Here's the thing, Laura. You have a woman's figure. You have curves and dimensions of every carved and drawn figure of a woman. Even men who go for stick-thin blondes would find you attractive, even if they didn't find you to be pretty. We can't help it.

From early puberty, I have been a woman in the eyes of men. I have been 14 and had mid-20's men trying to get into my pants. Once I carried an hour long and drunken debate with a guy who was roommates with my friend's boyfriend, where we were staying the night. His argument was that his bed was far more comfortable than this frumpy old couch, and why didn't I join him? He would behave himself.

The girls I ran with were younger than me and more experienced. When Colleen succeeded in getting me paired up with and deflowered by an older boy, she was excited that I would begin my sexual adventures. I failed her. I didn't touch another boy until I was 17 and a freshman in college.

It was all of those near misses as a teen that messed me up the most, I'd say. Those summers working around college aged kids who just couldn't believe I was only 14 or 15, that I was so young. They invited me to be like them, to drink and talk like them, to grow up to meet them. More than not, I'd comply, wanting to be like them, wanting to have myself all figured out.

Why don't you like to kiss me as much as I like to kiss you?
With you, it's not just kissing. It's too much. I mean, I love kissing you. But it's too much of a turn on. I don't always want so much at once.

How many times I swatted away hands at 12 and been embarrassed. How many years I turned the light off before I got into bed so he couldn't see me, so that maybe I would dissolve into a smaller, less "too much" being. How much I wish I had been a child for just a while longer, that I had been able to be small and insignificant, unnoticeable and free.