The Changing Boy

Puberty is weird. At ten-years-old, my chest sprouted hairs. Not a carpet of evenly spread hair, oh no. These wiry, light brown, randomly placed, course hairs. Leg hair started to get darker and more course. I was already a size 8 shoe and taller than most kids in my year and school. The thing that freaked me out the most was the hair growing around my penis! Why is hair growing there? I would think 'Why is this happening to me?' I'd be out with Auntie Janine and my little cousin at the local shopping centre and all of a sudden, my voice would go squeaky. It was really embarrassing, but my aunt handled it really well. I remember always feeling this solid lump in my throat. It wasn't there last week, and now it here it is, solid and clearly not budging. I'd get these achingly stiff erections out of nowhere. I'd have to ask my Aunt to go the toilet. I was fascinated and scared all at once. In the cubicles, after I'd unzipped my fly, it would strain the material of my boxers. My waistband couldn't stay around my waist; I could see my penis pressing against the material with great force. How can it be soft and then rock hard? Was there some type of bone that retracted or something? I'd hold it, feel it pulsating, warm and stiff. I tried to bend it, OUCH! Note to self: don't try to bend it when it's hard. I tried to pee with an erection. This is one of the most difficult things I've ever done. I had to position my body at an acute angle so the urine went in the toilet and not everywhere else. The head of my penis would be so swollen the skin appeared smooth, tight and shiny. My boxers would often be wet, but not with pee. I know now it is pre-cum, but at ten-years-old, this clear, sticky, viscous liquid would cover the head of penis, leak and drip down my thigh. At times I thought I had wet myself. I noticed these little white spots around the edge of the glans. What were these? Why do they feel rough to touch? Why did I like running my finger over them so much? The veins would lie under the skin of my shaft like worms travelling up to my glans. I often thought, one day the head of my willy is going to pop, there'll be blood everywhere, I'll die and it will be embarrassing because I died from a burst penis. My parents will be ashamed. Oh god no, please, please make this stop! My joints were agony too. Especially my knees and my hips. Walking would be so uncomfortable and running was out of the question. I would also start to smell. You know, that teenaged boy stench, headache-inducing, body odour smell. I didn't understand why this was happening to me. I was eating a ton of food. I couldn't stop eating, I was always hungry! My mother would say I'm eating her out of house and home. My father thought I had an unhealthy obsession with food. My nana on the other hand, she loved it. She cooked anything I wanted. My favourite, even to this very day is Curry Goat with white rice.

Friday mornings at school meant swimming for the first half of the morning. We'd walk down from school to the leisure centre with the teachers and teaching assistants. Usually, we got our own cubicles to change in. But on this particular Friday, the teacher made the boys go in the big locker room. Panic set in among the boys' faces. We all knew, we were all about to be naked, together, in the same room. My hands were shaking. I tried to make an excuse about having a tummy ache, but I forgot that I'd had been cracking jokes on the walk the whole way down. So much so, that I almost got banned from swimming. Damn it! Had I know this was going to happen I'd of acted up more. A spontaneous tummy ache was not getting me out this. I didn't want to be naked in front of my friends. I had hair growing in places that had none before. This is embarrassing. I was conscious of how I smelt, I hated my feet (I still do to this day) and my chest had hairs on it. I was a freak! The other boys would laugh and make fun of me. I already hated the way I looked after chipping my tooth, it's fair to say I was incredibly self-conscious. Then, like sinking ice in the pit of my stomach, running cold and shuddering, I thought: 'Oh god, what if my penis gets hard whilst I'm changing and one of the boys sees it?'. The universe clearly wanted to amuse itself that morning and kept instigating semi-erections on and off, toying with me. My foot started tapping the floor as we edge closer to the entrance of the locker room. I look up to the glass atrium hoping something would happen to stop my social anxiety. Please hole in the ground, open up and swallow me. Right now.

The entrance grew nearer, as I approached some men were coming out. Some in swimwear, other fully clothed about to leave. One particular man was coming out in his swimming gear. He was tall and slim, had hair on his chest and also on his shoulders. He was white and had jet black hair running all the way down his stomach. He was wearing swimming briefs, I could see the hair run from the top of his thigh down his legs. The bulge in his pants as he walked was bouncing with each step. You could make out the outline of his penis. The view, made me relax a little bit. I didn't feel so different anymore. But, I had more questions. It made me aware of how different I looked to this man. Whilst I had hair on my chest, it didn't look like his. Mine wasn't black nor was it so straight. My feet didn't look like his; I had no arch and my nails were a completely different shape. I still didn't want my friends to see me naked, especially as I was confused about why being me meant I still didn't look like everybody else.

I was almost at the back of the queue. I entered the semi circle room, with a central bench in the middle, a long bench covering the circumference of the rest of the room. All the boys stood facing the wall, backs facing out. No one was changing. My teacher shut the door. The only thing you could hear was the wave machine and the fans circulating the air in the windowless changing room. The odd occasional rustle of gym bags would break the background noise but nobody moved. After what felt like an eternity but in reality was only a couple of minutes, the teacher walked back in. ‘Boys! Come on, get changed. Otherwise you’ll have less time in the pool’. No body moved. We side looked at each other seeing who would make the first move, but nobody did. As the door was still open, a few older boys walked in, picked a spot started changing. Even though they were older than me, they didn’t look like me. I started to changing really slowly, just so I could look. They were still smooth bodied, no hair. They were clearly friends as they were laughing to and nudging one another. They disrobed cavalier in front of each other. Not holding up towels, they dropped their pants baring their birthday suit. To my utter surprise them being bald bodied, they all were sporting full bushes downstairs. One of the boys, I noticed as he was pulling on his swimming trunks, the head of his penis was exposed, it had a weird line around it, this marking that looked like a scar. The other boys had skin covering theirs, just like mine looked. My mind was racing. I didn't understand why he had missing skin. The boys seemed to be unaware of us as they got changed, packed up their outdoor clothes and left. Some of us were changing, others were still too afraid. So, I just started to change more bravely. Shoes off, socks off. Baring one of my most insecure features of my body first, my feet. After feeling the rugged, textured tiles under my feet, flexing my toes and getting used to the feel, I started to pull my down my jeans. I folded them up and placed them on top of my bag. I pulled off my jumper and folded that too. Now I was just in my vest and boxers. By this point I recognised more movement in the room, more sounds and rustling were apparent, a little chatter was beginning to stir. I took off my vest and folded that up too. I could feel my penis swelling. Black spots were starting to appear in front of my eyes. I turned around to sit on the bench because I felt dizzy and was starting to lose my breath a little. As I sat down and the black dots were slowly disappearing, the room was falling silent again. Two of my friends that were next to me was looking at my chest. I caught their glances and they instantly looked away. It was their opened eyed fascination. It was too late to cover up. Plus, I was the only one still wearing my boxers, everyone has changed into their swimming trunks. I still needed to bare all. And I had a semi. This was hell.

The teacher opens up the door and ushered all those out that were changed and ready to swim. One other classmate was late and his mum dropped him off at the leisure centre. "You two, hurry up! Let's hustle!" said my teacher. By this point the changing room was empty apart from me and Leo. I took the opportunity to drop my boxers fumbling quickly to find my swimming trunks and trying to put them on before Leo saw anything. Leo was getting changed too and I realised he had nice feet. His legs were also hairy, straight haired like the man I saw earlier. As he took of his top, he was hairless on his chest. He ran his hands through his hair to rustle it back into place and he dropped his boxers. He was sporting a bush too. I hadn't realised I standing there naked looking at him. He looked back at me and kind of smiled. "Your chest is like my dad's" he said. "Although, he has hair on his back too". I looked down wrinkling my chin, running my index finger over the randomly placed coils of hair. "He told me that, this happens when boys start to turn into men" he continued. "We're all going to change, maybe not at the same time or in the same way, but we all are changing". He stopped. He stood facing me naked also, bravely unashamed of his body. "I have older brothers and I remember when I first saw hair on them, it was scary to me. But when it happened to me, I knew it ok because I had already seen it". He said, "Look, we both have hairy legs, hair around our willy. You have hair on your chest, I don't. It's normal. Come, on we better get changed before we get into real trouble". We did so and joined the rest of the group.

I knew I was black not just from my skin colour, but from the food I ate, the music I listened to, the millions upon millions of "cousins" I had and growing up in Jamaica. Although, in comparison to my family members, my skin was much lighter than theirs. They would call me: 'Redman'. Meaning it was easier for me to turn red than them. I knew I was black, but I felt like I was a different type of black. I knew my hair texture was considered black because all I ever saw was perm, and witnessing other people say our hair was tough. I never understood that, because black hair was soft and spongy. I thought these things were normal. I didn't consciously know that being white meant that the texture of hair would be different to mine. It was so straight, or if it was curly it was loose curls. I also didn't recognise that eye colour would be more varied. Green, grey, blue. My mum was the only exception I knew with hazel eyes, every black person I knew, had brown eyes. I didn't realise that being black meant I was likely to mature earlier than the rest of the class. I didn't know you could be circumcised nor did I understand the benefits of it. I had been raised that I was to have a girlfriend and that being in a relationship with someone of the same sex was wrong. I knew was it was to be gay, but I didn't feel I fitted that. I was curious about boys but more about how they looked different to me. The black kids in the class had fades, some rocked cornrows, others had dreads. The white kids had longer hair generally and always rustled it with their hands. After several more visits to the leisure centre and communal changing rooms, I noticed most of the black and Asian boys were circumcised and the white boys weren't. Everyone was different, that's what we had in common. We shared other things too, but the variation was comforting. Up until my first experience changing in a communal changing room, I had not seen another boy naked. I didn't know I was normal. To this day I thank the universe Leo was the youngest of his brothers and being able to tell me, so confidently, and unashamedly there was nothing wrong with me because despite how different our skin colours were, or wether we were circumcised or not, even down to the shape of our nails and our feet, we are normal and it's ok to be different.