I had my first "girlfriend" when I was in the first grade. I was living in Portsmouth, RI at the time. I don't carry around many memories of my early life, they all seem to have escaped into the aether, but this one is worth the brain cells used to keep it intact. Anyway, I have a memory of putting my arm around her during reading time. I even remember her coming over to my house and me going over to her house for play time. For the sake of this story, I will call my girlfriend Lois (actually that was her name, and I suspect that it still is, but I have no hard proof). I remember Lois lived with her mom and dad in a small, one-story, red and white cottage. By the time the second grade had rolled around, Lois had moved away, to a different town, to a different school. I even went to visit her in her new home shortly after her move, about 10 miles away, to the neighboring town of Tiverton, RI. In time, I forgot about Lois, and my little second-grade heart got over the loss. Actually, as a second grader, I don't remember feeling sad over losing Lois, maybe because I had my eyes on another, who knows. This story occurred when the earth's crust was still cooling. The scene fades to black.The curtain reopened seven years later when I was a freshman in high school. It just so happened that my family had just moved to Tiverton, RI. This was my first year attending school in this town. On my first day, the roll of students was called out. One by one, each person called out his name (or her name if the person was a female). One by one, the teacher marked the students off his master list. By some crazy chance, the person sitting two seats in front of me was Lois. She did not remember me and I only remembered her when her name was called out. Lois and I remained in the same homeroom for the next four years. Each year I would tell her something about herself from her distant past. She had no idea how I knew this information and it drove her nuts. I played the whole thing very coolly from the outset. I never let on how I came to know about her past. The fact that I was her first boyfriend I did not reveal until graduation day. When I told her, I thought her head was going to explode like the fembots in the old William Shatner Star Trek series. She stood speechless for a moment before she had to sit down to recover. It was a wonderful, slow-burn torture of another human being. I recommend this form quite highly. I have lots of ideas along this line, so send me a self-addressed, stamped envelope for my complete catalog of deliciously evil suggestions.
