Carol and I sat on the bench. She was on a short substitution, I was lending support. From 5pm til 10pm each week, teams from surrounding towns came into the main city of Crimea on a Friday for Summer Basketball under lights. Crimea wasn't big, at most 5,000 people, but it was central in the district. It had the high school, the hospital, the train line, silos for the grain; and it had the only floodlit basketball courts in the north of the Young District. There were four courts; twenty games were scheduled from men's, women's, junior and senior, A-grade and B-grade. As you could imagine, it was the center of country society on a Friday. The courts buzzed with people of all ages - complete with an array of moths and bugs.
"You're playing next? Which court?" Carol asked me.
"Cancelled. Grayport forfeited."
"Again? They're useless."
"Fucking disorganized," I agreed.
"Hey don't swear. My Auntie is around here somewhere."
I ignored her. I had other things on my mind. "So...can we go somewhere after?"
"I'm so sweaty," Carol moaned, pulling at her singlet.
"I won't mind," I assured her.
"Yeah? I will."
Before I could persuade her otherwise, she was gone, called back to court.
Sitting on the other side of me was my cousin Mike, younger by a year and constantly giving lip.
"Your girlfriend has a killer ass. She must be dynamite bent over in the shower."
I turned and looked at him, furrowing my brow. It was typical of the crap I'd heard from him all my life.
"Could you be any more crude?"
"Sure," he grinned cheekily, "Her tits are coming in nicely, too."
I just laughed. There was nothing else to do. Mikey would happily take a beating, it wouldn't stop him from mouthing off next time. And anyway, it was true. The bum-huggers they used for the women's summer uniform were scandalous on a girl like Carol. And her tits, they weren't big, but gee they looked solid. I could only dream that I would get her completely topless sooner rather than later.
——————-
David Tonkin, Donk, was the biggest chic-magnet of my year. It was quite a thing for a girl to be his girlfriend. And I have to say it wasn't unearned. He wasn't just big and strong, he was perfectly polite. To everyone. Genuinely. He was gentle yet chiseled, brutally handsome yet humble. I often looked at him wondering if his manner was in his genes, or conditioned. I wanted to know that it wasn't my fault I wasn't more like him.
When he spoke, I listened.
"So I was with Annette on Friday night...," he started. There were four of us sitting around at lunch. I wasn't usually in his circle so I was being careful not to say anything stupid. Annette Gilbert had been the unrequited love of most of my life before Carol. She had gorgeous eyes and hair; she moved with such confidence and grace it made me melt. I'd asked her out in a woefully nervous manner years ago. It hadn't gone well. I didn't try again. Annette was in the always-been-gorgeous category. My Carol was in the became-gorgeous-later category, which was much more to my reach.
"So I get her into the soccer goals. Making out," Donk tells us.
"Those ones over there?" one guy asks incredulously.
"Yeah, but right down the end."
"Fuck."
"Listen. So we're there for ages. Long enough for me to get her pants right off."
