A Rainy Evening

She tried to teach me to say her Chinese name. My third attempt drew a smile, but I couldn't tell if I'd succeeded or if she'd just given up. It was probably hopeless; I could only hear about half of what she was saying. The pub was noisy and I hadn't quite tuned in to her accent, which was part British and part something more exotic. I was staring into her eyes. I found, alarmingly, that I was unable to do otherwise. They sparkled so intensely with vitality and intelligence that I couldn't look away, couldn't concentrate. But I had a train to catch. I tried to check my watch discreetly.

"When do you have to go?" she asked.

I winced. Not discreetly enough, apparently. "In a few minutes."

She made a disappointed sigh.

I smiled automatically. And then what had happened struck me so forcibly I couldn't speak for a moment. Her sigh had been completely unaffected. She really wanted to spend more time with me, and she wasn't playing games. Perhaps she didn't know any better.

"Is there a later train?"

I said: "I think the last one is at 11:15."

She brightened, and we fell back into the bantering conversation we'd begun as soon as we'd met that evening. We compared poets (she was studying English literature) and discovered that the ones we liked were all different, but the ones we didn't like were all the same. I commiserated with her about the English weather; but she said she rather enjoyed it, and always wore flip-flops when it rained. She told me about her scholarship, substantial, but onerous in its terms. It laid out her life for the next eight years. I shivered, thinking of that. But she seemed at peace with the idea. And she spoke of her first term at college, which had just ended. It had been a success academically, but lonely.

I asked as delicately as I could about her ethnicity.

"Chinese, almost completely Chinese," she said. "My face is round, isn't it?"

"But you have cheekbones." And I brushed a finger along the side of her face. She didn't react, at least not in any obvious way. But something in her posture softened. She seemed to bend towards me, move fractionally nearer, and her voice dropped to an almost-whisper, so that I had to lean closer myself to hear her.

Yes, her face was round. I hadn't really noticed earlier because her eyes had captured me so completely. Her skin was flawless, and there was a purity to her lips that gave her expression the definiteness and clarity of a Renaissance portrait. Her smile, when I could elicit it, was like a burst of sunlight.

I listened to her, not hearing all that she was saying with the background noise swallowing so many of her words, but feeling the music in her voice. And then everything started to change. It had been a casual thing for me, inviting her to dinner, something to do on a free evening, a chance to meet someone in person who had seemed interesting and smart online. But I couldn't look into her eyes now without wondering what she was thinking, without wondering what I could say to make her smile again.

"I'm actually very painfully shy. I know that sounds illogical."

Her smiled lingered this time, bright and warm.

"No," she said, "I can believe that."

We looked at each other, and she asked: "Shall we go somewhere else? I'd like a change of scene."

I've never quite understood pub crawling. But I shrugged. "Sure."

I paid the bill, always harder than you'd think in an unfamiliar country, and we stepped outside.

"I need to find an ATM," she said.

"Why?"

"To pay for my half of the dinner, and I'll need to get a taxi back."

"Don't be ridiculous. I invited you. And I'll walk you back." The night was dreary, rain on and off. I certainly wasn't going to send her home by herself.

We started walking. There didn't seem to be much going on in the direction we were headed. There were a few small restaurants clustered around the station, then bleak administrative-looking business fronts. We walked past another pub – quite a charming place with little statues of pigs on the roof. She didn't suggest that we stop.

She wore a blue sweater over a green dress, very low-cut, despite the chilly evening. Before I'd met her, she'd told me that she wasn't the typical slender Asian girl, and that was true. Nor was she tall, but she was truly voluptuous, and her body moved with a sort of careless languor that made me stumble repeatedly over what I was saying.

"Have you met up with other guys you've corresponded with on the internet?"

"No, you're the first. Congratulations."

I bowed modestly. But I thought it was brave of her, to let me know that.

We talked and didn't pay attention to where we were walking. After a few blocks she seemed at a loss. She knew the name of the street we should turn on, but not where it was. She was shy about asking passers-by. I wasn't – one small advantage of being from out of town. We found a helpful couple, and a few minutes later we stood in front of a medieval wooden door, the kind you'd expect to be winched open with cast-iron chains. But she produced a very ordinary-looking key, and we stepped into a hushed courtyard.

"This is my college. Please don't walk on the grass."

I did know that much about British universities. But not much more. No one was around. I could hear muffled sounds of revelry coming from somewhere in the distance, but the quad was dead. Perhaps all the other students had already packed up and headed home for the term break.

"Look over here." She indicated a recess in a wall. "I like this carving. I'm not sure what it is, though."

It was a small, deep-relief panel, very old, worn and exquisitely medieval. A demon fighting for the soul of a pilgrim. My heart stopped beating for a moment. The scene still had power to daunt sinners, even after six hundred years.

A minute later I was following her into a squat brick building and up the stairs. I had a brief concern about a possible roommate. She reassured me.

"I have a single. I couldn't really see living with someone else here."

The building was old, ancient, really. And the size of her room made me think about the smaller stature of the Elizabethans. The amount of stuff scattered around didn't help. There was a mullioned window at the far end with a desk underneath it. A single bed took up most of the long wall adjacent to the door.

She obviously wasn't expecting a guest. She apologized for the mess, and I shrugged. It didn't matter. I noticed her keyboard and asked if she would play for me.

"What would you like to hear?"

I had no idea what her repertoire might include. "Do you know any Mozart?" I asked.

She struggled for a minute with a sonata I didn't quite recognize.

"Choose something you like," I suggested.

She played what she told me was a popular Chinese song and, to my surprise, began to sing it as well. Her voice had a soulfulness that I wasn't expecting. And she sang with a passion and self-possession I hadn't seen in her before. She was forcing me to re-imagine her every few minutes. It occurred to me that being caught off-guard so often explained my lack of calculation. I wasn't considering what was happening. I was in a young woman's room, alone with her in a space that contained a bed and little else. I wasn't thinking about where this was all headed. I looked around the room again, trying to discover more about her; but it wasn't any help -- she'd only been there for a couple of months, and her stuff was indistinguishable from any other student's. I only had the woman herself to learn from.

She finished her song and smiled at me. Her smiles were coming more often now. I began to catalogue them to myself. The benevolent one, tolerant of my awkwardness and my memory lapses; the wicked one, like fire striking glass, gone so quickly I was never sure I'd really seen it; the merry smile that lingered when she spoke of home or of someone she liked; and, rarest of them, her smile of calm affection that made me feel privileged every time she bestowed it on me.

She was relaxed and happy now. She showed me her facebook page. I browsed a few of the photos – mostly taken with friends at banquets or during evenings out – and then we sat down on her bed. It was a twin, and it seemed absurdly small with both of us on it. But we still managed to sit a little apart.

The last train for the evening was leaving in a few minutes, I explained apologetically, but she just smiled.

"Do you have to go back tonight?"

I kept my face from showing my surprise. "No, I suppose not. My flight home isn't until noon tomorrow."

Neither of us said anything for a moment. But I must have looked uncomfortable.

"Don't worry," she said. "I won't threaten your chastity."

I patted her hand with a sense of relief. "Good," I said, meaning it.

She stood up. "I'm going to brush my teeth. Could you turn around please?"

I was confused for a moment, then I saw that she was about to change clothes as well.

"Oh, sorry."

A few minutes later she was wearing jeans and a loose top. We pulled the bed away from the wall to make it a bit more spacious. But it was going to be intimate nonetheless.

Now it was my turn. "One thing I'm not is modest," I said.

I began to take my clothes off as matter-of-factly as I could manage. But when she stared at me and then looked away quickly, I knew my nakedness shifted things, made me paradoxically more in control of what happened next.

By the time I was down to my shorts, my excitement was unmistakable. I didn't attempt to conceal it. Neither of us said anything. We squirmed around almost comically, squeezing in to the too-small bed and pulling the covers up. She was still wearing pants. I couldn't imagine that she was comfortable in them.

"You're not going to sleep in your jeans, are you?"

She didn't answer, and I started to unbutton them and pull them off. She was wearing the tiniest pair of panties I'd ever seen, just a triangle of fabric the size of a cocktail napkin with some threads that stretched around her hips. Nothing about this girl was what I expected. And then she was pressed against me, our thighs touching. Her skin was so smooth that I felt light-headed. I put my hand on the back of her leg and slid it up until I could feel her butt. I heard the breath catch in her throat. I pulled her closer, not thinking, just reacting to the nearness of her body. She didn't resist. I found her lips with mine, and suddenly her arms were around me, her lips apart, and she was eager and so excited that I struggled to keep up with her. Her mouth was dizzyingly soft and so warm and I was lost in it now, not sure which one of us was deciding what should happen next, realizing that neither of us knew.

I pulled away after a minute to catch my breath. The look in her eyes was half wild and half terrified. The blood was hammering in my head. Her chest moved up and down, swelling with each deep indrawn breath, drawing my attention to the fullness of her breasts. My hands moved by themselves. I pulled down one strap of her bra – dark blue and modest. One brown nipple came free, the aureole large and starting to pucker. I leaned down to suck on it and it began to stiffen between my lips.

"

Harder

," she whispered.

I pulled the firm flesh into my mouth, slid my lips along it, swirled my tongue across its tip. I felt her body respond below me, her hips bucking up. Her hand went to the back of my head, but I pulled away for a moment and reached behind her to undo the bra. Then I was looking down at her, her breasts large, perfect hemispheres mounded on her chest. The nipples were fully erect now, the aureoles shrunk, small pimples at the edge where they met the smooth tawny skin of her chest.

"You look amazingly beautiful like that," I said.

"That sounds so cheesy."

I sighed. "It happens to be true."

Her eyes turned serious. "I'm a virgin."

"You're joking," I said, automatically. But, when I thought about it, I wasn't that surprised. Oldest daughter of a religious Chinese family. Sheltered upbringing.

But she was away from home now.

"Did you bring a condom?" she asked.

I certainly hadn't been expecting to find myself in this position. "No."

"Damn you." But she followed that with a wicked giggle.

"I had a vasectomy."

"Really?"

"Really." There was no reason for her to believe me, although that happened to be true as well. "We don't have to do anything you're uncomfortable about. Let's start with this …"

And I reached for the strings at the sides of her thong and tugged them down. She was naked in a moment. She wasn't startled or suddenly shy or reluctant. She just lay still and let me run my hands over her meltingly soft skin. My fingers slid gradually from her breasts down to her thighs. Then I pushed her legs gently apart.

The room was dark; deep shadows nestled between her breasts, and the space at the juncture of her thighs was velvet blackness. Stray bits of light caught the sheen of moisture along her pussy lips. The sharp tang of her excitement set my nerves afire.

I crawled between her legs, moving slowly so I wouldn't frighten her. But she knew what was about to happen. She lifted her knees slightly, and I heard her draw in a long breath. I leaned my face down until I was close enough to her to sense the texture of her skin, to find where her folds turned inwards. I kissed her inner thigh, savoring its youthful resilience. Then I swept my tongue along one lip, licking up its film of wetness. I felt her shiver. I licked harder, moving from one lip to the other, searching for the sensitive spot near where they came together.

Her hips began to move, first a sudden buck, then a more regular rotation against my tongue. More of her liquid began to seep from inside her, and I pushed my tongue deeper. Her recesses welcomed me, drawing me in. I covered her pussy with my mouth and thrust my tongue in as deeply as it would go. Her breathing turned hoarse, but I could sense that she wasn't completely comfortable. I looked up, past the smooth expanse of tummy and between the twin rises of her breasts, to her face. Her eyes were closed and she looked serene, composed.

"I want to make you feel good," I said. "Tell me what you like."

She hesitated. "Lighter. Go … like around in circles."

"Here?"

"No, a little higher … yes,

there

. Faster … no, not so hard."

I did my best, swirling my tongue quickly and as gently as I could manage. I moved my mouth fractionally higher, trying to find the right spot, the right rhythm. I loved how her body moved beneath my lips, her hips grinding, her pussy steaming hot. Then, just as my tongue was tiring and I was afraid I couldn't keep going, she thrust her body hard at me, a long wail coming from deep in her throat. She grabbed the sides of my head, pulling at my hair while she squirmed and quivered and pitched and I tasted her moisture, fresh and hot, flowing out of her.

I waited, lapping gently at her pussy, savoring its quick spasms as her hands went limp and her body settled back into the bed.

It was another minute before she'd caught her breath. "I want to suck you," she said.

I sat up stupidly. I wanted say that it had been years since a woman had done that to me, so long that I could barely remember what it felt like; but I couldn't quite. I just got onto my knees and tried to present my straining, blood-thickened cock to her where she could reach it. She put her mouth around the tip softly. She didn't wait for instructions; she just started moving her lips over the head, then deeper down the shaft.

"Is that okay?"

"

Yes

," I said. I could barely speak; my rasping breath confirming my sincerity. "Try licking it. Run your tongue along the underside."

She did, starting with a long sweep around the ridge then engulfing last few inches again. It was little tentative at first. Then, gradually, it turned passionate, wicked, joyful. A minute went by, perhaps two. And then she sat up and we looked at each other. Neither of us spoke. I took her shoulders with my hands, and before I could apply any pressure, she lay down on her back. Her eyes held that mixture of excitement and fear I'd seen earlier, when her clothes had first come off. Her look aroused completely contradictory feelings in me. What did she really want? What should I do? I was utterly overcome with lust, had been since I first touched her. But I couldn't bear the thought that I was moving too fast for her, that she'd regret any of this come morning.

I looked down at her again for a long moment. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes clear and warm, ready. And she gave me a new smile, trusting and calm. That's what told me, more honestly and completely than anything she could say.

I positioned myself between her legs, my weight on my elbows. There were no more preliminaries. I reached between us and put the tip of my cock in the warm spot between her pussy lips. I just held it there against the immense, irresistible need to drive it deeply into her, to take her completely. I couldn't, not yet. This was her first experience; I wanted her to remember it, to remember me, the excitement and the surprises and the awkwardness – I wanted all of it to be as magical as I could make it.

I pushed the tip down, just a little. I was positioned correctly, and her lips parted slightly, moist and inviting. Her breathing became more rapid, her body tensed. I pushed. I felt resistance, skin not used to stretching, her flesh protective of her virginity. I pulled back out, took a deep breath.

"You okay?" I asked.

She nodded.

This was it. Perspiration shone on our chests. Heat steamed from the place where our bodies joined. I pushed a little harder, pulled out. A little harder again. The head of my cock was all the way in now, the walls of her pussy gripping it tightly. My eyes were glazed with lust. My arms quivered; I could barely hold myself up. I felt her hard nipples scraping against my chest. I slid out, waited a moment, then in again. Every stroke went in just a little deeper. I waited for the resistance, the barrier, the tearing. But nothing felt different. I moved slowly, almost gritting my teeth against the need to tear her apart. She made a long sigh. Her fingers gripped my arms. I pulled out, then back in again. And then I was all the way inside her.

I stayed like that, both of us breathing so hard I was afraid one of us might pass out. My hips touched hers; my chest mashed her exquisite breasts flat against her chest. Where our skin touched, the heat was almost unbearable. I began to move again, keeping my strokes smooth and slow, relishing the moment when we drew apart, the tip of my cock just nestled between her lips, the anticipation, then the sweet convergence and our bodies meeting, hotter than ever.

Her sounds became hoarser, almost a continuous cry. I wrapped my arms around her and reached beneath her, grabbed one buttock and dug my fingers in.

She almost screamed: "Yes! Like that!"

I'd never heard a woman say that before, never had a woman react to me that way. I lost the thread then; the next few minutes flowing together like melting honey. My flesh slapped against hers, wet, slippery sounds, high-pitched groans from her, from me.

"I want to try it from behind," she said. I was lying across her chest, feeling her heart beat hard and fast beneath me. She was playful now, wanton, eyes bright with excitement.

"Of course," I said.

She was surprised and a little embarrassed at the position she had to assume, more bent at the waist than she'd expected, her face down in the bedcovers. My eyes had adjusted by then, and I could see her pussy perfectly exposed, smooth lips swollen, lined with beads of moisture, the dark interior beckoning. I slid back inside her, looking down at the shaft disappearing between those smooth, plump cheeks. I began to pound into her, the flesh of her butt shaking with each impact of my hips. I reached beneath her, feeling for those delicious breasts. My hands kneaded them, a little roughly, but she whispered a hoarse "

yes

" and started to push back against me, matching my rhythm.