Back in the days...
695 Words
So, by June this year, I’ll have been a professional couch potato for a year and a half. And on June 30, I turn 17! Life's been moving at a snail's pace, which I actually prefer. My childhood was like a high-speed rollercoaster ride. I mean, I had my first "birds and bees" encounter at just nine years old. Yup, you heard that right.
Back then, my family was renting a place in Tondo, Manila. Our landlords had a daughter who was probably a freshman in college. One fine day, she invited me into her room, took off her shirt (no bra, mind you), and there I was, face-to-face with her bare chest.
"Tom, kiss it... it hurts... See, it's swollen."
So, I poked her n****e like it was a doorbell. I was clueless and thought it looked hilarious. It was like a body defect to me. I had no idea about lust back then. She even tried to breastfeed me, but nothing came out.
This happened multiple times. The most intense was when she made me fiddle with her "pearl" like I was digging for treasure. It felt creepy as heck, and I thought I might lose my entire hand in there.
I guess that’s where my fixations started. I learned to smoke, drink, and always needed something to play with in my mouth. As I grew up, I realized I developed a fetish for... well, you get the idea. By my teenage years, I was already familiar with the sight of the female anatomy, so I was more interested in the sensation of touching it. And, of course, the ultimate reward was the pleasure it gave the owner.
Fast forward to high school in Pangasinan, where my teenage years truly blossomed. It felt like a whole new world. I didn’t understand their dialect, but they spoke Tagalog too.
Enter Liza, the star of my youth. I had a massive crush on her, and she was my best friend. I even tried to woo her, but she turned me down. We did date for about four months, but it was all brotherly love from her side. I was just a kid compared to her. This was my first love without any s*x involved. Though, I did catch a glimpse of her once when she asked me to help her change her P.E. uniform. She accidentally dropped her shirt in the toilet, screamed for me, and there she was, in just her bra.
That was it. By sophomore year, we weren’t classmates anymore, and our friendship faded into a distant memory.
Now, picture this: it’s the first period, Mathematics. I’m sitting right behind the most beautiful girl in our class, Jennifer. I was a shorty then, around 5'2", and she was a stunning 5'5", with fair skin and a resemblance to Valerie Concepcion. She'd borrow my red ballpen for jotting down notes, and our hands or arms would occasionally touch. This drove one of our classmates, Constancio, green with envy.
Constancio, our class’s secret admirer of Jennifer, was way better looking and taller than me. But I wasn’t interested in Jennifer at the time. I just knew she was the class beauty, making our section popular. High school drama was inevitable with all the insecurities and jealousy flying around. I was just going with the flow, unintentionally getting close to Jennifer. She was friendly, cheerful, and a bit mischievous – Miss Congeniality, if you will. But Constancio’s strategy backfired big time.
He tried to humiliate me in front of Jennifer by making fun of my looks in their dialect, thinking it would make him look better. But guess what? It didn’t work. The underdog charm won out. When dealing with a bully, sometimes you just have to play it cool. Since I didn’t understand much of the Pangasinan language, his taunts didn’t affect me. This only brought me closer to Jennifer’s circle. I was good at drawing, they were good at writing, and we made a great team for school projects. Our academic bond strengthened our friendship.
And that’s how my teenage years rolled, full of unexpected twists, turns, and a whole lot of learning!
- Writer
