Slow Summer Seduction

*This one's for anyone who's ever hoped for a first time that's both hot and awkwardly human. I wanted the tenderness to feel earned, not saccharine. Thanks for reading with an open mind.*

I'm Helga, I'm 27, and I work as a graphic designer in Berlin. That's the boring part. The interesting part is that I booked a flight to Croatia alone, with no plan, and told exactly one friend where I was going.

"Alone?" Katrin said, fork halfway to her mouth. "Like, alone alone?"

"Yes. Alone alone. That's the whole point."

She looked skeptical. Katrin always looks skeptical when I do anything spontaneous, which is fair, because my track record is not great. Last year I spontaneously dyed my hair orange. It's a long story and we don't talk about it.

But here's my reasoning, and I'll give it to you straight because you deserve it. For the last five years I've dated the way people eat at a buffet. A little of this, a little of that, nothing filling. Apps, mostly. A guy named Jonas who talked about his podcast for two hours. A nice accountant whose name I genuinely have to concentrate to remember. A Dane I met at a wedding who was lovely and whose face I can no longer picture at all.

Nothing stuck. More importantly, nothing was supposed to stick. That was the deal I made with myself at 22, after my one serious relationship ended badly, over text, which is the worst possible way to end anything. I decided I would date for fun and keep my feelings in a drawer.

And you know what? The drawer works. But lately I've noticed something. The physical side of my life has gotten kind of... ceremonial. I don't go all the way. Ever. Five years and I just never feel the urge with these men. It's like standing in front of a vending machine full of snacks you don't actually want.

So I thought: new country, new sea, new snacks. A week in a small fishing town on the Croatian coast. Terracotta roofs, narrow stone alleys, the Adriatic doing that impossible blue thing it does. I rented an apartment with a view and told myself, Helga, you are allowed to want something simple. Something physical. No strings. Just a week of being a person with a body instead of a person with a laptop.

The flight was delayed two hours, of course. The airport bus dropped me at the edge of the old town at six in the evening, sweating in my jeans because apparently I dress for Berlin weather even when I know better. I changed into a sundress, looked in the mirror, and thought, okay, decent. Not spectacular. Decent.

By eight I was at a beachside bar three streets from my apartment, sitting on a plastic stool with a glass of white wine, watching the water go dark. The bar had string lights and a dog asleep under the next table. Perfect. Ten out of ten. And then a man walked up to the bar and everything got less perfect and more interesting.

He was tall, tanned, dark hair pushed back, wearing one of those linen shirts that looks like it was ironed by the sea. He ordered two glasses of wine, looked around, and then caught me looking at him. Caught me. Red-handed.

"Sorry," he said, in heavily accented English. "Are you... you wait for someone?"

"No. No, I'm alone. I'm on holiday. Alone."

"Alone?" he said it like it was a strange animal. "Alone in Croatia? This is brave."

"It's not brave, it's Tuesday," I said, and he laughed, and that was basically it for me, right there. That laugh. I would like to say it was his arms or his smile but honestly it was the laugh.

He set his extra glass down. "I am Mike. I do tours. Hiking, boats, old town walks. You need a guide maybe?"

"Helga." I put out my hand, which he shook very seriously, like we were closing a business deal. "Do you speak German?"

"A little. Beer German. Danke. Entschuldigung. Kellner."

We made it work, believe me. English got us halfway, German got us another quarter, and the rest was hands. He was staying? He pointed at a spot behind him. The beach was good for walking? He waved his arm at the whole coast. Somewhere in the middle of all this pointing I realized I was leaning so far forward I was almost off my stool.

"Okay," I said, before my brain could file an objection. "Yes. Show me your beach."

The walk took nearly two hours. He showed me where the fishermen kept their boats, and a set of stone steps that went nowhere, and a cat that he clearly knew personally. The cat headbutted his ankle and he said, "This is Rikard. He is owner of this town. We only live here."

I laughed so hard I snorted, which is mortifying, but he laughed too, so fine.

We talked in our weird hybrid language. He'd been here five years. Before that he lived inland, in a city, after a bad breakup five years ago, and one day he just moved to the coast and started leading hikes for tourists. "Small groups," he said. "Four people, six people. I like to show things slow."

"Slow," I said. "Yes. I'm trying slow."

"You walk fast though." He pointed at my legs. "Very fast tourist."

I hadn't even noticed. I was doing my Berlin sidewalk pace in a beach town at sunset, power-walking past paradise. I made myself slow down. The sea was doing that flat gold thing. The air smelled like salt and grilled fish.

Somewhere around the second hour I realized I was having a genuinely good time, which for me on a first meeting is unprecedented. Usually by hour one I'm mentally drafting my exit. But he kept asking actual questions. Not interview questions. Curious ones. What do I draw all day. Why did I come here. Do I like the wine or am I just being polite. (Politeness confirmed, he was delighted, he ordered us something else.)

And I kept noticing his hands. Big, weathered, rope-calloused probably. Every time he gestured I lost a sentence. At some point he caught me doing it and grinned and I said, "What?" all innocent, and he just shook his head, laughing.

At the top of the stone steps to my street I pointed. "That's me. Up there."

"Good street," he said. "Best view of the harbor."

"How do you know?"

"Because I know everything about this town. Except English grammar."

We stood there. The string lights of the bar were visible from the corner, tiny and gold. And then Mike did the thing that I will remember about this trip forever, no matter how the rest of it goes.

He said, "Helga. Can I kiss you? One kiss. Slow one. If no, I say goodnight and that is okay."

He asked. He just asked, plainly, hands at his sides, no leaning in, no maneuvering. Five years of men who either grabbed or hovered and this guy asked.

"Yes," I said. "Yes, please."

He smiled and stepped in and put one hand on my waist and kissed me. Slow, exactly like he promised. Not a test kiss, not a claim ticket. He kissed me like we had nowhere to be, and somewhere in the middle of it I made a small stupid noise against his mouth and felt him smile without breaking the kiss.

When we finally stopped I was holding the front of his linen shirt with both fists like I was afraid he'd blow away. I let go. Smoothed it out. Very dignified.

"Wow," I said, because I have a master's degree and that was the best I could do.

"Wow," he agreed.

"So. Tomorrow? Is there a tour?"

"No tour tomorrow," he said. "But I hike at sunset. You come?"

"I come."

He walked backward down two steps, still grinning, then turned and headed toward the harbor, whistling something. I stood at my door for a full minute before I went in, feeling like I'd swallowed a sparkler.

My apartment was hot and quiet and the harbor lights were doing their thing outside the window. I texted Katrin: met someone. She replied with eleven fire emojis and one question mark, because Katrin. I didn't answer the question mark. Not yet.

I lay in bed with the fan going and thought about that kiss the way you replay a song. Slow. He'd asked. Slow. Nobody asks. Slow.

Tomorrow I hike at sunset. I fell asleep smiling like an idiot and I did not care one bit.

The next day I did tourist things badly. I sat at a cafe with my sketchbook and drew the harbor instead of the church, because the harbor had Mike's boat in it. Not his boat. A boat he probably pointed at on tours. I drew it anyway.

At six I changed into my swimsuit and put the sundress over it. Then I changed again. Then I changed back. Katrin, if you're reading this, I know, I know.

Mike was waiting at the end of my street at seven, wearing shorts and a faded t-shirt and a small backpack. "You found the beach already?" he asked.

"I found a beach."

"Wrong beach. That one is for tourists. Tonight I show you my beach. But first we walk. Thirty minutes. You survive?"

"Barely," I said. "You saw my pace."

"Slow pace tonight." He set off and then immediately slowed down, which I thought was sweet. He'd actually remembered to wait for me.

We climbed over the shoulder of the hill past the last houses, on a path that was more goat opinion than trail, and came down through pine trees into a cove. Small. Gray-white pebbles. One rowboat pulled up on the stones. No people at all.

"Oh," I said. "Okay. Wow."

"This is it. My beach. In August maybe ten people know it exists. In June? Only me and Rikard."

"The cat doesn't swim."

"The cat supervises from the rocks." He set down the backpack and pulled out a bottle of water, a second bottle of water, and a towel. A towel. Who brings a spare towel on a hike? A man who thinks ahead, that's who. I made a note of it.

The sun was going down behind the hill so the water was all blue shadow and the sky was doing pink. I pulled the dress off over my head before I could think about it too much and stood there in my swimsuit feeling like a person in a painting. He didn't stare. He just smiled and said, "Good. Water is perfect," and waded in as if it were no trouble at all.

It was perfect. Warm on top, cool underneath, salt enough to float. We swam out past the rocks and I lay on my back looking at the first stars while he treaded water next to me and told me the names of things in Croatian, which I immediately forgot, all of them, except "more," which means sea, because come on, that's a gift.

Then my foot cramped. Badly. I yelped and went vertical and grabbed for whatever was nearest, which was him.

"Okay, okay. I have you." He got an arm around my back before I'd even finished panicking. "Foot. Give."

He held my ankle and pressed the arch with his thumb and told me to point my toes, and the cramp let go, and then I was just hanging there in the dark water with his arm around me and neither of us mentioning that fact.

"Better?" he asked.

"Better."

"Good." He did not let go. He put his free hand on my waist, just resting it there under the water, his palm spread wide over my hip. "Okay?"

"Yes," I said. My voice came out about half its normal size.

We stood like that, treading slowly, the sky going from pink to purple, his hand warm through the cold water. He wasn't pulling me anywhere. He wasn't pushing. He was just there, holding my waist like he'd been given permission to hold the exact amount of me he'd been given permission to hold. And I thought, oh. Oh, this is what it's supposed to feel like. This is the thing everyone was talking about.

"You're thinking very hard," he said.