My father was deployed on a peacekeeping mission to India and Pakistan, where he remained for a full year.
After the winter holidays, I returned to school, a crucial time for achieving good grades to get into high school. I hoped to enroll in the High School of Civil Engineering and Geodesy in Split.
In our final year of school, we had a new subject: chemistry. Our teacher was an older woman, and we all struggled with the material. I noticed she had large breasts and often didn’t wear a bra, making her nipples visible. I found myself getting aroused and, later at home, masturbated while thinking about her. A few days later, she announced she would offer extra lessons after class for anyone who was interested. Since it was the last class of the day, everyone else went home, leaving me alone in the classroom with her. I wanted to sleep with her but didn’t know how to initiate anything. She gave me some chemistry assignments, but I wasn’t focused on them. Eventually, I abandoned the idea of trying to sleep with her, which was probably for the best. I went home, masturbated again, and had an even more intense orgasm.
I created a Facebook account, but I wasn’t as popular as some others. I initially wanted a lot of friends, but eventually decided to focus on quality over quantity. My first Facebook experience was awkward. A girl posted “meow” as her status, and misunderstanding how Facebook worked, I sent her a private message saying, “hello kitty, how are you?” She replied that I wouldn’t have spoken to her that way if I’d stayed in the suburbs. She was right. I added some friends from the suburbs on Facebook and looked at pictures from their recent trip.
In the spring, my school organized a field trip to Dubrovnik, a city 120 miles south of Split. I’m not sure why I agreed to go. Danny was going, but not all of my other friends. Knowing it would be a long drive, I planned to sleep most of the way. The night before the trip, I stayed up all night playing GTA San Andreas.I barely made it to dawn before I had to get ready for the trip and leave. I packed my bag and went to the front of the school where the bus was waiting. I chose a seat between the first and second doors, closer to where the teachers were sitting. For some reason, I didn’t sit with Danny. We began driving south along the Croatian coast.
We passed by the sandy beaches of Omiš, where I used to go with my parents. We continued towards Makarska, a city located between Omiš and Dubrovnik. The sun began to rise, and although I’d planned to sleep, I couldn’t. We arrived in Dubrovnik and explored the city. After lunch, we continued the journey and eventually headed home. I thought I would finally get some sleep on the bus, but everyone started singing, waking me up. I was frustrated that I hadn’t slept the night before. I stopped celebrating my birthdays, and my friends lost track of when it was.
School was finally over. One sunny summer day, Danny and I were hanging out in Split, walking and talking as we headed toward Bačvice beach. We sat on the cliffs, and he pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He lit one and offered me one. I accepted and smoked my first cigarette. I inhaled, exhaled, and coughed a little at first, but eventually stopped. We shared a few more cigarettes and then went home.
One day, Danny invited me to see the movie “Wounds” (Rane). It was a 1998 Serbian drama about two teenagers growing up in Belgrade in the 90s.
The film depicted sex, drugs, and violence, and its popularity in Split influenced our local culture.
One night, Danny and I decided to get drunk. We somehow managed to buy the cheapest wine, Coca-Cola along with some cigarettes, and headed to Bačvice. The area was lit at night, so we weren’t in complete darkness. We sat on a bench, mixing the wine with soda, drinking and smoking until we were properly drunk. Being drunk was a strange but generally pleasant feeling. The cigarettes tasted better than ever. We played Serbian folk music on our phones and had a little party. When we’d had enough, we went home. Danny headed toward the center of Split, while I wobbled toward the bus station. It was around midnight, and I was waiting for the last bus that would take me closer to home. I boarded the old, empty bus—only the driver was present. I sat down on one of the worn wooden seats and suddenly felt nauseous, likely from the bus’s motion. I threw up on the floor. The driver either didn’t notice or didn’t care, and I simply got off when the bus reached my stop. I remembered something my grandfather from Split once said on my way home: “Youth gets drunk and vomits on buses, and that’s sad.” I had become that youth. When I got home, my family was already asleep, so I managed to sneak in without anyone noticing I was drunk or smelled like cigarettes. The next morning, I woke up with a hangover from the cheap wine, but no one suspected anything—they just thought I was tired. That evening, I met up with Danny again, and instead of getting drunk, we went to Bačvice to play picigin, swim, and hang out with some classmates. With the lights around the beach, it was easy to play picigin, and there were others there swimming, sitting, or playing in groups.
My younger brother was still a child, while my other brother and sister had become teenagers.
I settled into a routine of school, rowing, and everything else that comes with being a teenager. When school began, I focused on studying as much as possible to get good grades for high school. Thanks to my success in rowing, the Croatian Rowing Committee awarded me extra points for my high school application.
I was 14 years old, in eighth grade—the final year of elementary school. As the oldest students, we were no longer bothered by upperclassmen. However, one day during a school break, a younger student who was in my brother’s class lightly harassed me. I noticed him laughing behind my back.
I didn’t initially realize what had happened, but my classmates pointed out that I had bird droppings on the back of my shirt. It was clearly spit from that younger kid, but I chose not to do anything about it, and I didn’t tell any teachers or my parents.
With good grades at the end of the school year, I was confident I would get into my desired high school. As an eighth-grade class, we had a planned graduation trip to Zagreb. We packed our bags and set off. Once again, I chose a seat between the teacher and the second set of doors on the bus. We arrived at a small village near Zagreb where our hostel was located. I shared a room with Danny. That night, we went to a local club where I drank Coca-Cola. Students from other cities were also at the club. I met a girl, we talked, and exchanged phone numbers. A girl in my class joked that I finally had a girlfriend.
Danny and I left the club around midnight and went back to our room. We turned on the TV and watched Showgirls, a 1995 NC-17 rated film known for “nudity and erotic sexuality, explicit language and sexual violence.” There was a famous pool sex scene, and afterwards, I went to the shower and masturbated.
The following day, we took a trip to Zagreb. We explored the city center and toured the Dinamo Zagreb football club stadium. In Split, our hometown, we supported Hajduk, the football club that was the main rival of Dinamo.
We returned to our hostel, and I spent the time listening to music. I couldn’t help but feel disconnected from my classmates and longed to be on a trip with my friends from the suburbs. After a few more days, I was relieved to finally be heading home. Once I logged onto Facebook, I saw that my friends from the suburbs were on their own trip, tagged in numerous photos, and I felt a pang of regret for missing out.
During the summer, I applied to high school to become a geodetic technician. It was one of the most popular programs at the school because it was considered an easy job with good pay. There was only one class for future surveyors, while construction technicians and architects had two classes. The school was located in a large building in a newer part of Split, and my high school, along with three others, was housed there. A few days later, I returned to check the enrollment list and found my name. It was somewhere between the middle and bottom of the list. I recognized some new names, many of whom would later become my friends. Danny, on the other hand, enrolled in a different high school, just next door.
I was 15 that summer, and high school was supposed to start in September. On the first day, I met some new people. They were from the entire wider Split area and islands, and one of them was even from Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was exciting to start meeting people from scratch like in the suburbs because I was able to create a better connection unlike the seventh grade of elementary school in Split. Every morning I woke up at 6:30 a.m. and took the bus to school early. I listened to music on the way to school. I hung out with some guys who were also early. I expected to have as many girls in the class as possible to find a girlfriend, but there were only four girls.
I took a picture in the bathroom, shirtless, styling my hair and showing off my muscles, including my six-pack. I set it as my Facebook profile picture, hoping to attract a girl.
However, the only response I got was from a gay man who messaged me saying I was beautiful. I felt frustrated and blocked him. A classmate did comment that I looked strong.
My closest friends in high school were Jim and Barby Jo. Jim was a talented tennis player. Barby Jo was from Bosnia and Herzegovina, was wealthy and swore frequently, a habit I picked up, now regularly using phrases like “God fucked you” and “fuckin’ Jesus,” sometimes even jokingly.
Overall, I enjoyed my time in high school.
Most of the professors were good. However, our biology teacher, an older, overweight woman, was an exception. Initially, she refused to discuss condom effectiveness, claiming she “couldn’t say that.” Later, during a discussion about body mass index, she referred to “body weight.” Remembering what our physics professor had taught us about the difference between mass and weight, Jim raised his hand and corrected her, saying it should be “body mass,” not “body weight.” The biology teacher became angry and told him never to correct her, emphasizing that she had a PhD. She even wrote him up, requiring Jim’s mother to come to school for a meeting. Not all the teachers were bad. One, in fact, was the kindest and most attractive MILF (Mother I’d Like to Fuck). I often masturbated at home thinking about her, as did Jim and most of my classmates. Our history professor was an older man nearing retirement. Despite his age, he was the coolest professor in the school.
One day, after class, he asked Jim, Barby Jo, and me to stay behind. I was worried he was going to reprimand us or something similar. Instead, he pulled out a book called Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. He sat us down at a table and asked us to read a few passages. As we began reading, we realized the passage described a character having sex. The description was very direct and explicit. We all laughed and complimented our professor on being so cool. I mentioned that the book was a refreshing change from the incredibly boring books we were required to read in Croatian class. We then started talking about our MILF professor, and the history professor surprised us by saying she was “good and wet.”
A few days later, I was in town running errands and ran into this professor in front of a local sex shop. From that moment on, I considered him the coolest professor ever. One day in history class, he even asked the entire class how to say “penis” in Greek. I knew the answer because I had read Bratoljub Kljaić’s Dictionary of Foreign Words, but I hesitated to raise my hand, thinking it would be embarrassing to say it aloud. After a pause, the professor, looking disappointed, revealed that the word he was looking for was “phallus.” I regretted not raising my hand and giving the correct answer; I probably would have gotten a good grade for it.
In rowing, I became known as the first in my group to shave my pubic area. While some initially criticized me, they soon followed suit and came back the next day with their own shaved areas.
I liked the way it looked. It reminded me of my early experiences with masturbation back in the suburbs, before I’d gone through puberty and developed pubic hair.
My father returned from his peacekeeping mission in India and Pakistan, bringing us many gifts. He gave me a brand new HTC HD2 smartphone.
He brought new smartphones for my siblings, too. The night he returned, I was in my room exploring the features of my new phone. I noticed my brother was also looking at his new phone in his darkened room. When I went to the bathroom, I saw my sister similarly engrossed in her phone. Returning to my room, I continued to explore my phone. It occurred to me that there was something strange about all of us staring at our devices. I suppose a new technological era had arrived in our home.
That winter, Jim and I were invited to Stobreč by a classmate to celebrate New Year’s Eve 2010. Stobreč, a coastal area near Split, is located between the suburbs and the Split itself. It was supposed to be a mixed party with both guys and girls. Feeling hopeful, I shaved my pubic area the night before, not wanting to feel self-conscious if anyone got undressed. When I arrived, however, it turned out to be a low-key New Year’s Eve, nothing like the orgy I’d imagined. I talked to a girl on the balcony, but we didn’t even kiss. Around 3 a.m., when it started raining, my dad picked up Jim and me and drove us home. I was disappointed that I hadn’t hooked up with anyone and felt a strong desire to lose my virginity as soon as possible.
@Limbo 
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