Two months ago, Sabine sat naked on an old chair staring out the window. I was lying on her little bed across the room. I wondered what she was looking at so intently. There was a big tree outside her window. The leaves were beginning to turn. I wondered what Sabine was thinking. Could it be about me? I thought I ought to say something to her, but what?

Ten minutes earlier, we’d made love for the first time. I didn’t think it was her first time because of the way I sank into her so easily, so perfectly. I was only in her a few seconds and there was no way I could control myself. It was the most wonderful feeling I’d ever had. I knew I was supposed to last longer, and I would have liked to. Perhaps Sabine had been disappointed, although for as long as it lasted, she seemed to enjoy it, and in fact it was her strong contractions combined with that snug slipperiness that made it impossible for me to do anything but come.

We’d met in chemistry lab. Her lab station was opposite mine. “I don’t get what’s supposed to happen here,” she’d asked me. I did my best to explain it to her. She laughed when I said the bubbles were evidence. A moment later the bubbles overflowed the beaker. “Do you think I put too much in?” she’d asked, and she laughed again. I fell in love with her laugh. I helped her clean up. She said, “Would you like to come home with me?”

We held hands and strolled beneath the colorful trees. She lived in one of the older dorms on the far side of campus, with a single room at the far end of the first floor. “Sorry for the mess,” she said, removing a blanket which had been on her bed. She refolded it and set it on the chair by the window. “This was from my grandmother,” she told me. “I don’t want it to get any cum on it.” I didn’t know girls used the word cum. I almost came just from her telling me that. She’d put her arms around me and we kissed. We kissed for a very long time. During the kiss we got undressed. We lay on her bed where the kiss continued. She said, “Come in me now,” and I did.

She was so beautiful. I continued to watch her sitting so still staring out the window at the last of the day’s golden light. I thought maybe I should tell her how beautiful she was. I thought maybe I should tell her I loved her. If only I knew what she was thinking.

“Sabine?” I said. Her head turned to me. She was so beautiful. I was in love with her. There was something sad in her smile. “Sabine? Can we do it again?”

Her eyes brightened and she got up from the chair and glided toward me. Grinning, she said, “That’s just what I was hoping you’d say.”