This morning, before I left for Ft. Myers to stay with my parents before leaving for Costa Rica, I awoke in her bed in her dorm with my chest on the backs of her thighs, the side of my face in the small of her back and the curve of her ass supporting my neck, and I was sure god designed us to fit together like that.

I had stayed in Tampa an extra day to be with her. When I rolled off her she awoke and climbed onto my chest like a cat. The side of her face was still a bit red from where I'd burned her and as she stared down into me, smiling and biting my lips, I noticed dried chocolate on the inside rims of her nostrils. I didn't point it out. I didn't want to remind her.

It was near impossible to leave her bed; her body is full grown, luxurious, and soft. She has short dark hair like a boy. She is Greek. She came to America only four months ago and her accent is smoky and mature, but she is young. In Greece, she turned 23 yesterday, because it was already February 7th over there. In America it was only February 6th; my birthday.

When we awoke yesterday morning, after the first of two nights together, she bit my lips and said, "At 5 o'clock it will be midnight in Greece and my parents will call to wish me happy birthday."

"Oh, Holy shit! It's my birthday too!" I yelled into her mouth. "I totally forgot!"

"How can you forget your own birthday?" She asked.

"I dunno, I've been so busy the past couple weeks," I explained. "Moving and having that yard sale and publishing the book and organizing that release party." When I mentioned the party, where we'd met, she smiled and kissed and bit me again.

I didn't admit to her that I'd also forgotten my birthday because I've been distracted by the terror of leaving the country since finding out that the one person I was suppose to meet in Costa Rica left there and returned back home to Florida. The few plans I had revolved around him. Without him, I will emerge from the plane onto foreign soil like a featherless baby bird from a big, white egg, disoriented and without a clue. In light of that challenge, my birthday yesterday felt pretty insignificant. Though I was in awe of the nice time warp that allowed her and me to celebrate our birthdays on the same day.

She got up and I watched her dress and she asked me to drive her to Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) to take care of some paperwork that would keep her from being kicked out of America. Today was her last day to hand it in. But her friends had dropped us off at her dorm last night after a night of drinking, and my car was still at my sister's house, where I'd been staying on the couch. So I called my friend Crispen to come pick us up.

I waited for Crispen outside the Student Center while my Greek woman was inside getting coffee. Normally, when I'm on campus I am a rage of hormones and I suffer intense jealousy at seeing all those other dorky motherfuckers with beautiful women on their arms when I have nothing. But as I waited for my Greek woman outside the student center, I was blank with contentment.

A Latin girl sat on a bench 50 yards away. She pushed up her sunglasses and smiled at me. Then she waved. Women never smile at me. She only smiled because I'm moving. Though she probably didn't realize her motivation. God has a dumb sense of humor. But her smile didn't stir me. I waited, content, until my Greek woman came out with hot chocolate for herself and coffee for me. The Latina girl rose and walked off as my Greek woman handed me my coffee and bit my lip.

Seconds later Crispen rolled up in his black Mustang. I couldn't wait for him to see her. He gave me a nod of approval as she bent over, pushing the seat forward and crawling into the back with her hot chocolate. I thought to offer her the front seat, but decided that, since the Mustang is technically a two-seater, it was only logical that the smallest of us would sit in the back. She was cramped, but not as cramped as I would have been.

When I flipped the seat back into its natural position, there was a huge silence, an overwhelming nothing that told me something bad had happened.

"What?" I asked out loud, confused.

"Damn Mike, nice job." Crispen finally said. I thought I'd spilled her hot chocolate on Crispen's seats. Crispen loves his car. I felt bad. But when I peaked around the seat at my Greek woman, I wanted to die: hot chocolate dripped from her hair, the side of her face was red and steam rose from her skin. She looked as if she might cry, but all she said was, "I am burned."

I thought of all the nice ways we'd touched each other last night and that morning and I knew that it was all gone. Her lip quivered and her clothes were brown and I was scared. I had burned her all over and I didn't know what to do. I held my coffee like an idiot. I don't deserve a real woman.

"Put the seat up!" Crispen commanded. I rolled the seat forward again, turned around and ran, still holding my coffee, into the Student Center to get napkins, as if that would help her. As I careened past the ATM and into the coffee shop, a red-haired co-ed passed me and smiled and paused. I reflexively paused and smiled back and felt horrible for it.

Back at Crispen's car I handed her the wad of napkins and apologized. She didn't respond. She was still shocked. When she reached for the napkins, I saw that her hand was a trembling blur and everything inside me collapsed and the tremor shook my arm so that I spilt some of my coffee on my leg. It hurt. I tried to imagine how it would feel all over my face. I set my full cup on the curb and got in and shut the car door.

"Drive me back to my dorm so I can change clothes." She said. Crispen drove around the corner silently and dropped her off. I hated myself as I watched her walk the 100 yards to her dorm, past dozens of college students staring at her not for her powerful beauty but for her ruined clothes. She disappeared in the front door but I knew that she would come back out; she needed a ride downtown. We waited.

"Well ol' Mike," Crispen said quietly. He stopped there. He didn't need to say anything else.

"Man. Fuck! This is definitely in the top 10 worst things that have ever happened to me." I told him. "I've never felt worse. Everything was so awesome until now."

"She kept pretty cool," Crispen noted. "She didn't even cry out."

"Whoa. You're right." I said, realizing it was her strange silence that had spoke to me after the accident

She was gone for a long time and I wondered if she'd decided to let them eject her from the country rather than hang out with the fool who'd harmed her. But eventually she came back out. She wore amazing tight pants and all the college students stared at her for the right reasons as she returned to us. I got out of the car to open the door for her. "I'm so sorry." I told her as she bent to get in.

She stopped mid bend, straightened and asked me in her sweet accent, "Where is the coffee I bought you?"

"I'm sorry, I set it on the curb, I just got scared of it, I'm sorry."

She furrowed her brow in anger but said nothing as she got in the backseat.

INS hadn't opened yet. Outside was a 100-person line of Cubans, Swedes, Japanese, all with appointments. My Greek woman did not have an appointment. She stomped to the front of the line. "I need to turn these papers in today," she told the security guy.

"No." He said, pointing to the long line. "Not unless you have an appointment." He said.

"You have to let me in today or they're gonna kick me out of the country." She said, forthright. I walked away and sat down in the grass next to the waiting foreigners. None of them understood English well enough to be pissed off that she was trying to cut in front of them, they just stared at her ass; a cross cultural phenomenon.

A security guard stood outside the doors, holding back the multi-cultural line. I heard my Greek woman tell him, "You have to let me in. I can't be kicked out of the country. I'm in the middle of getting my master's degree."

After minutes of debate the guard conceded to go in and try to find someone to help her. "Just sit down," he said, turning and walking in through the metal detector.

My Greek woman came to me, knelt on the ground in front of me and stretched her collar out so that I could see down her shirt. It was perfect there.

"You burnt my tits as hell." She said. She used 'as hell' for everything: "I have to study as hell," "I was yelling as hell." She let go of her collar and it snapped against her skin. She wrapped one arm around my front, one around my back and kissed me full and wet on the teeth, then soft on my neck, tender like a girlfriend. I saw dried hot chocolate on her ear; a spot she'd missed. I caressed her lobe between my thumb and forefinger, secretly wiping away the brown. I was forgiven.

I looked up her stomach to her face, watching her writhing and biting her bicep and shuddering. There was tension in all her muscles I was afraid she might lash out and hurt me. It was then that I realized I'd never made a woman come with my mouth before. When her shaking stopped I crawled up to her face and admitted she was my first.

"What's wrong with you?" She asked.

"Nothing's wrong with me." I said, not defensive. I wasn't offended. I'd let her say or do anything after the hot chocolate. "There's nothing wrong with me," I reiterated. "It's not that I didn't want to. But I didn't lose my virginity till I was 20 and that same year I started my first long relationship and I had no idea how to do it and when I wasn't good at it she discouraged me from trying again. She didn't want me to so I didn't do it for four years."

"Poor baby." Said my Greek woman, spreading her skin over me.

"I've only had a couple girlfriends since then and one wouldn't even let me go down there."

"Why not? Was she crazy?" My Greek woman asked.

"I dunno, it always made me suspicious too. I still don't know what was really down there. But anyway, yeah, you're my first, on my 27th birthday!"

"Aw, baby. Happy birthday." She smiled into me and pet my hair. We lay silent like that for several minutes, our sweat mingling and drying.

"So, do you mind if I write about it?" I asked her.

"About what?" She asked.

"What we were just talking about."

She backed off my face and looked at it, confused.

"The mouth thing I just told you about." I said. For some reason I was too embarrassed to say it again directly. My chest and face were already flushed and splotched with red and from our heat and activity and she couldn't discern the difference when I blushed.

"Baby, what? Tell me." She whispered.

"The thing I never did before."

She was becoming irritated. But then her face broke into understanding. "Oh, the thing about coming?" She asked. Through her accent the word sounded like 'calming' with the edges sanded off the 'l'.

"Yes, that. Can I write about it? I won't use your name."

"Do what you want," she said, rolling her dark eyes and smiling. "I don't want to interfere with your art, baby."

(click here to post your opinons on this s(h)ite. --- Ed.)