Diving, he swam underwater until he touched her ankles. Breaking water, “Hi!” he said, but, because he still had a partial erection, remaining on his knees, looking at her, slowly moving his hands upward until they were on the backside of her upper, so smooth, still warm thighs.

“Mitchie, your hands are so cold!”

Placing her hands on either side of his face, urging him upward and onto his feet, “Here,” taking his right hand, she moved his arm about her bare waist, then, putting her arm about his waist, “I feel safer if you hold me this way.”

The feel of his flesh was wet and cool; hers warm and dry, and if anything had deflated by Mitchell’s plunge in the water, it was now, once again, fully inflated, and…

As they walked, trying not to be obvious, looking down and to the left, Elsa easily saw the cylindrical form of Mitchell’s penis straining against the material of his bathing suit… And the tips of her fingers involuntarily pushed a bit harder onto the flesh of his side.

Elsa and Mitchell walked until her breasts appeared to float and the water was inches above his navel.

The two stood looking at the gently breaking, endless ocean… Until, stepping in front of her, tasting the salt taste of Elsa’s flesh, he kissed her forehead, and she, putting both arms about his waist pulled him to her chest.

Her head beneath his chin, Mitchell smelled the salt tang of the young woman’s hair that mixed with the floral odor of her cologne, and now, feeling Elsa’s all-but-bare flesh against his bare flesh, Mitchell suddenly realized just how lonely he’d been and how long it had been since he had held a girl this closely, practically naked, chest to chest, heart to heart…

And for the first time in… how many days? For the first time in… how many weeks? Months? He did not know how long it had been since… Susan came to mind and Mitchell felt a swelling in his throat and a burning behind his eyes and he shuddered as an involuntary, quiet sob broke from deep within.

The side of her face pressed against his chest, Elsa felt the hair of his chest upon her cheek, and unknown to him, obeying a compulsion, stretching her tongue, she licked Mitchell’s copper-colored nipple… And the taste of the saltwater that beaded his chest was as an aphrodisiac and she moved her arms to below his waist, to about his buttocks and squeezed tightly and, feeling the hardness of his penis pressing onto her, Elsa, too, shuddered, and had an urge that she was afraid to have.

Elsa Schmidt had been proud of her overdeveloped breasts since they’d first become noticeable, when she was eleven, and since then had known that boys found her attractive.

It was only in the last year, though, at the start of her second year in high school, that she had let one boy unbutton her blouse, unhook her brassiere, look at, touch, kiss, and suckle her breasts… And Elsa Schmidt discovered that she enjoyed being looked at, touched, kissed and suckled.

But even so, it took another two months of that same boy’s coaxing…

“Touch me ‘there’ naked, Elsa! Please let me take it out!”

And promising…

“We won’t go no further! I promise, Elsa! We won’t!”

“No, Wayne!”

“Please, Elsa, let me take it out! It starts to hurt when you rub it through my pants that way.”

“Well, then”—although, really, she liked feeling it—“I won’t rub it any way, then!”

“No, don’t stop! It hurts more if you don’t rub it.

Elsa also liked knowing that she had the power to make Wayne come in his pants anytime she wanted to.

“Ain’t you never heard’a blue balls, baby? Look, baby, I won’t go no further! I promise you! No further!”

“Wayne, I said no!”

Then, on their very next date, “Okay, then, Let’s go steady, Elsa! You wanna go steady, don’t’ch’ya, baby?”

“Well…” Most of her girlfriends were going steady, so, “Yeah, okay.”

Then, because going steady moved a boy and girl to the next plane of their sexual relationship, she allowed Wayne to unzip his pants.

Soon all of their dates became petting sessions with her masturbating him and him masturbating her… by using a finger or the palm of his hand—under her slacks or dress—but always over her panties and, though she truly loved being masturbated, and holding him naked excited her and it never took very long for her to orgasm, too. But because she flatly refused to allow him to touch her “there” directly, within another date or two Elsa did allow and discovered that she enjoyed “dry humping” with—because she was afraid of pregnancy, and also did not like getting the crotch of her panties all wet with that sticky stuff, Elsa would allow Wayne to dry hump her—with his prophylactic-encased penis held firmly between the juncture of her thighs and pubis, over her panties, but…

“Come on, Elsa! Do it! Le’me put it in! Come on, Elsa!”

Unless ill, Elsa Schmidt went to church with her parents every Sunday, and though she had never heard a sermon denouncing dry humping, she had listened—more often than she had cared to—to sermon after sermon denouncing, among other things, “The evils of fornication!”

Because of her fear of God and out of respect for her parents, Elsa Schmidt refused to go all the way.

Because of the pressure Wayne put upon Elsa, and her refusal—though weakening resolve—to go all the way, at Elsa’s instance, the two had broken up at the end of the past school year.

Now, Elsa was completely taken with Mitchell’s looks, personality, and seeming total lack of egotism. In comparison to all the other boys she had ever known, in her estimation, Mitchell, at the age of nineteen, was the first “man” she had ever, in a male/female sense, personally known.

When he’d unexpectedly kissed her, she had been shocked, but what had shocked her more—more than returning the passionate kiss of this young man that she had met no more than two hours ago—was her volatile internal response, because the touch of his tongue had triggered a flow of heat that thrilled and frightened her at the same time, and caused Elsa to realize—not that she remotely missed Wayne—just how much she did miss being touched, and touching. So then wondered, with the premonition of losing the battle to retain her virginity, How will I feel when—because she knew he would—he touches me there? And, How will it feel when—because she was rather sure she would—uh, if, I touch him there? He is not a kid! He’s a man and he’s also a sailor, and if that’s not enough, he’s gotta look like some kind of’a movie star, too! Elsa also wondered, Maybe I shouldn’t’a told him I was eighteen. Maybe I should’a told him I’m really seventeen… Well, seventeen on my next birthday.

In order for their lips to make contact, at 5'5", normally Elsa would have had to stretch upward and Mitchell would either have had to stoop or bend his neck. But in salt water Elsa was near weightless so, putting his hands under her armpits, sensing the heat of her body in this tight, close contact, even through the water, lifting Elsa to his level, they kissed…

Intensified by the luxurious warmth of the gently eddying ocean, a spontaneous flame of passion transmitted from mouth to mouth, from brain to brain, from genitalia to…

“Whew!” She looked at him. “Where in the world did you ever learn to kiss like that!?”

Catching his own breath, feigning hurt feelings, “Sorry. Did I do something wrong?”

“Yeah,” Tightening her arm-hold about his neck, “you sure did! Rubbing her lips over his, “Do something wrong again, will you!” Entwining her fingers in his hair, she moved his face to hers.

There was a man and woman to the left and two young boys to the right, but, with no one before them…

As they kissed, leaving his left arm around her waist, stretching his right arm about the back of her knees, scooping Elsa off her feet, cradling her in his arms, Mitchell walked beyond the man and woman and boys and continued to walk outward until the water reached the lower level of his chest. Facing outward, supporting the weight of Elsa’s buoyant body with his left arm, he moved his right hand to her stomach, then, their lips still together, up to and onto the top of her bathing suit.

Taking a moment to realize that Mitchell was holding her breast, “Mitchell,” Really, she did not want to stop him, but, “really, I just met you!” Removing his hand, twisting out of his arms, the water coming to just below her chin, she stood on tiptoes on the sandy bottom.

“Elsa,” surprise showing on his face, “I thought you said you were afraid of the water?”

“Yeah, well, don’t believe everything a girl tells you.”

Surface diving, she swam about twenty feet and, treading water, waited for Mitchell to join her.

“You swim, too!” he said good-naturedly. “You lied to me!”

“Yeah, sometimes I’ve been known to do that… Race you back!”

Though a fairly strong swimmer, he could not catch her.

                                                     **** 

Elsa’s picnic basket contained ham and cheese, and bologna and cheese sandwiches, Oreo cookies, a banana, an apple, and a Thermos of cherry Kool-Aid, all of which she shared with Mitchell.

Speaking between bites of the ham and cheese sandwich, “You busy tonight?”

“Yeah,” she’d been waiting for him to ask. “If you call sitting around playing Monopoly with my folks busy.”

Taking another bite, “Have you seen From Here to Eternity?” washing it down with Kool-Aid.

She had, but, “I wanted to, but missed it when it came around.”

“Well, I was planning on Chinese for dinner, then going to see it, so if you want to… Or if you don’t like Chinese we can…”

“No! I love Chinese food.”

“Great! So we got a date?”