A day in school

We were about 11 years old.

That day we were going out, we had an excursion. Once we had done the arranged visit, we were to make use of the fact that we were in the countryside and play sports outdoors. There were some public toilets around that we were to be used to get changed into the sport clothes, that we had been advised to carry with us.
I don’t remember the whole day very well. I remember that by the end of the afternoon, some of the girls and I had been talked into playing football with some of the boys. As we were playing the teacher called apart one of my friends and chat with her shortly. She did not come back to the game.

When we were all back to the restrooms to change back, the couple of us that were closer to her asked her happened. She looked upset.
She said the teacher had told her that her breast were starting to develop and she ought to wear a bra to school. She said the teacher seemed to be condemning the fact that her mother hadn’t taken care of that, since we were at a mixed school.
She asked us if we had noticed it, and we both said no at first, then she said to look at her carefully. By this time we were changing clothes and she was only wearing a thin T-shirt. Then we could see that her breasts were slightly developed compared to ours. But we wonder how the teacher could have noticed when she was wearing more clothes.
We had gone to a corner because she felt very self-conscious in front of all the other girls, though we weren’t that many students in the class.

I knew how she felt, she was ashamed. She had been made to feel “dirty” just for being as she was. She had been made to feel she ought to hide herself as if she was an indecency.
We had a little chat in the way to the bus; she was worried about the boys, as the teacher had made that remark about the school being mixed. My other friend soon would be in the same situation, as we realised once we examined our bodies a bit more in detail.
We convinced ourselves that the boys shouldn’t have any problems with it; didn’t all of them have mothers? And wasn’t the world just full of grown up women? But I think none of us felt very reassured.

On the way back, I had to sit in the front of the bus, as I used to get travel sickness; since all the kids liked to sit at the back, I was there by myself.
A thought assaulted me: what was going to happen when my breast started to grow? My body was already getting too much attention from him.
Of course he would know, he would have known all along the changes that were going to happen.
I used to lie in bed wishing I would not grow breast, ever.

When I was seven

I was about seven years old.

My brother and I were playing with my father in the living room. It was Saturday morning, my mother was at work. It was very nice as we he didn’t spend much time with us. He wasn’t home much during the week; in the evenings, but never had a disposition to even have a conversation with us. He was around in the weekends but he would spend most of his time in his studio. We would fix our own breakfast and play or watch TV until my mother was back from work. Then she would cook and we would all sit to have lunch. After that we would just be around the house, or do something with mum, he would be doing something else, reading mostly, is what I remember; or he would just disappear in his studio room.

That day we were playing, probably it wasn’t the only time we played with him; it was just not the usual. He was lifting us and throwing us high and catching us low on the way down. We were always amused by his strength and we enjoyed being lifted, thrown and catch, as if we were light feathers.

At some point I was being lifted by the chest, his hands were my non existent breast were. I was trying to hold my legs up to be horizontal, as if I was flying. He turned to my brother and said something like: “you have to take your chances now, because when they grow up they don’t let you touch their breasts”. Soon after, I said I was tired of the position and he put me down. I wasn’t tired, I was just uncomfortable. I didn´t even know why but I didn’t like the grabbing that was involved in the game anymore. I said I felt dizzy from all the spinning and going up and down, and I went to the room to lay down a bit. After a few minutes I took a toy and went to see what they were doing. I just sat there, in the other side of the living room, and play with my toy. Soon my dad was tired of playing and my brother came to play something with me.