The Best Part Of My Summer Abroad, Before I Had To Grow Up

I know this confession may not seem to real to many. How could this happen? But it did.

I finished college and took a summer abroad. From London, to Paris, to Amsterdam, to Berlin, to Vienna, Rome, then Madrid. I was 22, free, ready for the world. I was not on a mission to meet anyone, to have sex, or try pot. I was out in the world to find myself, before facing the long hard haul through life. I had a small lunch at a small restaurant and found a small park and sat down. I put my backpack on the ground beside me and I guess I dozed off. I woke, and my backpack was gone. My passport, money, clothes.

I was lost, I had no idea what to do, I didn't even know where I was in Madrid, what kind of neighborhood, I had just gotten off the train on a whim. The night was coming and I was still sitting on the bench with nowhere to go. Night fell, I laid down on the bench and fell asleep for a while. The nights are cold. I was shaken awake, a policeman. My Spanish was poor, he asked questions, wanted to see my identification. I didn't understand why he didn't understand. He took me in, as a prostitute.

I was put in jail, with three prostitutes. Real prostitutes. I know they knew I wasn't one of them. But no one spoke English. On the wall was a toilet, I had to go in front of them. One came over and grabbed me by the crotch and kissed me on the mouth. She told me her name was Rosa. The other two laughed. When the police came by, they talked and after more time they were released, but I stayed. No one came for me. At sunset the police came and let me out, Rosa, the prostitute that had kissed me was waiting there.

She said some words in English, pushing me along. We took a tram for a while into a dark section of town. To a small apartment with one bed. She showed me the toilet which was down the hall. She kissed me again, this time against the wall. She felt up my boobs, and put her hand down my pants, fingered me and then smelled her finger. She showed me where the hot plate was and told me to heat some soup from a can. While the soup heated up she motioned with her hands for me to take off my top. She felt me up again and kissed me some more. Then worked my pants down.

We ate some soup before she undressed, I was in my panties, nothing else. She looked older than she was, all that makeup and her hair was a wig. She pulled me onto the bed and made love to me, head to toe, spent a long time between my legs then asked me to return the favor. I had no idea what had been in her pussy so I hesitated. But once I started the heat of the moment took over and I ate her with a hunger I didn't know was in me. We slept on her bed naked that night, with the window open for a breeze.

The next day she took me to a small office, a lawyer who spoke some English. He told me that I had to go to the Embassy and report my passport stolen and they would give me a new one. He would loan me the phone to call my parents to wire me money, he would give me the account, and collect the phone call and his fee when the money arrived.

I spent the rest of the summer with Rosa, in a torrid love affair. She would leave mid evening and come back around one or two, with some money. She worked the bars and the hotels. I stayed, she didn't want me out there. I made her wash herself before I got into bed with her, and we made love for an hour before getting some sleep. Her English improved, memory brought a lot of it back from her days at school. My Spanish got better. She showed me Madrid, or that section of Madrid. My parents sent me enough money to stay for the rest of the summer and a ticket home. When September came I had to go home.

Rosa went with me on the train to the airport and stayed with me until I had to board the plane. Out there in the middle of the crowd we kissed one last time. Rosa was twenty four, she had been a prostitute since she was sixteen. I went on to get a job and go to work and find a husband and all that. I have never lost my desire for sex with a woman, after that summer I knew I needed a woman in my life. My husband never let me go back to Madrid to look for Rosa. He was right. I have my memories of that summer, she was my first lady lover.