Io

Winter

"Don't worry, Jellybean, you'll sprout up," my mom promised.

I'd had it. It had been a rough day at school. Let me tell you, it's no fun being the class shrimp. So, I said, "Gee mom, give me a break. You've got it easy."

So, I mouthed off to my mom? Big deal. I mean, what teenager doesn't sass back to his mom?

"Easy?" she says, cocking one well plucked eyebrow.

"Well, yeah. All you have to do is look pretty."

Then she popped THE question—like she was letting me decide something important. "So, you'd like it easy too, I suppose?"

I hesitated a moment and the blurted out, "You bet."

"You may not think so later," my mom promised.

Things did not go well for me after that.

Now, I'm the first to admit that adolescence is no Sunday School picknick—it's hard on us all. One second, you're this happy-go-lucky kid minding your own business—sure of your place in God's plan. Then bang! You're this sex addled teenager who's not sure of one darn thing. We all start it at different times, do it at different rates, and wind up with different results. Some of us happy—some of us not so happy.

Now, up till then I'd been what my mom called an "Up-and-Comer." I'd always been embarrassed about it. I wouldn't undress in front of the other guys or anything, even in gym because of it. My mom even gave me a note, so I didn't have to.

Inside, I was this young colt chomping at the bit though dying to catch up and run with the other stallions. I wanted out of my boyhood and into my manhood in the worst way.

Yes, sir. I was going to mushroom, you can bet. I'd be at least as tall as my dad—maybe taller. I'd workout, pack on some beef, build up my chest and shoulders. I couldn't wait for my voice to start cracking—going from a pipsqueak's squeak to a grownup's growl.

'Son,' I promised myself, 'Girls are going to love your body.'

Maybe a week after my little run-in with mom, I finally started to get fur round my privates and under my arms. That's encouraging to any lad. No beard yet—and not much hair anywhere else—but manhood, I knew, was just around the riverbend.

Then a few days later my voice cracked. As the days passed though, it didn't get that much deeper. Instead, it got—I don't know—different—grownup but not what I'd expected.

The upside was when I answered the telephone, folks didn't ask me if my mom was home. The downside was everyone asked me if my husband was.

I hadn't a clue yet as to what the short-circuit might be.

Then, overnight, it seemed my jeans and underwear got disagreeable. And, let me tell you, nothing goes right when your tight whiteys' too tight. And they just kept shrinking—getting more troublesome with each day passing.

"You'll like what I bought you," my mom smiled one morning.

When I opened my top drawer there was new underwear in it. Nothing like my old ones at all. They were a lot more roomer in the seat. In my bottom drawer were two new pair of pants as well.

They weren't jeans, but right then I didn't have a problem with that, as long as they fit.

What vexed me sorely though was that each morning after that when I went to pull on my britches, what only seemed yesterday had seemed overly generous would all of a sudden seem suddenly too stingy. And they would forever get hung-up when I tugged them up over my hips.

"Hippo hips!" and "Lard ass!" The boys started to call me in school.

Eventually, I'd always land up whining to my mom fighting back tears.

"Another size already," she'd smile, shaking her head. Then she'd say, "Baby fat, Baby. That's all. You just wait!"

And the next day, there'd be new undies and pants in my drawer, even more clownish than the last ones.

I wished I would die is what I wished—only I didn't.