The second compass incident that comes to mind is a much sweeter assault.
Too many years ago now I fell in love with a selfish young woman. We were in the last years at high school. She was my best friend and sometimes she was in love with me and sometimes I was in love with her. But never at the same time. Apparently she was beautiful, much coveted by the other boys but I never knew that about her, I never knew her as beautiful. I still can’t think of her like that.
She had those horrible corporate vertical blinds in her bedroom, the low afternoon light striped through onto her and I kneeling, sprawling, amongst open books and scattered papers on the carpet. Much beige was everywhere. We were doing some kind of homework, talking and laughing. I said something which provoked mock offence, causing her to lunge at me. We wrestled. She grasped my wrists and proved herself amazingly strong for such a sleek beastie.
She was so stand-offish. In a physical sense that is. Inhumanly unaffectionate, but on the other side of the coin, magnetic and flirtatious, a bright smile in her eyes. She did have a “chi”-powered backhand though and her tongue was barbed as a mace. I stroked her hair one time as she lay at my waist - me below the covers, her on top of them - a rare display of the intimacy that ran web-like between us, and she said “What am I? A dog?”
So she’s grasping my wrists, I’m twisting my hands around hers, her legs begin to entwine with mine, calf to back-of-knee, my chest to hers. She’s losing, I’m on top of her and she releases her grip, wriggles and pulls lithely, quickly and dives for the pencil box under her tv. “A-ha!” she maniacally exclaims as she turns, fist raised and clutching the compass.
She’s wearing a summer school dress. Light utilitarian cotton, three buttons in a single line down her chest. Blue and white small checks. White socks. Shoulder-length brown hair. Smirking. Giggling. Threatening.
I can’t remember what happened next, how it happened but things got more serious more urgent. Her wrists are now in my hands, her strength coming from somewhere angry, deep and inviting. I have her down on the ground again, I think she’s pricked me a couple of times around the wrist. I have her pinned, held flat and she’s thrashing her head from side to side. That strokable hair mussing, flying all about and whipping my eyes. She stops and it’s that long look and I kiss her. It the first time we’ve kissed. She doesn’t kiss me back. In fact she’s still holding the compass. She’s shocked and I’ve misread the entire situation.
The next day in the corridor at school she says to me - “I have a cold, you’re going to catch it now.” - and that’s all she ever said about it. That was the only time it was acknowledged.
Over the next six months I went on to fall more deeply in love with her, in a way that I’ve never loved anyone before or since - with abandon. Eventually I turned it into hate to break it, into misogyny and some very, very bad paintings.
Oddly (heh) we have nothing to do with each other anymore. She is now nought but some lessons in adolescent love and a couple of smile-inducing memories. In fact this was fifteen years ago and I’ve tasted caviar to her saccharine delights several times over. It was what it was. You grow up, y’know?