Pauline was an excellent swimmer. I knew it from the moment I met her, because she moved with the grace of one whose body had conquered both water and land. But I was still delightfully surprised when I saw her in action.

She and her family had been with us for four days. We had played tennis, the piano, and another game I wasn’t quite sure I understood. All I knew was that she was brilliant, and beautiful, and that I often wondered how her body would feel beneath my hands. Such thoughts I was having now, as I watched her glide through the water, pale skin glistening under the sun. Summer had come early this year, and I was grateful for it.

“Pauline,” I called, for no other reason but to taste her name on my tongue.

She looked up at me and smiled. I didn’t have to ask her to walk with me, as she had so boldly asked that first night. Pauline didn’t wait to be asked. She climbed out of the water, wet hair dripping onto her shoulders, across her neck, down her back… My eyes followed the drops of water until they disappeared between her thighs, and I felt heat rise to my cheeks. She caught my gaze and held it.

“Will you show me your room?” she asked.

My heart would have leaped out of my chest. It was like will you walk with me?, but it was so much more. It was the same boldness, but a different request. I opened my mouth to speak, but for the first time since I was a girl words failed me.

“That’s okay,” she shrugged, taking my nervousness for rejection. She tried to smile, but it did not quite reach her eyes.

And that was my undoing: those two words, her charming Americanisms, the way her shoulders rose and fell when she shrugged, her attempt at indifference, and her obvious disappointment… I reached out and held her hand gently in mine.

“I will show you my room, Pauline,” I said, “and I will show you so much more.”

We met in front of my room that same day after luncheon. She wore a blue dress – blue like the sky, like her eyes. I was dizzy with glee, frantic with excitement. She smiled at me as I opened the door to my room and showed her in, as if this were my home, my secret lair, a secret I would only ever share with her.

She did not pretend to look around. She did not compliment my carpet or bed sheets. Her father was too rich for her to notice these things. Or was it because of the air between us, and how it went hot and heavy the moment I closed the door?

She smoothed her dress and sat down on my bed. I stood with my back pressed against the door, chest heaving. Pauline was waiting, I realised. Waiting for me, because it was my turn, because will you walk with me and will you how me your room had been her questions.

I was sick of questions, but fortunately only one more remained. And it was my turn to ask.

I pushed myself off the door and locked it. When I looked back at Pauline, she was breathless. I walked towards her slowly, tentatively, until I was standing right in front of her, and I touched her cheek with the tips of my fingers.

“I’ve locked the door,” I said. It was my question, although it was not truly a question.

“I know,” she said. It was her answer, and suddenly my hands burned from not touching her and my eyes ached from not seeing her, and I sat down beside her and kissed her.

Her lips. Soft. Her breath. Sweet. Her hands, on my waist, on my back, on my chest, and the kiss deepened, and my hands were on her as well, squeezing and caressing and then fumbling with her dress.

“Wait,” she whispered against my lips.

She stood up and unfastened the back of her dress. She let it slip off her shoulders, and then fall to the ground. I bit my lip as she finished undressing herself, peeling each item of clothing off her body languidly, until she was naked, and I was shaking, heat pooling between my legs.

I cupped her breasts, felt their weight in my palms, saw them harden. She bit her lower lip. I kissed the tip of each breast, relishing the smoothness of her skin, the way it tickled my mouth. Then I caught the tender flesh between my lips and gently pulled on it. She gasped. I sucked on it, and her hands slid into my hair. I felt her undoing my bun, and soon my hair hung loose past my shoulders.

“Look at me,” she breathed. I did.

Her eyes were dark with lust. She ran her fingers through my hair and said, “Oh, you’re beautiful…”
I stood up then and undressed. She was watching, just as I had watched her before. Entirely naked, we fell into each other’s arms. There was no shame between us; this was how we were meant to be, skin against skin, mouth against mouth. We tumbled onto the bed, still kissing. Her tongue was as soft as the rest of her, soft and yet demanding, insisting, claiming: “taste me”, it said, “taste me and let me taste you”.

I rolled us to the side so that she was lying on her back. Her hair fell into her eyes, and she brushed it away with the back of her hand – such a carefree gesture, as if all of this were as easy to her as breathing, as existing. I loved her for it. I loved her with a passion so ardent that I lost my senses. I left a trail of frantic kisses on her neck, her chest, down her belly, until I was between her legs, and she spread them for me.

The sight of her, the scent of her, the eagerness with which she drew her thighs apart… I grabbed her hips and lowered my head until I could lick her, just once, with the tip of my tongue. She shivered. I did it again, and this time she moaned.

“Honoria,” she moaned. My name had never sounded so lovely in a man’s mouth. I wished she would say it again, and again.

I slid my tongue down, and then up, and then down again, and up once more. She threw her head back against the pillow, her breasts shaking with the movement. I pushed my tongue inside her as much as I could, shuddering at the sounds she made. With slow circular motions, I tasted her warmth. She was trying not to move her hips along with me, but after a while she gave in to the impulse and I let her follow my tongue, going faster and slower as I wished.

I slid a little higher and teased her nub with my lips, brushing them over it lightly. She looked down at me, a smile on her perfect lips. “Honoria,” she moaned again, “don’t be a tease.”

I smiled back, but I couldn’t resist her. Finding her nub once more, I took it between my lips and sucked on it. Her entire body jolted with pleasure, and I could feel the pearl of flesh throb in my mouth. I slid my hand between my own legs and rubbed myself, each stroke of my tongue paired with a stroke of my palm pressing against my own burning core. I could not stop, could not think, could do nothing but lick and suck and rub.

“Oh yes!” I heard her cry, and it nearly drove me over the edge. I had never been this feverish with desire before, so desperate to find release. I looked up for a second, just to see her naked shoulders rise and fall, her breasts quiver, her stomach shake, all slick with sweat. I squeezed her breast with my free hand and lowered my head once more, but she reached over and pulled me up, shaking her head.

“I want to feel you against me,” she muttered, “I want to feel how wet you are.”

I might have blushed at her brazen words, but I was beyond that. My body had taken over and without thinking I straddled her thigh. Her eyes met mine as I positioned myself just above her. There was something about her that was wild and delicate all at once, and it challenged me now, right now as I lowered myself onto her, and when our skin touched it was as if I finally understood it. I moved my hips slowly at first, but that wildness in her was in me as well, and it took over. I spread my legs wider and crushed my nub against hers, rubbing myself against her rapidly, almost violently. She moved her hips as well, and soon we found a rhythm – we pushed and shifted and twisted and rubbed together, up down up down down up circular up circular down…

Her skin was hot and wet, her folds brushing mine, then crushing, then pressing, and I knew it was close now, so I said her name, her beautiful, beautiful name, “Pauline!”

She cried out in pleasure, and for a moment I was almost surprised that she had reached her climax before me. But then there was the look of bliss on her face, her arched eyebrows, her half-open mouth, the shudder that went through her body… and I was found release as well.

Exhausted and deliriously happy, I let myself fall onto her, arms around her, our breasts pressing against each other, and I kissed her. She held my face in her hands and kissed me back, whispering my name over and over.

We fell asleep in each other arms. When we woke up, it was late afternoon. She was leaving in two days.

“I wish you could stay,” I said to her as she slipped back into her blue dress.

She turned to look at me, but our eyes never met. “If I stayed, you wouldn’t know what to do with me.”

“What absolute rot, Pauline.”

She placed a kiss on my cheek. “Just remember to show me your room every time I visit.”

I took her hand in mine. “My room – and so much more.”