Chapter 4: Yes, I Am Her Boyfriend

That autumn evening at N’s penthouse set the pace our lives would pursuit the next few weeks. On school days I met her at the gate and we three, Val, N and her old creaky bike, diverged through the Forest Park to get rid of her mates and have privacy to chat. At the artificial lake’s shoreline we raced. ‘See who can reach the lake first,’ she announced, and sprung like a missile. I sprinted till I felt my heart choking up my throat, but she beat me by three lengths. Apparently her daily routine pedalling that rusty bicycle surpasses my untrained carcase. Exhausted, I cling at the long skirts of her oversized linen shirt, probably inherited from her dad, and tackle her down on the grass, rolling like dizzy dancers to let her land on top.

‘Beat ya, lol,’ she boasts.

‘Fair enough, you got longer legs and a younger heart.’

I didn’t forget her upper body, but decide against further comments. She measures her own thighs in palm lengths and then makes the same with mine. Since they’re close she uses finger thicks as decimals. ‘Which shoe you wear. 42 also? But female sizes are smaller.’ ‘They’re not.’ She flings her light footwear and wrestles my trainings off. She pushes her bare foot plant to plant against my improperly black sock. My foot tip stands out but N’s second and middle toes are slightly longer.

‘Thought you were ashamed about your large feet and hands,’ I retaliate making use of her private conversations with Nadia. She flushes, which rarely happens and makes her even more delightfully desirable, and withdraws the end of her limbs into the floppy sleeves, as an endangered snail.

She’s proud of her end-less, bony feet, and wears a white-gold ring in her fore-last toe. Geishas never were role models for her. But envy filled her when a fellow schoolgirl showed off delicate, feminine hands, with petite sharp-ended fingers. Hers are ponderous and bulky, so when she walks she tends to clench her fists, and when she stands they promptly fly out of sight behind her back.

I catch her palm and unfold it into display. ‘They’re not that ugly, are they?’ She lets me have a close look at what she thinks are manly hands, and I find fair-skinned, pale and polished as china-clay. True, the fingers are robust and she doesn’t grow her nails. Hand comparison comes next. We set our wrists together and stretch out the fingers to full length. Again, as with the feet contest, who disposes who depends on which finger you choose. My third and fourth ones are longer than hers, but she beats me with the index and thumb.

‘And you can’t imagine how much strength I got in my hands. At home it is me who opens the marmalade jars.’ We crawl face to face and try to dispute an arm-wrestling match, but the daisies prairie under our elbows doesn’t offer the necessary support for a real contest. We lose balance and roll on the lawn, picking dry leafs stuck to our clothes. She pulls out her shirt to reach it with her eyes and pinch the leafs away. Her move is so vigorous I feel she’s going to tear off the tissue. I figure rampaging she-hulk ripping her human clothing to shreds in public places like this, crowded with ball-playing kids and relaxed family men. Somehow the linen resists the stretching. Now she resumes the arm-wrestling stand, waiting with her left hand ready for another go. But when I square off she takes me by surprise with a vicious side-tickling attack. I fight back and N’s chorale-trained throat bursts with uninhibited sheer-pleasure laugh. A surprisingly low-pitched cackle comes out her swan neck. Not even laughing can you be discrete, my sweetheart?

The tickling battle transitions into a more intimate hug on the white-splattered green layer of lawn, and I hear my self-consciousness saying farewell. Like boxers after a clinch, we move apart, with heavy pants, and stare intently at the casualties our hot game left behind, taking the same back-step that a painter takes to appreciate his work on progress on the canvas. Our steaming chests pump up in tune. Mum’s power-bra has resisted my assaults, but N’s swollen breasts pray to be released. We could live comfortably for ten years just on the fortune any big fish would pay for a three-second flash on those celestial wonders. I gather the courage I’m assumed to have, insert two fingers inside each cup and set them free. The almond musk intoxicates me. I rub my eyelids against the nipple-crowned spheres, and dream on a full-time common life with that celestial female. A decent racketeer would commission a murder for the right to have a flash on those perfect tits, and would happily commit suicide if only N let him go for a face-rubbing bout. But it’s my face down there in between, could you believe it? How unpredictable life is. She hugs my head and I nibble the tip of her nipples till her throat starts releasing sweet, tender whines. If once there was a paradise, it had to be a boring, eventless resort compared to N and Valis’ dreamland.

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