Taylor First Time...

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-63192-198-8
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 188 Seiten

Narrative non-fiction collection of short stories.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Taylor, Susan

Leseproben

Playing Doctor I had barely turned sixteen when I surrendered my virginity to a man more than twice my age. The series of events that led to that experience were at the time unique to me. I can’t say if anyone else has felt the same way I did when they explored the beginnings of their sexual journey. In my naivety, I surrendered myself willingly, and this is my story. It was early in January when I found myself moving house again; it was a habit of my parents to move often, and time in one place could range from six months to three years. I was moving up to Bendigo from Warragul in Victoria. It was the beginning of the outrageously fluoro ‘anything-goes eighties,’ and I had landed in a big city, smack bang in the middle of summer holidays, just before my sixteenth birthday. I would be staying with my sister Marlene, her husband at the time, a rather arrogant Italian, and their three small children. My mother and father were moving up to Bendigo too, but delays in the sale of our property had them remaining in Warragul a while longer. At the time it made sense for me to move up early and begin the school year with the other students. Marlene was not the only sibling I had living in Bendigo; being the youngest of seven children meant brothers and sisters were never in short supply and there were several other options in the city. I had a good friend my own age in Bendigo, as we had lived there for a couple of years when I was in primary school. I had kept contact through the years with my old grade two friend, Siobhan. At school we were known as the SS, a nick name representing our initials, Sally and Siobhan. I imagine someone got the idea from a movie, but probably had no idea what its real reference was to. During the two-year stretch I had spent at that school, Siobhan and I were inseparable; two brown-eyed, brown-haired girls in a hurry to grow up. And even though we had the odd tiff, the only thing I resented about her was that the fact that she managed to grow four inches taller than me, reaching a whopping 5’5”. The years rolled on, and during the time I lived away, we wrote letters to each other, detailing our misdemeanors along with our achievements. I managed see Siobhan in person during school holidays as it was the norm for me to spend most of my time off school staying with one of my siblings in Bendigo. I was still celebrating my arrival back in Bendigo, and my birthday, when I met Raul; in a total cliché, it was a warm summer evening in late January and I was out for a big Friday night on the town, roller-skating with Siobhan, mainly because in 1981 that’s what you did for fun on the weekends. It was a strange time. We were in some kind of musical limbo, moving toward the end of the disco era and the beginning of the synthesized plastic fantastic one. Olivia Newton John had skated her way into our hearts through the movie Xanadu the year before, and we were still enjoying the musical hangover while we waited for the new sound of 80s rock to settle into place. There was the usual crowd gathered at the rink; it was the local teenage hotspot of the time. It does seem hard to believe now but it was considered pretty cool to go skating back then. Truth be told, it didn’t do much for me; I didn’t have the passion most of my peers did, but there was little else on offer. Riveting entertainment for young people was a bit on the scarce side at the time. I had learned to skate in years gone by; as a bored ten-year-old stuck on the outskirts of a rural town, I bravely tackled and mastered a pair of old skates I’d found in the junk pile known as our garage. They were no doubt left behind by a previous occupant of the house because Father never bought us anything unless it was an absolute essential. Dad was a man in his late forties when I was born, and well into his sixties by the time I was a teenager. He was a remnant of the post-World War II Depression mentality. His penny-pinching ways were known far and wide, confirmed for me by the remarks I overheard from my big brothers, often comparing him to being as tight as a certain part of a fish’s anatomy. At the rink we began the evening as usual. Siobhan and I had secured our place in the track side line up, and moved on to the floor amongst the monotony of swirling bodies. I skated on in endless circles, and having done this dozens of times before, I was bored. Despite the promises a Friday night of fun at the ‘Zoo Roller-Disco’ may hold, my mind was not on skating. Not long into the session, Siobhan had abandoned our paired repetition and gone to the loo; each lap was now spent scanning the circuit for her return. When I spotted her, she was not re-entering the rink; instead she was chatting up a guy over by the kiosk. As I strained to see who it was Siobhan was talking to (and determine whether or not he was a hottie), a younger girl behind me (with questionable skating ability) lost her footing, wobbled, skidded, and began to slip. As she went down, she lunged desperately for the nearest stable thing in a futile attempt to regain her balance. That stable thing just happened to be me. I felt her hands clawing the back of my shoulders as she grappled with my shirt; she was like a pit bull with a chew toy, reefing and tugging in an effort to gain control. I recall that sinking feeling, low down in my gut; the one you get just before things take a drastic downward spiral. Her failure to secure any sense of stability led to disaster; she contorted out of control, plummeted earthward, and took me with her. Beneath the guard rail we slid in a confused scrawl of twisting limbs, both desperately struggling to regain composure and keep our cool (nothing was more embarrassing than falling over in front of your friends, or a cute boy that may be watching). I hit the brick wall knee first, and the full weight of my assailant slammed in behind me. It pushed me harder into the unrelenting bricks and I felt something in my right knee go ‘pop’; in an instant I was overwhelmed by burning pain. After a few moments my clumsy assailant managed to untangled herself, got back to her feet unscathed, dusted herself off, mumbled a highly embarrassed apology, (while avoiding eye contact), and quickly scooted away. As she disappeared into the circulating crowd, I remained on the hard floor, cradling my injured knee. Even now, the most notable feature about that girl was her jumper; it was one of the daggiest I’ve ever seen. Picture if you will a 1970’s darkblue, hand-knitted gem, the front embellished with the profile of a gaudy multi-colored parrot (upon reflection, it may have been a cousin to the reindeer jumper worn by Mr. Darcy at the Christmas party in Bridget Jones’ Diary). I stayed on the cold concrete floor for a couple of minutes trying to clear my head, then, when I felt able, I made an attempt to stand. I soon discovered I was no longer capable of putting weight on my leg. Fortunately Siobhan noticed me gingerly hanging onto the wall. She had just returned to the rink, skating by with her newfound male companion. Despite her distraction she came to my aid and with her assistance, I limped from the crowded, swirling floor, serenaded by Adam and the Ants ‘Antmusic,’ and found my way to a nearby seat. We sat on the sidelines for a while, Siobhan, Mark (the boy she had been talking to) and me, waiting to see if the pain would pass; it didn’t. In the end I came to the conclusion things weren’t getting any better and decided to call my sister for help. I used the public phone in the foyer of the rink as there were no mobiles in those days, I called Marlene and asked if she might come down town and pick me up. Marlene sent my brother-in-law instead, and he seemed none too happy about it. After an explanation of the circumstances, he decided it was best to take me to the nearby emergency department and get a doctor to take a look. Siobhan elected to stay on at the skating rink, unwilling to pass up an opportunity to impress the available Mark with her skating prowess. We exchanged good byes and good lucks, and with my brother-in-law’s help, I made a bee-line to the local hospital. Two hours later my weary brother-in-law decided to leave me to it. We were still in the hospital waiting room, where we had remained since our arrival. He decided he had to go home to get some sleep; given that he was working the next day, it was not unreasonable. I waited another two hours by myself before being transferred to a cubicle for examination. What followed was a procession of four resident trainee doctors; they paraded in and out of my room, each of them accompanied by a different opinion (It was like waking up and finding yourself in an episode of The Big Bang Theory). “You have done some muscular damage,” said the first. “It’s dislocated,” said another. “I think something’s broken; we need an x-ray!” exclaimed the third. The fourth (like Big Bang’s Raj) was reluctant to speak up or make any attempt at an educated guess, so we headed for the x-ray department. The x-ray was done, but alas we soon discovered no one there seemed capable of reading it properly. I am guessing these guys were super fresh off the trainee wagon, so I was sent home at two-thirty in the morning with a bandage, crutches, and some pain killers, which turned out to be the equivalent of mild headache tablets. After a few days of severe pain and sleepless nights, I was thinking there was something seriously wrong, but I thought I’d had all the help I was getting. The...