It started during the summer of 1984. I was twelve years old – my 13th birthday would be in December. Puberty actually struck my friend Aiden first. He was a half a year older, and lived with his mother and his younger brother. His father was not in his life – I don’t think I can remember him ever being mentioned. Aiden was the first of any of us to hit puberty, and he wasted no opportunity to show it off. Literally. He would drop his pants to show off his hair down there with no prompting and no notice. He would also point out how big his “bulge” was. We thought it was ridiculously funny, of course, a bunch of preteen boys going through changes and laughing at each other. Still, for some reason, when he showed off his bulge or hair, something inside me compelled me to look. I didn’t know what it was, but it was there, deep inside me. I didn’t really think much about it at first, believing that these were normal things and that all young boys were like this.
Gradually, some of the other guys started going through changes. They weren’t as eager to show off as Aiden was, but they let us know that they, too were growing up. I was always paying attention now, always looking at my friends with both awe and jealousy. Their voices were growing deeper, and their bodies were filling out. I was always noticing things about them, and was becoming both jealous and alarmed – why was I so interested in looking at their bulges, and more importantly, why was I not “growing” myself? What was wrong with me? I would get my first clue one day while Aiden and I were walking behind the elementary school and we came across a fellow named Peter. We both knew him, and we both did not care for him. He was a year older than us, already in grade 8, and he was a showoff and bully to the smaller kids.
He was there with a young girl we both knew, and it was quite obvious that we had just caught them doing something they didn’t want to be caught doing. I say “obvious”, because you could see quite clearly that he was sporting wood. The tight pants that were in style in the early 1980’s left little to the imagination, and my imagination was running wild. I could not take my eyes off it. Unfortunately, he noticed me noticing.