Trials of the Monkey by Matthew Chapman

Author:Matthew Chapman [Chapman, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Nonfiction, Retail
ISBN: 9780312300784
Amazon: 0312300786
Barnesnoble: 0312300786
Publisher: Picador
Published: 2002-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

Ever since I arrived at the school three years before, I’d had my eye on Nina. With an upturned nose and light brown hair, she was pretty and coquettish. The word ‘pert’ comes to mind. Nina and I had gone out once or twice for walks, but there had been no romance. In fact, I always felt she didn’t like me. She was a teacher’s daughter; my anti-authoritarianism compounded the awkwardness of her position. Tonight, however, was the last night of the summer term and I was fourteen.

She approached me with a couple of her friends and started to flirt, sweetly, but with an odd determination. She made a joking challenge. I responded in kind. It was as if she’d made up her mind to dispense with her virginity and had chosen me to take it. Perhaps she had been teased for being a good girl and had decided her survival depended on doing something bad with someone bad.

We started walking. I was amazed, in shock but not unprepared: one of the geography master’s aging condoms nestled optimistically in my pocket.

It was a warm evening, still light. We went past the tennis courts, past the hut where I had lost my virginity with Sally almost a year before, and found a place among some bushes on the other side. We lay down and I kissed her. Soon clothes bunched at her ankles and rode up around her narrow waist. I touched her and she touched me. I was hard and she was wet. I rolled on the condom, put the tip of my penis just inside her—and came.

We got dressed and walked back together. I remember wondering if I’d ever learn not to come so quickly. I’d stolen a copy of the Kama Sutra from a local bookstore (in fact several copies, the rest of which I’d sold above market price) and studied it, but when push came to shove, I came. She was subdued but not unfriendly. We parted company. I didn’t brag about this one. By now I knew more was expected of me and I felt ashamed. Sally was a sweet girl and wanted silence. Who knew what this girl would want?

Late that night there was a knock on the door of my dormitory. A girl named Ginny was calling for me. I went out into the corridor.

‘You brute,’ she said, her eyes slits of teenage indignation.

‘What?’

‘Nina’s crying. How could you do that?’

‘She wanted me to. It hardly …’

‘Pah!’

And she walked off. Another hour passed and then the same girl was at the door again.

‘You’re in big trouble. She’s bleeding and she’s going to see her mum and dad.’

‘No!’

‘Yes! You rapist.’

The next morning at assembly, the usual hymns were sung and announcements made. So and so was off to Oxford. The first eleven won the … I glanced at Nina’s father. His lips were tight, he did not look my way, and neither Nina nor her mother were in the hall. The headmaster, Harris, a radical vegetarian with a settlement of boils on his neck, droned on, then stopped.

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