Une Femme Libre

Here is my true fantasy:

It’s 9:30 p.m. on a Friday night in Reykjavik. I’m a 22-year-old photographer who’s alone, but not single, traveling throughout Iceland on holiday. I identify as straight, and I have a boyfriend—yet, for some reason, that evening I ended up at Kiki’s, a local queer bar.

I hear someone pull up a chair next to me. “Hi, I noticed that you’re also here alone, do you mind if I sit with you?” a girl asks. She was a second-year engineering student at Boston University; I will refer to her as E.

“Do you want to go somewhere?” she asks. And, if I hadn’t had a boyfriend, I would have said yes.

20 minutes later, we’re undressing each other at a geothermal hot spring in Fluodir. E’s naked, pale body is beautiful under the foreign blue light. I kiss the nape of her neck, my lips trail down her body before I enter her with my tongue. Her back arches as I pull her closer, kissing her deeper. She tastes sweet. I moan as I rhythmically lick her clit and feel her gyrate against my tongue. “Oh my god,” she whispers, gripping my wet hair.

She begins to gasp and moan louder as I gently persist; I can feel how close she is to coming. I rest my cheek on her thigh, using my wet, sticky fingers to guide her towards orgasm. She screams softly; I want more. I spread her legs wider, peeling back the layers until I see that fleshy pink pearl. Again, I diligently caress it with my tongue and again she comes, screaming. I grip her thighs, keeping her in my mouth until her screams subside to a soft whimper.

As we lay trembling under the midnight sun, I listen to the sound of bubbling water and E’s soft breathing. I take her hand, and we wade further into the water. Once we reach that point where our feet no longer touch the ground, we float on our backs; half-submerged in a warm, unknown place––a place that I’ve never quite left.

Months later, I received a gift from E: a black embroidery woven with the words "une femme libre": free woman.

To this day, I still am.