Fuck it's hot.
Of course it's hot. It's July and you don't have air conditioning.
I was able to carry on both sides of a conversation in my head, and both sides agreed.
They both said
Fuck, it's hot
.
Summer in the Los Angeles suburbs could be particularly miserable. In those days in the late 1960s, LA was basically 70 miles across and one story tall, so everything was paved, traffic was heavy, the smog was thick enough to cut with a knife, and the houses were barely fifteen feet apart. It made for a dense, hot environment that only got worse every year.
I had graduated high school the month before and wasn't leaving for boot camp for another three weeks, so my summer was my own as there was no point in getting a new job for a few weeks. My sisters were older and married and of course out of the house.
As a family with only one car, I was without a vehicle during the day and it was too hot to ride my beater bike. I decided to walk to the Orange Julius a couple of blocks away.
Oooo yeah, I can taste that sweet Julius now. Maybe I'll go for that new pineapple one.
The sweltering sidewalk was at least a few degrees cooler than our unreasonably humid, toasty house because the canopy of trees in our neighborhood made it markedly cooler. Wearing a pair of old shorts, a ratty t-shirt, and flipflops, I grabbed some money from my desk and started sauntering.
Our neighborhood had mostly been built in the twenties and thirties, before the Southern California population exploded beyond reason right after WWII, so many of the houses around us sat on larger lots and reflected a couple of styles, mostly Craftsman-ish bungalows and a few reflecting Spanish influences. It was actually a pleasant street, with a mix of families. Some had school age kids, others were retirees, the rest between the two extremes. All were working class people. A nice place, even for a teenager.
As I reached mid-block I passed a yellow house just as someone came out to get their mail.
"Hey." The voice of a teenage girl called out to me. I turned and saw Doreen looking my way from her front porch.
"Hey to you."
I actually had known Doreen for several years. She and her family had lived right next to us before moving a block away earlier that year for more room, more yard, and the all-important backyard inground pool. Even though we had attended different high schools, we used to see each other regularly and had spent a decent amount of our free time together. We were friends and had shared many of our thoughts and dreams with each other. Our fondness for each other was deep but we had never even hinted at becoming romantic. Like I said, friends.
"Where are you headed? It's hotter than hell today."
"I had a taste for an Orange Julius." The OJ store was barely 300 feet from her house.
"Oooo, that sounds nice. Mind if I join you?"
"Sure. I'll buy." She opened her door to throw the mail onto a table, then walked to where I was standing. We resumed the journey.
We made small talk as we walked, talking about mutual friends and how happy we were to finally be done with high school. After getting our drinks we walked back to her house.
"Let's sit on the patio out back. It's much cooler there." Cool sounded very appealing and we went to her back yard, relaxing around a small table, sipping our deliciously cold, sweet drinks as we talked.
"You still seeing that guy, what's his name? Dude with the VW?" I asked her.
Her face soured. "You mean Darryl? No, I dumped that jerk when I found out he was seeing that little slut Hillary when he wasn't with me."
"Wow, that sucks." Brilliant repartee wasn't one of my strong points.
"Yeah, whatever. I'm single again. When do you leave for the Army?"
"Three weeks. I'm just killing time until then."
We sat in silence for a few minutes enjoying our drinks, until she said, "I'm too hot, let's get in the pool. It's why my parents bought this place." She stood up and walked toward the inviting water.
"Aren't you going to change first?" I said, expecting her to go in to get into a swimsuit. In addition to my lack of conversational brilliance, I was also alarmingly slow on the uptake.
"No," she replied. "I'm going to do something I've wanted to do for a long time. She turned to face me. "You going to join me?"
On that note, she grabbed the hem of her tank top and pulled it over her head, then hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her shorts and pushed them to the ground, stepping out of them.
There she stood in her bra and bikini panties, her hands on her hips and an intense look on her face, as if she was daring me.
Now, even though Doreen and I were friends first, I had to admit she was a beauty. So tall - only a few inches shy of my own six feet - she was a long, delightful drink of water.
He coloring was darker than most, probably from her mother's Mexican heritage. Her short hair was almost coal black, and her open, pretty face held dark eyes that shone with intelligence and wit. She was on the thin side, which accentuated her height. Her body was toned and strong, her narrow hips flaring just enough to accentuate her trim waist.
Fuck, she was hot. I knew she was pretty, but standing there in her underwear she was a fucking vision.
"Ahem!" She made her gaze even more intense. I finally got the hint.
Like I said, slow on the uptake.
Never having undressed in front of a girl before, I just kind of followed her lead and stood up, then pulled off my shirt. After a slight hesitation I also dropped my shorts and stood facing her wearing only boxers. I returned her intense glare.
Without another word, Doreen reached behind her back and unhooked her bra, shrugging her shoulders to let it fall into her hands. She threw it on the chair she had been using.
Ohfuckohfuckohfuck. Those are titties. Those are real girl titties. Those are real girl titties and they're right in front of me.
I knew what boobs were supposed to look like. My dad kept his Playboy magazines in the bathroom and I had spent hundreds of hours appreciating the perfect airbrushed beauties they contained.
But those magazines might as well have been the National Geographic, with pictures of beautiful places I would never get to see in person. This was different. This was very, very different.
If I though Doreen was pretty before, she was a goddess now. Her tits were perfect for her size and build, a pair of half grapefruits perched on her chest, with dark areolas and nipples against her naturally olive skin.
This was unexplored territory for me.
"Are you going to stare at my boobs, or are we going to get in?"
"Uh, huh, wuh?" I stuttered. "Oh yeah, the pool." She turned away from me, but before she started walking she yanked her panties down and took them off, adding them to the clothing on her chair. "I don't think chlorine is good for those," she opined.
Ohfuckmesonofabitch. She's naked. Ohshitohshitohshit.
I was again frozen. Her bare ass was a work of art, narrow with perfect apple cheeks and the most beautiful ass crack I could imagine. As she bent to remove her panties I caught a glimpse of her darker vulva. This was all just too much for my inexperienced mind and I froze again.
