Sometime in November, my sophomore year, I found myself on a couch between two girls, who I’ll call Latvia and Fountaine.

Fountaine was a girl who was in my English class before I switched out. I often teased her, shredding a page of paper and dumping the pieces on her head for my amusement. She often got “mad” before laughing and play along. For the most part she is unimportant for most of this story.

Latvia was a (surprise!) Latvian girl I met just a couple of hours before I sat on that couch, during an International Schools Sports Tournament (I.S.S.T.) volleyball game. Fountaine introduced us when their group of friends moseyed on over to interact with mine. While I don’t remember our exact conversation, I do remember that I made quite an impression on her (kind of how a girl is pleasantly surprised that you challenge her). She tried to sound very intellectual by talking about the human species originating from Africa and agreed with a very nonchalant attitude. Somewhere in the conversation I said something along the lines of she had a cute butt and it was clearly on display (when I said whatever it was, she moved her body so I got a better view).

Anyway, back to the couch.

Somehow the conversation turned to ropes and liking it rough, or something to that affect. Fountaine commented, “I bet you like it rough.” I agreed with a smirk, “You know it. Ropes, Fluffy Hand Cuffs, the works.” I actually didn’t know much about that stuff, but I pretended that I knew it all too well. In the near vicinity, too near for Latvia, an ex-boyfriend/hook-up walked around and she hid her face in my chest. Fountaine said, “No fair!” I mediated this dispute by saying that they both could have me. Fountaine would have me during the week and Latvia would have me during the weekend. When it was time for the girls to go, I said, “Where are my hugs?” and both of them hugged me good-bye.

That weekend I got Latvia’s email and flirted with her over MSN chat. Unfortunately I can’t remember the conversation nor can I find, but I remember me asking, “You want me to buy you a pair of underwear?” She replied, “That she was not sure she wanted to release her butt size to me this early on.”

I got her number and we flirted over the phone. She texts me, “I want to make you scream.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

One day we’re texting back and forth and she texts me “Fuck you”, I imagine because of a certain tease or something. I reply, “Go to bed. You’re acting pissy.” She replies, “I meant that in the nicest way possible 🙂 ” We arrange a bet over text. Each of us will tease the other (short of getting physical in public) until the other can’t take any more and has to have the other.

The next week I see her once in a math team club after school. “Math team? Out of the places I’d find you…” I say it jokingly and the teacher shoos me out of the classroom. We exchange a few texts or chat over Facebook. I make the mistake of referring to our “weekend arrangement” as “super kinky” in my haste to sexualize our conversations (aside from light insinuations). I don’t remember the exact response but it is not good. When I texted her that Sunday, “How’s our bet going?”

She replies, “I see you more as brother. Incest is not the way to go.”

The lesson I learned here is to not be too eager to show my interest, or to assume anything is going to happen because of a fictitious arrangement. I also probably flirted too much and should not have put her down for her involvement in math (instead of teasing her I probably ended up insulting her.

Instead of hooking up, we became friends. I treated her like my little sister and talked with a lot. She was friends with the Camera Whore and another girl I would later become involved with.

We are still good friends to this day and I still call her my little sister.

~Wald