bending_sickle | It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time. (Reply)

I wrote more Teen Wolf fanfic:
Title: I've Been Out Walking (I Don't Do Too Much Talking)
Summary: Dereks watches over Stiles while he copes.
Sequel to: Linear Equations and Of Sound Mind

Thirty Questions About Myself

7. Your first boyfriend or girlfriend - I was 25, he was just a few months older. We met in the while I was doing field research and he was working for a research camp in the same national park. (Am I being vague because Google may not be my friend? Hell yeah.)

We actually met twice, in that the first time we met it was a quick handshake and "this is my other son" and then my friend and co-researcher (Willy) and I went off to talk to his mom about resarch and park stuff. The second time we met, we were hanging out at their research camp with his younger brother and his cousin. We had beers and chatted all together around a fire for most of the night. I remember loving his accent. (He spoke a bit differently from his brother.

We got to seeing more of each other, with us hanging out more at their camp rather than the park's headquarters where Willy and I were staying. His whole family was working there, and they were all absolutely wonderful people (each with lovely full-throated laughs), so it was a comfortable thing. We spent a lot of time together, all of us just hanging out together, and it was wonderful. Once we even went up to the middle of the park, on top of this hill that overlooked everything, for breakfast.

Willy hooked up with the younger bro and I started seeing the older bro with "I think I might like him" glasses. He seemed like a nice guy, albeit ridiculously shy, so that I had to make the first move. (Said move, by the way, was going to sit by him after his uncle said something - gods know what, I don't understand Swahili - to him and he was upset.)

And even though I wasn't all gaga over him, I thought he was nice. The physical attraction was always a thing-in-context. (It's not like I saw him from afar and thought, "Hot damn, boy's handsome." I mean, he wasn't my type at all, but I started liking him and then *wham* hormones went "no but LOOK AT HIM".)

So yeah. I basically decided, "You know what? Let's go for it." I knew he liked me due to the wonders of having Willy dating the brother, so I thought I'd hang it all - all that shyness, all that "I don't know how to talk to boys", all that complete inexperience (except in theory because I read, yo) - and just leap right into it.

I remember one evening at their camp, sitting by the fire celebrating his birthday, and thinking, with a jolt of ngh, "I'm going to kiss that boy." And I did, sitting by a campfire in the middle of a national park in Kenya. So that was my first kiss.

(The next morning he would not stop grabbing at my breasts all "eeee boobies" despite me telling him repeatedly and with increasing anger to fucking stop. So that should have been a warning. But I was still all "aw adorable" and "whoot whoot I'm with a boy" and just really lacking in an iron spine. I had more a copper spine. Hard, but not quite enough.)

About a month later, Willy and I decided to take a few days off and go to Nairobi again, and this time we went with the guys. Sleeping arrangements were Noah's arc arrangements at the hotel. I had no intention of sleeping with him - or rather, not just yet. (I was a bit tired, in general, of the whole "not having had a boyfriend ever and was more than open to jumping into things.) The first night it was alright, making out on the absolutely shit foam mattress, although I was so incredibly naive and then terrified because what is that hard thing poking at me oh my god.

Things get a bit fuzzy after that, days-wise. I think the next night - where we went to a club where they put on this incredibly uncomfortable "I don't want to see this" sexy-dance show with a guy and some ladies - he crashed into bed naked because of...reasons...and I was like fuck it, whatever. But in the morning we were hanging out and then his hands were in places, and it felt nice, and I thought "to hell with it" and "let's do it" and I was okay with it and I still am, pretty much, except I wish it'd just been better, in general.

He leapt at the opportunity and wanted to rush right into it "before you change your mind" which I didn't like hearing, and then he tossed a condm onto my chest all sex education as if being a virgin meant I was completely ignorant of everything. And then that was it. He was doing strange noises and faces and I was trying not to laugh because I found it all too hilarious and I think in retrospect that was nervous laughter because I wasn't entirely comfortable with things. I mean I wanted to have sex but not like that... So it was okay. The holding and the closeness was nice and it wasn't that big a deal, really.

So we did that, and hung out at his camp, and stole sex-time where we could, and I rather liked it. (Except for that one traumatizing fucking goddamn joke for which I'll never forgive him, I think. We were in my cabin - Willy'd gone to spend the night with the brother - and it was dark and suddenly "shit the condom broke". I was sure he was lying and joking and didn't believe him but he kept at it, "no seriously it did" and finally finally I believed him and my mind started whizzing through plans of where the nearest medical centre was for a morning after pill, or whatever I'd have to go to the capital, and then I was thinking about diseases and panicking like fuck and - no, he was joking. Moron. I fucking cried I was so scared.)

Then time came for Willy and I to wrap up our research. Willy was going to Ethiopia to visit her mom, who was working on some project or other, and I'd be damned if I didn't explore Kenya so I wasn't goig with her. (Also, awkward crashing on family trip and everything.) So before the boy and I'd been an item, just when we'd been friends, I had asked him if he'd like to come with me to the coast, on holiday.

So we were still doing that, except now were weren't friends, we were boy/girlfriends. I was ridiculously grateful either way because I really really didn't want to be a Single White Female Tourist wandering around the coast by myself. (Sometimes I wonder if, had I not slept with him, how things would have gone for me. Would we still have gone together? Would that have gone well? Would I have had to travel alone? So, was I trading sex for safety and companionship or is that me overthinking things?)

So we spent two weeks wandering the coast, going to Mombasa, Malindi and Lamu, staying in hotels and my kindergarten friend's mother's island home (yeah, that happened). We got a few stares as a mixed race couple (he was half Kikuyu and half Masai, by the way, although he identified as Masai, even though he lied to my kindergarten's friend's mother and said he identified as Kenyan when she asked during a serious conversation about the country, because "that's what she wanted to hear", and my opinion of him suffered quite a bit because of that casual, useless lie) but otherwise it was okay.

Well, I say okay, but he wasn't exactly the best boyfriend or travelmate out there. We spent a whole afternoon once in Mombasa sitting in a bar watching rugby. That's lunch and dinner and me being bored out of my mind. And the same whenever there was football. (Once I even had debilitating cramps and really really wanted to get back to the house, which was a 2 km walk away, and he decided hell no, we're staying and watching football. Which, yeah.) So things weren't always good but I kept letting them slide because I was very, very ridiculously happy with the whole "being in love" thing.

So about two months after we started, I had to take my plane back to the Netherlands. There were tears and heartfelt promises and everything. Once back in the land of flatness and wind, I emailed him every day and told him about my day and future plans and everything, to which he'd occasionally reply and hardly ever answer my questions and it kept deteriorating until I felt like I was talking to a wall so I finally told him that if he wasn't going to work with me here at keeping the long distance relationship afloat, then it was over. He never replied.

So that was my first boyfriend, my first everything, and so far my only.

8. Your oldest hobby
9. Your sexuality
10. What you look for in a partner
11. Your kids, or your feelings about having kids
12. Your pets, past and present
13. Foods you love and foods you hate
14. What your life was like ten years ago
15. How much alcohol you drink
16. Your worst illness
17. What you do at work
18. A question or comment people should never make to you
19. The style of clothing you feel most comfortable in
20. Whether you’re an extrovert or an introvert
21. Who you have a crush on
22. A friendship you lost
23. Three achievements you’re proud of
24. Your political views
25. Your religious beliefs
26. Your perfect night out
27. Whether you like to plan ahead or be spontaneous
28. What you look for in a friend
29. Whether you’re a night owl or a morning lark
30. How you would like people to remember you

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