I Have Touched Love

Dearest readers

Here's a short sequel to '

I have seen love

'. All characters are over 18, as was made clear in the earlier chapter.

Many thanks to Mykymyk2 for editing.

Happy reading!

T x

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There was a soft knock on my door then, before I could move from my bed, it cracked open.

"Ramona? Can I come in?" I couldn't see her, but from her accent, much softened now after 18 months in England, I knew who it was. Dora.

"Yeah, of course."

It was technically after curfew, and we were meant to be in our own rooms, but Mrs Ackehurst the housemistress had already done her rounds and she cut us upper sixth girls plenty of slack, especially on Saturday nights after the bar had closed.

She edged in, closing the door carefully and sat on the bottom of my bed.

I sat up, pulling my knees to my chest.

We had sat together like this together a hundred times before, almost every day for the past year and half actually, sometimes with others squeezed into my single study bedroom with its narrow single bed and basin by the desk. But somehow, tonight it felt different.

Exciting. Transitory. A phase state.

The lights from outside came through the thin curtain, catching her grin. I smiled back.

We hadn't stopped smiling at each other all evening after slipping out of Fran and Tara's sitting room. With other classmates and teachers milling around us at the bar and back in the boarding house we hadn't been able to speak about what we had seen, even though I felt sometimes that the joy of it would burst from me. But every few minutes my fellow witness Dora's eyes would meet mine, we would share a smile, beaming at each other, and I would feel that well of happiness rising up in me once more, remembering the heat of her hand in mine as we watched love together.

"So..." we both said at once.

We giggled.

"You!"

"No, you!"

"You came to me!"

"It's your room!"

"Okay, fine... do you think..." I didn't know how to say it. I didn't want to be crass. I didn't want to mock or belittle what we had seen. "Do you think they are still kissing?"

She shuddered, joyfully I think, and pulled her legs up. "I hope so! Maybe more. I bet they didn't sleep alone."

As resident prefects, Tara and Fran basically had a self-contained little flat over in the Junior Girls' boarding house. Kitchen, sitting room, shared bathroom and two single rooms next to each other. She was probably right. I hoped she was. I said as much.

Then a thought came to me.

"God, you don't think they thought we left because we were disgusted, do you?"

Dora was quiet for a breath. She had known Fran even before they arrived at the school in lower sixth. Then she shook her head.

"No. No, I don't think so. I doubt they are thinking of us much at all right now."

I giggled a little. That was such a naughty thought. So delicious somehow. It made me feel flushed and hot. "Still," I said, "I'm going to be sure to hug them both tomorrow. Show them it doesn't bother me at all, even if I can't tell them with others around."

Dora nodded.

Then she jumped up and went to the door.

"Back in a second."

I reached for her, wanting to stop her, but she was gone. I couldn't work out why her leaving affected me so.

Or maybe I could.

Thankfully, she was back quickly, holding something, and quickly retook her seat on my bed. A slight glow from her hands cast a soft light on her angular face, her pale blonde hair. "I shall send Fran a text message to her mobile. What shall I say?"

Phones were still a rarity back then. Very few students had them, so the school hadn't yet needed to make a policy about them. Fran and Dora and a few of the other German students were amongst the first. Living at the small school for most of the term as we did, there was no need. These were the early clam-shell, basic types, or sturdy Nokias. No cameras, no internet.

"Won't you message her auf Deutsch?"

"Naturlich. But still, what do you think I should say?"

I paused and thought for a moment. I thought back over what we had seen, what we had witnessed. Something of Fran's careful cadence came to me.

"Tell them we only left to give them space and privacy. Tell them we both think they are brave and beautiful. Tell them we will welcome them with open arms and will stand by them in public or keep their secrets close in private. Tell them we are proud to be their friends."

Dora's finger didn't move straight away. My heartbeat quickened as she seemed to stare at me, her eyes the tiniest of glinting stars in the dark of the room.

Then, it, whatever it was, passed, and she bent to the buttons, pressing out the message.

"There. Sent. She'll see it in the morning, so they'll know not to be nervous around us at breakfast."

"Hmmm, I bet they won't make it to breakfast."

"Okay, at Church then." Boarders were expected to go to Sunday service in suits and ties.

"Yeah... Oh, maybe you should have sent that in English so Tara could read it too?"

I saw the shape of a shrug. The rising and falling of Dora's chest in the gloom, undefined shapes under her pyjama top, did something strange to me.

"Tara's German is pretty good these days. Besides, Fran can just translate it for her."

"True, true."

A soft silence stole over us. It was warm and gentle, but nervous and brittle too.

"So..." we both began together.

We giggled. The sound of her laugh thrilled me.

Her hand landed on my leg. I could feel the weight of it, warm, strong, gentle, through the thin duvet.

"You go!"

"No, you!"

We giggled again. I leant forward and took her hand. Somehow, some why, I wanted to feel her skin, feel her hand in mine again.

"Did you think it was beautiful too?" I asked.

"Of course." She squeezed my hand. She twisted against the wall, her legs now resting across my feet. "Did you?"

My voice didn't want to come out. I had to try twice just to whisper "Yes."

She nodded. "I thought so."

There was another silence. We stared at each other, me trying to drink in the details of her in the lamplight that snuck through the crack in the curtain.

"Do you.." we both began.

Again the nervous laughter, again the hot flush. I released her hand, and shuffled down the bed, pushing the duvet down. I was too hot. I took her hand again.

"You!"

"No you!"

"You, I insist."

"No, I went first last time."

"You're the guest - you should go first."

"You're the..." she paused, clearly trying to think of the English word, "the person who looks after the guest. How do you say it?

"The host?"

"Yes! You are the host. You should do what your guest wants."

"Okay."

I squeezed her palm.

"Do you think that you..." I swallowed and paused. I could feel sweat seeping through my sleepshirt. It was February in England and my room had no double glazing. The air was icy.

"Yes," she said.

Was that a "yes, go on" or a "yes I do"? Had she anticipated my question or was she prompting me?

I searched her face fruitlessly in the dark. She was quite close now, a foot away maybe, head leant against the wall, her eyes bright now. Watching. Waiting.

I tried again. "Would you want something like what they have for yourself?"

"Yes," her reply was immediate. Not a heartbeat between the action and the effect. "Would you?" she asked me.

"Yes." The word jumped from me.

We were closer now. Somehow, some when, I had pulled my legs under me and was on my knees. She was too.

She nodded at me. Then we whispered together.

"Do you think you might want that with me?"

Our voices melded. I gasped a little. I had known what we would say, but there is such a difference between theory and practice. I had known what happens when you burn mercury thiocyanate, but it still amazed me when we applied the match and watched.

She looked at me expectantly and this time time I nodded.

"Yes," we said.

And then her mouth was on mine.

It was soft. It was warm. It was gentle. It was strong. It was wonderful.

The heat swelled in me as I shivered, opening my mouth to her.

Her tongue danced around the tips of my teeth, supple, delicate, as our lips locked lightly, not pressing but communing.

This was so different from any kiss with any boy I had had. There was no thrusting tongue, no rough scratch of stubble, no chapped lips or stink of cigarette. She tasted faintly of peaches, like an Archer's and lemonade, and smelled of vanilla, slightly soapy.

I don't know how long we kissed for. Long enough. Not long enough. I could have kissed her forever. We shuffled closer, hands on arms, then shoulders, then backs. Legs touching, then chests, then breasts pressed against each other, warm and soft, with our four two hard nubs at their centre, so stiff they almost hurt.

She was with me and I was with her as we shared our space and the air we breathed.

And I remember thinking to myself then that that very evening I had seen love and now I had touched love. I knew its sound and now I knew its smell and its taste and its texture - of vanilla and hair, of peaches and tongue, of cotton and skin.

Eventually, slowly, gently we stopped. We didn't pull away. But one second our mouths were moving, lips pinching lips, the tips of our tongues stroking each other, and the next they were just resting on each other and then there was a hair-sized gap between us.

So when she spoke, I felt the breath of every word on my skin.

"That was so warm."

"And so soft."

"So gentle too."

"Yes, yes, it was. It was wonderful."

"Wunderbar."

"Yes. Exactly. Precisely."

We stared at each other, eyes two nose lengths apart.

"Sometimes..." she began, sounding unsure. She swallowed.

"Yes," I said.

Her brow creased. I knew. She was trying to work out if that was a prompt or the answer.

I kissed the tip of her nose. Trailed a finger up her spine.

She shuffled, the motion rubbing our breasts together, dragging herself across my hard nipples, stoking the fire in me. I was so hot under the weave, the heat from her body pressed against mine feeling like a radiator on full blast. I was sweating through my pyjamas.

I nodded.

She tried again. "Sometimes," she said, slowly, hesitantly, "sometimes kissing will be enough."

"Yes," I whispered back. "But..."

My mouth was dry as I let the word drop from my lips, the air pushing her hair back.

"But?" she asked. Her breath was hot on my flushed face, smelling of peaches and hope.

"But, I don't think this is one of those times, do you?"

"No."

We gazed at each other.

As one we broke apart and ripped off our pyjama tops, the cold air hitting my sweaty skin like a balm.

Then came the searing heat as our bare breasts pressed into each other, hers feeling like flatbreads fresh from the stone oven on my flash-cooled chest. Her arms and hands scorched my back, but I loved it. Loved the touch of her, the heat of her, as our mouths moved, harder now, firmer now.

"I wish I could see you," she whispered, "you're just a shadow to me."

"Just enjoy touching me," I gasped back, before kissing her again. "There will be other times."

"Will there?"

"There had better be."

"Promise?"

I grabbed her hand and placed it between us, over my heart. "Cross my heart."

Her palm pressed, cupping my breast, my nipple hard in her hand.

I groaned, and moved to do the same.

It was so strange. But so natural. There was no hesitation. No moment of doubt. It felt right.

She gasped in my mouth as I grasped her nipple gently between my thumb and forefinger, lightly rubbing it between, the way I liked to do it. Fran's words came back to me: "we would know what it was to be a woman, to feel like a woman." For once, perhaps for the first time, I felt truly like a woman.

Hands on her firm bum, I pulled Dora up into my lap, then ducked my head and covered her nipple with my mouth, teasing the tip of my tongue around it in a wide circle. She clutched at my head as she pushed herself into me, the sweat of her chest wet on my cheeks.

Her hands in my hair, she purred and moaned as I sucked on the rough, tough skin of that proud pebble. It felt like a pear-drop on my tongue as I licked and nibbled that wonderful nipple.

She was kneeling and keening now, and my hand slipped down between her legs.

I knew what I liked. I hoped she would too.

Her hair there was so soft, so warm, and underneath she was so slippery, so gooey. My finger slipped inside so easily, dipping into her scalding well as her fingers dug into my scalp and shoulders, her breath coming in pants and gasps.

The angle wasn't what I was used to, but my thumb found her clitoris easily enough, drawing slow circles around it.

I didn't wonder then that my finger was inside another body, inside another woman. Later, I would be almost blown away by the momentousness of it, the craziness of the trust between us in that moment, so organic, so unspoken. But at the time, all I did was feel. All I did was touch.

She was moving, trying to hump my hand, but that wasn't helping. Slipping my other hand around her bum, I clutched her tightly to me as my mouth worked her breast and my finger fucked her. I slipped in a second and moved from thumbing the area around her clit to gently tapping it.

She squeaked and snorted a blast of air onto me, as she stiffened and then convulsed. I could feel the hot, soft, strong muscles inside her rippling and gripping my fingers.

Then my head was between her hands and she was gently moving me to her mouth and kissing me deeply, shaking and shuddering still.

Reaching down, she slipped my sticky fingers from her. Then she was pushing me back, and pulling my legs down the bed as she squeezed in next to me, continuing to kiss, her tongue probing, teasing, questioning.

I felt her hand on my stomach. I trembled with anticipation as it slid under my waistband. My heart skipped as she gently cupped my pussy.

It didn't make me marvel then as, for the first time in my young life, somebody else's fingers slipped inside me. The doubt and panic came later, for sure. But then, in that moment, I was her instrument: she played me, beautifully, precisely, tenderly. In and out, teasing, touching, stroking, rubbing, and I was lost, adrift in the sensations, the touch of love.

I cried out into her mouth as I came, the first orgasm gifted to me by another. I whimpered as she slowly withdrew, feeling instantly the emptiness inside me, the longing for another person, despite her being still so close, still stuck to me by our shared sweat. She kissed me more, and, slowly, gently, it became enough.

For then at least.

"Do you want to do more?" I asked her.

It was so dark lying there that I felt, rather than saw, her shake her head.

"I really want to try oral with you but I feel a bit..." she paused, searching for the word.

"I know. I'd rather shower first, like, really well, before you put your mouth down there."

We giggled together.

"Ich auch!"

"Besides," I said, "I need to leave you wanting more."

"Oh, I want more," she promised, "definitely. But you are right. We don't need to do everything the first time."

"No, of course not. Save some things to discover later."

"You mean tomorrow, right?"

"Maybe," I teased.

She kissed me, then kissed my shoulder and sighed.

Suddenly, I was scared. Scared there wouldn't be a tomorrow for us. Scared that this would be the only time I would touch love.

"Will you stay?" I tried to hide the vulnerability in my voice.

"Yes." She kissed me again. "Set an alarm though. Probably not a good idea to be caught together."

So, sweaty, topless, touching and smelling of love, we slept.

___________________________________________

"So, what happened then?" Liz asks, sipping her cider.

"Well, Fran and Tara stayed together. They were already going to Exeter together. They came out in their first year and have been living together ever since. They are in Germany now. Aachen. Fran's parents own a logistics business and she works in the branch office there; Tara teaches English. They are hoping Germany will follow the Netherlands and legalise gay marriage soon. Otherwise, they might just pop over the border and get married in Mastricht. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a visa and travel as I'd love to join them."

"That's sweet," she nods and smiles. "But you know that's not what I meant."

"No?"

She rolls her eyes at me and sighs. I do love being a bad interviewee.

"I meant between you and Dora."

"Oh, right."

I sigh.

"Well, we were together for the rest of the school year. We kept it low key. Tara and Fran knew, but that was it. The four of us wanted to go interrailing together but I couldn't get the visas for all the different countries in time. We did all go and stay in Dora's parents' holiday home in Majorca for two weeks. That was lovely. That felt like being a real couple."

I take a gulp from the bottle.

"But then she came out to Uganda with me. As a friend, of course. No way my parents would accept us as a couple and I was way too scared. It was awful. Being so close yet being unable to touch each other. Her Uni had an earlier start date, so she had to fly back first. I wanted to go with her but my parents were paying and wouldn't let me. So I couldn't even kiss her goodbye at the airport."

"That was the beginning of the end really. She saw then how hard it would be to be with me. The... well, we tried the long distance thing, but it didn't last long. We'd broken up by Christmas. She came to see me when, you know, the thing happened, but I was with Mikayla and she didn't want to get in the way. Still, it was good to have her support."

"Are you still in touch?"

I shrug. "Facebook. She's back in Bavaria now. She's seeing somebody, a guy judging by the photos. We message occasionally, but I don't like talking about myself much, as you know."

She grimaces at that admission. Liz and I have known each other for a while, been flatmates for months, and this is the first time I've told her any of this.

Liz leans over and takes my hand, giving it a squeeze. Her touch is gentle and warm, strong and soft. She looks at me. I know she wants to tell me how sorry she is, and I know she knows that I'd hate it. "I'm glad you had such a lovely first time. I'm glad you shared it with me."

She smiles. I grin back because I have seen love and I have touched love.

And now I know I will again.

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Thanks for reading. Comments are always very welcome. Ramona will be back, eventually. Liz has already appeared in some of

my other stories

, though you may have missed her. In the meantime, check out the amazing stories by other authors on

these lists

.