Hello Dear Readers
I’m still in the teething pains of trying to start a blog , sooo here I am again for my next installment. Since I last wrote here I was encouraged to enter a writing competition. Something I was uncomfortable doing ( although I had done it before as a child …and won that time). I had help from my wonderful mentor and editor Rose to just go for it ! AND I HAVE TO TELL YOU … Drum Roll Please AFTER ALL THE WAITING FOR THE JUDGEMENT AND FINALIST LIST ….I lost .
It was the best loss I’ve had.
Not so much as a participation award.
I’m so glad I stepped out of my comfort zone. I’m so glad I learnt to love the valuable editing process. I’m so glad that the Authors that did get the participation awards and the cash prizes were either published authors and /or playwrights. They’ve honed their craft.
I’m about to embark on my next exciting writing journey to learn more.
Here’s my story that I proudly lost the competition with . I hope it transports you back to the magical 80s xxx
Summer Lovin’
It was the summer of 1984. A sudden need had sprung up amongst the girls. There was something we needed to do, and if you didn’t, were you even worth anything? Hormones had kicked in, seemingly overnight, and so had our outlook on boys. We noticed them now. Suddenly, yes suddenly, we were thrown into a race of sorts.
The loser? The last with their hymen intact.
I’d had the first kiss. It was at the Blue Light Disco held in the local community hall. Grape flavoured Hubba Bubba bubble gum clashed with sticky strawberry lip gloss as other couples slow danced to Australian Crawl blaring from the speakers imploring us “Don’t be so reckless.”
But was that kiss enough? Was I worthy of something more? Was I desirable? Was she more desirable than I was? What about her over there?
We lined our eyes in blue and sprayed our bodies in a floral cloud of desperation to be desirable. We laid in the sun with lemon juice in our hair and oil on our skin wanting to darken the white bits and lighten the dark bits. Some of us even stopped eating.
My mother played a pivotal role in me claiming my spot on the podium. She hadn’t meant to. In fact, she had exactly the opposite intention. She was working hard, nine to five, to keep a roof over our heads and guiding me through life as best she could. Or so she thought.
That summer, left to our own devices, we discovered alcohol. It came in the form of punch left over from one of my mother’s pre-Christmas soirees. The floating bits of banana and pineapple were growing browner by the week. We were hanging out in the garage that had been converted into a games room, playing pool and listening to the American top 40 on the radio.
“Like a ver-er-er-ergin!” we sang along with Madonna. “With your heartbeat next to mine.”
“’Gee we’re good singers.” I said.
“I reckon.” Nikki agreed.
“Want a drink?” I asked opening the fridge.
“Why not?”
“Wouldn’t want it to go to waste.” I handed her a mug of two-week-old punch. “There’s no fur on it yet.”
“Cheers!” We toasted each other.
“Speaking of virgins, did you hear about Karen?” Nikki asked as she examined a piece of fruit more closely.
“No! Did she? With that guy with the Torana?”
“Yeah, in the back seat – and she thinks she’s pregnant,” Nikki says. “But I reckon she just wants attention.”
“Hmmm. How are you and Joel going? Do you think you’ll do it?” I asked her. She’d been ‘going around’ with him for a week, so they were basically engaged really.
“I hope so. He’s a bit shy though.” She shrugs. “I’m meeting him tonight after he finishes work with his brother.”
His brother. The one that was older than us. I had a major crush on him. He was tall with long dirty blonde hair with a slight curl at the ends and he wore denim jeans and no shirt most of the time. I’d seen him working on a construction site in the town centre. He had whistled at us on one of our blue eyed, floral scented walks past. We did that in the summer of 1984. We walked everywhere. In our matching outfits. The heat of the asphalt rising to meet the heat of the sun radiating down. We counted the wolf whistles we’d get from guys hanging out of their cars like they were badges of honour.
My mother sealed the whole deal really. It was a Sunday night, and we were watching Countdown from the dining table. No one ever missed Countdown, not in my hometown anyway. Tina Turner was the guest, so mum was in a good mood reminiscing her youth.
“Look at her legs!” Mum sighed. “Tina’s my age. I used to have legs like that before kids. Oh, the skirts we wore.”
“I remember the photo with you in those white boots Mum,” I said, “You were a spunk.”
“Top dinner Mum,” said my brother, changing the subject. “I love what you did with the Sea Shantys.”
“No one likes a wise arse.” Mum joked.
“It never gets old.” He sniggered at his own humour.
Sunday was always Sea Shanty night – Mum’s favourite go to frozen convenience food. One step up from Fish fingers. Sea Shantys, salad and tartare sauce fresh from the jar. It could have been worse. It could have been Mince Monday or Tuna Bake Tuesday. She wasn’t one of those cooking type mothers my friends had who made their Macaroni and Cheese or Pancakes from scratch. She was a nine to five working mother. She was on one of her fad diets, so tonight she was having half a slice of toast and boiled spinach, because she’d read somewhere that’s what the British prime minister ate to lose weight.
“Grab my smokes will you, Scott?” She asked my brother.
“I’ll get them.” I jumped up before he could respond. I took every opportunity to pocket a few to smoke later with Nikki.
“Thanks love,” she said as I handed her now lighter packet of cigarettes to her.
“My mate Mick said he saw you and Nikki walking past the site today,” Scott said.
“Yeah, I know. I saw him,” I answered, trying not to blush.
“That bogan Shane was having a good old perve,” he said. “I don’t know what Nikki sees in his brother either. The whole family is dodgy.”
“You’re just jealous,” I teased. We all knew that Scott had a thing for Nikki. But to her he was just my older brother who had been ‘in between jobs’ since he left school a year ago.
My mother then piped up. “Yes, well this Shane character can just keep it in his pants. You’re never to have anything to do with him. I heard he’s on drugs and it’s just a matter of time before he gets locked up in jail.”
She exhaled a puff of smoke, then uttered the four magic words: “Stay away from him!”
And that was that.
We went together, Nikki and I, in a fume cloud of flowers, batting eyes so blue we looked bruised. We went to the house Joel shared with his older brother Shane. The place was more like a shopfront conversion really. It was on a corner and had an awning advertising sandwiches that were probably still fresh back in the 70’s. The windows out front were lined in brittle looking brown newspaper that may have once been white when the headlines were fresh. We entered through the original shop door; the bell tinkled with the nostalgia of customers past. He held my hand loosely and took me past the stacks of boxes left from some previous tenant to a back room. Dirty glass French doors separated us from any would be onlookers. It was stifling. We laid on a lumpy old lounge. We both knew why I’d come. It was a contract of sorts. He expected it off me and I expected it off him. He served a purpose to rid me of the thing I so desperately wanted to be rid of. The dreaded hymen.
He laid on top of me. He wasn’t gentle. I didn’t even have time to take my shoes off. He was huge up close, or bigger than I’d expected. I was scared. I wanted to tell him to stop, but it was too late. He had moved my underpants aside and forced himself into me with not so much as a kiss. I’d imagined my second kiss would come before this. There was no magical feeling of oneness. There was no ecstasy, only a loss of something I wished I could have back. There was pain and blood. Lots of blood. And suddenly in the last week of the summer of 1984, I wished I’d never been in the race.
I closed my eyes, revealing nothing but blue.
Soul Scribbling 