I’d known Tarla all my life really. We grew up...

I’d known Tarla all my life really. 
We grew up on the same street, and played outside together after school. On the same swings, and in the same little patch of woodland.
I was always a fraction taller than her, and I loved to tease her over it all the time. Tell her that I’d always be taller than her. Unless, of course, she does something.
She’d get so indignant. But no matter what I said, she’d always end up doing it. Climb a fence, or a wall. Hop a ditch. Jump in a pond.
She was always game for things. More than me, I guess, but mum always told me not to do that kind of thing because it wasn’t ‘dignified’, so I guess I didn’t much.
Which she’d tease me over right back. Then I’d fight her, and she’d fight me right back, all shouting and saying words we weren’t meant to know, and later on mum and dad would pester me about getting mud and dirt on my clothes.
Another thing about her was that she was always eating. Always.
Whenever we went outside, she always had a bag, or pockets stuffed with something, and she’d almost always be snacking on some of it. She’d share, if I pestered her enough. But I didn’t much, because it took a lot of pestering sometimes.
It was probably what gave her that constant energy too. She was always zipping around, running at full tilt whenever she wasn’t eating, and jogging when she was. Made wrestling with her a hard thing too, but I was always bigger than her, and thusly that much stronger.
Of course, when we were both around eleven or so, Tarla started hitting puberty and that stopped being the case. Pretty soon she was near a head taller than me and was absolutely insufferable for it. 
I told her she was cheating because girls hit puberty before boys do, because I’d read that somewhere, and that I’d be bigger than her soon anyway. Dad was kind of even size with mum at 5’6 or so, and that was bigger than her at the time.
We’d still get up to mischief. And we still got into fights. Which she ended up winning now because she was bigger. 
I always swore up and down that I’d get her back one day, because I nearly could sometimes, but then I couldn’t because Tarla’s mum found out and told Tarla in no uncertain terms she wasn’t allowed to wrestle with me any more. 
Then, Tarla moved away. Sent off to a prestigious Boarding school, same as me. The local college wasn’t very good back then, and mum and dad wanted a good education for me.
All of a sudden, my life was full of books and fine dressing, elocution and learning how to ‘be careful’ and ‘take care of yourself’. And there was no more time for tree climbing. No more wrestling matches and getting my clothes dirty.  
My parents were ~5’6. I only managed 5’3, despite my best efforts to grow more. Eating extra only made me soft around the midsection, and exercise just made me thin and tired.
Girls, were a subject my school avoided like the plague for nearly four full years, before the staff finally deigned to bring in a speaker that taught us tips and tricks on how to stay safe around, and dealing with, women.
We weren’t stupid. We had a sister school. We knew girls were bigger and stronger than boys, so why the teachers took so long is a mystery.
Still, it let me once again sorta-wrestle. But this time, it was with my classmates, and it was so methodical and contrived, because we had to learn the proper self-defense moves, and do so safely, that it really wasn’t anything like it.
But, I suppose it helped a little bit, as I left college and went to university. It taught me how to safely turn away women, when to avoid going out alone, and how to act if I did get cornered, which fortunately never happened. 
It taught me my physical limits, and all the little tips and tricks I could do to get around those, or how to treat myself whenever I pushed them.
Clubs were one such case where I often needed to do so. I liked sporty clubs, to some people’s surprise, but sporty clubs didn’t much like me.
As a mascot, or a bench warmer perhaps. But not as a competitor. 
I stayed safe, and always tried my hardest, but you can’t escape biology, and I had no illusions about my stature. No one liked to be paired up with, or against, a person who was smaller, weaker. Who was quickly exhausted, and got hurt so easily one needed to be careful with him.
It was my third year, at a Taekwondo tournament when I ran into Tarla again.
I watched her break boards, thick boards, with her fists. Watched her backflip around the mat, taking lightning fast blows that thudded into her, and dishing them out even faster and harder.
I watched her claw her way to a podium position for four hours, and didn’t even recognize her. Not until she recognized me, and I thought back to all the girls I know with long black hair who know my name.
She was massive, this great bear of a woman. Tall even for a girl and built stocky, powerful. A veritable mountain of a woman that I had a hard time reconciling as the easily teased girl I’d once been able to look over. 
Fortunately for me, her constant energy seemed… managed. Otherwise, that first sweaty hug might have crushed me.
She’d changed, for sure. Matured, grown up, in ways that made the heart skip a beat, even some hours after she’d gotten changed, and we’d left the venue to find a place to catch up.
Old memories and friendship quickly overcame the new shock of her, with the help of food and drink however, and pretty soon one night turned into two, into three, as we talked about where we’d been, and what we’d been up to in each others’ absence.
While life and boarding school had steered me away from fighting, Tarla had apparently leaned quite heavily into martial arts as a hobby, and a passion. Taekwondo, but also boxing, fencing, even some actual, proper wrestling.
Of course, as always, I told her I’d still beat her in a fight. To which she responded with sarcasm, and goading. 
I doubled down, telling her I totally would. Just like I always did, back when we were children.
Boast followed boast. Challenge followed challenge. Dare met dare. One thing came to another, and we found ourselves back in the same gym room she’d competed in a few nights ago.
She didn’t even bother to try to close with me. She just stood there, smiling. Waiting as I approached her, thoughts of my physical limits and her sheer size threatening to make me stop.
I tried. I really did. I grabbed and thrashed myself around, hard as I could to try unbalance her for a good solid minute. I even tried some of the self defense holds and throws I’d been taught. All I managed to do was make her adjust her footing once, half so she didn’t topple into me. 
It was like wrestling with a solid tree trunk, but one made of muscle, fat and bone.
She didn’t retaliate. Didn’t do anything. Just let me tire myself out on her and then, slowly, inexorably, walked me backward. 
I tried to stop her. To resist. To pull at her arms, or dig my heels in. But my legs crumpled, and I had to support myself on her, as much as I tried to keep her away.
Then, my back hit the wall, and there was nowhere left to go.
I remember my heart hammering, emotional turmoil giving me strength as she pinned my body with hers. But only enough to shift her heavy arms, when she held them up loose for me.
She let me push and pull at her for a few more moments, before her left hand, which I’d been gripping with my right, gently closed around mine like a vice. I tried to pull it out, get it free, but our fingers were interlocked, as she slowly, tenderly, with all the inevitability of a hydraulic press, pushed it against the wall, and dragged it above my head.
She took my left arm by the wrist, while I was distracted with my right, and pushed it with the same inflexible, agonising slow certainty, back on the wall too.
I tried to wriggle, to shake, but I gave up. My body was exhausted, muscles strained. But my heart was hammering. Hammering harder and faster than I thought it could, as I struggled for an even breath.
My ears were full of rushing blood and deaf to the world. My head was spinning, spinning. I felt dizzy and sick and faint, and were it not for Tarla holding me up, I might well have collapsed as the hazy, swimming vision of Tarla’s smiling face came closer to mine.
Then, a surge of electric passion that shorted everything else out.
Then, her lips pulled away from mine.
I made a noise that I was sure she’d tease me over. But she just made a noise in her throat and said it was cute. That she liked that noise I made. That she wanted to make me make it again.
That was my first kiss. It was also my first time.
Tarla proposed to me four years later. We’re getting married next week. And every time I see her, every time I hold her hand. See that smile, that daring look in her eyes, my heart beats just the same as it did that first time.