It has been over 30 years since I shared those few magical hours with a girl named Herlinda at a little quaint hotel in San Diego. Yet, I still remember so much about our time together – the sights, the tastes, the smells, the feelings, the emotions, the passion, the pleasure. I could never actually publicly divulge her last name, even though in my mind when I refer to her, I still refer to her with her full name, just like I did teasingly with her that night after she introduced herself to me. See, while she is not a celebrity in the traditional sense of the word, Herlinda is a very well-known person in her local community, and while we have never crossed paths personally again, we definitely are well within six degrees of separation. If word ever were to get out about the night we spent together when I was, frankly, way too young to have a night like that, I could only imagine the impact it would have on her life and her reputation in the community. But, at the same time, it is just too passionate of a story not to tell, so I am still telling it, without her last name, in the hopes it will be enough to hide her identity. I was 16, and it was the summer between my sophomore and junior years in high school. I was on a short little family three-day vacation with my parents and my little brother, and with it being a mid-week trip, needless to say, the hotel was pretty sparsely occupied. It was about 9PM on our last night at the hotel, a Thursday, and I had wandered off on my own to spend some time in the pool while my family was back in our room. I normally might have felt a little anxious about wandering off all alone, but the hotel was so empty and I had felt really safe the entire time we were there. My dad always told me to be careful when I was off by myself because you could never tell who ultimately in the end was a safe person and an unsafe person, but being a 16-year-old trans girl, I definitely knew how to keep an eye out for people and stay away from potential trouble. I was wearing the cute little white satiny side-tie triangle-top bikini that my dad just hated because he always said it gave people the wrong impression when I wore it, but it was supercute and I just loved wearing it. I always tried to make sure I was properly tucked away because it tended to be a little bit more see-through than it probably should have been when it was wet. And, of course, I just loved how sexy that little bikini looked on me when I was wet. I always wore that bikini with a little sheer white wrap skirt I only took off when I was actually in the water. I had my long black hair tied up in a bun on top of my head with a white little scrunchy hair-tie and was walking around inside the pool, crouched down with the water covering all of me but my head when I saw Herlinda for the first time. She was walking through the squeaky rod iron gate into the pool area and she undoubtedly caught my eye. She was about my height, which was rare for a girl since I was 5-10. Her hair was identical to mine, though hers was about a foot shorter. And while I always fought to tan my naturally lighter skin, I could tell that Herlinda’s skin was a lovely shade all year round. She had cute little sparkly stud earrings, a dainty silver necklace with round coin charm, absolutely no makeup, and short little red fingernails. She was tall but thin and while she looked very feminine, she still had a very cute small little chest, honestly not much bigger than my natural tiny little pre-op trans A cups. She had on a cute little black bikini. The top was halter-style like mine, but instead of being a triangle top, Herlinda’s had more of a sports-bra look. It had two cut-outs in the front, making it seem like there were only three little strings going across the front between her cute little breasts. The bottom was a traditional full-back high-cut, also in black, but it looked so unbelievably sexy on her. I noticed she was completely barefoot and was carrying absolutely nothing except a room cardkey. While I didn’t know it at the time when I first saw her, Herlinda had just turned 19 and was alone at the hotel that night because she was attending an event for a charity she volunteered for and decided to spend the night at the hotel just for fun instead of returning home to her parents’ house, where she still lived while attending her local community college. Herlinda had such a womanly look and gait about her, unlike my demeanor, which was still that of a teenage high school girl – always a little awkward and dorky. I watched Herlinda close the pool area gate behind her and start to walk towards me. After a few steps into the pool area, she looked right at me, a little surprised that she had not noticed me hunched there in the water when she first came in. “Oh, hey,” she said in a very friendly tone – the kind of tone that immediately led me to believe she had not yet noticed I was trans. That was the tone of a girl saying hi to another girl. And while I was very feminine and had a feminine voice, usually a few minutes into a conversation, the person I was talking to would realize I was trans, and sometimes their tone and demeanor towards me would completely change, though sometimes, it would stay the same. “Hey,” I said back, trying to muster the girliest of tones that I could. “You here alone?” she asked, smiling as she came to the edge of the pool and dipped in her toe, my eyes completely drinking in her amazing frame and beauty. “Yep,” I said, referring to being alone there in the pool, and perhaps, lying a bit in advance about being there at the hotel alone. And naturally, at no point through the course of the night did I divulge to Herlinda that I was 16, and not of age, as I am sure she assumed I was later in the evening when she told me she was 19, but did not ask me my age. “How’s the water?” was the next question, to which I replied, “It’s very nice. Not too hot, but not chilly at all.” I paused a second. “You should totally get in.” She gave me a smile and I was instantly melting. “I think I will,” she said. “There’s towels over by the cabana there,” I said since I noticed she had not brought one with her. “Oh, thanks,” she said in the cutest little tone. I watched her intently, soaking in every second, every movement, as she walked over to the cabana, grabbed a towel, tossed it on to one of the lounge chairs by the pool, set down her keycard, and then proceeded to walk over to the stairs. I continued walking around the inside of the pool as I watched her, and by now had passed by where she was entering the pool, my back turned to her, though I was still looking at her over my shoulder. Herlinda slowly sauntered down the steps to get into the pool, smirking and looking right at me as I continued to look at her. Our eyes were locked, we were both smiling, and I knew immediately that we were vibing very positively. It was in that moment that I could tell she was either into girls or somehow knew already I was trans and was into girls like me. I wasn’t sure why, but in that instant, I knew to stop walking away from Herlinda, turn back around, and move towards her instead. Herlinda finished stepping into the pool and moved towards me, her body gradually becoming more submerged as she did so, and as I moved towards her, the pool floor beneath me rising, I kept my body submerged to about my shoulders. When we reached each other, without words, just continuing with our eye contact and our smiles, our arms wrapped around each other, our bodies and bikinis pressed against each other, and our lips met with such a passionate kiss. It felt so wonderful – so amazing – to be standing there in that pool in my little white bikini – kissing this amazing and beautiful girl that I had literally known for just seconds. We kissed long and hard, my red lipstick coating her uncovered lips, our eyes closed, our tongues dancing as if we had somehow known each other for many years, our hard nipples touching with such electricity through our wet bikinis. Herlinda pulled away and looked at me with her brilliant, beautiful eyes, still smiling, as she said, “I’m Herlinda…….”, of course, as I said, saying both her first and last name. I returned with “Hi, Herlinda………”, repeating her first and last name, solidifying that I would call her just that for the rest of our night together, and in my memories for years to come. Herlinda chuckled a little bit at me calling her by both her first and last name, yet somehow, I could tell it had endeared me to her immediately. I was never sure if there was a reason why me doing that meant so much to her, and I never got up the courage to ask that night, so I never found out for sure. I don’t know if it was the three years’ worth of additional life experience Herlinda had on me, or if she was just in need of some immediate intimacy that night, but as soon as I responded and said, “I am Monica Anne Heart,” Herlinda asked me, “Do you want to get in the jacuzzi, or do you just want to go straight to my room?” Before I could utter a word, Herlinda once again pressed her lips to mine and we kissed passionately again. She pulled me so close and so tight that I knew in that instant, despite how well I had tucked myself into those bikini bottoms, there was no way at that point that she did not know I was trans. Herlinda once again pulled back from our kiss and looked at me with those inviting eyes. “Oh, definitely, your room,” I smirked. “Yeah?” she asked. “Yeah,” I nodded, returning her smile. Herlinda released her embrace on me and started to walk back towards the pool stairs she had just descended a few minutes earlier, taking me by the hand and pulling me behind her through the water…
