My Stalker

Through the final two years of my three years in middle school, not a lot of things remained constant in my life. I was going through the hell known as puberty, I'd switched schools in between the 6th and 7th grade, and was still "discovering" myself.

Aside #1: Consider that a polite euphemism for "started to masturbate regularly."

One of the things that did remain constant towards the end, however, was the undying affection of a girl named Erica. I was thrown off by her advances when they began via a note slipped into the grates of my locker one afternoon. Written in green ink on notebook paper, it went something like this:

Dear Ty,

I saw you walking. We have a class together. Your cute [sic].

Call me.

(phone number)

Love,

Erica

Reading the name at the bottom of the note, I was confused and also flattered. I'd never heard of this person before or noticed anyone named Erica in any of my classes.

Then it hit me. A year younger than me, with braces and thick glasses, Erica was the mentally disabled girl that was in my Computer Literacy class. I wasn't sure what to do, and I definitely didn't want to hurt her feelings, so I ignored it.

Aside #2: My motto: "Don't want to hurt someone's feelings? Ignore them!"

But she was persistent. Over the next few weeks, she would drop more notes into my locker, despite the fact that I never replied to a single one or gave her any indication that her feelings were reciporicated in the slightest.

It started to get worse, too. Every time she walked by me in the hall, she would giggle, look down, and rush out of my field of vision. I was beginning to get worried. My sensitivity towards the handicapped like Erica made it difficult for me to say no without devastating her.

Aside #3: At this point in time, my mother was a Special Education teacher, so I was well aware of how emotionally unstable she may be. I don't mean to generalize this group of people, but it was a distinct possiblility.

Soon after her barrage of notes had started, spring break began. I was given a week off from my moral torture, and to be frank, forgot about it completely.

But the following Monday, I opened my locker to find a bright red envelope with my name on it. Opening it, I found a card with yet another plea to call her, and to my horror, a wallet-sized copy of her school photo with her name on the back next to a bright-red heart. She just wouldn't quit.

I knew I had to take some sort of action against her, for her sake and for my own. So one day, after school had ended, I walked to the special education room where Erica spent most of her time, and asked to talk to the teacher that had been assigned to her.

I was then introduced to a polite, soft-spoken teacher named Mrs. Morris, who, after I'd explained the situation, told me that one of the side-effects of Erica's particular disability was that she became obsessed with people that she found attractive, as a coping mechanism.

Aside #4: I say "coping mechanism" because she was apparently incapable of admitting these attractions like a normal person, instead choosing to become obsessive.

Apparently she'd cycled through celebrities, teachers and other students before, and had lost interest after a few weeks. Mrs. Morris assured me that Erica would become "bored" with me if I continued to ignore her, and the notes would stop. Thanking her for her candor and help, I left.

---

Three weeks later, the notes still hadn't stopped, and were becoming more and more unsettling. I began seeing her several times a day, as opposed to the two or three times I'd normally run into her. I can't say that I was scared, but I was definitely uncomfortable.

So I went to talk to Mrs. Morris again after school, to tell her that Erica's obsession with me hadn't waned. Immediately after I'd entered her room, she rushed over to me.

"Oh my gosh, I am so sorry she hasn't stopped bothering you," she said. "I haven't been able to contact you because I forgot to write down your name, and Erica refuses to tell it to me because she knows exactly why I want it. I was this close," she held her fingers apart a small amount, "to following her throughout the day and hoping she'd run into you."

After explaining what had been happening over the last few weeks, she sighed and took a folder out from her desk.

"These are what Erica has been drawing during her special ed. period," she said, opening the folder.

Handing me a stack of paper, I leafed through them. Every single one was a childlike drawing of either me alone, or she and I together, holding hands and partaking in various activities she must have assumed couples did regularly.

Aside #5: The few I can remember are she and I walking through a park, playing with a dog and eating dinner together.

"She's on a level of obsession with you that I've never witnessed before," continued Mrs. Morris. "I'm not sure what to do about it."

"Well, what if I told her that I'm not interested?" I asked. "Would she freak out?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "We've never had her take it this far before. The last time she drew pictures of someone like this, it was of Orlando Bloom, and we had to convince her that there was no hope. She didn't take it well."

Aside #6: And that was the only time in my life that I've ever been inadvertently compared to Orlando Bloom. Get on my level.

"If I were to do it," I continued, "I would be very gentle in letting her down. I could even lie and tell her that my fake-girlfriend doesn't like that she's sending me these love notes."

"You know...that actually might work," she admitted. "Well, I guess we'll try it and see how it goes."

We then made plans to call me out of class at a certain point the next day. She told me that Erica would likely "spaz out" when I entered the room, but to not show her that it made me uncomfortable. After planning out what I should say to her, I left.

The next day, I was called to the special ed. room just as planned. Walking down the hall, I rehearsed what Mrs. Morris and I had decided that I would say. Soon, I was at the door to the room. Taking a deep breath, I opened it.

The instant it swung open, Erica turned towards the door and saw me standing there. Just as Mrs. Morris had predicted, she started freaking out, not quite knowing how to contain herself. I walked over and sat in the chair across from her, as Mrs. Morris sat in the one beside her.

"Hi Erica," I said.

"Hi..." she said, in between making excited noises with her mouth.

"Erica, Ty has something that he needs to tell you," chimed in Mrs. Morris, looking at me and nodding.

"That's right. I came here to tell you that I think it would be best if you stopped writing notes to me. My girlfriend doesn't like it, and is getting jealous," I lied.

"Girl...girlfriend?" she stammered. "You...don't have a girlfriend..."

We hadn't planned for this. Thinking on my toes, I said, "Actually, I do. She goes to a different school. That's why you've never seen me with her."

"Oh...well...okay..." she said, sadness in her voice.

"But Erica, if you want to be my friend, I would be more than happy to come down to this room once a week to talk to you. But you've got to promise me you'll stop writing notes to me."

She looked at me for five seconds before looking away again and smiling.

"Okay..." she agreed, still grinning.

After spending a few more minutes talking to her, I left. I worked out a deal with Mrs. Morris before I did though, agreeing to be called out of one of my elective classes on every Thursday until her obsession with me had faded.

Two visits later, she was finished with me, and had moved on to a new crush. I saw her in the halls from time-to-time after that, but she never acted the way she had when she was obsessed with me.

I ran into Mrs. Morris some time later, close to the end of the school year. She told me that she had been working on this facet of her behavior with Erica, and that what I had done helped this cause immensely. She said that she expected this habit to be knocked within the next few months, if all went as planned. And I hope, for Erica's sake, it worked.

The Camp Story

In the middle fifth grade year, I was given a chance to attend a four-day camp alongside approximately 80% of my classmates. We took a fleet of buses to the middle of nowhere (Oklahoma), and the 100 or so of us stayed in cabins with volunteer parents or teachers that had come on the trip with us.

The cabins were large, rustic-looking buildings with four sets of bunk beds in them, meant to house one parent and seven kids. Our "parent" was the father of one of those seven, Kyle, and was a nice man that let us stay up past our allowed bedtimes and play card games with each other.

Aside #1: I specifically remember thinking it was really, really cool that he let us play "Bullshit," even though we had to shorten it to "BS." Even saying the abbreviation made all feel awesome.

I was lucky enough to be one of the kids given a top bunk, for reasons I can't remember (I'm sure we had to draw straws or something), a treat that was sought after in the mindset of my grade.

Anyways, the day after our first night of settling in, the real fun began. Over the next two days, we would play with snakes, practice archery, look at constellations in the sky, and did plenty of other camp-related activities that seemed incredibly exciting at the time.

Aside #2: I'd probably still get excited over archery and snakes, I won't lie to you.

Then, on the third day, we went on our first nature hike. The teachers, camp counselors and parents told us that they were combining our cabins into three large groups, and that we would each be cycling through the three trails the camp had to offer.

So our groups headed off in different directions, counselors leading the pack and telling the first two-thirds of the kids that could hear them all about how neat the wilderness was. I couldn't hear anything, because I was the last person in the massive line, but I enjoyed the walk all the same.

That was, until I felt the all-too familiar sensation of needing to urinate. Badly. Waddling towards the middle of the line where a teacher was stationed, I pulled her aside and explained my issue. She told me to follow the trail that we were on back to the cabins, go to the bathroom, and wait there to join up with them.

Following a trail backwards is simple enough, right? Apparently not. It didn't take five minutes before a combination of my overt curiosity with nature and direction-less being found me lost in the middle of the woods with no one around and nowhere to pee.

I started freaking out, which is exactly what you don't want to do when you have to urinate so bad your stomach hurts. Then I began running aimlessly towards what I thought was the camp, which is the absolute worst thing you can do in the same case.

My panicking plus the jarring motions of running equaled one thing: emptying my entire bladder into my pants with no control over the situation at all.

Aside #3: You might ask why I didn't just zip my fly down and pee out. Well, I was in the fifth grade. I'd just got over my fear of peeing while standing up next to a toilet, I wasn't about to do it in the middle of the woods where someone might see my teeny-tiny junk.

I had no idea what to do with myself. So I kept walking (not running) in the direction I thought camp was in, hoping to get back and change before my hiking group had returned.

A few minutes later, I arrived. The grounds were completely deserted, so I made my way to our cabin and walked in. Stripping my urine-soaked pants, underwear and socks off, I stepped into the bathroom and washed my legs off as much as I could using the sink.

Aside #4: Our cabins only had a sink and toilet, the showers were elsewhere.

Once I felt I had done well enough, I put clean clothes on and looked at my pile of soaked clothes that sat in front of me. Rather than wash them in the sink like a normal person would, I instead opted to hang them all from the rafters above my bed, hoping that they would dry out before we'd return that night.

I stepped outside just as the three groups were arriving at the central campgrounds to swap trails. Re-joining my group, I continued throughout the day as if nothing had happened, with thoughts of my pee-soaked pants lingering in the back of my mind.

When my cabin-mates, our "parent" and I all arrived at the cabin that night, everyone stepped into the room only to have their nostrils assaulted with the smell of putrid, stale urine. Immediately, Kyle's dad called a camp counselor and discreetly told him that "one of the kids must have wet the bed last night" and that the cabin smelled absolutely vile. I didn't tell him what had really happened.

The counselor then told us all to pack up our things, and said that we'd be moving to a different cabin since this one was clearly uninhabitable. As I packed, I thought quickly and stuffed the offensive-smelling clothes into the very bottom of my bag, where the smell no longer affected the air outside of it.

Soon after, rumors started circulating around the camp about who in our cabin had committed the heinous act of peeing the bed, and one of the seven that wasn't me was eventually singled out as the offender. He was alienated for the rest of the trip, and made fun of relentlessly for something he didn't do. Again, I never said a word suggesting that I had anything to do with it.

So I write this as an admission. An admission that I, Tyler Walters, pissed my pants at camp in the fifth grade and let another boy take the fall for it. I'm sorry, boy whose name I forgot, for all of the pain I may have caused you. It wasn't my intention, and I sure hope you didn't end up shooting a bunch of people years later because of it.

The Blackout Story

I've never been one to admit that I use the internet as a crutch for meeting women. But seeing as most of my major relationships have begun in some capacity before I've even met the girl, I think it's time I finally stop denying my reliability on the written word to woo females. It's just how I function, I suppose.

One of the girls I've done this with was named Bethany, back during the week of my 18th birthday, the summer before my senior year in high school. I was "introduced" to her via a friend from school, and told that she and I would really hit it off if we began talking.

So naturally, I took his advice and began playing the game I've come to partake in all-too often. She was pretty, smart, and had a great sense of humor, and I sincerely did enjoy talking to her. She seemed to enjoy my company well, and soon we developed small crushes on one another.

There was an issue with seeing her, however. Between work and babysitting her younger sibling, she didn't have a lot of free time. On top of that, she lived more than 45 minutes away, so a trip would take a while if we'd planned to see one another.

Then one night, she called me around 10:30, asking if I could meet up with her somewhere and go to a party in her part of town that she was invited to. My parents weren't exactly the "let your kid go to a party with a girl he's never met at 10:30 at night"-type parents, so I told them that I would be spending the night at my friend's house instead.

An hour and a half later, she showed up at a park that we'd decided to meet at, 50 minutes later than she said she would. Despite this fact, I was willing to forgive her and move on.

But there was a problem. Bethany was not all like she'd advertised herself to be online, and I'm not only talking about her physical appearance, but her attitude as well. 80 pounds heavier than me, with a callous, bitter personality, she was practically the exact opposite of what she'd told me and shown me she was before.

But I was stuck. It was midnight and I was supposed to be at my friend's house, and didn't have any other choice but to go with her to this party. So we left, and arrived there nearly an hour later, both exhausted and in bad moods (me because of her deception, her because of my attitude towards her).

Aside #1: Before you think I'm an asshole for judging her like this, then treating her badly afterwards, understand my level of disappointment by putting yourself in my shoes. She literally wasn't anything like the girl I'd began to like online, and I wasn't too happy about it.

I was introduced to a large group of people upon my arrival, including the redheaded girl who was hosting the party named Allison that I immediately hit it off with, much to Bethany's chagrin. Everyone there seemed glad that I had come, and they all welcomed me into their fold with open arms, telling me to drink as much booze and smoke as much hookah as I'd liked.

Happily, I obliged, taking a 2/3-full fifth of high-end vodka and making it my own. One of the patrons of the party saw this, and dared me to chug the whole thing in one go, without stopping. Not wanting to disappoint my newfound friends, and never willing to back down from a dare, I happily obliged.

The last thing I remember hearing, as the vodka was being emptied into my mouth, was the long-haired guy that had dared me saying the following:

"See you later, duuude."

I don't remember much after that. I vaguely recall getting into a pool in nothing but my boxers, and Allison jumping in after me. I remember swimming over to her and trying to kiss her, but I can't remember if I was successful. I also distinctly remember Bethany leaving shortly after my attempt at showing affection to a girl that wasn't her, telling me that I could find my own way home.

Aside #2: I realize that I could have very easily had sex with her that night, but I'm near-positive I didn't. As I've said before, alcohol usually makes my man-parts go all limp and unusable.

Six hours later I woke up at the end of her driveway next to a pile of my own vomit. A guy with dreds that was at the party was lightly prodding me with the toe of his shoe, telling me I needed to get up and that Allison's parents would be home soon. Still really, really drunk, I slowly stood up and asked him where I should go. He pointed down the street, and I slowly started shuffling in that direction.

What didn't really cross my mind was that I was easily a 45-minute drive away from home, didn't know where my cell phone was, and was deathly afraid of what my parents would do to me if they'd found out that I lied.

So I continued stumbling down the street, until a kind-looking woman pulled over and asked me if I was okay.

"No, I'm really drunk," I replied, slurring my words.

"Well get in, I'll help you," she said, unlocking the car door.

Not caring that I'd never seen this woman before, or that she may have a secondary adgenda when it came to helping me, I climbed into her car.

"You have writing all over your face," she informed me, as we headed in the direction I'd been walking in.

"What does it say?" I asked.

"The only word I can really make out is 'dick' on your cheek. I think there's an arrow pointing to your mouth, too," she admitted, clearly trying not to laugh.

Around then, we pulled up to a Starbucks. Tripping over myself to get inside, I sat down at one of the small tables while the woman walked up to the counter and placed an order. Putting my head down, I passed out until a few minutes later when my order was delivered to my table. The woman was nowhere to be seen, and the barista that gave me my black coffee and cinnamon cake told me that she'd told her to tell me that she was sorry that she had to leave, and that she'd had an appointment somewhere.

After trying to take a sip of my coffee, burning my mouth, and spilling it down my front, I resumed my head-down position on the table and passed out again.

Not long later, I awoke to four police officers and two firefighters standing around me, one putting a blood pressure monitor on my finger and another rummaging through my bag I'd brought with me. A third began talking to me.

"What is your name?" he asked, chuckling.

"Ty...Tyler..." I said.

"Well, Tyler, you're lucky to be alive, from the looks of it. How much did you drink?"

I raised both hands and put out my index fingers, holding them six inches apart.

"Th...this much vodka..."

He whistled. The other men started chattering.

"I couldn't drink that much," one said.

"Your liscense says you weigh around 115 pounds, is that correct?" asked the first officer, my wallet in-hand.

"Yes...I can't gain weight!" I gargled, laughing.

Aside #3: Three years later, and I don't weigh more than ten pounds more than this.

"Well, we're checking your blood pressure right now to make sure you don't have alchohol poisoning. I assume you drank all of this last night?"

"Yes...last night..."

"Well, your readings are okay, it looks like a lot of it is out of your system. You're just dealing with the residual stuff right now. We're not going to punish you, because it looks like this has done more than enough to teach you a lesson."

"I don't have a ride home..." I remembered, getting scared.

He then asked me where I lived, and after I told him, and he began to look worried. He then told me that they'd found my cell phone in my bag, and were going to call my parents to have them come pick me up. After a few half-assed attempts to prevent him from doing so, the officer was soon on the phone with my stepdad. He explained the situation, gave him the address of the Starbucks, and told him to come as soon as possible.

During their exchange, for a third time that morning, I put my head down on the table and passed out.

Some time later, I awakened while being dragged out of the shop by my shirt.

Aside #4: I'm not exaggerating, I literally woke up as I was being dragged out. My heels hit the door frame and it jarred me awake.

After being unceremoniously thrown into the passenger seat of my mother's Honda, my stepdad quickly walked around the car and sat down harshly, slamming his door. If I had any question as to if he was angry with me, it was answered by his actions.

The drive home was filled with no talking and lots of falling in and out of consciousness. When we finally arrived home, a lot of yelling was done, by both him and my mother, followed by me sitting and staring at them in a drunken stupor, not sure how to respond. They both said things to me that made me feel like the absolute worst person on the face of the planet for what I had done, as if this instance wasn't one amongst millions like it in the whole of teenager-dom.

Once they were finished with me, I walked into the bathroom and tried to kill myself by slicing my left wrist open with an X-Acto knife. But, as I've mentioned a dozen times previously, I was still incredibly drunk, and...well...missed every single vein I could have possibly hit. By a wide margin.

Aside #5: Fun fact: The reason that I started wearing watches regularly was to cover up some of the bigger scars from this day. I'm now a bona-fide watch fanatic.

After fifteen minutes of barely bleeding from the few cuts I'd managed to actually make, my mother knocked on the bathroom door.

"What are you doing in there?" she asked.

"Well...I was trying to kill myself, but I don't think it's working," I replied.

Quickly, she opened the door and found me standing there on the verge of tears.

Aside #6: The fact that I didn't lock the door should tell you how serious I was about killing myself.

The next few minutes were a blur. Nothing really important happened, aside from both of my parents being angry with me for trying to kill myself (which is EXACTLY how you should treat a "suicidal" person, by the way). After an hour of sitting on our couch and calming down, I took a shower and went to bed.

Aside #7: As I took a shower, I found that there wasn't just writing on my face. It was also on my stomach, my thighs, and shoulders. None of the things were pleasant.

Eleven hours later, around 9 'o clock that night, I woke up, still unable to walk in a straight line, but sobered up enough to face my parents. Except, something had happened to them in those few hours. I'll never know what, exactly, but a shift occurred in the both of them.

My stepdad hugged me after I walked into our living room, in a rare display of parental affection that I wasn't used to. He'd also gone to the store during my mini-coma, and had bought mango popsicles for me, to help with the dehydration that the booze had done to my system.

My mother, for the first time since I was a child, asked me to come into her room to watch a movie with her. Together we sat side-by-side on her bed at watched some lame romantic comedy as we talked about what had happened the night before. She assured me that I would be punished for it, but that I shouldn't worry about it for the next few hours, and should just relax.

This was the only time that I can remember my parents being this pleasant to me since I'd started high school, and the only time they were both nice to me at the same time since. If I would have known that all it took for them to be this way was a shitload of high-proof vodka and a botched suicide attempt, I would have done it a helluva lot sooner.

This post is dedicated to my friend and longtime supporter Jacob Seemann, to remind him that bad days happen to us all, and to keep soldiering on, no matter what.

The Stolen Bike Story

I've never driven a car for more than ten minutes in my entire life. My phobia of getting behind the wheel of an automobile has made life very difficult for me, and has made me dependent on either public transportation or biking to get where I need to be. This has instilled a love of riding bikes in me that wasn't there before, and I try to get out and ride as often as possible, just for fun.

Such was the case early last January. Returning to my dad's apartment complex after riding around the area and listening to music for a little while, I rode past a tall, thuggish-looking black guy that said something to me as I coasted past him.

Being the naive idiot I sometimes am, I stopped, took my headphones off, and had the following conversation with him (code-named "John"):

Me: "What?"

John: "Man, that's a nice bike. Where you get it?"

Me: "Uh. Wal-Mart."

John: "How much it cost?"

Me: "Around $100, I think. I don't know."

At this point, there was a second guy walking up behind the first. Latino but equally as thuggish-looking, he joined our conversation (code-named "Ralph"). At this point, I was growing uncomfortable as they stood on either side of me, preventing me from going anywhere.

Ralph: You smoke weed?

Aside #1: I've decided that this is the fucking craziest way anyone has ever introduced themselves to me.

Me: Uh. Sometimes, yeah.

Ralph: You need some?

Me: No, I have plenty, thanks.

John: You got that kush? That kush is dope. Sheeeeeyut.

Aside #2: Yes, he seriously said that.

Me: ...yeah. Dope.

Ralph: You do bars? Bars are the fuckin' shit.

John: Yeah, fuckin' bars man, try 'em.

Aside #3: Bars are Xanax, for those of you not well-versed in drug lingo.

Me: No thanks, I don't mess with pills.

At this point, I put my headphones back on and turned around to ride away. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Ralph punches me in the temple, disorienting me and knocking my glasses off.

Aside #4: "Beat the hell out of anyone that doesn't buy from you" is a pretty flawless drug-selling technique, I have to admit.

Still standing and holding onto my bike, the following was said:

Me: Fucking owwwwwww!

Ralph: You best get off that bike! I'm gonna hit you again!

Me: Fuck off.

So he hit me on the side of the head again. And again. And again. Until I finally let go of my bike. John then stepped in and pulled it away, getting on it and doing what I can only describe as a small victory lap around Ralph and I as we continued to tussle.

He was in the middle of trying to rip my bag away from me, when I decided to yell for help as loud as I possibly could. No one in the dozens of apartments surrounding us did anything, but it successfully scared them into running away.

Still in a daze, I half-ran back to my dad's apartment to tell him what had happened. We immediately jumped into his truck and drove around the complex to try and find them, but were unable to. A theft report was then filed with the police along with descriptions of both of them, with promises to keep an eye on local pawn shops to see if they would try and sell it.

The story should end there. But the next morning, my dad stepped outside to get the newspaper only to find my bike sitting in a parking space across the street from his apartment, as if someone had known it was mine and had left it there for me to find. Aside from missing a few screws and the chain guard, it was in the same condition I'd left it in.

Here's the kicker, though: I don't know anyone in this apartment complex or the surrounding area, the guys that stole it didn't see where I lived (or even the area of the complex that I lived in), and the police assured me that they hadn't put it there. To this day, I still have no idea how it happened. I just take it as affirmation that superheroes do exist.

My Supportive Friend

In the summer of my fifteenth year, my mother and stepdad were in the midst of uprooting me from our house in Texas, to live in a new one in Arizona. I'd lived in Texas my entire life, and wasn't too happy about the situation.

Aside #1: The day that we actually set out to drive from state-to-state was my birthday, something that I've never forgotten or forgiven my parents for.

I looked for solace in many places, finally settling on the support of others through the internet. I began making friends through websites and chat rooms I frequented, generally speaking to those that were in or had been in the same situation as me. But there was one person, a female named Jenne, that stood out from the rest of people I was speaking to. She'd been uprooted before, and hated the ramifications of it at first, but had slowly grown to like her new life.

Aside #2: I should mention that I did not use my real name in these situations. I usually went by my middle name, Drew.

My friendship with Jenne began a month or two before we were set to leave. I can't remember exactly where we met on the web, or what made us start talking, but after a few weeks, I couldn't stop. I'd only had one true 3-month long relationship under my belt, and was new to the idea of females paying attention to me. She didn't seem to mind my attachment to her, and soon we were scheduling times and dates for when we would talk to one another via instant messanger. We'd start early in the night, and end up talking well into the early hours of the morning, never seeming to run out of subject matter.

I talked about school, my friends, my parents, and anything else that came up. She talked about her job, husband, pets, and what she hoped to make of her life in the future.

Did I mention Jenne was 27 years old? I know should have turned and ran after the first few weeks when she'd first mentioned this to me, but my fascination with how completely different her life was from mine kept our strange friendship going.

And stranger did it become. Soon Jenne was making references to her mental health state, claiming that her husband didn't love her anymore because she was crazy. She claimed to have schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and a slew of other issues that I can't recall.

Again, I should have cut off contact with her after this revalation. But it only made her more interesting to me. As our friendship grew stronger, so did my schoolboy-type crush on her. I didn't make my feelings hidden, and she didn't act like it was wrong.

It was only a matter of time before she began taking advantage of the attention I was giving her. She began teasing me, telling me about her sexual habits and slight fetishes, while also calling me "handsome" and "cute." Sexually inexperienced at the time, I hardly knew anything of the terminology she was throwing at me. She would imply, but never state directly, that my feelings for her were returned.

Aside #3: After everything, I think she didn't admit it because it was because she was truly in love with her husband, though she was convinced he wasn't with her.

Then the pictures started coming. Vanilla at first, they slowly became more and more promiscuous as time went on. She never sent me straight-up nude photos, but some were a moved blanket or a shifted arm away from being so. All were self-shot and in black-and-white, the latter for reasons I didn't and still don't know.

Jenne would always follow up these conversations and sent pictures with claims that she'd "forgotten" how old I was, and that I kept "tricking" her by acting older. All were meant to be in good humor, and seemed tongue-in cheek, but showed me that she knew what she was doing was morally questionable. I wasn't complaining, because I found her ridiculously attractive, physically and mentally.

Aside #4: It's no surprise that I'm attracted to damaged women.

Near the three-month mark of our so-called relationship, I suddenly stopped hearing from Jenne. She was never online anymore, and had never given me a phone number to call, and I was convinced something serious had happened to her. I didn't know what to do.

Then, a month later, I recieved an email from her. She had been taken to a sanitarium for a short-term stay after having a mental breakdown one day at work. She was now medicated for all of her illnesses, and things were looking up between she and her husband. She explained to me that her attraction to me was part of her psychosis, and that she no longer felt that way because of the medication she was on.

Luckily, I hadn't fooled myself into thinking I'd actually had a chance with her, so my heartbreak was only minor. I tried to continue our friendship after this, but was met with half-assed responses to my emails and attempts to talk to her. I think she was ashamed of the way she'd acted towards me, and didn't want to be reminded of it.

Either way, I'm now thankful nothing happened past what did. I'm glad she never sent me nude photos, and that she never admitted that she had feelings for me, because my head probably would have exploded if she did.

The Shower Door Story

In the summer of 2007, I was many things. I was a year away from finishing high school, I was freshly single, and was going through much-too-long a period in my life where hormones were the decider of my every move.

One of these decisions that my hormones decided to make was to attend a 4th of July party that the girlfriend of one of my close friends Tom was throwing. His girlfriend, Lauren, and her sister Leah had decided to commandeer their parents' house while they were away for the holiday, inviting me and a few other people over.

The get-together started out just like any small party, with people slowly getting drunker as it progressed. Amongst the soon-to-be-shitfaced was me, taking shots left and right and using a mixed drink as a chaser. I wasn't a huge drinker back then (I never really have been), but for some reason I felt that I needed to get absolutely wasted.

Nothing too substantial happened until Tom, myself, and another one of our friends. were all sitting on the back porch, smoking cigarettes. Leah, with an estimated blood alcohol level higher than the three of ours combined, stumbled outside through the sliding glass door. Seeing that I was occupying the only chair, she decided to forgo asking me to relinquish my seat (which I would have gladly done) and opted to plop herself down right on my lap.

Now, before I continue, I have to mention a bit about Leah. I'd known her for around a year at this point, and she was part of my small group of "lunchtime friends;" people I'd gladly eat with but rarely saw outside of that. She was a sweet girl with a lot of personality, whom, to be frank, a lot of guys at my school would have liked to fuck. I'm not going to say she was a slut, but she definitely didn't mind this sort of attention.

Anyways, Leah was sitting on my lap, and like I said, we were both very drunk. Unsurprisingly, she leaned in and started to kiss me. Suddenly, we were in her bedroom, and getting undressed very quickly.

Aside #1: We didn't teleport, but I definitely don't recall how we made it from the porch to her room.

Soon, we were both naked and standing in the middle of her room. Dropping to her knees, she began to giggle in that sort of "I'm going to regret this tomorrow" way that women always do when they know they're going to wish they hadn't done whatever it is they are currently doing the following day.

So she began to do said thing. While still giggling. It was terrible. After about five minutes of this, I realized the alchohol in my system was making it hard to concentrate on the task at hand, and I was actually beginning to get bored. Being a bored male during sexual activity does not bode well for the future of the sexual activity, so I asked her if we could move it to her bed and make the pleasure-giving mutual.

She laid on her back on her bed, and I got on top of her. At the risk of being blunt, sex started happening. The instant it did, my penis felt like it was being mashed into a brick wall. It was as if I was trying to put it into a hole that was far too small for it to fit in (which in retrospect, was probably exactly what was happening). To make matters worse, her body's "natural lubrication system" seemed to be broken or in disrepair, meaning said brick wall felt as if someone had coated it in sandpaper.

Aside #2: I've had sex nightmares about this exact metaphor.

There I was trying to fuck the sandpaper-covered brick wall that was Leah's vagina, the door to her room opened. Almost instantly, Leah let out the loudest, most dick-shriveling scream of anger that I've ever heard. Turns out two of the people outside the door had decided that it would be absolutely hilarious if they interrupted our so-called "lovemaking" session by opening the door for a split-second.

Her scream, combined with the pain in my groin, made the most important part of my body at that moment go completely limp. I wasn't sure what to do. I hadn't technically had sex with her yet, and wanted to get laid, so I suggested that we go into her bathroom and try to do it in the shower. My drunken mind thought that the running water would make things simpler and less painful on my end, while also cleaning off the thin layer of filth I'd felt my body had accumulated that night.

Aside #3: From the drinking, not the sex.

So we made the nude mad-dash to the bathroom down the hall without being seen by anyone, and turned the shower on. A few seconds later, after it had warmed up, we both got in. The shower that we'd decided to fornicate in was one with dual-sliding glass doors set over a bathtub, with steel bars across both panels on the outside that acted as handles.

After situating ourselves inside the shower in the ideal positions, and after I'd...missed a few times, some part of Leah's brain had decided that it would be a great idea to use the shower's glass door as support.

Bad idea. Within seconds, the glass door shattered into millions of light-green pieces, raining all over the both of us. Immediately, Leah began screaming the same scream she had screamed earlier, only now the tiled bathroom that we were in made it reverberate all around us, increasing the sound tenfold.

Pissed off and visibly bleeding from my feet, I told her to shut the fuck up. As we both stood there ankle-deep in shards of glass, I called out for Tom at the top of my lungs and struggled to cover up my manhood as to avoid any further embarassment.

Aside #4: No, I don't have a tiny dick. I just don't like showing it off to my friends.

Almost immediately, like the great friend he was, Tom came rushing into the bathroom. Taking one look at the situation Leah and I were in, he began to laugh. Once he was finished, I asked him to get the both of us towels and to brush some of the glass that had spilled out onto the floor away so we could get out of the shower without injuring ourselves.

Aside #5: Something told me to take a picture of what had happened, and here it is:

Note the blood stains.

Of course, he obliged. Soaking wet and naked, Leah and I stepped out of the shower onto the glass-free floor and began to dry off. I went into her room and gathered my clothing, and redressed. She would drunkenly talk to people for the next hour before passing out in her bed. I wouldn't sleep a wink that night, and would go home half-drunk and full of regret, with feet shredded to hell and filled with microscopic shards of glass.

The Checkered Blanket Story

Throughout my life, I've been what I would consider to be seriously depressed quite a bit. Whether it be from financial woes, romance woes, or any other sort of woe, I can't help but spiral into a sort of self-deprecating nosedive any time something in my life goes terribly wrong. It usually lasts a few days after whatever it is that has happened, generally being fixed by sex, drugs, or any other vice meant to make the user feel better.

Such was the case towards the end of winter during my nineteenth year. My girlfriend at the time (whom I was living with) had left me, leaving me feeling like a worthless piece of shit. Naturally, I began looking for girls to replace her with, going on random dates with four different females over the course of the next three months.

Amongst these girls was an absolutely gorgeous part-time model named Shannon, with legs like toothpicks and a mind just as sharp. She'd invited me to a party one night when she came into my work, offering to pick me up after my shift had ended. Flattered, thinking that this absolutely gorgeous girl was way to far out of my league to be interested in me, I accepted.

Two hours later, she pulled up outside of my workplace with a (female) friend in the passenger seat. Hopping into the back, the three of us began talking like we had known each other for ages, me trying to charm the hell out of the both of them.

It must have worked on Shannon, because after we pulled up to the house where the party was being held, she locked her arm with mine on our short trek to the front porch. Seeing that I was nervous about entering a house full of people I'd never met on the arm of someone I'd just met, she told me to be calm and assured me that everyone inside would love me.

She was right. Her words affected me, instilling a sort of confidence in myself that I very rarely show in large groups. Throughout the night, she stayed by my side as if we were a couple, and I definitely didn't object to her behavior. Soon, we were holding hands and talking to each other like there wasn't a bustling party going on around us. It was the first time I'd connected with someone so deeply since my girlfriend had left me, and it made me feel absolutely fantastic.

We started talking about our lives and our interests, and it was revealed to me that she was older than she looked. Five years older than me, in fact. Fearing that she would lose interest if my own age was revealed, I dodged the question in a cutesy way when she asked. But after a few minutes of flirtatious prodding, I finally told her. Luckily, she was not deterred by this in the slightest, and told me that she thought I was older than I actually was, a comment I took as a compliment.

Aside #1: I'm convinced I am cursed to go through life looking like I'm sixteen, so to hear that I looked older than nineteen is a huge deal. Hell, to even hear that I look my age is a huge deal.

As night turned into morning, people started leaving the party. Not wanting to end what I now considered a date, I asked Shannon if there was anywhere she'd like to go before I was to go home. Just as I'd hoped, she offered to take me back to her apartment to "hang out for a little while."

We had just gotten into her car when I first kissed her. Through forces unknown, we looked at each other and the moment sort of clicked. After the fact, she began blushing and trying to explain herself, telling me that she wasn't the "type of girl that kissed random guys," and that this was "really weird" for her. Lying to make her feel better, I said that it was strange behavior for me as well, something that seemed to make her feel more at-ease.

Aside #2: Before you think I'm a terrible person for lying about that, consider how it would have seemed if I said that I'd been in this exact position a few times before.

After this shared intimate moment, we began driving towards her apartment. Not five minutes passed before her right hand left the steering wheel to join my left. It was at that moment that I knew I could really grow to like this girl a great deal more than I already did, if given the chance.

My tune changed quickly after we had finished our trek and arrived at her apartment. Walking in, everything seemed completely normal. She had an incredibly sweet dog, an apparently nice roommate (who wasn't there), and didn't have any dead bodies of other men that she'd lured into her abode hanging from the ceiling. Nothing was out of place or raised questions.

That is, until we entered her bedroom. The first things I noticed were the half-dozen tall glass candles strewn about the room, each with the Virgin Mary on them. Alarmed, I continued to look around the room while we sat on her bed and talked about nothing in particular. I noticed an old Bible on her bedside table, along with a dog-eared copy of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Having read the book before, I brought it up in our casual conversation, hoping to then segue into her apparent religious beliefs.

It worked. Shortly after our conversation on the finer points of Tolstoy's work ended, I brought up the Bible. Just as I'd feared, Shannon launched into a sort of robotic response that confirmed that she was a ridiculously devout Christian.

Aside #3: I'm an atheist that is over having issues with religious people, aside from the crazy ones (such as the type Shannon was turning out to be). It's them that usually have the problem with me.

Then she bluntly told me that she wasn't going to have sex with me, as if I'd asked her directly. She explained that she was one of the believers in the "virgin until marriage" rule, something that her parents had both practiced when they were younger. She even threw in an anecdote about how when she was conceived the first time her parents ever had sex. How she knew this, I hate to imagine.

Then she said something that, to this day, still sends shivers down my spine. Something that made me leap off of her bed in disgust. Something that I still can't believe passed through her lips. Motioning to the blanket we were currently sitting on, she said:

"Actually, this checkered blanket was the one I was made on."

I didn't speak to her much after that.