Be Myself! - 16. Spanish Evening

“My classmates are organising a sleep-over to study for exams.” I told my parents during breakfast on Saturday morning. The night before Olivia had invited me to spend the weekend at her house for ‘good luck’ before the most stressful part of the school year began. She had convinced me to call it a ‘study sleep-over’ hoping that my parents would either accept the lie for what it was, or once again find their subtext of choice and let me go under the assumption that giving in to my masculine instincts at times like this would be good for me (or something along those lines). However, there was still the possibility that they would think ‘giving in to my instincts’ was actually a bad idea and thus ban me from attending the ‘study sleep-over’, so I was considerably nervous when I asked him about it.

“Which classmates?” My father asked, raising an eyebrow without taking his eyes away from his newspaper.

“Most of them. We want to revise as a big group for English and Maths and they want me to help them because I always get good grades.” I tried my best to sound convincing. It helped that I was not telling a complete lie; Olivia wanted help with her last-minute revisions and I always had better grades than she did.

“I see. When would you have to leave?” My father had turned his attention to the newspaper again. I could not tell whether he believed me or not. Mum was mostly ignoring our conversation.

“This afternoon. I’ll practice viola in the morning and go after lunch.” I mentally crossed my fingers as I waited for his verdict. He seemed to consider my proposal for a very long time before speaking, not bothering to look at me.

“Fine, you can go.”

I ended up playing viola for the whole morning. For some reason the idea of being in Olivia’s house for two days in a role made me extremely nervous, so the music acted as a natural stress relief. I did not want to think about what would happen if my father found out where I was really going; he had expressly forbidden me to be near Olivia and her parents, yet I was doing the exact opposite of that.

(...)

“Hey, Oscar! Come in, come in!” Olivia greeted me at her front door. She lived in a ground floor flat in a huge tenement block that seemed to stretch forever along her narrow street. Once inside, however, I noticed her flat was probably just as big as my house. “I’m so glad you could come! Now I have a chance at Maths!”

“You’re doing General level, right?” I asked as she led me through a long corridor that ended with three closed doors. She opened the one on the left, which conveniently had a pink and purple plaque with her name in it, and we both went in.

“Yeah, can’t be bothered with Credits, I don’t want a career that relies on Maths anyway.” Olivia motioned for me to sit on the bed while she went for her desk chair. Her room was slightly smaller than mine, with light blue walls that matched the corridor’s and very little decoration. I did not think I had any kind of expectations concerning her room, but I soon realised that I was actually a little bit disappointed with the lack of girly things springing from every surface available. Wendy’s room had been a sea of plush toys, dolls, jewellery and make-up accessories that often left me dazzled and lost in so much pink in glitter. Thankfully, as soon as I remembered what it was like to be in Wendy’s room the disappointment became relief; it would be much easier to concentrate on our revision if her room looked so much like mine.

“And your parents didn’t push you to try it anyway?” I asked, wondering how it could be possible that parents did not want their children to be the best at everything.

“No, they don’t see the point either.” Olivia shrugged, like it was the obvious answer. My parents had always expected me to excel at everything, to be a model student and go for the highest possible marks every time. They said they wanted what was best for me, which basically boiled down to me being able to show I had great academic potential so I could be accepted in a good university and build a successful career showing off my brain. ‘Professors are better the plumbers’, they kept reminding me; so much that for a very long time I thought any failure in my grades would automatically oblige me to give up school and unclog pipes for a living.

“What do you want to do after graduation?” I asked, wondering what kind of plans she could have that did not require strong academic skills; moreover, what kind of plans her parents had agreed she could pursue.

“I’m not sure yet, but nothing too intellectual. Maybe some arts thing. Or language.” Olivia shrugged again. We were approaching fifth year of Secondary School and she still had no idea what she was going to do after we graduated. We only had two years left before university, if she did not decide soon it would be really difficult for her to find her way later.

At the end of forth year, students in Scotland take an exam to decide how they will spend their last years of Secondary School, and consequentially what kind of university courses they will be able to apply for. Exams are taken at three levels: Foundation, General, and Credit, with the latter being the most difficult. Passing at Credit level means the student can go to fifth year and take a class at Higher level, and then progress to Advanced Higher in sixth year. Students who get General grades go to Intermediate 1 or 2 on fifth year and Higher on sixth. Those who pass foundation generally speaking aren’t smart enough to survive the next two years, but they can get in Intermediate 1. Teachers expect their students to get at least General passing grades, and since government funding to school is allocated based on how well pupils do, they are always under lots of pressure to make sure everyone learns (or at least to make sure that those who can’t learn don’t get on the way of those who can).

“I will be a Physicist.” I told her, hoping to subtly make her realise how precarious her situation was. “My father said that if I do well at university he can use his contacts to find me a good job.”

“Your father is a Physicist?” Olivia asked, her eyebrows raised until they hid under her fringe. “Interesting.”

“Why?” There was nothing suspicious about my father’s job. He was a good scientist who did lots of research and taught at one of the oldest universities in the country.

“No, it’s just… It’s nothing, really…” Olivia looked away, blushing a little. “I just didn’t think someone like him could be a scientist of all things.”

“Why not?” It was my turn to raise eyebrows.

“Because… because…” Olivia seemed to be thinking hard about her words. She was probably trying not to offend me. “Because of the way he treated my mum. He seemed to think she was inferior or something.”

“Well, men and women are different…”

“But not that different!” Olivia almost shouted. She realised what she had done and covered her mouth while her face became even redder. “I mean… women are not so different and so inferior that they always need a man to take care of them. Scientists have known that at least since the beginning of last century!”

“Why are you referring to women as ‘they’? Aren’t you one?” I asked, getting distracted by this small detail of her speech. Olivia’s eyes widened, like a deer caught by the headlights, and she tried many times to come up with an answer. When she finally found one, she spoke with her head down in a sort of dejected whisper.

“Because I’m still a… a girl. Not a woman. No.”

“I see…” Actually, I did not understand what the difference was, but she seemed very uncomfortable already; I did not want to make her feel worse. Wendy had always flaunted about being more grown-up and ‘developed’ than her other classmates, and as far as I had been able to observe all girls seemed to be excited about the prospect of growing up and embracing their womanhood.

“But anyway… my parents are still at work and Sam is thankfully at school, so we should probably start this revision thing before everyone comes and the house turns to total chaos.” Olivia suggested, keen to change the topic.

“Yeah, sure…”

The next few hours were filled with Maths textbooks, exercises, broken pencils and frustrated groans. Olivia was trying her best, but the books beat her every time. She also seemed mildly irritated at my ability to understand everything so easily. Despite her frustration, she carried on trying until her parents arrived with Sam.

(...)

Olivia was right about the chaos. With three more people in the flat the place became very crowded, noisy and lively. Mr Viñas enjoyed a good talk and good company, so he invited everyone to join him in the kitchen while he cooked dinner.

“Your father cooks?” I whispered in Olivia’s ear while the family made their way to the kitchen.

“It is one of his hobbies. He’s been trying to teach mum for years, but she grew up with the kind of radical feminists that refused to do any housework at all, so even now she can hardly boil an egg right.” Olivia answered, trying not to laugh. Unlike me, she spoke in her normal tone of voice, attracting everyone’s attention to us in exactly the kind of situation I was hoping to avoid.

“Yes, I admit, I’m a failure in the kitchen.” Ms Savage put her hands in the air, as if surrendering to some kind of invisible god of housework. “But thankfully I found just the man I needed to keep me alive!” She kissed her husband playfully on the cheek and the whole family laughed. I, however, felt my face heat up in a weird kind of embarrassment. “I can only hope Olivia and Sam will turn out like their father. You’ll see, Oscar, Leopold is the most amazing cook you’ll ever meet!”

“She’s been so sweet…” Mr Viñas interjected in a realistic imitation of cartoonish dreamy eyes. “I usually get the children to help me so they can actually learn something useful…” He winked at his wife, who returned the gesture. “But you are our guest, so you are free to choose whether you want to get your hands dirty or just observe from a safe distance.”

“I’ve never really done any cooking…” I admitted, for the first time feeling ashamed of that fact. Mr Viñas seemed so secure and comfortable in the vaguely pornographic cooking apron that I found it very difficult to remember how odd he was supposed to look.

“No? Such a shame… I can teach you some basic stuff if you want.” Mr Viñas offered with a bright smile.

“I don’t know, I…” I struggled to come up with an answer that would not seem rude. Mr Viñas was being very nice, and a part of me was tempted to accept the offer. Another part of me, however, was scared of approaching the apron (and to an extent the man currently in it) and being somehow contaminated by the femininity it symbolised. I should not relate to anything feminine. I could not do it.

“Some other time, then.” Mr Viñas interrupted me before I could make up my mind. He probably noticed my discomfort, because he smoothly changed topic. “You know, Oscar, usually we speak Spanish at home. We’re making an exception this weekend because we want you to be able to understand what is going on, but don’t be surprised if you hear an unfamiliar word here and there.”

For the next forty minutes or so while Mr Viñas took care of the food (with the occasional help from Olivia and Sam) I was taught some basic Spanish vocabulary centred on the objects and food around us. While Olivia’s room may have been smaller than mine, her kitchen seemed to be at least twice the size of mine. There was enough space for the five of us to move about freely, even though the room contained a gigantic cooker with six hobs, a fridge, a freezer, three walls of cupboards and a shiny sink with a sparkling counter. Everything was white and bright and cheerful, even the random childish drawings and random sentences glued to the fridge. We told jokes and laughed about all sorts of things, even my school teachers. Everything was so relaxing and cheerful that only much later did I realise how surreal the whole experience had been.

(...)

“So, do you consider yourselves prepared for the exam on Monday?” Ms Savage asked when we sat at the dinner table. “Or are you going to spend your Sunday as well as your Saturday with your heads buried in books?”

“I’ll do a quick revision for English tomorrow, but I think I’ll give up Maths.” Olivia answered, toying with her paella. “It’s impossible.”

“You were doing great today.” I tried to encourage her, though we both knew it was not exactly true. Her tree broken pencils bore witness to that fact. “And you have until Friday to learn it.”

“Not really. I have my Spanish exam on Thursday, so I won’t do anything else that day.”

“Until Wednesday, then…”

“Oscar, stop it. I’ll do my best, but I don’t want to get stressed and lose sleep over something like this.”

Olivia had such a dejected look in her face I did not feel like arguing anymore. “Fine. Let’s revise for English tomorrow.”

“And then we rest and have fun!” She fiercely added, like this was the most important part of our revision plan.

“If that’s what you want.”

Our dinner conversation stayed on the exam topic for a while longer, though we stayed away from Maths and focused on the other subjects and our overall exam schedule. It was all going well until Olivia created another slight change of topic:

“Oh, and by the way, did you know that Oscar’s father is a physicist?” She directed the question mainly to her mother, though as soon as she saw Ms Savage’s surprised and somewhat outraged face she turned apologetically to me, biting her lip and kind of shrinking her body under her mother’s powerful gaze.

“Really? Wow, that’s rich!” She laughed coldly and turned to me. Ms Savage had taken the sit directly in front of me in their rectangular table that fitted six people. Sam was sitting at the head, with the adult couple in front of me and Olivia. “Look, Oscar, I don’t normally speak ill of people I barely know, and because you are our guest today I’ll refrain from saying all the things I have in mind, but let me ask you something: where does he work?”

“At Glasgow University as a researcher and sometimes lecturer.” I answered, a little afraid of what her reaction would be. Olivia had been politely surprised, but her mother was a lot more outspoken than her; she could make considerably more noise.

“I see.” Ms Savage sighed and rested her forehead in her hand. She shook her head and turned back to me with the kind of look a doctor gives a patient who only has a few months to live. “And what does you mother do?”

“She’s a nursery teacher.” Under Ms Savage’s intimidating gaze I was beginning to fear my own answers.

“I see.” She said, nodding gravely. “Well, what can I say? You definitely have some high expectations to live up to.”

“Yes. I’m taking all my exams at Credit level. My father said I should aim to be accepted at Oxford like he did.” He was never tired of telling me stories of his undergraduate years and how he had always been the top student at the best university in the country.

“And do you want to go to Oxford?” Ms Savage asked, looking so deep in my eyes she could be trying to read my thoughts.

“I guess. It’s a prestigious university, so it would be good for my career…”

“You want to follow the same career as your father?” She asked again, making me slightly uncomfortable with the intensity of her stare.

“Yes. He can make sure I have a good start because of all the people he knows.”

“Interesting. You don’t strike me as someone who loves Physics that much, but each to their own.” She dropped her gaze. I was beginning to feel relieved that her questions were over when she turned to me again with the same fiery eyes that made my parents so angry at our family dinner. “As long as you’re doing it because it’s what you want…”

I did not say anything after that. As soon as I tried I felt a giant knot blocking my vocal chords, followed by the sinking sensation that I had just been punched in the gut. I wanted to tell her that it was definitely what I wanted, how could it not be; yet those words refused to leave my mouth. Instead, a little voice inside my mind gently whispered that what I wanted was to make my parents happy, and that was why I was going to study Physics. I knew there was nothing wrong with that, but I had an inkling that Ms Savage would not like this kind of answer, so in the end I settled for just shrugging my shoulders. Our conversation topic changed once again and nothing else was said about school or family expectations.

(...)

“So, Oscar… I have some things to show you…” Olivia told me when we started getting ready to sleep. Until that point my girlfriend had not given any kind of hint that she wanted to repeat the experiences we had had at the camping site, but now the way she looked at me was almost predatory, and she had the kind of grin I usually saw on Jean’s face.

“Ok…” I said, not entirely sure if this was a good thing or not. She smiled happily and almost bounced to her wardrobe, from where she retrieved a large purple box.

“Mum and I went shopping after I came back from our camping trip. I told her about the problems we were having and she gave me some suggestions to fix it.”

“You talked about our weekend to your mum? So all this time we had been talking she knew about my…” I panicked. My heart thumped at twice its usual speed and my face felt like it was covered in molten iron. I would never be able to look at Ms Savage in the eye again.

“Well, yeah. If I don’t talk to someone who knows that stuff, how can I solve my problems?” Olivia asked, raising an eyebrow. She did not seem to realise how unnerving the situation was.

“But your mum?”

“Yes. Why not?” Olivia still seemed surprised that I found the idea of talking to one’s parents repulsive. I could not believe I would have to spell it out to her.

“Because she’s your mum. Parents are not supposed to know the details of their children’s sex lives.”

“Oh, I didn’t tell any details. I just said I probably needed some more practice before we could have proper penetration…”

“That’s too much detail.” Olivia blinked a couple of times, as if trying hard to absorb what I had just said, and then stifled a laugh. It did not help diminish my anxiety.

“Oh, sorry, then.” She looked at me like I had grown an extra head. “But I don’t see why we shouldn’t ask our parents about things. I mean, that’s what they’re there for.”

“Not that kind of thing.”

“Then who are you going to ask?” She had the same penetrating gaze her mother had used to ask me about my career choices at dinner. Even if I had an answer at the tip of my tongue, it would have gone into hiding because of how intimidating she looked. When she realised I was not going to answer, Olivia straightened her back and assumed the posture of a king looking down on a lowly servant. “If we can’t trust our parents with things like sex, how can we really trust them for other things?”

I wanted to tell her that my trust in my parents never had anything to do with things I did my bedroom or, as it were, in a tent in the middle of nowhere. I trusted my parents because they were my parents; this was just how things were. I knew they cared about me and did their best to make me a good person regardless of what kind of sex life I had. Sex just was not part of the equation here.

Except the only time my parents were told any kind of details, it broke their trust on me. The one time they got involved in my sex life did not end well for anyone.

“One thing has nothing to do with the other.” I told her, hoping she would not press for details that would put me uncomfortably closer to that day again.

“They do for me. People who can’t talk about sex with their own children are not really comfortable with their own sex lives.”

“I still don’t see your point, and now I think you’re generalising too much.” Also, I did not want to think about my parents’ sex lives; much less about how much they enjoyed it.

“My point is that generally parents who are more open to talk about sex with their children are more open towards others things too, so they’re more approachable and trustworthy.”

“Parents are not supposed to be approachable. You follow their advice because that’s what they’re there for, and you trust them because of it, but they don’t have to be approachable.” Olivia let out an exasperated sigh, resting her hand in her temple.

“Ok, let’s not argue about parents anymore. I have something much more important here…” Olivia opened the box and beckoned me to get closer. I spied its contents and felt my eyes widening before I could properly register what I was seeing.

Olivia had a mini sex-shop in the box. A whole colourful selection of phallic-shaped objects was neatly organised amongst packs of lubricant, condoms, and other smaller objects I would rather not think about. She was smiling from ear to ear, like the collection she bought with her mother made her proud and happy.

“All these you…” My face heat up again as it tried to imagine Olivia and Ms Savage at one of those dirty back-alley shops buying everything they saw. The more I tried to get rid of the image, the more insistent it became.

“Yeah. I haven’t tried most of them yet, I was hoping you could give me a hand…” She approached me, depositing the box over the bed and bending her body until our eyes were level. “You know, have some fun…”

“But if you have all those things why would you need me?” I asked, looking at the thing in the box and realising they were all smaller than my penis. She had probably had the kind of ‘fun’ she could not have with me already.

“Because silicone dildos are not the real thing. Yours is a lot more fun; I bet there are plenty of ways we can use everything and have a great time.” She smiled confidently, shoving the box towards me tentatively.

“Is that something your mother told you?” I asked, reluctantly looking at the fake penises again.

“Yeah. She knows what she’s saying, and I can show you…” Olivia climbed on my lap, grinning sensually as she moved her hips to rub a certain spot that made me feel considerably more optimistic about this whole idea.

“Maybe… maybe that’s not such a bad idea…” I reluctantly agreed, though thankfully a couple of minutes later it turned out to be the right decision. Olivia had done some ‘practising’ (if it could be called that), and so our first time in her bedroom was a considerable improvement on our previous attempts. She convinced me to use the fake dicks to play with her, and it obviously made her feel really good. An hour later we were both very tired, but also very satisfied with ourselves.

(...)

We woke up considerably late the next day and did not feel like leaving the bed for a long time. We ended up having breakfast at two in the afternoon, and then cramming some last-minute English revision for half an hour before giving up any attempt at having a proper productive Sunday. Olivia and I spent the rest of the day watching movies on her computer, laughing, and cuddling. At night Mr Viñas cooked dinner again and we tried to go to bed early to be properly rested for our first exam, but we were not sleepy at all, at least not until Olivia decided she wanted to play with her new ‘toys’ again.

At least this meant I went into my first exam in a good mood, and strangely not at all guilty for not having followed my study plan.