Chapter 1: I'm a Pervert

"Alex, is not a follower," that's what the kindergarten teacher told my parents at their first parent-teacher conference.

"So what?" said my mother.

The kindergarten teacher stared at Mom in disbelief. "It's important that he learns to conform at a young age."

Mom and Dad disagreed. They both saw my independence as a good thing and they tried to nurture it. They meant well, and as an adult I've ultimately benefited from being a very independent person, but in grade nine I was fourteen and I still hadn't learned to follow. My independence almost did me in.

In grammar school, and even in junior high, it's difficult to be alone. In the lower grades you get put in a class with twenty or thirty other kids, and you spend every day with just those kids. Even if you're not best friends with everyone in the class, you'll at least get to know them. Harrison High had over seven hundred students and almost as many cliques. I almost got lost.

I spent the first two weeks of grade nine eating alone in the cafeteria and I was miserable. I'd walk between classes and watch other students talking with their friends; meanwhile no one seemed to notice me. It wasn't cruel or mean. I wasn't being purposely ostracized. I just didn't fit in. I didn't know how.

Looking back, I now know that I was just horribly shy. If things had gone differently and I had, for example, made a friend on the first day of class, than my shyness would probably have naturally abated. As it was, I didn't speak to anyone but my teachers on that first day. The longer I went without a friend, the more debilitating my shyness became. It was a vicious circle: my isolation feeding the shyness that in turn fed my isolation.

A couple of weeks into the semester, I started eating my lunch in a park across from the school. It was late September, when Miss Cooper, my English teacher, approached me in the hall one afternoon. "Alex," she asked, "why do you always go to the park to eat?"

I was shocked. How is it that out of seven hundred students she had somehow noticed where I ate? I stared at her for a full minute, stunned and speechless. It felt longer.

Finally, I remembered that she had asked me a question. I panicked and said the first lie that came into my brain: "It's fall."

Brilliant!

It had actually been fall for a week. So at least I'd gotten the season right. However I suspect that Miss Cooper already knew that it was fall. Moreover, the declaration didn't really answer her question-fall is not a reason to eat in the park. Nor did it seem to justify a minute's contemplation.

That should have been the end of it. I should have stopped talking right then. Walk away, screamed my brain. Just shut the fuck up and walk away!

I should have listened to my brain. "It's fall," I said for a second time. If only stupidity was diminished through repetition.

Miss Cooper was now looking at me like I was Jimmy Sheen, the slow kid in class, the one who eats paste and isn't allowed near the scissors. Now I had to say something else.

It was still fall, but I decided not to mention it again. Instead I elaborated on my original statement. "The leaves have started changing," I said. "I go to the park to watch the leaves change while I eat. I think they're pretty."

My mind reeled at its expansive stupidity. Pretty? No wonder I had no friends.

"Oh!" That was all she said. I turned and left before either one of us could say anything else to make me look even dumber.

The next day, as I was crossing the street to eat in the park I turned and looked back at the school. Miss Cooper's class was on the first floor, so I could see through the window. She was at her desk eating a bagged lunch. She turned and saw me. She gave me a smile and a polite wave. I waved back and then headed over to the park.

Another week went by. It was starting to get cold in the park but I still ate there everyday. Miss Cooper didn't bring up our conversation again, which I was thankful for. She was actually one of my favourite teachers. She encouraged discussion in her class and I started to participate, thinking that it might redeem her opinion of my intelligence.

After a week I was pretty sure that Miss Cooper no longer thought I was an idiot. She'd often nod along while I talked, or praise me if I made an insightful comment. Twice, I even got her to laugh; she had a delightful laugh and a smile that brought the cutest dimples to her face.

It didn't take long for me to become infatuated with my English teacher. Falling for Miss Cooper was just too easy. She was smart, sexy, and only twenty-two years old, which to my hormone-addled mind was young enough for a fantasy of us together. She had big icy-blue eyes, which were always filled with a hint of warm affection. And her hair, which was blonde and always smelled like strawberries, went all the way down her back, stopping just above the perfect curve of her sexy behind. I longed to touch that soft, golden hair, and to twine my fingers in it possessively. But the best thing about Miss Cooper was her size.

Even though I was just fourteen, I was almost six feet tall. So I was taller than a lot of people, including both students and teachers, but beside me Miss Cooper was positively tiny. She was actually just over five feet tall, which meant that when we talked face to face she was always looking up. I orchestrated situations where we we'd be standing to talk. I loved looking down at her and seeing her bright smile and her wide blue eyes staring up at me. It somehow made me feel like a man.

We were closer to actually being face to face when she was standing and talking to the class and I was sitting at my desk, which was of course in the front row. She'd lean over sometimes during class to show me something in the text, and we'd be eye to eye. Of course, my eyes were always busy trying to sneak a peak down the front of her blouse.

On one such occasion, she caught me looking but pretended not to notice. Instead she gave an almost girlish giggle and leaned close against me. I could see down her blouse all the way to her navel, an innie. The silly grin she wore told me she that didn't care. Her bra was white lace matching her top, and her nipples poked out like little bullets.

I watched her chest rise and fall with increasing speed and felt her warm breath against my neck. I touched her wrist where she'd been pointing to something in my book. She shuddered but she didn't pull away. The tiny hairs on her arm stood up. A single bead of sweat was forming on my upper lip. I licked it away. Miss Cooper leaned closer, her shirt gaping. I could see to where the shirt tucked into the top of her skirt against the soft skin of her flat stomach.

I looked into her eyes. There was no pretending anymore. Her big beautiful blues were coming closer. We were connecting. How, I didn't know, but it was obviously mutual. I couldn't look away.