, it doesn't get much bigger than asking a girl to be your girlfriend. So, when we were finishing up away from the rest of the cast in a meeting room of the local church where rehearsals were held, I stopped her and eloquently expressed my feelings for her in a way I can only dream of reproducing today.

"Hey Em"

"Yeah?"

"Umm... wanna go with me?"

She giggled "Ah... okay"

Then skipped off. Literally. Guides were a bit like that.

That may well have been the high point of the relationship. Still, I went home happy that night.

My Bloody Valentine

There was a girl in high school with whom I can squarely lay the blame for my first directed sexual thoughts. Prior to her, I had experienced feelings of mild excitement, vague arousal, general warmth in the tummy region, and associated feelings of attraction and admiration when dealing with girls. I wanted to kiss them, I wanted to impress them, I wanted to be near them, but not for any clear objective. The first time I saw someone and thought "Wow, I really want to do to her what I saw in brother's magazines" was when I was fourteen and in high school. She had the otherwise unremarkable name of Kylie Bone. But to a whole class of teenage boys raised on American teen-titty comedy, she was simply The Boner.

Of course this was never mentioned to her face. She was too nice for that. She never seemed to be completely aware of, or entirely comfortable with, her over-developed body. Her face was pale, with very light brown freckles, and a slightly turned up nose. She had deep green eyes that were usually wrinkled in a smile and pearly teeth that only real money can buy. Her straw blonde hair was cut in a kind of bob, as was the fashion for at least part of the eighties, though she was not exactly fashionable mostly. But her body was about four years ahead of her, chronologically, and was rounded and curvy in a way that most girls' would never be. The sight of her long legs leading up to her netball skirt and bloomers as she bent over a desk was distinctly the one that triggered my first blatant sexual notion.

I was transfixed. I was staring. She was bending. She was talking. Her friends were laughing. She turned to see why and saw me, unblinkingly staring right at her bum. She squealed, I jumped, her face went extremely red, and I ducked away from my desk and stumbled out of the room, ducking and weaving, as she threw my folder, my pencil case, and any other pieces of stationery that came to hand at my retreating head. I didn't dare re-enter the classroom until the teacher arrived. Then I got ignored by the Boner for the rest of the day. This was a shame, as my crush, amongst other things, was growing, uncalled for, throughout the day.

So it was that a couple of weeks later I came to be writing a card to her. It was, of course, a Valentines card. I was going to slip it into the vent in her locker on Valentines day, and all would be revealed to her. I didn't just want to stare at her arse all day, I really liked her, and wanted her to be my girlfriend. I would make all this perfectly clear in a letter outlining my possible devotion to her, and my wish that she would get with me at lunchtime. Or morning recess if she had netball practice.

So I drafted a letter. A heartfelt plea for her attention and a treatise to her heart to open up to mine, and to her legs to open up also. The language could have been torn from the very pages of Shakespeare's finest sonnets.

"Dear Kylie, you're a real spunk. I really want to get with you at lunchtime"

I was going to sign it with my name, but chickened out at the last moment, and wrote, in fine Valentine tradition "Your not-so-secret admirer" in a clear reference to my recent ogling of her a few weeks prior.

I slipped the card into her locker before school, and waited for a sign she had got it. When I saw her come into our homeroom, she was beaming and clutching my card to her well rounded breast. The left one. I tried to catch her eye, and she looked in my direction and visibly swooned. I did my best to look suave and cool, raising an eyebrow, but being incapable of lifting only one, giving the distinct impression someone had just put electrodes on my testicles and I was somewhat surprised. She smiled and turned away coyly, peeking back over at me all the way through morning assembly, and all of first period. I had a different class to her after that, and I winked at her clumsily on my way out, though I think she probably missed it.

I didn't see her the rest of the morning. I didn't see her until lunchtime, in fact, when I spied her pushed up against one of the portable classrooms, securely attached to the face of Luke Milton. Luke's athletic arms were holding her to him, and alternately trying to squeeze her boobs or her bum, her slender arms wrapped about his waist to allow her full access to clean his rear most fillings with her tongue. Luke sat on the desk directly behind mine from Kylie's desk. And I had heard him talking about her quite loudly the other day, though not in the kind of terms anyone would wish to hear, say, their sister spoken of. An anonymous nom-de-plume may be of use at certain times, in certain situations, where discretion is the wisest of choices. But it's the stupidest thing anyone in their right mind could ever conceive of writing on a bloody Valentine.