There's a new book out titled The Moment, in which 125 writers share their essays about a moment that changed and defined their lives. I can't think of an appropriate place to share my moment, so I've created this blog to do so. (WARNING: Somewhat explicit dialogue to follow.)
35 years ago, I began my second semester of my freshman high school year at a new school. I had already been uprooted the previous year from Illinois, where I'd grown up all my life, because my persnickety stepmother said she needed to move to Arizona for her health. I wasn't an only child, but all of my siblings had moved out by the time my dad, stepmom, and I moved to Arizona. All of this contributed to my being quite the misfit, and I spent my eighth-grade year enduring the worst kind of hazing from kids who'd grown up together and were pretty well established in their lives. How I found the strength to even get up and go to school every day that year, I'll never understand.
Anyway, I had just started to find my footing in high school, when my dad decided to move across town, because he'd found an apartment where he could be the apartment-complex manager in return for free rent. So in mid-October, I was uprooted yet again, to basically start my high school year all over. I duly signed in with all of my classes on that first day, including my English class. I was so nervous about just surviving the day, I didn't really notice my English teacher on that particular day.
But a day or so after that, it was like a transformation. (My English teacher's name was Barbara, though I've ever since thought of her as "Barbie Baby.") Barbie walked from one end of the classroom to the other. Not a particularly profound moment, you'd think. Except that I remember that moment vividly. Barbie was a plus-sized woman. On that particular day, she was wearing a red turtleneck sweater and black slacks. I remember this so well because it was at that moment that I first laid eyes on Barbie's humungous breasts.
As Barbie sashayed across the room, her breasts took on a life of their own. They jiggled back and forth, to and fro, as though some invisible force was clutching them and making them sway in the wind. And it was that moment that truly changed my life.
Up to then, as I said, I was quite the misfit in school. I was socially awkward, and never had a girl expressed any kind of interest in me. That I could accept. But Barbie, despite her extra size, seemed to have no qualms about wearing clothes that displayed her form as though she was wearing nothing at all. Whenever she bent over, you could see the outline of her panties right down to the "V" of her crotch. And whenever she walked across the room, no matter how lightly she walked, it was as though a singular earthquake was happening just for Barbie, right beneath wherever she walked.
Why do I say that this moment changed my life? I say this because, for that year and the following two years when I attended that school (I moved yet again at the end of my junior year), I endured a constant aching in my crotch as this woman passive-aggressively showed off her big breasts whenever I saw her. It was as though she was telepathically saying to me, "You adore my body, don't you? Well, it's socially out of bounds for either of us to do anything about that, so you'll never have me. What's more, unless you want to get in big trouble, you can never express to me how you really feel. So you're going to have keep all of those lusty, pent-up, teenage thoughts all to yourself. Meanwhile, I have a husband at home who will gladly hump my brains out whenever I want. Guess I've got you by the balls, so to speak."
And she truly did. I usually loved writing and literature, but my grades in Barbie's class sunk to a "D," because all I could ever concentrate on was her big chest. And she'd often go out of her way to make sure I did just that. Sometimes, Barbie would wear little suit jackets while she'd stand in front of us at her lecturn and talk to the class. Eventually, her huge chest would protrude out from her unbuttoned coat, as though it was coming up for air. Whenever Barbie would notice some lusty student (usually me) ogling her breasts, she'd quietly yank her coat back over her chest, as if to say, "I'm just not that kind of woman!" Then she'd lecture for a while, her breasts would jut out some more, and the game would start all over again.
One day, Barbie left her suit jacket on a table at the far end of the classroom. While the rest of the class was noisily working on group projects, I sidled over and fondled the jacket as much as I could. It was a pointless exercise, of course. I suppose I just wanted to touch something that had been so close to the body of my dreams. At one point, I looked across the room and saw Barbie staring wide-eyed at me, a sickly smile on her face. It was then that I realized, if Barbie didn't know I lusted after her, it was only because she didn't want to know.
After my freshman year was over, I saw Barbie all the time on the school campus. In fact, in my sophomore year, I had a class right next to Barbie's classroom. Sometimes I'd be sitting by the classroom door waiting for classes to change, when Barbie would pass by to go to her classroom. I'd stop her on the pretext of telling her some stupid joke, when all I really wanted to do was ogle her body. She'd listen politely and then smile. Sometimes she'd do something flirty, like wink at me or poke me on my nose, before she'd saunter off to her classroom, her big ass cheeks bouncing back and forth. In retrospect, I wish I'd done something, anything to act upon my impulses, but I was too busy being everyone's polite little boy. So I'd sit and suffer lustfully.
35 years later, I'm happily married with a family. And yet I still stare at Barbie's yearbook photos and fantasize about that big, beautiful body. Reading about "The Moment" made me realize that it was that seemingly insignificant moment in 1975 that changed my life -- that moment when the biggest, most beautiful breasts I could ever dream of bounced within inches of me, and fate smugly laughed at me and told me I could never have them.
