Chapter 9: End of Summer, Part I

August 1979 — Hovås, Sweden

On Monday, Anders and Eva went back to work. They had shifted their vacations from their normal full month of August to three weeks in July and one in August because of the exchange program. They were getting ready to leave when I left to jog and hit the golf course. I had the house to myself because Patrick was with friends, while Suzana and Pernilla were at their cousin’s house for the day.

Sofia and Petra arrived just before 1:00pm, wearing T-shirts, shorts, and sandals, and they both had their hair pulled back in ponytails. I had on my swim trunks and a t-shirt. We went out on the patio by the pool and the girls took off their shorts and t-shirts, revealing matching black, one-piece bathing suits. I took off my t-shirt, and we jumped into the pool, then all three of us sat in the shallow end, and leaned against the side of the pool.

The girls were best friends and had lived in Hovås their entire lives, and each one had a younger brother. They both were quick to say that they didn’t have boyfriends. They were really curious about the US and asked a lot of questions, mostly relating to whether the US was like what they saw on television. Because the most recent TV show from the US was the first season of Dallas, I explained that it was absolutely not like that! Swedish TV was also showing Soap, M∗A∗S∗H, and How the West Was Won. None of those were really representative, either.

They asked what High School was like and what kids did in the US for fun. They had a lot of questions and I answered them as best I could, but I made sure they knew it was my experience, and mine was a bit different from the typical kid. They asked about whether I had a girlfriend and I said I dated a lot, that there was one girl who was pretty special, but I didn’t have a steady girlfriend.

I asked the girls if they wanted to go into the sauna and they jumped out of the pool without even answering. We went into the sauna and I turned it on and put some towels down on the bench. I remembered fondly the last time I had been in a sauna with two girls and quickly pushed that thought from my mind. I was getting WAY ahead of myself. The sauna quickly warmed up, and I ladled water on the rocks to make steam. We sat there for about five more minutes, just basking in the steam.

“Do you have saunas in the US?” Sofia asked.

“A female friend of mine’s family does. I like to use it whenever I can, though usually we don’t wear bathing suits.”

Sofia giggled, “You can take yours off if you want.”

This caused Petra to giggle as well. I wasn’t sure if they were serious or not, but they could always tell me to put my trunks back on. I grinned, stood up, and took my trunks off and tossed them in the corner. Their eyes got wide as they got a good look at me.

“Your turn!” I smirked, not sure what they would do.

Sofia stood up and quickly slid the straps from her shoulders and pulled her suit down, stepping out of it. She reminded me of Joyce in terms of olive skin, though her breasts were bigger, closer to Jennifer’s size, and she was a bit curvier than Joyce. She had a moderate patch of dark pubic hair that was trimmed along the edges to not stick out of her bathing suit. She sat back down and looked over at Petra. I wondered now what Petra would do.

Petra just sat there for a moment, then stood up and slowly moved first the left strap, then the right strap from her shoulders. She slowly pushed down the suit and stepped out of it, and sat down quickly. Her body was quite slim, with small breasts and a very sparse patch of blonde pubic hair.

I ladled more water onto the rocks, keeping track of the time so we weren’t in the sauna too long.

“So, American guys look pretty much like Swedish guys naked,” Sofia said, “though you don’t have extra skin on the end of you.”

I chuckled, “Yeah, most guys I know in the US are circumcised.”

“Here’s it’s mostly only Jewish guys,” Sofia said, “at least according to our health teacher.”

That seemed like it was going to be a standard refrain. I figured I’d get questions from guys in the locker room during gym class once I started school as well, if Sofia’s and Pia’s reactions were typical. Who knew my dick would be a conversation piece?! That was sort of the last thing I expected. Nothing in the material YFU presented had mentioned it, though I was totally not surprised by the omission!

We sat quietly for another ten minutes when Sofia said, “Let’s go jump in the pool. It’ll cool us off quickly!”

She got up, put on her swimsuit and opened the door and walked to the pool, and jumped in. Petra and I put on our suits and followed her to the pool. The water was warm, but compared to my body temperature, it felt shockingly cold. I smiled when I saw both girls’ nipples had hardened from the temperature change. Sofia swam over to me.

“Steve, would you like to kiss me? I’ve never kissed an American boy!”

She didn’t have to ask twice. I pulled her into a nice hug and gave her a soft kiss on the lips. Her body felt fantastic pressed up against me, her breasts pushing into my chest. I released her, and she took a step back and looked at Petra. Petra looked uncertain until Sofia made eye contact with her and she came up to me and I hugged her and kissed her. I was glad for the temperature shock right then, because it kept me from having an erection.

“You kiss just like Swedish guys.” Sofia said.

“I suspect we do everything pretty much the same,” I said. “It doesn’t matter which country you are from!”

Both girls giggled. It was clear to me that she was using the whole ‘American’ thing as an excuse, not that she actually thought there really was some huge difference.

We splashed around in the pool a bit and after about ten minutes, Sofia and Petra got out of the pool, dried off, and put their shorts and t-shirts back on. I did the same and pulled-on a t-shirt. We went upstairs to have a snack. I made tea and got out the cookie tin. We drank tea and munched cookies.

Just before they left, Sofia asked if I’d like to come to her house for lunch the next day and I said I would. She asked me to come by around noon and wrote out directions to her house. When the girls left, they each hugged me and gave me a quick peck on the lips. I went back downstairs, took a quick shower, cleaned up the sauna, and put the towels and my swimming trunks in the washer and got dressed.

Anders brought in a package for me when he came home. It was the Uno decks my dad had sent, and that Rolf had forwarded to me. We played Uno that night and I let Anders and Eva keep the deck we used. I made a mental note to be sure I took enough decks to Helsingborg with me on Friday to hand out to each of the couples.

On Tuesday I altered my schedule slightly. I jogged down to the golf course after breakfast for my lesson at 9:00am. I worked on chipping, pitching, and putting with the pro and then hit a bucket of balls before jogging back home. I showered and dressed and wrote a letter to Jennifer and then followed the directions Sofia had given me to her house, which was not far from the Post Office.

I wasn’t surprised to find her home alone. She had lunch ready, so we sat down to eat the meal she’d prepared — soup along with bread and cheese. We chatted while we ate, and when we finished, I washed the dishes and put them in the rack to dry while she wiped down the table and put away the bread and cheese we hadn’t eaten. When we had finished cleaning up, I pulled her into an embrace, kissed her softly and thanked her for lunch. She smiled, then kissed me back.

Taking that as an invitation to kiss her again, I pressed my lips softly against hers and pressed my tongue gently against her lips. She parted them and our tongues touched lightly. She hugged me tighter and pressed her lips more tightly against mine. Our tongues tangled, moving between our mouths as our hands moved along each other’s backs.

She broke the kiss and led me to the couch in the living room. That told me pretty clearly this was a make-out session, not anything more. We sat on the couch and kissed for fifteen minutes or so. It wasn’t anything intense, just lots of soft, sweet kisses with a few deeper French kisses mixed in. She broke the last kiss and asked if I wanted to take a walk. I took her hand, and we left the house.

We walked around Hovås, she showed me where her school was and we walked to the beach, and walked along it. We talked about her friends, her family, and her annoying, as she had put it, little brother. I laughed and agreed with her that little brothers were annoying. I did point out that I got along well with my little sister. We bought a couple of soft drinks from a small shop and drank them as we walked back towards Sofia’s house.

We went inside again and she led me back to the same couch. She kissed me again, this time with a little more urgency. We kissed hard and our tongues probed deep into each other’s mouths. I gently slid my hand up her side and let it rest with my wrist touching the side of her breast. When she didn’t object, I slid my hand over her chest and cupped her firm breast. I gave a gentle squeeze, and she moaned softly into my mouth.

I gently massaged her breast and decided to test the limits. I moved my hand to her side and slid it down to her hip. As I started moving it towards her stomach, she broke the kiss.

“No,” she whispered. “Not that far.”

“Sorry,” I replied.

I moved my hand back to her breast and simply caressed it while we kissed for another few minutes. She broke the kiss to use the bathroom and came back and stood by the couch.

“You aren’t mad at me?” she asked.

“No. Not at all. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s OK. You stopped when I said ‘no’.”

I stood up and hugged her. When I released her, she put on some music and sat back down, but far enough away that it was clear the kissing was done. We talked for a bit, and then it was time for me to leave. I decided to try a little Swedish.

“«Får jag se dig igen, Sofia?»” (“May I see you again?”)

“«Ja visst! Du kan svenska?»” (“Of course! You speak Swedish?”)

“«Bara lite.» I’m not very good at it yet. But I’m practicing.” (“Only a little.”)

“It’s good so far! When do you want to get together?”

“I’m visiting friends in Helsingborg this weekend. I’m leaving on Friday, but I’ll be back on Monday morning.”

“How about Thursday afternoon? Maybe we can go ice skating?”

“Sounds great!”

“I’ll invite Petra if that’s OK? We can meet at the bus stop at Hovås Nedre at 1:00pm on Thursday.”

“Sounds good. See you both then!”

I walked back home and took a dip in the pool, then wrote a couple of letters. I’d mail them the next day when I was out with Freda. I wrote in my journal and read until dinner. After dinner we played Uno as a family for a few hours and then I read until bed.

On Wednesday, Freda showed up at 11:00am just as she had on Saturday. The day was gorgeous and not a cloud in the sky.

“Hi!” I said. “Too bad that doesn’t look like it’s going to rain!”

“True, but you never know,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

I took her hand, and we walked down the hill into Hovås. After walking to the Post Office to mail my letters, we ended up at the same café we had eaten at on Saturday. When we finished, we walked to the beach and found a spot to spread our towels. We took off our t-shirts and shorts and ran down into the water. She was wearing a white bikini with small black polka dots that showed off her figure quite nicely.

After splashing around in the water a bit, we went back to our blankets. I got my bottle of suntan lotion and started to spread it on. She took the bottle from my hands.

“Let me do that,” she offered. “I can get your back.”

I felt her soft hands on my shoulders, then my back and then my arms. Then she reached around and spread lotion on my chest and stomach. She handed me the bottle and turned her back to me and removed her bikini top. I put some lotion on my hands and did her shoulders, arms and back, then her stomach. I paused at that point, unsure if I should touch her chest. She’d been pretty careful on Saturday when we’d been at her house.

She obviously sensed my hesitation and said, “You can finish.”

I put some more lotion on my hands and gently rubbed it into her breasts, and I felt her nipples harden. I finished and dropped my hands and she lay down on her back to get some sun. I did the same, but stole some glances at her firm, round breasts with pink nipples and light areolae and her flat stomach.

After fifteen minutes or so, we both turned over on our stomachs and we looked at each other and exchanged smiles. I laughed to myself that I was going to have a better tan living in Sweden than I had in the US, at least since we had moved from California to Ohio, with a brief time in Arizona in between. After another fifteen minutes, I put on my t-shirt to prevent sunburn, which I was sure would come if I didn’t, despite the suntan lotion.

Freda turned over a few times, working on her tan, then put on her bikini top, followed by her shorts and t-shirt. We gathered our things and walked over to a small stand to buy some drinks for our walk home. We walked hand-in-hand and drank our soft drinks. When we reached the top of the hill, she gripped my hand tighter, encouraging me to come with her.

“I thought maybe you would like to wash the sand out of your clothes and towel,” she said with a sly smile.

I laughed but didn’t say anything and just walked with her. When we got to her house, we went in the same door as we had on Saturday, stripped off all of our clothes. I took my keys, wallet, and rubbers out of my pockets and tossed my clothes into the washing machine with hers. I set my stuff down on the top of the washer and I was certain she saw the condoms. She didn’t visibly react, and I hoped she wasn’t upset or thinking I assumed we were going to have sex.

I went to grab a robe, but she grabbed my hand.

“We should rinse the sand off of us first!” she smirked, leading me to the bathroom.

She turned on the water for the shower and, when it was warm enough, stepped in and quickly rinsed herself off. She stepped out, and I did the same. I turned off the water, and she handed me a towel and we dried ourselves. I had this feeling she was testing me in some way, but I wasn’t sure how to pass the test, or even what the test was. I was enjoying being with her and certainly enjoying looking at her body. I liked her a lot, and in some ways, she reminded me of Melanie.

That was why I was OK with what was going on, actually. I was totally comfortable being naked, mostly due to my time with Melanie. That was why I hadn’t really reacted on the beach with Pia or Freda when there were quite a few topless sunbathers. And why I could be naked now with Freda without an obvious reaction. Of course, THINKING about that started to cause a reaction, so I quickly pushed it out of my mind.

Whatever Freda’s little game was, I’d play it. She was super cute and had a great body that I absolutely wanted to explore. A lot of guys would have considered what she was doing to be prick-teasing, but I didn’t see it that way. Every girl I’d been with had her own approach to sex, from the aggressive assault Debbie C had made to the slow build-up like Anna or Joyce. The funny thing was that I found I enjoyed the slow build-up quite a bit. There was something about the anticipation that was just downright exciting.