Enrique + Daphne = Love For Ever (a story of teenage lust/humiliation)

In homage to all the discounted, heart shaped chocolate going stale in shops across the nation with only a few preservatives and the memories of the glory days of early February keeping them alive, I decided to share with you a personal story of intense, teenage love gone wrong...

Before I go into it properly however, I need to ask you some key questions. Ready?

Would you dance? if I asked you to dance? Would you run? and never look back? Would you cry? if you saw me crying? Would you save my soul tonight? Would you tremble, if I touched your lips? Would you laugh? oh please tell me this...  (click away)

It was somewhere around my 13th birthday. My hips no longer resembled my friend George's hips but alas, our chest areas remained identical. A lot of girls had been training for this transformation for years but following a pattern that 12 years later still dominates my life, I was completely and utterly unprepared for it. My eyebrows were pushing to meet each other more and more each day but my mum had established a draconian Frida Khalo inspired grooming regime when it came to dealing with them. (May I also point out that this was the early 00's aka the years when the desirable number of hairs covering your eyes was in single digits). Getting my period was, controversially, actually brilliant as it finally gave me a real excuse to skip swimming lessons and more importantly, it gave me hope that I would soon grow boobs. Unfortunately the only thing that grew in the next few years was my despair at my flat chest. Boys really only cared about boobs, and they saw straight through my attempts at stuffing my white cotton beginners bra with toilet paper, napkins and the occasional shoulder pad I had ripped off my mum's 80's jackets.

At the same time, all I cared about was boys which obviously came hand in hand with the horrible shame that serves as a soundtrack to most teenage people's lives. Wondering what someone's penis looks like in your twenties varies from funny to slightly weird to hopeful. Being unable to look at your religious studies teacher without picturing his penis (or what you assume a penis is like) in your early teens is gut-wrenchingly embarrassing at best. So, as no teenage boys cared for a chest mirroring their own and my R.S teacher was, well, not a pedophile, the only relationships I was involved in were those of my Sims (who I pervertedly forced to 'make love' all the time until they had so many babies I got overwhelmed and killed them all in a swimming pool with no ladder...)(Stop judging, I'm sure you did something pervertedly embarrassing as a teenager too! Think about it... Exactly!). So it really came as a surprise to everyone when somewhere between the Simsocide and trying to strategically pluck my eyebrows without my mum realising, I fell in love. I fell hard for the latin man with a nose grazing mole the stuff teenage wet dreams are made of! The first time I laid eyes upon him was one afternoon while waiting for my favourite dubbed Mexican show with the catchy title ' Butterflies fly freely' to begin. The sound of spanish guitar strings tickled the air that was soon filled with the seductively foreign whisper that carried the phrase 'esta noche bailamos' and with no warning to my frantic teenage heart, the most beautiful man I had ever seen appeared a mere few inches from my face. Tall, dark with a dragon adorned light blue jacket framing his naked chest  he looked into my eyes and said 'tonighttt we daaaaance' while literally fingering the air around him and consequently every teenage girl and closeted gay boy who watched the video in fantasies that will probably haunt them for life. ( when I say he fingered the air around him, I mean he LITERALLY did <- click on it to see for your self although let me warn you, it can make grown men go weak at the knees ). From that day on, I knew! It was going to be Enrik (as I though he was called for a while... ) + Daphne = Love For Ever. My favourite football players, actresses and even Mick Jagger were removed from  my wall for its white surface to be entirely covered in my lover Enrik's face. E+D in a heart doodles decorated every inch of my desk and naturally, the only sound waves aloud in the vicinity carried his voice.

My parents were cool throughout all this. I mean they both took the piss out of him but then again what parent actually likes their teenage daughter's adult latino lover?
While walking through the centre of Athens one day, my dad and I decided to make our usual pit stop at our local Virgin Megastore. While my dad browsed for possible additions to his own CD collection, I ran straight to the pop music section to make sure Enrique hadn't released anything that had passed me by. That's when I saw him... Open shirt, shiny chest, mole in tact, standing in front of me all gorgeous and two dimensional. Everything I had dreamt about and more, Enrique Iglesias' life size cardboard cut out. I HAD to have him. I begged my dad to take him with us like an insanely hot cardboard human puppy. My dad asked the manager who, after laughing in my face for a good five minutes, agreed to give him to us when they no longer needed him which would be in approximately 8 days. Eight days that felt like a lifetime (and for at least eight butterflies they actually were a lifetime) passed. In years to come I got a real life boyfriend with whom I had many tear filled, real life reunions in airports and train station across Europe and I can say with certainty that my 2001 Enrique reunion in the dimly lit Virgin Megastore did not lack in the same elation and relief. Even though Enrique was life size and his life size is significantly more centimetres than mine, I still carried him all around Athens with pride as people pointed and laughed. JEALOUS. I escorted him into my room and placed him in the corner in front of my wardrobe and below a picture of himself from the Bailamos video. From imaginary lover to live in boyfriend, Enrique and I shared a room. Eat your hearts out weedy school boys still trying to get some over the bra action with your big breasted B cup girlfriends.

Look at us casually posing like a couple in love. 

With the small exception of my mum never remembering his existence and always freaking out upon seeing him, Enrique settled in seamlessly and I went back to being semi normal. Until one day my best friend came up to me full of excitement...she had kissed a boy! With tongue! She told me everything in detail, the moments leading up to it, the actual kiss, the washing machine technique her tongue buddy had adopted. Filled with envy I knew there was only one thing to be done. That day I got back home determined. I went into my room, dropped my heavy schoolbag on the floor and stood in front of Enrique. It was time for us to kiss (are you cringing yet?I know I am!). Trying to recall the advice I was given from my now lip locking expert friend (kissing once makes you an expert at 13, true story), I stood on my tiptoes and tilted my head to the right, leaned in a little closer until it was lip to cardboard, I closed my eyes (because that, I was told, was the romantic way to do it) and... opened my mouth. Maybe it was the excitement that made me partially deaf or maybe my dad was just plain sneaky, but as my mouth opened, so did my bedroom door...and in walked my father to find me making out with what was essentially a processed tree in the shape of a pop star. His shoes against my bedroom floor sounded and felt like bombs exploding by my side and the confused version of lust in my body was rapidly replaced by burning embarrassment. Unable to really react and wishing more than anything that the earth would give me a break and swallow me, I took my face off Enrique's and looked at my dad with the shame and guilt of two thousand catholics. Nonchalantly, my dad smirked and said "oh...you're kissing! I'll come back later then"......


My teenage shame took over my world and I avoided my dad for at least 10 days after that. To avoid further humiliation, I took down most of Enrique's posters and Mick was once again the king of my wall. Enrique, who got pushed further into the corner of my room, stayed around for another three and a half years until we moved houses. I was sixteen at the time and my real life boyfriend liked the Doors...I could no longer hold onto my first love. As I packed my boxes, Enrique looked upon me with distinct melancholia in his cardboard eyes... no bailamos esta noche, I'm sure he cried. As the van arrived and my parents got into the lift to drop some boxes off, Enrique and I said our goodbyes... and what's a proper goodbye without a real, uninterrupted farewell kiss  ;) !