Travels With My Lovers

Once Jessica considered her mother’s advice about staying loyal to Toma, she and Marg happily accepted Toma into their intimate triumvirate. The Three Musketeers, they declared themselves. Friends forever.

Rachel’s arrival on the scene completed the picture. Rounded and curvy where most teenagers weren’t, jovial and fun to be with, the contrast she provided was almost too much for Jessica’s shy, serious nature.

“You’ve got curves, Jessica. Don’t hide them, play them up. Boys like that, you know.”
“Like what?”
“A girl with curves.”

Jessica blushed as she always did when Rachel brought up the opposite sex. “I don’t want to bring more attention to myself.”
“Are you nuts? Flaunt it, baby.” Rachel let out one of her characteristic belly laughs. “I think you’re just not ready to grow up yet.”

Rachel’s comment gave Jessica pause.
Is she right? Do I want to stay innocent and childlike forever?

Once she got used to Rachel’s fun and witty conversation, Jessica found her candidness and risqué views refreshing. This aspect of Rachel came in quite handy when Jessica found her first love.

Love, she discovered, can be so disruptive. Just when Life appeared to be moving along at a smooth pace, her work all getting done and support available from female friends, Gunter showed up.
I’m too young for this.

Jessica realized this later, once the magic of Gunter’s dazzling smile and penetrating gaze was no longer upon her. But while it was happening, she was oblivious to anything but his presence.

The bombshell dropped in her Elements of Music class. Jessica took her seat toward the back of the room on the first day, expecting to be bored. And there he was, looking at her. Staring at her. The classroom faded to the background. Two desks apart, with one laser beam connecting them, the chemistry between them sizzled.

“I’m Gunter.” His English had a slight, charming accent. “And you?”
She lowered her eyes, as if to hide her fluttering heartbeat. “Jessica.”

Jessica had never thought a great deal about what type of male attracted her. There had been a brief crush on her brother’s friend Roger, the only Jewish boy whose dark Semitic looks had ever appealed to her, and of course Mike, with his blond locks and adorable dimples.

But with Gunter, it’s … different.
Within five minutes of the first words they exchanged, Jessica felt taken with him to a degree that took her breath away. She wrote about him in her diary that night.

“Somewhat good-looking. Dark-haired, with glasses and of average height. Just like Dad.”

But Gunter also had a beautiful, deep voice and a suave, sophisticated way of talking, with the slightest European inflection. Jessica had a weakness for accents. He was also older, a lot older. She found out when they lingered after class that first day.

“I’m eighteen, almost nineteen,” he told her. “My family came from Germany five years ago, and I had to make some major adjustments with the language. That’s why I’m still in high school.”

Jessica swallowed hard, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. She had no doubts as to her mother’s reaction to this information.

German, and almost five years older! It doesn’t get any worse.

“But I’m making rapid progress, and I’ll probably be graduating within a year or eighteen months. C’est bien, n’est-ce pas?”
And he speaks French!
Jessica unstuck her tongue. "Ah, oui, bien sur. But how did you know I speak -- ”

His eyes twinkled. “Just a hunch.”
Between the way Gunter looked at her and the pull she felt on meeting him, Jessica began to panic.

He’s so charming, so intelligent, so sophisticated, so ... German. And so much older. My mother will have a fit. I’m not ready for this. Why did it have to happen now? God, he’s wonderful.

But when Jessica looked to Marg for confirmation of this, the response she got was unexpected.

“He’s a wolf.” Marg reacted without hesitation. “His reputation is known all around school. He’s run after every junior and senior girl in Madrigals. Just ask any one of them.”

And Jessica’s bubble suddenly disintegrated into minuscule droplets of water.