When I tell people where I grew up, and they know anything about the city, they assume that I was born into an underprivileged family, and that I am in some way tainted by my upbringing. Yes, Denmark is a very socially liberal country, but people still have their prejudice. It's true that I grew up in one of the larger cities of Denmark, in an area some would describe as an immigrant ghetto, even though at that time Danish and foreign born were evenly split in numbers in that area.
As a matter of fact, my family was comparatively well off, my father working at a bank and my mother as a nurse. We lived in a part of the city that was technically part of, but just bordering, 'the wrong side of the tracks', as they say. But it was effectively a well off neighbourhood with houses instead of apartment buildings and gardens instead of concrete lots.
I describe myself as growing up in that particular part of the city instead of where I actually grew up, because of the danish municipal public school system. Unless your parents choose otherwise you will be sent to the nearest public school to where you live.
Because my parents felt it would be good for me to grow up with a mixed population of friends, I went to school with almost exclusively children of immigrants, refugees and the unemployed since the parents of the other children living around me did not have an equally open view on child rearing.
In the early days of my school years, this caused me to have few friends outside of school, even though I did spend some time with the children who lived around me I did not really feel that I belonged with them, both because they knew each other much better than I knew them and because, as I have later learned, I was born with a mild condition that causes me to not fully understand social interaction. So I kept mostly to myself when not at school.
Throughout my formative years and teens, I never had many female friends and developed into something of a tomboy. I didn't have many girl-friends because most immigrant families in that area did not consider it proper for their daughters to be out late into the evening, and because I spent my afternoons running and training at the local athletics club. So after training I preferred to hang out with the guys at a local youth club, set up by the municipality to keep kids off the street in the evenings, instead of just heading home to my parents after training.
As we grew older, we began hanging out at each other's houses after the club closed around 10pm, doing different things. Watching movies, listening to music, or just talking about sports. Whenever the talk hit on girls, I simply kept quiet and listened to them talk about how this girl had big breasts, or that girl had a big butt.
I lacked both, and even if I had had them, I tended to prefer either baggy clothes or track suits after working out, and because I have always practiced sports I never really gained much weight and by the time I was 18 I stood a little under 5 feet one inch tall, and weighed just under 115 pounds, with small but perky B-cup breasts sitting high on my chest above a firm well toned stomach, a small but firm butt above toned thighs.
Whenever the guys began talking about girls, and those girls seemed to me to be the exact opposite of me, I figured that I had little chance with any of my friends, and was satisfied with it staying like that since sex and boys didn't really interested me. Don't misunderstand me. I did not think that I was ugly or undesirable, and I knew that that my shoulder length, blonde hair, brown eyes and slim athletic build attracted some guys, but I figured that my quite small breasts and tiny behind made me unattractive, at least to the guys I hung out with.
On the other hand, I had a very vivid fantasy life, sexual and non-sexual both. Since none of the guys seemed interested in me, I was happy or at least satisfied, to use my imagination and manga books when I was aroused. Typically, I would spend an hour or two before I went to sleep, in bed with a romance manga or a book of the same sort, and put myself in the role of the heroine. Imagining I was the one who the hero was seducing or fighting for while the story went along.
These late night reading sessions usually ended up with me stroking myself to an orgasm with two fingers pressing into my clit, circling it rapidly while my other hand was massaging my small pink nipples, imagining the heroes of the story in bed with me. Even though I had never experienced sex, I thought I had a very good idea about what it would be like for the first time.
It turned out I was wrong.
-------------------------------------------------o-------------------------------------------------
What I am going to tell you, happened during a time when I did little other than hang out with the guys and run track at the athletics club. I had chosen not to attend our equivalent of High School, and had not been able to find a job yet either. So my days were pretty monotonous and I usually just went from home to practice, on to the club and then home to one of my friend's houses, and then back home again to sleep, and I became fairly familiar with the families of each of my friends because we spent as much time there as we did at home.
My friends preferred staying at my house because I had the basement all to myself, arranged into a flat with even a small kitchen nook and a separate toilet, though with no bathing area. But I preferred to stay at the my friends' homes, since that was not at my home where there was the danger of the ever embarrassing encounter, between parents and friends, that every teenage girl dreads.
We of course spoke mostly danish to each other, but my friends spoke a mix of danish, bosnian and arabic among themselves. Over the years I picked up enough to understand most of what they said, but sometimes I was at a loss to what they were talking about. In this re-telling I will translate most of what was said into english so that it makes sense to the reader, but in the cases when I did not understand I will of course not be able to translate exactly what was said.
One evening, after practice I went over to my classmate and his older brother who was one year older than us' apartment, where they lived with their parents, to watch some TV with them and another friend. When I arrived I was wearing my usual get up after an afternoon of practice, red tracksuit pants and a white t-shirt, after hanging the shirt at the door. As usual I had bathed at the track before leaving, and my hair was still a little wet after the shower. Back then I did not usually wear a bra, because I found them uncomfortable and my t-shirts were usually thick enough that they were not see through against my tanned skin and and only slightly darker nipples.
As usual the guys, Amar and Tarik and a third of our other friends named Sead, were already there when I arrived, having gone there from the club early and were about to put on a movie they had picked out earlier.
Their parents' living room was a fairly standard setup in the early 2000s; a corner couch with two reclining chairs facing the house altar on each side of the couch and a low wooden coffee table in between. Amar and Tarik always called dibs on the reclining chairs when we watched TV at their place. I think that was traditionally the seat of their dad and their older brother when they were having family time, so they saw them as places of authority. I sat down in one end of the couch but quickly decided that it would be better to lay down and rest my head on the armrest with my feet towards the center, and Sead did the same in the opposite side.
Tarik started the film immediately as we sat down and it turned out to be "Top Gun" with Tom Cruise. I did not object too much, yes it was an action drama, but I had seen it before and it had a decent romantic plot for one of those, and I never expected the guys to cater to my tastes since I was the only girl in the group. And in truth I didn't want to be seen as trying to be a girly girl. I've always done my best to be a social chameleon.
After we started the film, the brothers' mother came into the living room from their dining room to say hi, something she did almost every time we were there, before going back to her husband. I think they spent most of their time in the kitchen anyway, but they were always in there when their sons had company over. After a minute, she returned and smiled to me as she handed me a towel. "Janni would you mind wearing this for a while? The couch might get stained by your wet hair." I answered with a little smile as well and nodded. "Oh, of course I am sorry." And took the towel and wrapped it around my hair before laying my head down on the armrest again and watched the movie with the guys.
