Chapter 1: New Year's Revolutions

Sunday 31-Dec 2006

The weather on New Year's Eve wasn't good, so they hadn't gone down to the beach where Chris could've scored a few kisses from the girls. Instead his family sat on the windy balcony of their rented beach house watching the New Year's fireworks. In this small beach town they weren't as good as in Melbourne, but they were lucky to get any, since the weather had been so bad.

It gave Chris a chance to think about his New Year's resolutions. He had three. The first was to get into the First Eleven, the top soccer side for the school. His preferred position was fullback, following his greatest hero Roberto Carlos, but this year he would be happy with any position at all. His second resolution was to make it into the other First Eleven, the cricket team. He had a chance of getting into them, but he would have to work really hard and keep his eye on the ball to succeed.

Chris's third resolution was simple. This year, he was going to get laid for the first time. He was old enough — even legally old enough — but he'd only had one real girlfriend, a girl named Anna he'd met at the shopping mall, and things had been far too messy to get to going all the way with her. So this year, he was definitely going to get laid.

The next morning he stumbled out for breakfast, and his mum was the only one up. His younger brother and sister were still asleep, and Dad must have taken the boat out or something. She gave him a juice and sat down next to him with a coffee.

"So, any New Year's resolutions?"

Chris nodded. "A few."

After a little silence, "Well, are you going to tell me about them?"

"Guess so." He was a little annoyed — why was she digging around like this? Was it not enough that they had to know where he was at all times? It was about time that she realised that he had grown up. So he decided to tell her all three of them.

"Well, my New Year's resolutions are to get into the two First Elevens, and to get laid."

Her response was not at all what he expected.

"What about VCE? Shouldn't you have a resolution about that?"

Oh no. Not this bone of contention again. As if VCE was going to be in his New Year's resolutions! Chris groaned. "Mum, this is year eleven, not twelve, the only two VCE subjects I have this year are easy ones, and while I promise to try, I'm not making a resolution about them."

Chris was surprised that his mum left it that; his performance at school was a real topic of disagreement between them. Instead, she picked up a new subject. "Okay, so you want to get laid this year?"

He just looked at her in disbelief. Her tone seemed to be saying that she thought this was okay.

She laughed. "Oh come on, my sixteen-year-old son wants to get laid. You think I find anything surprising or inappropriate about that?"

Chris just looked at her. He really couldn't think of anything that he wanted to say at this point. This was his mum here.

"So, you're going to get a girlfriend?"

He shook his head. "Nah, that was such a mess with Anna last year. I'd rather keep right away from any relationships."

"So, you don't want a relationship, but you want to get laid. Going to fuck a whore?"

Chris spilt his juice. She had said that in a normal voice. This conversation was getting weirder by the second. Mum? His mum? The one who was always lecturing them about using proper words all the time? How could she have said that?

"Mum, I can't believe you said those words!"

"Why not — it seems like the proper use of those words to me. Are you planning to fuck a whore?"

"No Mum, no way would I do that. How can you even ask such a thing?"

"Well, good. Of course. But if you don't want a relationship, and you want to get laid, how else are you going to make it happen?" She looked at him, thinking. "I bet you figured that if you got into the First Elevens, some girl at school would just give it to you, no strings attached. Am I right?"

He nodded reluctantly. That was exactly what he'd figured, but when she said it, it did sound a bit stupid. She pursed her lips, looking at him, and then drank from her coffee. When the silence had grown painful, and he was starting to wonder what she wanted him to say, she spoke again.

"Chris, I was a boy-crazy, teenage girl once. I had boyfriends, I lived with a man, and then I met your father, got married, had you three kids. Would you agree that I know a fair bit about boys and girls, and sex and love?"

He thought about that. You don't really want to think of your mum in those terms, but in an abstract, theoretical way, he had to agree that she probably knew a fair bit about things, certainly more than him.

"Fair enough," he replied.

"I've known a lot of girls, ones that were virgins when they married, ones that slept with their boyfriends, and ones that slept around. I even knew a girl who screwed the captain of the school cricket team, no strings attached, just because he was the captain. And I watched and learnt."

"What I learnt is that at your age, almost all girls are real careful who they sleep with, if they even do it. They know that sleeping with someone has emotional consequences, and they are not willing to have sex without an emotional link. Later, as they get older, these things change."

She paused, and then added, "Don't believe me? I know there's girls who'll sleep around, even sleep with anyone. At your age, that's really sad, because it's almost certain that they've been hurt somehow, maybe by someone in their family, or a past boyfriend. Sleeping with them, well, is that okay?"

"Why not? If they are happy to do it, why shouldn't I?"

"Well, putting aside the risk of STDs, which we'll talk about later, I think you need to think about it. Tell me what you were saying the other day about BHP."

Chris thought back. He had been complaining about BHP Billiton, the big Australian mining company, how they wrecked the environment, how they took without counting the long-term cost to the environment of their actions, because it was not their cost, and because it wasn't illegal, and because someone else would do it if they didn't. This was something he felt pretty strongly about. Basically these rich pricks were real criminals. They had just figured out how to change the law so it protected them. Chris and his mum talked about the criminal environment wreckers for a while, and how important it was to Chris. Chris and his mum basically agreed on this, they were both Greenpeace members, and it was something Chris took seriously.

"Yeah, so the thing that they really do wrong is not counting the whole cost of their actions. So, isn't taking a girl who'll give it up easy because she's already been hurt pretty much the same? No cost to you, who cares what the cost to her is?"

Chapter 2 »