(This account of Sevastopol is the first of three parts. It runs in parallel with "Sevastopol School Break Project", but probably a good idea to read the other story first... I think. Or maybe not, I've not tried the other way around and its too late now. If you do read this one first... let me know if it works just as good backwards?! Oosh.)
Hi, I'm Sylvie. I'm Korean but I go to school in the middle of nowhere in Australia. The people that live here don't think they're in the middle of nowhere. They think that a school and some shops and two pubs and mobile reception means they are in the middle of somewhere.
Believe me, they are wrong.
The middle of somewhere would have dozens of schools with thousands of students and dozens of shopping centres with fashionable things, hundreds of restaurants, playhouses, and live concerts, not just watching on your phone. Adelaide Flats people think the true middle of nowhere is the 'dead centre', the vast deserted middle of Australia. Death by dehydration and sunstroke or snakebite or falling down an opal-mining sinkhole. School of the air, grocery shopping by Cessna, entire home fridges dedicated to beer, and TV by satellite. I once thought they were joking, teasing the naive foreign girl. When I found out it was all true, I was staggered. Even so, it didn't change my opinion; Sevastopol was still in the middle of nowhere.
I grew up in Seoul. Mum, Dad, and me. Dad was always an academic. Mum earned the money and lots of it, in a bank. Dad and I never saw a lot of Mum. We saw a lot of each other, though, universities are on holiday more than high schools. Dad always said it was time dedicated to research. For a high school student, it looked like 'holiday' to me.
But then a week after my eighteenth birthday we went from not seeing Mum much, to not seeing her at all. Ever. The bank says it was socially responsible to include suicide in their staff life insurance policy. It's still hard to know how I feel about that. I keep thinking of that story of the hearse at the bottom of the hill, paid for instead of a safety rail up top.
Dad and I were dazed by what Mum had done, but not broken. Mum had become so detached from us and we didn't know the world she was living in. It must have been tough over that wall, but she never let us see over it. Who knows what happened there. All Dad and I knew is we didn't want to live in our apartment anymore. We felt Mum's absence even before her death, it was time for a new start. Of course, when I told Dad I'd be more than happy for us to move house I didn't think it would be to Sevastopol in the middle of nowhere in Australia. The university where he got a post-grad scholarship was in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, and during orientation a group of tutors showed him pictures of all the houses we could rent through the university residential service.
"Why is this one so cheap? It is the most beautiful one here," Dad had asked, looking through their folders.
"It takes an hour to drive here," was the reply.
Dad scoffed. Commuting in the big city for an hour, it was nothing. The house was and is gorgeous. It has a huge manicured garden and outdoor living area and country-style high-ceiling living rooms inside. It has a kitchen and dining area that would inspire a person to learn how to bake. The price was less than half the rent of something in Adelaide. Even with a tankful of petrol burned every week, it was a good deal. Dad didn't want to use any of Mum's insurance money. Not yet anyway, it had blood on it.
But while Dad thrilled at driving country roads with zero traffic, breathing clean dry country air, and making up the numbers for the pub cricket team, I fell into an empty hole. I kept my spirits up for my dad's sake, it was only a two-year course and I was certain we would be back home afterward - but it was tougher for me than I let on.
Dad never knew quite how serious my boyfriend and I were back home. He said I was his Yoon Seol-hee and for me he was my Brandon Lee or Jon Enriquez or whatever his real name was, though of course my boyfriend wasn't gay. I was ready for him to put his hands inside my clothes if only he'd taken the chance when we had it. The night before we found out about Mum, we were at home by ourselves, Dad was visiting his aunt for dinner (the one I hate, a story for another time). We two were all over the sofa, merged into each other kissing and hugging. I wanted him to put his hands inside my pants, not outside. I had worn a skirt especially. I showed him how I masturbate my clitoris, but when he did it, he did it through the material of my panties like my pussy juices might be poison. I wanted to get undressed. I wanted to feel a man's penis in my own hands, not through his jeans. But, he was too shy. Timid. Afraid. So was I. If I'd known then I was moving away, I'd have been braver. Maybe. I don't know. I've never been the one to make the first move. Most of my friends are the same. Instead, that night after he had gone, and Dad was back home in bed snoring, I lay in my own room under my sheets with my pants off. I fingered myself how I wished I'd been touched by that boy. I was so worried my fingers would snap my own virginity, living on the border of fear and desire. I wanted to use all my fingers and finally do myself properly, but dare not risk being broken-in by myself. I wanted a boy to do it for me. My boyfriend. Or any boy, actually, I had to admit.
So when Mum did what she did the next day it messed up everything. There was no chance I was gonna go have first sex with a boy in those circumstances. And then the decision came to move away for a couple of years. Token goodbye sex seemed cheap and crass.
And moving to the middle of nowhere? That would set me back years. I would be twenty before I could find a boy to bed me. No way would any boys in country Australia have interest in a little Asian girl, and the thought of being with a white boy was terrifying. I don't know why, it just was. The greatest fear is the fear of the unknown. Just sex by itself was enough of an unknown let alone with a white-boy's body and a sexual culture that I knew nothing about.
And worse, when I arrived, everyone just assumed I didn't speak English. It was so unfair. My English has always been good, I've been top of my class since middle school. But because I didn't know what was a dunny, or bathers, or a red-back, or a ute, or a stubbie, or a durrie, or a franger or all these other made-up words in Australia, the confirmation bias was running hot. The Korean shiela doesn't speak English.
I do. They don't.
Dad thought it was all hilarious and jumped in to practice every new word he was told. His new 'mates' were just teasing him for their own fun, I tried to warn him. But Dad didn't care, people were happy to see him and he had friends. Not like me.
I picked up a sense early that perhaps the local boys weren't entirely disgusted by the thought of kissing a cute little Asian girl. I got looks. I saw smiling whispers and nods. But the girls, none of them would talk to me. None of them had any intention of letting me into their circles. Those boundaries were already set after years of being at the same school together.
So I studied. I cooked. I learned how to do simple things in the garden. I cut grass, quite an achievement for a Korean girl. And with a private rear yard, a father who always called when he set off for home, and no chance of any visitors, I found my first sneaky joy about being in the middle of nowhere in warm, dry weather.
At first, it was just a cheeky dash out to the clothesline in just my school skirt to grab my favourite bra I'd washed and hung out. But then I lingered. The warm sunshine on my breasts felt gorgeous. All I could hear was birds, and bees, and a distant lawnmower. Instinctively I pulled my panties down and off and touched between my legs. I was sopping wet. It would be a long two years if I had to wait to move home to get a boy to play in that wetness.
Taking my skirt off inside, I pulled at my dark pubic hair, long and messy. I had better start tidying that up if I was going to walk around without pants. I trimmed myself short and neat using scissors, so it wouldn't be completely messy if someone caught a glimpse somehow. Ooh, the thought of getting caught was terrifying, but not enough to stop me. Every night I slept naked, and if Dad had already gone in the morning I'd just put on my school top to walk around and get ready, though I dare not sit and eat on the kitchen stools and get them wet. Every day at home until Dad came home I'd wear something short on top with my pants off, and more and more outside in the back yard. I loved the breeze on my backside and pussy. Eventually, I took my top off out there for extended periods, too. I was outside naked so much I got a beautiful all-over tan. And I loved sneaking right to the back of the yard, standing by the fence and masturbating to the sound of country town noises, knowing there were people somewhere nearby as I had sex with myself.
It was hard to hold back from fully fingering my vagina or using something to push up inside. I was torturing myself by getting so close to breaking my own virginity and then holding back, but it was sweet torture.
Dad worried I hadn't made friends as quickly as he had, but at least my time by myself had become something to look forward to. My show of good spirits at home for Dad was more real.
The school system in Australia is weird. The school year starts at the end of January at the hottest time of year, and there are four terms. The first term is all summer weather, even when the first holidays came it was super hot. Unlike Korea, though, there is no humidity at all. Thirty Celsius at Sevastopol is nice, but in Seoul it would be oppressive. Even forty on the Adelaide Flats was still nice, in short bursts. It helps that our house has good air-con in the living areas.
And suddenly on the last day of term, from nowhere this boy in my math class called Giles asks if I want to meet up in the holidays. I was surprised. He was tall, kind of handsome, one of the smarter guys in class, but he'd never talked with me before, not even about math. I said 'sure' simply because I didn't know what else to say. We swapped numbers and he was gone, as quickly as he appeared. I found myself hiding in the school bathroom because I was blushing. Was I just asked out on a date? Well, more accurately, was I going to be asked out on a date? I felt under my dress and inside my panties. Running a finger through myself, I was soaked. I took a deep breath and pushed my finger inside. Luckily my period had just finished, in case that boy intended to... I had to stop myself thinking that way. I couldn't just jump into bed with a guy. If nothing else, I had no protection. This was not the time or place to be pregnant.
"For fuck's sake," I whispered (in Korean), "Get a hold. The guy asked for your number, not whether he could father your baby."
I didn't even know him, not really. Giles. Was that his first name or last name? English names are so confusing.
Even so, I ran home to be somewhere I could take my soaked panties off and get them in the wash. I sat out back on the lounge on the decking in the sun in just a singlet top with a pack of wet-wipes and fingered myself harder and deeper than I ever had. I made a note to lie and tell any boy I was with that I did gymnastics back in Seoul, just in case I had damaged my virginity already. It felt so good though, having fingers reaching deep inside, even if they were my own. And I could tell how ready I was from the taste. When I licked my fingers after, my juice was sweet and smelled nice. If I was just casually fingering myself to pass the time, the taste was kind of musty, but when I did it with the face of a boy in mind, I was more delicious.
