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After a while, Taylor pulled back slightly and reached for the hem of Avery’s dress.

“Can this come off?”

Everything in Avery froze up. She stared at Taylor, unable to say anything.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t realized what might happen when they’d come back to her place. She’d thought she was prepared for it. She was even excited about it! But being prepared for it and excited about it in the abstract was very different from realizing that she was about to have sex with a woman for the first time.

“Avery?” Taylor pulled back and sat up. “Is something wrong?”

Avery reached for her hand before Taylor could pull away completely.

“No,” Avery said. “Nothing’s wrong. It isn’t. It’s just that, um…I’ve never done this before.”

Taylor nodded.

“I sort of figured that,” she said. “If you’re not ready—”

Avery shook her head.

“That’s not it. I’m ready. I want to. But, um, I don’t really know what I’m doing. And you—you do.”

Taylor leaned forward and kissed her.

“It’s okay,” she said. “We’ll figure it out together. You tell me what you like, what feels good to you, I’ll tell you what I like, what feels good to me, and we’ll go from there. We’ll just have fun figuring it out. Okay?”

How did Taylor always know the perfect thing to say? That’s why Taylor was Taylor, probably.

“Okay,” Avery said. The relief at Taylor’s words was probably all over her face, but she didn’t care. She took a deep breath. Then she stood up, grabbed the hem of her dress, and pulled it over her head. Then she unhooked her bra, and pulled that off for good measure.

Taylor stood up, too, and reached for her, but Avery shook her head. She marshaled her courage again and put a hand on Taylor’s belt.

“Um, you, too,” she said, looking at Taylor, who still had all of her clothes on.

A smile spread across Taylor’s face.

“I thought you’d never ask.” She looked down at Avery’s hand on her belt. “Will you? Please?”

Avery’s fingers fumbled as she unhooked Taylor’s belt, but she got it open. And then, because Taylor didn’t move to do it herself, she put her hand on the waistband of Taylor’s jeans.

“Can I?” she asked.

Taylor’s eyes were on Avery’s hands.

“Please,” she said again.

Avery unbuttoned and unzipped Taylor’s jeans, and pushed them down her body. It felt so intimate, undressing her like this. Slowly, carefully, bit by bit, not rushing through it, getting to see every part of Taylor’s body revealed to her.

Taylor stepped out of her jeans, then Avery took hold of thehem of her tank top. Taylor kissed her again, before she could pull it off, and raised her arms above her head. Avery took the hint, pulled Taylor’s tank top off, and dropped it on the couch. She looked at Taylor, almost in awe. She’d seen other women’s bodies, obviously, hundreds of them, in changing rooms and locker rooms and at beaches and pools. But this felt different. Taylor was revealing her body toherin a way that was just for her, and it felt wonderful.

Avery stepped closer to Taylor and reached around her body for the clasp of her bra. She worried that she would fumble with that, too, since she’d never done that for another woman, not like this. But luckily, she’d taken her own bra off so many thousands of times in her life that even though this felt so momentous, she had no trouble.

She dropped Taylor’s bra to the floor, and there they stood, both naked except for their underwear. Avery looked at Taylor: her heavy breasts; her round, soft belly; her wide hips; her tan lines right down the middle of her shoulder from those ubiquitous sleeveless tops. She couldn’t believe this was happening.

“You are so amazing,” Avery said. In response, Taylor cupped Avery’s face with her hands and kissed her.

That kiss made the tension leave Avery’s body. All throughout undressing Taylor, she’d still worried that, despite what Taylor had said, despite how much she herself was enjoying this, that she would do something wrong, something Taylor wouldn’t like, something that would make her not enjoy this anymore. But Taylor’s kiss was even hotter than before. After a few seconds, her hands moved down Avery’s body, to her breasts, her hips, her butt. And that gave Avery permission to do what she’d wanted to do all night—all summer, really. She moved her hands up Taylor’s body and cupped Taylor’s breasts.

Taylor kissed her harder, so she let her fingers brush over Taylor’s nipples. For a while, she just played with them—experimenting with what she liked, figuring out what Taylor liked. She rolled them between her fingers, circled them with one finger, then two, pinched them softly, then harder. When she did that, Taylor backed her up against the couch.