I didn’t date much, while the other girls at school had regular dates. A couple of gallant young men came calling to the apartment, but because my family was exiled and not living an extravagant lifestyle, I wasn’t a top choice. I would accept a date when asked because I wanted to be like the other girls my age. Most of the time, the boy and I would take a stroll through the city and stop at an outdoor café to chat over a Perrier and a croissant. Usually, I wasn’t very interested. My parents were beginning to worry that I would be an old maid at fifteen.

    I am not an ugly girl. My hair is thick, straight, and almost exotic black. My eyes are chestnut brown, set slightly wider apart than most of my family’s. I am slender, with wide hips, and my lanky limbs make me appear taller than I really am. As a child, my Nana used to call me ejote, which means string bean. Even with my boyish frame and wide hips, I am still very feminine and classy.

    My teeth, however, are another story. My dentist in Lausanne has placed more gold fillings in them than exist in the Vatican vaults. I have a space between my front teeth that I hate, though Maman says it adds character. Many people say I look exotic because of my dark features, though my skin is naturally quite pale, with blue veins showing through its thinness.

    I am much darker than my brothers and sister, who have light to medium brown hair and blue eyes with thick, rosy, white skin. Every summer, my gray, pale, thin skin comes alive with a kiss from the sun, turning me into a beautiful bronze goddess that competes with my sister’s natural beauty.

    When we go to Geneva, I love the boutique shops on the narrow pedestrian streets. In the past, horses and carriages traveled these pavée roads, but now they are strictly for pedestrians. No car could squeeze in or out. The little shops varied: designer clothing boutiques with the latest Paris fashions, confectioners with chocolates and candies in the window, pâtisseries, boulangeries, cigar and cigarette shops, and butcher and cheese shops. We spent more time window-shopping, often buying very little to take back on the train to Lausanne. 

    It is 1962. I have secretly married a man I barely know. He is from the other side of Europe but lives in the United States. It is, in a way, an arranged marriage, the pressure from my mother became unbearable. I do not really know him, nor do I take our marriage very seriously. It is difficult to take marriage seriously at nineteen.

    The first time I met him, my parents invited him to visit. Georges had apparently been writing letters to my parents about matters I knew nothing of. I did not even know he had been corresponding with them. Innocent and unassuming, I had no idea what was really going on.

    Georges is staying at our apartment for the week. Although he insisted on staying at the Royal Savoy, my parents insisted he stay with us so we could all get to know one another more intimately. He agreed, going completely against his businessman instincts.

    Maman prepared his room with fresh linens and the finest soft Egyptian sheets. A feather duvet, stuffed into a tapestry cover fit for a king, was fluffed, and matching feather pillows were slipped into pillowcases of the same tapestry pattern. The maid scrubbed everything clean and even spritzed floral-scented spray to make the room even more inviting. 

    He spends much of his time with my parents. Being thirteen years older than I am, I am still my parents’ child, meant to be seen and not heard. 

    I can hear him discussing some kind of business with them, his eyes lighting up as if the investment proposal might be worthwhile. It does not interest me, so I let them talk and decide to take a walk to a nearby field.

    While they are chatting, I slip away. “I’m going down to the field. I’ll be swinging on the tree swing,” I call, and then run out the door, down the stairs, out the front entrance, and down the hill behind the apartment buildings to the small open field.

    Tall grass, wildflowers of marguerites, edelweiss, bell flowers, and bright red poppies scatter across the open field, where the mountains can be seen across the deep blue lake, faded on the horizon as if painted in water colors. 

    It passes the time. I love the fresh breeze whipping through my loose hair and brushing over my face. The sweet scent of marguerites fills my senses and overwhelms my entire being. For a moment, I am whisked into another world, where I am the innocence of nature herself.

    Edelweiss, forsaken, wooly, rugged, almost ugly, yet as white as driven snow, pure and simple, is one of my favorite mountain flowers. I bend down to smell the outcropping, and a waft of light floral and earthy scent fills my whole being. I pick one and tuck it behind my ear, where its fresh fragrance drifts in the cool breeze, and I feel as though I am part of the mountain herself.

    The feeling of flowing back and forth lets my imagination take control. I am flying like a bird, wings spread wide, soaring over the majestic mountains.

    Georges suddenly shatters my thoughts in this dream world.

    “Need a push?” he says, lightly chuckling.

    Suddenly, I am pulled into his world. I look back at him; he is more handsome when he smiles with that twinkle in his eye.

    Georges is so much older than I am. I feel strange around him as he tries to act like the child that I still am, jumping around in the grass with his dress shoes on.

    “Do you want to have a whirl at it?” he asks. “I’m just enjoying you so much.”

    “What do you mean by that?” I say in a teenage, flirty voice looking up at him with my big brown eyes..

    He suddenly grabs me off the swing and makes me dizzy, spinning me around while I laugh hysterically, until I find myself among the dreamy red poppies, the long wild grass, and falling hopelessly into his arms.

    He slowly touches my lips with his finger, so gently, looking deep into my eyes with a penetrating gaze. I hadn’t noticed how blue they were until the light caught them. His face moves closer, and he breathes in my breath, as if the air from my lungs could meld our worlds. 

    Keeping his finger steady, he brings his lips to mine, his finger still between us, marking a first kiss. His lilac scent calms my nervousness. He breathes in, and I feel my soul being pulled into his world as his finger slides down my soft face. Then he takes my soft lips in his, and our first breathtaking kiss seems to last an eternity, drawing me completely in.

    He is suddenly more handsome to me, his brownish blond curly hair, his bluish eyes, his natural lilac scent. His height, towering over me, his large masculine frame, his strong arms around me, feel good, secure, and trustworthy. 

    I suddenly become uncomfortable with his wandering hands and push back, “Stop! My parents will see.”

    “Do not worry yourself with that. Your parents went into the city and left me alone with you. I don’t think that is a good idea, do you?”

    I didn’t know what to say or what to think. I stayed silent, penetrating his gaze while he gently laid me back down into the fragrant meadow with the fresh crimson blooms of early summer.

    My pristine white dress inches up higher with every soft deep kiss. My whole body is on fire with feelings I have never felt before. I am caught between completely succumbing to him or retaining my dignity. 

    I have never known a man before. He is very forceful and even as I try to squirm out of his grip, I cannot.

    “Please stop.”

    “Shhh.”

    “Please stop.”

    He kisses me deeper and stops long enough and says,

    “You have the face of an angel. Your beauty I cannot resist. Do not blame me for being a man, a man who wants a beautiful woman.”

    He slowly unzipped my white dress, making certain I felt every slow move downward. He snapped off my brassiere with one sleight of hand. 

    Peeling off the layers, he left me like the day I was born. His hands moved over every curve of my pure soft skin as his kisses penetrated every inch of my soul, his body pressed close to mine.

    I felt a wave of shame come over me and tried to push him off while covering my body with my hands. He gently removed each hand after the other to uncover every inch that I didn’t want exposed. I wanted him and could feel the animal within me pulling me in his direction, but I was afraid and ashamed at the same time. 

    He remained dressed while he explored every part of my body. I could feel the prickly wicked garden underneath my soft skin poking at me, telling me to stop while a more primitive lust overtook me. His hands gliding gently, with each sensation, I fell deeper within his grasp.

    He took off his shirt and made a makeshift blanket with my green stained dress. There lay his shirt, my dress; both undressed forming a bed sheet in the deep grass of the untouched meadow. 

    He transformed into a naked sun god with fury, heat, and bright light glowing behind him. I watched in awe as his golden splendor overtook my senses. 

    His strong body showed every masculine muscle in detail. I couldn’t help but admire his beauty as he melded with the glowing sun. 

    The energy from our souls intertwines around us as our naked bodies intertwine around each other. From above, the mountains seem to move in closer and suddenly I am staring into his glistening eyes again.

    Touching his face, he slides his hand along my slender waist and my hourglass hip.

    “You are truly a pretty girl, my angel face.”

    Giggling, I otherwise stay silent and soak in his compliments. I am feeling more like a woman around Georges.

    He flips me under his body and presses strongly against mine. He grabs my wrists and holds me down. I don’t even struggle. He is a tease to me at this point as my whole body is writhing with excitement.

    I want him. I want this beautiful man before me. I want this beautiful god before me.

    The pain of his penetrating lust, the pain of his electrifying jolts in rhythm with the turning of Mother Earth make me hold my breath trying not to show it or make a sound.

    We writhe like two snakes on a caduceus. His illumining masculinity. My primitive shrills.. The energy is building up in perfect rhythm, within my soul and through my body becoming one with his energy into a simultaneous explosion heard across the universe. I know what it is to be a multi-dimensional woman.

    The burning sunset is as red as the stains on my dress. My virginity is the dusk, transforming into the darkness of night. My tainted soul is covered in the very dirt that grabs a rotting body and disintegrates it. I lost my childhood, my innocence, and my soul with one beautiful man, out of lust, out of my senses, never to return to purity.

    He can clearly see that I am upset and full of regrets. Covering my shame with his shirt, he holds me tight in his strong arms, gently kissing my forehead and reassuring me that he truly cares for me, deep within his own soul, and that he will never let anyone hurt me.

    We slowly got dressed and made our way back to the apartment to get cleaned up. The maid had an odd look in her eye as we entered and my parents were still gone, which made both of us snicker and giggle with each other like children. 

    I put on a fresh, clean, unassuming dress with small orange and green flowers, as if nothing had happened, as if subconsciously restoring my innocence. He was in the living room, under a tall lamp that stood on a long brass pedestal, sitting on the leather recliner, paging through a book left on the table: The Naked Sun, a novel by Isaac Asimov. 

    I watched him for a long while from around the corner. He was not really a handsome man, but in the poppy fields, with the brilliant sun melding with his masculine body, he was the most handsome man I had ever seen, his masculinity kindling something delicate and secret within me.

    I quietly crept to the living room. When he saw me, he quickly set the book down, hopped out of the chair, and grabbed me, kissing me like I had never been kissed before.

    “Can a man fall in love in a day?”

    I could feel the blood rush to my face, flushing over in a warmth that I could not control. For all the words that easily slipped from his lips were the same words I kept tucked deep inside, afraid to say, stiffened by my own insecurities, and unable to speak.

    My parents soon returned, carrying totes full of everything from meat and vegetables to a beautiful new dress for Maman. She pulled it out and held it up in the light, where it sparkled like fine jewels.
“Do you like it?” she asked me.

     “I love it! It is so beautiful. Did you try it on?”
“It looks like it was tailor-made just for me.”

    I grabbed the dress holding it up to myself and twirled around with it as if I were waltzing. 

    “Do you think it would look good on me?”.

    “It is much larger than you ma Cherie, but yes, one in your size would look breathtaking on you.”

    Papa was deeply engaged with Georges in a serious discussion over tea and biscuits that the maid had laid before them, during which Papa agreed to allow him to marry me in accordance with our family laws.

    The ceremony is set. He will fly back to Switzerland in three months, on September 20, 1962, the first day of autumn, when the earth begins to die only to be resurrected again, when the light dims and the days shorten, while my love grows, as full and radiant as the height of summer.

    “I now have to marry him?”

     “It is better this way, ma chérie,” is always Maman’s response, no matter how much I protest.

    It wasn’t that I didn’t want to marry him, I didn’t really know him. I’m still in school. I’m still a child. I don’t want to be a wife, a woman, or to grow up. I like my freedom: dancing next to the deep, cold lake, feeding crumbs of bread to the flocking seagulls, swinging on the tree swing into the endless mountains.

    Our gold wedding rings are old family heirlooms, passed down through the generations. My wedding band is ornate gold, and Georges’ matches, only with more bulk and thickness. They are beautiful. They are ancient. They are magical. Buzzing energy runs through my whole body. 

    Georges was having second thoughts about staying in the apartment with us and called the local hotel from the phone downstairs. Papa hung up and sat back down with him to talk more, finally convincing him to stay overnight.

    Maman showed him up the hallway to the prepared guest room, opening the door, pulling the chain, and turning on the light of the ornate lamp sitting on the antique wooden nightstand.

    He is in there now. I sneak past his door on tiptoe, hand ready to knock. I turn away quickly and slip back down the hallway without making a sound. I wait at the edge of the hallway for a moment, then creep again past his closed door.

    I finally retreat to my room because I don’t want to be caught creeping up and down the dark hallway. My room is right next to his, and I press my ear against the wall to see if I can hear anything coming from the other room. I press my hands firmly against the wall, focusing on him, trying to lure him into my room with my mind.

    With Georges right in my apartment, I feel this crazy attraction to him as my mind revisits the image of the sun’s rays enveloping him.  I couldn’t help myself,  obsessed lovesick, and yearning for his touch.