I was aged about 7. The new girl at school was quite tall, Indian, I think and was wearing a swishy purple satin dress. I'd never really noticed girls and it must have been one of my very first moments of sudden interest, more for the dress than her, probably. The fact that none of the other girls in the school dressed like her made her appear all the more remarkable, different. The fabric was so sensual, for a split second when walking by I touched the material, fleetingly, so she wouldn't notice, and guiltily, I suppose, as it is the sense of risk that I remember and not the sensation of touch. She never noticed and no-one saw and apart from that one vivid moment I have no other memory of her.
