Jack's favorite thing to do these days, now that Thanksgiving was approaching, was to walk with me hand-in-hand through the falling tree leaves as they blew through the wind, while we stepped through the harbor, and saw the clouds reflect over the water. Our town was a wealthy one, but had a small town feel to it because everybody knew everybody.

Jack's favorite things to do these days, now that he had met me, were to go skinning dipping with me in my house at night, while my parents were off away on vacation, or what my parents called oversea business opportunities.

I'll always remember the first time he had come to my humble abode, and we pulled some wine out of the kitchen refrigerator and headed up to our third story floor, out my parents' bedroom balcony, and then onto the roof to look over at the stars and magnificent beach. The ocean breeze touched us softly, and it became apparent that we were the luckiest two kids on the fucking planet.

"Zara," he said to me, scooching his tush over so our legs touched, "this is really nice. But--" He sipped from his wine glass, and looked down at the rich purple elixir.

"But what?" I said.

"One of us might fall off your roof and onto our deaths if we drink all this wine." Ironically, he tipped his glass and guzzled the full cup. He smacked his lips and pulled into me with a smile.

He was a really good kisser. I would explain to you how he did it but I must confess, I blacked out throughout the whole kiss because he was just so overwhelmingly warm and lovable. I reached back to my senses only once we pulled apart again. It was a dreadful loss of memory, I assure you. I wished I could hit rewind. But I couldn't. So, I leapt onto his handsome face and smothered him with my kisses.

We did almost fall off that roof, though.

When we made it safely downstairs again, I proposed, feeling daring, and I never was daring before this night, but I did love his twinkling eyes, and his cheeks were glowing red from all the kissing—I couldn't resist the offer--

"Let's go in the jacuzzi."

"The jacuzzi?" Said Jack.

"Yes." My smile was so wide it pushed all the other features of my face into a floating halo circling my delight.

"But I didn't bring my bathing suit..."

"Hmm." I pretended for a moment like that was a such a big disappointment. Then I did something even more daring in front of the boy I loved, the very first boy I had ever loved, and giggled savagely while I crossed my arms down to grab the hem of my tank top, saw his eyes grow wide when he realized what I was about to do, and pulled my shirt up over my body. And flung it across the room.

His mouth was agape. And his eyes glowed in the midst of my pink Victoria's Secret bra. Thank you very much, Aunt Molly.

Jack said my name like a prayer, then, to break the spell and turn him back from stone to tall, hot, rich boy again, I said, "If you don't have a bathing suit, I can turn on the bubbles."

He turned red. And under my breaking smile, so did I. In a moment, our eyes flashed, and I giggled and ran out to the backyard, and he chased me. I flicked on the lights to the salt water pool and luxury-padded hot tub and crossing through the shadows across the pavement before jumping in with full-on excitement, I snapped off my undergarments, feeling the crisp November air nibble at my skin, and submerged into the warmth of a bubbling bath. The pool had a featured incense of vanilla, and as I lifted up, I saw him climb in with only his Calvin Klein's.

But I stuck out my palm, and wiggled my boss's finger, "No fair, honey bear."

"Honey bear?" He said. And he laughed at my stupidity.

I rolled my eyes and pursed my smiling lips at him. "Just take them off you chicken. I did."

He stood sunk to his chin in surprise, and said, "No way. You still have your underwear on."

Chin to the water, I simply shrugged my bare shoulders, and he could instantly see I had no straps over them.

HIs long, dark eyelashes flickered. He gulped. He was a virgin just like me, somehow. God knows why. Or at least he told me he was. (But so many girls at school had professed to having done things with Jack in the past when I used to admire the back of his head from the back of our shared classes that I couldn't really tell. I mean, just look at that young man!) "Are you wearing anything at all?" He said, his face turning white.

I then felt the rapid beating of my heart kick in. And I shook my head. His eyes were feasting on me like they never did before.

And in a silent, tender moment under the bubbles, he licked his lips, and the red color flushed his lips full again. "Okay," he nodded. And just like that, the modest boy with the conservative father, looked down, made a movement under the water, and looked back up and into my eyes as he revealed a royal red pair of red Calvin Klein Underwear hanging like a flag from the tip of his finger. "Where should I put this?" He said.

I shrugged. "Get rid of it. I never want to see it again." (I actually adored his sexy Calvin's.)

He smiled a devilish, boyish smile and pointed and pulled his underwear toward the darkness and sent it slinging into God knows where.

He laughed and I giggled for a brief moment. But then the serious heaviness fell onto us like a hot, hormonal roof, when we realized, for the first time in our short lives, that we were each naked under water with another person.

We communicated with our eyes:

Jack...

Zara...

Then our brains shut off because we had lost all clues to what we were thinking or even feeling.

"Don't your parents have security cameras everywhere," said Jack. "Your dad's gonna kill me."

"If my parents do have secret cameras around this place to invade my privacy, then what I am about to do to you serves them right." Did I just say that?

But I didn't have to do anything. Because he stood to his full height in the water, stepped close, looking over me, and I looked up to him—as he put his hands around my naked arms, and he pulled me slowly up to my feet—and for the first time in my life, I shared my exposed breasts with another man. A young man I went to school with every day. And I could hear the beautiful beating of his heart, as he viewed me like the most beautiful piece of art in existence. HIs teeth began to chatter from the cold, and I smiled, because I could tell now where his blood was flowing. I wrapped my arms around him, kissing him tight, and our bodies touched under the surface in a violent foray of fireworks. I felt us against each other, and it was all new to me. Maybe to him too, his heart was beating wildly like mine, but definitely I was in another world now, on a completely different planet than the one we'd just been on. I fell into his planetary pull, and he fell into the vacuum of my deep space, and we submerged down under those bubbling hot waters, and lost ourselves...

I could feel my mind going black again.